Tuesday, February 4, 2025

Where is the Western Pure Land?


Self-power versus other-power
Amitabha: Infinite Light (Alamy)
"Amida Manifesting in the Dharma-body of Expedient Means," Japanese painting, at The Met.

"Self-power" (Chinese zìlì 自力, Japanese jiriki) and "other-power" (Chinese tālì 他力, Japanese tariki) are key terms used to explain and define Pure Land practice in East Asian Buddhism [179].
It was Shandao who first argued that Amitabha's power helped take people to the Pure Land after death (previous authors having held that Amitabha created the Pure Land and it was up to an individual's own effort to make it there).

This other-power relationship was compared to how a lowly man who is accompanied by a king can enter previously inaccessible places [180].

Did Christianity just steal this idea of tariki in whole, or is it a natural devolution of religion?
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Whose power, my own or a magic Cosmic Buddha?
Chinese Pure Land Buddhism never denied the importance of self-power. Instead, according to Jones, Chinese Pure Land generally holds that "Rebirth in the Pure Land results when the two powers work together, an idea that the modern Taiwan Pure Land master Zhiyu (Zhìyù 智諭, 1924–2000) captured with the phrase "the two powers of self and other" (zì-tā èr lì 自他二力)" [179].

Thus, in Chinese Pure Land, rebirth in the Pure Land arises from a cooperation of the practitioner and the Buddha [179].

方便法身尊影: Amida's Dharma-
body of Expedient Means (The Met)
Yúnqī Zhūhóng
argues that the practitioner's efforts connect with the Buddha's power through "sympathetic resonance" (gǎnyìng 感應) which links them with the Buddha, attuning their mind with that of the Buddha, much like one plucked string in a lute can make another string nearby resonate in sympathy [181, 178].

According to this view, the more that one practiced nianfo, the stronger and more enduring this bond with Amitabha became [182].

However, Chinese Pure Land masters also argued that one certainly cannot rely on self-power alone, which they denigrated as a futile effort [183]. More

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