@Coemgenu I’m not really sure. I don’t think the early discourses specify the exact location of the Pure Abodes, only that it’s among many of the heavens in the Form Realm since attainment in absorption is required for the realisation of non-returning.
In Tibetan Buddhism as well as in Zen Buddhism, Amida Buddha is often seen as symbolic (upaya) of either one’s own Buddha-nature or of the Dharma-body as a whole.
Shinran Shonin, the founder of Japan’s largest Buddhist sect, also saw Amida as more than a literal flesh and blood Buddha:
Shinran taught that Amida is the Buddha in his dharmakaya form—his ultimate, liberated nature—and that the Pure Land is a poetic description of nirvana. Putting the insights of Mahayana Buddhism into a narrative format, he described how Amida vowed to embrace all beings, no matter how bad or good, and liberate them from their greed and delusion. According to the stories contained in the sutras, this liberation for all is something that Amida accomplished ten kalpas ago—a time so ancient it is almost beyond reckoning. Shinran advanced his interpretation further, stating that “Amida seems to be a Buddha more ancient than kalpas as countless as the atoms of the universe.” This meant that Amida’s “vow” transcended history altogether and was thus timelessly true.
Shinran understood Amida as buddhanature. As he puts it, “Buddhanature is none other than Tathagata [Buddha]. This Tathagata pervades the countless worlds; it fills the hearts and minds of the ocean of all beings. Thus, plants, trees, and land all attain buddhahood.”
The Path of Gratitude | Lion’s Roar
For Jodo Shinshu Buddhists, our assurance of rebirth wells up into a profound sense of gratitude, which affects how we live in the here and now:
As a Shin Buddhist, my primary practice isn’t meditation, sutra study, ritual, or precepts. All of these can be valuable, of course, but in Shin Buddhism our main focus is the practice of gratitude. This sets us apart from many other Buddhists. We don’t practice to achieve anything—not enlightenment, good karma, a favorable rebirth, or material rewards. We practice simply to give thanks for what we have received. It’s a small shift in one’s perspective, but when pursued, it can be transformative.
The Path of Gratitude | Lion’s Roar
In the Tannisho, Shinran directly addressed the question of whether Amida in the Pure Land is a literal flesh and blood Buddha:
Even though the size of Buddha in the Pure Land is described in the sutra, it is the manifestation of Dharmakaya-as-compassion (upaya, relative truth), appearing for the sake of human beings. When one attains supreme enlightenment and realizes Dharmakaya-as-it-is (ultimate truth), how can size be discussed, since such shapes as long or short, square or round, do not exist; and color is also transcended, whether it be blue, yellow, red, white, or black?
http://cdn.preterhuman.net/texts/religion.occult.new_age/Pureland/Japanese%20Pureland/Shinran_Works/The%20Tannisho.pdf
A monk asked the Chinese Zen master Yunmen, “What is Buddha?” To this he replied, “A sh*t-covered stick.” If Dharma-body is in all things, that includes fecal matter as well. Why worry, then, if Amida is a literal Buddha?
In the image of Amida Buddha on the altar, and the recitation of his name, Namu-Amida-Butsu, we awaken to the outworking of Dharma-body in our daily lives, leading us to the Pure Land, the realm of Nirvana.
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What I meant is that, rather than an eternal resting place, the Pure Abodes are intended for attaining final enlightenment. The same can be said of Amitabha’s Pure Land.
@Kensho Regarding Amitabha Buddha, he was never regarded as a symbol of either Buddha-nature or Dharma-body in the earliest versions of the Larger Sukhavati discourse (or sutra if you prefer this term) which are extant in the Chinese translation of Lokaksema, and in a Gandhari version (the original name of this sutra is actually just Amitabhavyuha Sutra, without the qualification of “Larger”, which came to be only because of the “Smaller” Sukhavati Sutra that was composed in Sanskrit by a different author than the Larger Sukhavati Sutra’s ), he was referred to as a literal person.
The doctrines of Buddha-nature and the Dharma-body, which imply that there is some kind of essence inherent in every being, are incompatible with two of the earliest Mahayana sutras like Astasahasrika Prajnaparamita Sutra and Lotus Sutra since they criticise such notion (there are other Mahayana texts that also criticise such belief of course). Naturally, they are also incompatible with the early Buddhist texts (Agama/Nikaya). What’s more, the doctrines of Buddha-nature and the Dharma-body developed independently from the Larger Sukhavati Sutra.
With the above information, it is clear that you can’t just put all Mahayana sutras in one group and say that they teach the same thing. The reality is different than that. Mahayana texts are quite distinct from one another, so it is more proper to read each of them in their own contexts.
When you said “The Buddha himself, for the sake of his disciples, distinguished between provisional truth and ultimate truth.” which Buddha do you mean? If you referred to any Buddha that is mentioned in Mahayana and Vajrayana texts, then that is perhaps so. But if you referred to the historical Buddha, then that is incorrect. He never taught Mahayana and Vajrayana Buddhisms, so he didn’t teach provisional truth and ultimate truth. If I remember correctly, there is a thread where you use the oral transmission of early Mahayana texts and the fact that they were written around the same time as the Agama/Nikaya as justifications that the historical Buddha taught Mahayana, that is also incorrect (please don’t use Wikipedia as your source of information for specific Buddhist studies like Early Buddhism or the formation of Mahayana and Vajrayana Buddhisms, it is unreliable).
While it’s true that early Mahayana texts were written around the same time as the Agama/Nikaya, the contents within those texts are of different time periods. The Agama/Nikaya were transmitted orally from the time of the Buddha, while early Mahayana texts were composed and transmitted orally at the earliest around 400 years after the passing of the Buddha. How do we know this? We know this from the vocabularies, narratives, structures, etc of these texts. Their characteristics belong to specific time periods.
Extinguishment (Nivana, Nirvana, Nibbana, Nivvana) is not a realm in any way, shape, or form. It can’t be described with words like form or formless. The historical Buddha describes it as the ending of lust, anger, and confusion; he also describes it as the highest happiness, among other things in the early discourses. Sukhavati (Pure Land, lit; Land of Bliss) is not the realm of extinguishment. In Mahayana Buddhism, it’s a “training ground” for awakening. It’s never been referred to as a synonym for extinguishment in any early Mahayana texts whatsoever. I also doubt that later Mahayana and Vajrayana texts refer to it like that.
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The symbolic/metaphorical aspect of Amida remains just one aspect, the fact is most Tibetan or East Asian Buddhists will tell you that this being really exists and that they rely on his power/abilities. For some East Asian Buddhists, they will say that they rely on him instead of relying on developing their own wisdom (self-power vs other power).
If you like doing this practice, all power to you.
From the point of view of early Buddhism and the suttas however, it doesn’t seem like it’s developing any kind of insight into the nature of things. It might develop strong samadhi, and other qualities through practicing mindfulness of the Buddha, but ultimately, without an understanding of interdependent origination and anatta, it’s not the path that the historical Buddha taught.
We don’t practice to achieve anything—not enlightenment, good karma, a favorable rebirth, or material rewards.
This shows just how far away from the Dharma taught by the Buddha this tradition has drifted, for the Buddha of the suttas, the goal is favorable rebirths or nibbana.
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In the Lotus Sutra, the historical Buddha, Shakyamuni, reveals that the Buddha’s true nature (Dharma-body) is beyond time and form:
Suppose a person were to take five hundred, a thousand, ten thousand, a million nayuta asamkhya thousand-million-fold worlds and grind them to dust. Then, moving eastward, each time he passes five hundred, a thousand, ten thousand, a million nayuta asamkhya worlds he drops a particle of dust. He continues eastward in this way until he has finished dropping all the particles…
Suppose all these worlds, whether they received a particle of dust or not, are once more reduced to dust. Let one particle represent one kalpa (eon). The time that has passed since I attained Buddhahood surpasses this by a hundred, a thousand, ten thousand, a million nayuta asamkhya kalpas…
…I appear in different places and preach to them under different names, and describe the length of time during which my teachings will be effective. Sometimes when I make my appearance I say that I am about to enter nirvana…
Good men, the Thus Come One observes how among living beings there are those who delight in a little Law, meager in virtue and heavy with defilement. For such persons I describe how in my youth I left my household and attained anuttara-samyak-sambodhi. But in truth the time since I attained Buddhahood is extremely long, as I have told you…
www.english.fgs2.ca/sites/default/files/pdf/The%20Lotus%20Sutra.pdf
While the term “Dharma-body” might not appear in the Lotus Sutra, the concept is definitely there, at least in embryonic form.
The Buddha has appeared in countless forms, under countless names, in countless places, over countless eons of time. While the Buddha might appear to be born, grow old, get sick, and pass away into extinction, this is only a upaya or skillful device for those not ready to accept his eternal nature.
As a former Tendai monk, Shinran Shonin understood Amida and the Eternal Buddha of the Lotus Sutra as the same being:
It is taught that ten kalpas have now passed
Since Amida attained Buddhahood,
But he seems a Buddha more ancient
Than kalpas countless as particles.
Hymns on the Larger Sutra - The Collected Works of Shinran
The above passage is a direct reference to the eternal lifespan chapter of the Lotus Sutra.
While Amida might appear to be a literal flesh and blood Buddha from ten kalpas ago, eons before the Big Bang, in a world galaxies away, his true nature is Dharma-body itself, beyond time and form. The name Amida means “eternal life.”
As to whether the Perfection of Wisdom sutras contradict such concepts as Dharma-body and Buddha-nature, I doubt it, since Mahayana commentators would have noticed it.
In Mahayana teaching, Dharma-body is the Ultimate Truth of all reality, yet it’s without name and form. Amida Buddha is therefore a skillful device (upaya) which makes the reality of Dharma-body knowable to us, foolish beings. In the words of Shinran, ‘The Nembutsu alone is true and real.’
Shinran, like the Chinese masters Tan-Luan and Shan-tao, understood the Pure Land to be the formless realm of Nirvana. This is why Shinran described rebirth into the Pure Land as “the birth of non-birth,” just as the Buddha described Nirvana as “the unborn.”
In the words of the larger Amitabha Sutra, “That Buddha-land, like the realm of unconditioned Nirvana, is pure and serene, resplendent and blissful.”
The name of the Pure Land itself, Sukhavati, means “ultimate bliss,” which is a positive description of Nirvana. (Usually, in other Buddhist texts, Nirvana is described in negative terms.)
If our future rebirth into the Pure Land is already assured through our sincere trust in Amida Buddha, then everything we do in our Buddhist path, including reciting the Nembutsu, is in gratitude for what we’ve already received.
Pure Land Buddhism is the most widely practiced form of Buddhism in East Asia, and Jodo Shinshu is the largest sect of Buddhism in Japan. It doesn’t need me, as a Westerner, to justify its existence to other Westerners on an internet forum. The Buddha taught 84,000 paths to enlightenment.
This is right, but it is a top-down approach, based on a later reading.
That later reading may still be “right” for our purposes, but I think what TheNoble might have meant to say that at the time of the Lotus Sūtra, it is likely that “buddhadhātu” still referred to tiny ornamental marbles that Buddhists used to believe realized persons had inside their bodies.
The LS has a very ancient prototype for later “Buddha-nature” doctrines: namely the notion that every sentient being has received a prediction of future Buddhahood when they heard the LS preached in the inconceivable past.
The point of Buddha-nature doctrines, though, is to build faith. This prediction mechanism did the job before it was believed that all beings had ornamental pure crystal marbles within them, not just Buddhas, and then later Buddha-nature developments did away with the marbles altogether.
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While Buddha-nature and Dharma-body are similar concepts, and they both find basis in the Lotus Sutra, they are not exactly the same concept. I think you might be confusing the two.
The Eternal Lifespan chapter of the Lotus Sutra has been interpreted as revealing the Dharmakaya, at least since the time of Zhiyi, the founder of Tian’tai.
Shinran, the founder of Jodo Shinshu Buddhism, was a former Tendai monk, and therefore understood Amida and the Eternal Buddha of the Lotus Sutra as the same being:
The Ultimacy of Jodo Shinshu: Shinran’s Response to Tendai
http://ccbs.ntu.edu.tw/FULLTEXT/JR-ENG/bloom.htm
While the discussion is interesting I lost the connection with “Historical evidence for the Buddha”. --> a Mahayana discussion again, no?
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Certainly. Another important narrative, this one Indian rather than Chinese, concerning that same Lifespan Discourse, is the union of the three bodies of the Buddha into one speaker. The lifespan the transformation body accrues to itself is that of the truth body. The environment is that of the bliss body (see the 5 certainties of the sambhogakaya).
The 3 bodies of the Buddha, tho, is not found in the LS itself, because it is too old. It predates the trikāya.
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Heh. I will admit I am at fault for not even looking at the title of a thread, too often, before posting on it! 
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@Kensho You completely ignored the historical development of both early Buddhism and Mahayana Buddhism that I talked about, and still keep saying that the historical Buddha taught Mahayana Buddhism, and that those particular Mahayana thoughts are compatible even though historical evidence and the texts themselves are overwhelmingly against such believes. Of course some Mahayana commentators wouldn’t notice, or rather, had some kind of unconvincing explanation for these kinds of things, just like the commentaries in the Pali Canon where they had to think of convoluted explanations to explain some discourses that don’t really make sense (because some passages from those discourses are later additions but they didn’t know that). I will say this again, it is more proper to read Mahayana texts in their own contexts since that’s how they were written.
Amitabha also doesn’t mean eternal life, that is only a later development from the name “Amitayus”. The original name, Amitabha, means “infinite light” (and no, the word light doesn’t represent his life, he was described as possessing incomparable light, that’s all). The name “Amitayus” only appears in later versions of the Larger Sukhavati Sutra because some monks in ancient India incorrectly Sanskritised the name from Amitabha to Amitayus. He was never described as having limitless life in the earliest phase of Mahayana Buddhism, it’s all based on the misunderstanding of his later name, which Mahayana Buddhism is no stranger to. The passage about the hymns also clearly contradicts the earliest versions of the Larger Sukhavati Sutra where Amitabha Buddha chooses Avalokitasvara as his successor when the time that he has to pass away comes.
The Lotus Sutra wasn’t written in the form that it is known today. It’s a composite text, which can be divided into four layers of development. Chapter 16 of Lotus Sutra that is about the Eternal Buddha belongs to the third layer. The exception would be the verse of Avalokitasvara, which was originally transmitted as an independent text but was somehow absorbed into the Lotus Sutra. This means that you can’t take the Lotus Sutra at face value.
Again, extinguishment (Nirvana in Sanskrit) is not formless, not a realm, and certainly not the Land of Bliss. No Mahayana or Vajrayana texts that I know of refer to it like that. Traditional beliefs and the commentaries that you learn from regarding these things clearly contradict the source texts.
The historical Buddha taught impermanence and nonself, the doctrine of Dharma-body has no place in his teachings since it clearly contradicts impermanence and nonself, he never taught Mahayana and Vajrayana Buddhisms (you seem to completely ignore that portion of my previous post for whatever reason), and thus, never taught the Lotus Sutra, and the notion of skillful means only appeared at a later time after the passing of the Buddha. He also certainly didn’t have countless forms, that might be so for Buddhas that are unique to Mahayana and Vajrayana Buddhisms though. The fact that you doubt about the Astasahasrika Prajnaparamita contradicting the concepts of Dharma-body and Buddha-nature is enough to tell that you have no idea about the history behind it. Anyone who knows about it will have no doubt that those two concepts that promote eternalism is criticised heavily by Astasahasrika Prajnaparamita. This is why it’s essential to know about the history and development of these texts instead of believing in traditional beliefs without properly investigating these texts first.
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This text isn’t necessarily uncritically “older Mahāyāna”, tho. There are likely elements of both that are old and elements of both that are newer.
For instance, it is this wisdom-perfection scripture that says practitioners of the two vehicles can never be Buddhas. A very radical Mahāyāna stance to take that isn’t associated too often with “early” Mahāyāna.
@Coemgenu Yes, I’m aware of that. There are older and newer Mahayana materials in it just like the Lotus Sutra and other early Mahayana texts. In fact, all texts (regardless of schools or traditions) contain different amount of both early and late materials.
Kogaku Fuse was/is a brilliant mind, but his scholarship on the LS is a bit dated now, isn’t it?
He didn’t even know about the Gilgit LS afaik. It has a tathāgatāyuṣpramāṇaparivartaḥ (lifespan discourse) afaik, something that it shouldn’t have according to Fuse’s theories as to its origins as far as I am familiar with them.
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@Coemgenu Oh, I didn’t know that Fuse said that the Lifespan chapter wasn’t suppose to be in the Lotus Sutra. That’s interesting.
The scholarship of Lotus Sutra that I’m familiar with is that of Seishi Karashima’s. He is aware of the extant Gilgit Lotus Sutra and the Central Asia version. He evaluates the layers of the Lotus Sutra’s development from a linguistic point of view, that is: among the four layers of development, the first layer contains more Middle Indic elements than the other layers. It is apparent in the older Chinese translations. He also evaluates the development from the influence of Prajnaparamita, and Mahayana Buddhas and Bodhisattvas in the Lotus Sutra, which is not evident the first two layers, but it is in the last two ones.
Buddhism has never been a religion which insists upon the literal factuality of its scriptures.
There is definitely a historical core to the Buddha’s life and teachings, but such concepts as upaya and two-truths doctrine also allow for a great deal of symbolic interpretation:
http://dharmafarer.org/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/30.8-Upaya-Skillful-means.-piya.pdf
The above articles have quotes from the Pali canon regarding the Buddha’s distinction between provisional truth and Ultimate Truth.
He seems to identify a similar 4-fold division, but with some differences.
The Karashima is something I am very much looming forward to looking into.
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As @Gabriel already mentioned, this topic has been derailed. Let’s please get back to historical evidence for the Buddha!
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