Pure Land Buddhism example essay topic

... China, Tibet, Japan, Korea, Vietnam, and elsewhere in east Asia. Legend has it that the Chinese Emperor Ming Ti had a dream which led him to send his agents down the Silk Road, the ancient trade route between China and the west, to discover its meaning. The agents returned with a picture of the Buddha and a copy of the Sutra in 42 Sections. This Sutra would, in 67 ad, be the first of many to be translated into Chinese. The first Buddhist community in China is thought to be one in Loyang, established by 'foreigners' around 150 ad, in the Han dynasty.

Only 100 years later, there emerges a native Chinese Sangha. And during the Period of Disunity, or Era of the Warring States, 220 to 589 ad, the number of Buddhist monks and nuns increase to as many as two million. Apparently, the uncertain times and the misery of the lower classes were fertile ground for the monastic traditions of Buddhism. Buddhism did not come to a land innocent of religion and philosophy, of course. China, in fact, had three main competing streams of thought; Confucianism, Taoism, and folk religion.

Confucianism is essentially a moral-political philosophy, involving a complex guide to human relationships. Taoism is a life-philosophy involving a return to simpler and more 'natural' ways of being. And the folk religion, or religions, consisted of rich mythologies, superstitions, astrology, reading of entrails, magic, folk medicine, and so on. Although these various streams sometimes competed with each other and with Buddhism, they also fed each other, enriched each other, and intertwined with each other.

Over time, the Mahayana of India became the Mahayana of China and, later, of Korea, Japan, and Vietnam. The first example historically is Pure Land Buddhism. The peasants and working people of China were used to gods and goddesses, praying for rain and health, worrying about heaven and hell, and so on. It wasn't a great leap to find in Buddhism's cosmology and theology the bases for a religious tradition that catered to these needs and habits, while still providing a sophisticated philosophical foundation.

The idea of this period of time as a fallen or inferior time, traditional in China, led to the idea that we are no longer able to reach enlightenment on our own power, but must rely on the intercession of higher beings. The transcendent Buddha Amitabh a, and his western paradise, 'pure land', introduced in the Sukhavati- Sutra, was a perfect fit. Another school that was to be particularly strongly influenced by Chinese thought was the Meditation School, Dhyana, Ch " an, Son, or Zen. Tradition has the Indian monk Bodhidharma coming from the west to China around 520 ad. It was Bodhidharma, it is said, who carried the Silent Transmission to become the First Patriarch of the Ch " an School in China. From the very beginning, Buddha had had reservations about his ability to communicate his message to the people.

Words simply could not carry such a sublime message. So, on one occasion, while the monks around him waited for a sermon, he said absolutely nothing. He simply held up a flower. the monks, of course, were confused, except for Kashyapa, who understood and smiled. The Buddha smiled back, and thus the Silent Transmission began. Zen Buddhism focuses on developing the immediate awareness of Buddha-mind through meditation on emptiness. It is notorious for its dismissal of the written and spoken word and occasionally for his rough-house antics.

It should be understood, however, that there is great reverence for the Buddha, the Dharma, and the Sangha, even when they are ostensibly ignoring, poking fun, or even turning them upside-down. Zen has contributed its own literature to the Buddhist melting-pot, including The Platform Sutra, written by Hui N eng, the Sixth Patriarch, around 700 ad., The Blue Cliff Record, written about 1000 ad., and The Gate less Gate, written about 1200 ad. And we shouldn't forget the famous Ten Ox-Herding Pictures that many see as containing the very essence of Zen's message. During the Sui dynasty and T'ang dynasty, Chinese Buddhism experienced what is referred to as the 'blossoming of schools. ' The philosophical inspirations of the Madhyamaka and Yogachara, as well as the Pure Land and Ch " an Sutras, interacting with the already sophisticated philosophies of Confucianism and Taoism, led to a regular renaissance in religious and philosophical thought. We find the Realistic School, based on the 'all things exist' Hinayana School; the Three-Treatises School, based on Madhyamaka; the Idealist School, based on Yogachara; the Tantric School; the Flower Adornment School, which attempted to consolidate the various forms; and the White Lotus School, which focused on the Lotus Sutra.

All the Chinese Schools had their representatives in neighboring countries. Korea was to develop its own powerful form of Ch " an called Son. Vietnam developed a form of Ch " an that incorporated aspects of Pure Land and Hinayana. But it was Japan that would have a field day with Chinese Buddhism, and pass the Mahayana traditions on to the US and the west generally. Again, we begin with the legendary. A delegation arrived from Korea with gifts for the Emperor of Japan in 538 ad., including a bronze Buddha and various Sutras.

Unfortunately a plague led the Emperor to believe that the traditional gods of Japan were annoyed, so he had the gifts thrown into a canal. But the imperial court on the 600's, in their constant effort to be as sophisticated as the courts of their distinguished neighbors, the Chinese, continued to be drawn to Buddhism. Although starting as a religion of the upper classes, in the 900's, Pure Land entered the picture as the favorite of the peasant and working classes. And in the 1200's, Ch " an, relabeled Zen, came into Japan, where it was enthusiastically adopted by, among others, the warrior class or Samurai.

Zen was introduced into Japan by two particularly talented monks who had gone to China for their educations, Eisa i brought Lin-chi Ch " an, with its koans and occasionally outrageous antics; Dogen brought the more sedate Ts " ao-tung Ch " an. In addition, Dogen is particularly admired for his massive treatise, the Shobogenzo. Ch " an has always had an artistic side to it. In China and elsewhere, a certain simple, elegant style of writing and drawing developed among the monks.

In Japan, this became an even more influential aspect of Zen. We have, for example, the poetry, calligraphy, and paintings of various monks; Banker, Basho, Haku in, and Ryo kan. One last Japanese innovation is usually attributed to a somewhat unorthodox monk named Nichiren. Having been trained in the Ten dai or White Lotus tradition, he came to believe that the Lotus Sutra carried all that was necessary for Buddhist life.

More than that, he believed that even the name of the Sutra was enough. So he encouraged his students to chant this mantra, Name-my oho-range-ky o, which means 'homage to the Lotus Sutra. ' This practice alone would ensure enlightenment in this life. In fact, he insisted, all other forms of Buddhism were worthless. Needless to say, this was not appreciated by the Buddhist powers of the day. He spent the rest of his life exiled to a remote island.

The Nichiren School nevertheless proved to be one of the most successful forms of Buddhism on the planet. Finally, let's turn out attention to the most mysterious site of Buddhism's history, Tibet. Its first encounter with Buddhism occurred in the 700's ad, when a Tantric master, Guru Rinpoch'e, came from India to battle the demons of Tibet for control. The demons submitted, but they remained forever a part of Tibetan Buddhism, as its protectors. During the 800's and 900's, Tibet went through a 'dark age,' during which Buddhism suffered something of a setback. But, in the 1000's, it returned in force.

And in 1578, the Mongol overlords named the head of the Glug School the Dalai Lama, meaning 'guru as great as the ocean. ' The title was made retroactive to two earlier heads of the school. The fifth Dalai Lama is noted for bringing all of Tibet under his religious and political control. The lineage continues down to the present 14th Dalai Lama, Ten zin Gyatso, born 1935. In 1989, he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts on behalf of his people and nation, which had been taken over by the Communist Chinese in 1951. It was in the latter half of the 1800's that Buddhism first came to be known in the west.

The great European colonial empires brought the ancient cultures of India and China back to the attention of the intellectuals of Europe. Scholars began to learn Asian languages and translate Asian texts. Adventurers explored previously shut-off places and recorded the cultures. Religious enthusiasts enjoyed the exotic and mystical tone of the Asian traditions. In England, for example, societies sprang up for devotees of 'oriental ia,' such as T.W. Rhys Davids' Pali Text Society and T. Christmas Humphreys' Buddhist Society. Books were published, such as Sir Edwin Arnold's epic poem The Light of Asia.

And the first western monks began to make themselves know, such as Allan Bennett, perhaps the very first, who took the name Ananda Metteya. In Germany and France as well, Buddhism was the rage. In the United States, there was a similar flurry of interest. First of all, thousands of Chinese immigrants were coming to the west coast in the late 1800's, many to provide cheap labor for the railroads and other expanding industries. Also, on the east coast, intellectuals were reading about Buddhism in books by Europeans. One example was Henry Thoreau, who, among other things, translated a French translation of a Buddhist Sutra into English.

A renewal of interest came during World War II, during which many Asian Buddhists, such as the Zen author D.T. Suzuki, came to England and the U.S., and many European Buddhists, such as the Zen author Alan Watts, came to the U.S. As these examples suggest, Zen Buddhism was particularly popular, especially in the U.S., where it became enmeshed in the Beatnik artistic and literary movement as 'Beat Zen. ' One by one, European and Americans who studied in Asia returned with their knowledge and founded monasteries and societies, Asian masters came to Europe and America to found monasteries, and the Asian immigrant populations from China, Japan, Vietnam and elsewhere, quietly continued their Buddhist practices. Today, it is believed that there are more than 300 million Buddhists in the world, including at least a quarter million in Europe, and a half million each in North and South America. I say 'at least' because other estimates go as high as three million in the U.S. alone. Whatever the numbers may be, Buddhism is the third largest religion in the world, after Christianity, Islam, and Hinduism. And, although it has suffered considerable setbacks over the centuries, it seems to be attracting more and more people, as a religion or a philosophy of life.