Who Gets Enlightened in This Life?

Those who know me tend to think of me as a hard core “Original Buddhism” kind of a guy. That much is true. The Pali Canon is my first love, but I have a warm spot in my heart for the intent and practice of Pure Land Buddhism. Why would this be? Pure Land actually begins with the Pali Canon and for the most part remains there. The poetry of the Three Pure Land Sutras is beautiful but says little about the Dhamma/Dharma. They are more like ornaments than teaching. Where there is divergence it appears in the “folk” part of the tradition where the symbols and metaphors become taken literally. It is this overtly devotional religiosity that causes many to scratch their heads and wonder what it is that is going on in these little groups of devotees. The Japanese form of Pure Land looks like a Christian Protestant service, is formatted like a Christian Protestant service and even has sermons but not many Dharma talks. For a Westerner, the Chinese Pure Land services don’t really have much going on except a lot of chanting in a foreign language only the participants seem to understand. Rumor has it that the participants in both sets of Pure Land actually believe in the reality of an Amitabha Buddha and he lives out there in space somewhere.

This apparent belief that the mythos is true gives Pure Land Buddhism the appearance and feel of a radical Christian fundamentalism. For meditators there is not much offered. Many Buddhists do not even consider Pure Land a form of Buddhism but more of a devotion to a sort of Indic god. The belief in the legend as a literal truth rather than a metaphor gives Pure Land all the nuances of a base religious superstition complete with magical thinking.

Amitabha is definitely a symbol for Shakyamuni and as a symbol is also synonymous with him. In the notion of the “Three Kayas” – the uniquely Mahayana concept of there being three Buddha bodies – Amitayus is said to be the enjoyment body while Amitabha is the Dharma body of Shakyamuni Buddha. The three are said to be different aspects of the same being. We can also take this to refer to three layers of experiential reality and that the teaching of the Buddha permeates all three – as Dhamma/Dharma does.

After the last newsletter was sent out I received this email from Master Taicho, Hongaku Jodo’s founder and Abbot Emeritus. The email was in regards to the November newsletter of Hongaku Jodo.

Mui.  I just reread this e-mail as I was cleaning out some stuff from my computer. This grabbed my ass insofar as what you want to write.  I have highlighted the matter in red, below. Write out your explanations and remember when you are using some terms that a lot of people don’t understand fully, explain them clearly so that your end result is a very clear picture of what you are getting at as to soul, etc.  Don't miss this opportunity.  

And the last newsletter, excellent. Loved it all. The Monkey King Invocation hit home like a ton of shit. 

I included that last part for purposes of maintaining my self-esteem. The section of the email in referred to by Master Taicho is…

I really don't think it matters that Amitabha is a construct and hybrid of several different deities. I also don't think it matters that the mythology is kind of strange. The point is it works and better than the traditional Mahayana methods. It's a matter of cracking the Mahayana code in general and the Pure Land code in particular. Once the standard definitions of Buddha-Nature and Tathagatagarbha are exposed for what they are, backdoor soul theories, and explained in real Buddhist terms all the Mahayana and especially the Pure Land teachings come together beautifully. Jodo makes greater Buddhist sense than does Zen - if the terms are accurately defined. If not, Pure Land quickly degenerates into a sort of Asian Christianity and that has turned a lot of people off. This is why they are migrating to us; we seem to be the nonsuperstitious guys.

Master Taicho – thanks for the email. My journey over the past year has taken me back to the Pali Canon, so I could work my way back out into Mahayana. Sometimes I need a break from the ornate language and the strange contemporary teachings. I realized that there is no real distinction between Mahayana and Theravada. It is said; the goal of Theravada Buddhism is personal liberation from suffering, while the goal of Mahayana Buddhism is liberation of all beings from suffering. There is considerable variation in ritual, texts, culture, and so forth between the two traditions, but also within each tradition. The primary differences are cultural rather than spiritual. The problems arise with co-dependency of followers and their particular sect. As far as the emptiness teachings are concerned there is no difference between personal liberation and liberation for all beings. Both are an illusionary but also, if emptiness is fully understood, to do one is to do the other.

In regards to the highlighted area there is unfortunately no short form for my answer. So, you get the $20 tour of my thinking.

Here’s the thing: the Mahayana that exists and is taught today is very distinguishable from the Mahayana of say, 2,000 years ago. It looks very different. Early Mahayana was not a separate “tradition.” Even as late as 650 CE, 700 years into the Mahayana movement, there is still no separate Tradition. It is simply a matter of philosophy and viewpoint.

The earliest Mahayanists did not deal too much with enlightenment. That came later. What the earliest Mahayana literature emphasized rebirth in the Pure Lands. The earliest textual evidence of "Mahayana" comes from sutras originating around the beginning of the Common Era. Some of the earliest Mahayana texts such as the Ugrapariprccha Sutra use the term "Mahayana", yet there is no doctrinal difference between Mahayana in this context and the early schools, and   "Mahayana" referred rather to the rigorous emulation of Gautama Buddha in the path of a bodhisattva seeking to become a fully enlightened Buddha. 

The Buddha said it was quite possible for anyone to become enlightened in this life but only under certain circumstances. Did the Buddha think it possible for a layperson to attain Enlightenment? Probably not. He measured spiritual progress in four stages. In the first, called ‘stream entry’, one was guaranteed that one would have at the most seven more lives and would never be reborn in a station lower than human. At first, most people who accepted his view of kamma were held to have attained this. At the second stage, the ‘once returner’ faced only one more life on earth. The ‘non-returners’ would not be reborn in this world but in a high heaven (Pure Land), from which their attainment of nibbana/nirvana was guaranteed. Enlightenment was the fourth and final stage–the arahant.

When asked about the spiritual attainments of his followers, the Buddha said that many hundreds of monks and nuns had attained Enlightenment, and many hundreds of lay followers, both male and female, had become ‘non-returners’. (Majjhima Nikaya 1.490–1) They had given up sexual activity. He did not explicitly say that no lay follower attained nirvana in this life, but that is the implication. Elsewhere there is a short list of names of lay disciples, all male, who are said to have reached nibbana, but it is a mere list and so placed that it could well be a late addition to the Canon. (Anguttara Nikaya 3.451) 

The tradition that the Buddha’s father attained Enlightenment as a layman is post-canonical. A post-canonical Pali text says that lay life is not livable for an Enlightened person, so if a layman becomes Enlightened he (or she) will either enter the Sangha or die within the day. (Milindapañha). On the other hand, there are plenty of canonical cases of laymen and laywomen who are said to have made spiritual progress and were reborn in the Pure Abodes but none of the canonical texts show a layperson achieving enlightenment. Where it is mentioned that they are found only in post-canonical texts introduced at the Second and Third Councils. 

There are a few cases of laymen who lived religious lives very like those of monks without actually joining the Sangha. They took Ten Precepts, the same ten as are undertaken by novices; this meant that they lived in complete chastity and renounced all economic activity, like monks. One such man named Ugga, even preached.

An extremely significant text concerns the death of the Buddha’s greatest lay patron, the financier Anathapindika. When this very wealthy and very devoted follower lay on his deathbed, Sariputta, one of the Buddha’s chief disciples, came and preached to him what appears to us an utterly basic short sermon on detachment. When Anathapindika complained that he had never heard such a sermon before, Sariputta said that such sermons were not preached to the laity because they would not mean anything to them. (Majjhima Nikaya 3.261)  Elsewhere the Buddha says that monks have a duty to show laymen the way to heaven, note that he does not say the way to nibbana. (Digha Nikaya 3.191)

So it is not the Theravada that teaches only a monk or a nun can attain enlightenment in this lifetime. It is the Buddha that says enlightenment for a layperson in this lifetime is very difficult.