Part I, Chapter 2. Defenses within Buddhism: two paths, two gates, and the final age of the Dharma¶

Pure Land needs a separate chapter of defense because a charge has burdened it from the beginning: relying on other power to seek birth in the Pure Land is laziness and evasion in practice. Almost the entire history of its doctrinal construction consists of successive responses to this charge. Following this volume's usual procedure, this chapter first presents the strongest defenses in full, without weakening them in advance. Their costs are left to Part II. Varied as these defenses are, a clear line of transmission can be traced through them.

The difficult and easy paths (Nāgārjuna)

The source lies in Nāgārjuna, but a complication later generations would repeatedly contest is already concealed at the source. The "Easy Practice" chapter of the Commentary on the Ten Stages does distinguish a difficult path from an easy one. The difficult path is like traveling overland on foot, arduous; the easy path is like traveling by boat on water, pleasant.¹ Yet the context of the original must be stated accurately. The chapter begins with a question that Nāgārjuna rejects outright. Someone asks whether, since the bodhisattva path requires kalpas of difficult practices before nonretrogression is attained, there might be a quick and expedient easy path. Nāgārjuna first rebukes the question as "weak, timid, and inferior, lacking a great mind, not the words of a man of resolve." Only then does he say that the Dharma has countless gates, some difficult and some easy, and indicate an easy route for people of this capacity. In Nāgārjuna, then, the easy path is an expedient concession to the timid, not a principal gate honored equally with the difficult path. Moreover, his easy practice consists of reverently invoking the names of many Buddhas in the ten directions to seek nonretrogression. Amitābha is only one Buddha singled out among them. What it aims at is nonretrogression within the bodhisattva stages, not birth in the Pure Land and attainment of Buddhahood.

Later Pure Land teaching, beginning with Tanluan, reinterpreted this passage in two steps. It elevated a concession to the timid into the principal gate of the Buddha's entire teaching. It narrowed the invocation of many Buddhas to the exclusive invocation of Amitābha and connected "nonretrogression" with "birth in Sukhāvatī and Buddhahood there." Each step has its reasons, but each also stands at some distance from Nāgārjuna's original. This is precisely what the judgment that "Pure Land took Nāgārjuna out of context" refers to. Who is right remains a disputed case in the history of interpretation; this volume does not adjudicate it. Here it merely lays bare the actual state of the foundations. The oldest foundation stone of Pure Land is itself a quotation that requires reinterpretation before it can stand firm.

Self-power, other power, and the Primal Vow (Tanluan)

Tanluan's Commentary on the Treatise on Birth is the first systematic treatise in Chinese Pure Land Buddhism; it is also provisionally regarded here as the first explicit use of the term "other-power" in a Pure Land context, subject to the qualification in the note. He relates the difficult and easy paths to the distinction between self-power and other power, and establishes Amitābha's Primal Vow as the "dominant condition" for birth. An ordinary being attains birth not through merits accumulated by oneself, but through the power of Amitābha's already accomplished vows as the dominant condition.² A series of analogies drives home Tanluan's point that "other power is not without efficacy." The difficult path is painful like walking overland; the easy path is pleasant like taking a boat. Self-power is like someone who, fearing the three evil destinies, observes the precepts, cultivates concentration, and develops supernormal powers, and can then travel through the four continents. Other power is like a feeble man unable even to mount a donkey who, by accompanying a wheel-turning king, travels through the air across the four continents without obstruction. The capacity of ten recollections to counteract heavy karma accumulated over many kalpas does not depend on their duration. A room dark for a thousand years becomes bright the moment light enters. Other power is not gain without effort. It is the use of power prepared by one who has already accomplished the task.

The gate of the sages' path, the gate of the Pure Land, and the final age of the Dharma (Daochuo)

Daochuo's Collection on the Land of Peace and Bliss takes the scheme a step further, classifying the Buddha's entire teaching into two gates. The gate of the sages' path relies on one's own power to practice, abandon afflictions, and attain sagehood. The gate of the Pure Land relies on other power to attain birth there and accomplish the task. Daochuo supplies a reason specific to the age: the final age of the Dharma. After the ages of the true Dharma and the semblance Dharma, sentient beings in this final age have dull faculties and heavy obstructions; entry through the gate of the sages' path has become difficult. He says outright that in the final age, a hundred million times a hundred million people begin to practice the path, yet not one attains it; only the gate of the Pure Land offers a route of entry.³ Seeking other power thus ceases to be a fallback for those of timid capacity. It becomes the only Dharma gate suited to the entire age. It is not that Pure Land is low; the time has come when the sages' path is impassable.

The two kinds of deep faith and recitation in accord with the Primal Vow (Shandao)

Shandao brings the mechanism into its tightest focus. On one side he establishes "two kinds of deep faith" (Part I, Chapter 1): deep faith that one is a sinful ordinary being without conditions for escape, concerning one's capacity; and deep faith that Amitābha's vow-power will certainly save this ordinary being, concerning the Dharma. The two form one whole. Without the first, faith loses its urgency; without the second, it loses its destination. On the other side he narrows the direct cause of birth to reciting the name. Among the practices for birth, invocation of Amitābha's name is the "act of right assurance," since it accords with that Buddha's Primal Vow; the other practices are auxiliary.⁴ Visualization is difficult and recitation easy. The Pure Land gate thus opens to everyone who cannot read or has no time to cultivate concentration. Recollection of the Buddha thereby takes its settled form as oral recitation of the name.

Selection in the Primal Vow and absolute other power (Hōnen and Shinran)

The Japanese line takes this trajectory to its endpoint. Hōnen's Collection on the Nembutsu Selected in the Primal Vow establishes the meaning of "selection": among all practices, Amitābha selected recitation of the name alone as the practice of his Primal Vow. Practitioners should therefore abandon miscellaneous practices and devote themselves exclusively to nembutsu.⁵ Shinran goes further, toward absolute other power. Even the faith on which birth depends does not arise through one's own power. Amitābha transfers it to sentient beings, a transference through other power. Not a fraction of the credit belongs to the practitioner. Two famous propositions follow. The first is that the evil person is the proper recipient of the vow: "Even a good person attains birth; how much more so an evil person." Good people rely on their own capacity, so their faith is mixed with self-power. Evil people know that they have no power to rely on and can only entrust themselves wholly; they thus accord more purely with the capacity to which the Primal Vow is addressed.⁶ The second is the accomplishment of the cause of birth during one's lifetime. Birth need not await a welcome at death; at the very moment faith becomes settled, birth is already assured. By this point, self-power has been cleared away completely.

The shared structure of the defenses

Stripped down, these varied defenses share one structure supported by three pillars. First, the final age of the Dharma. Self-powered practice has become objectively impossible in this age. Seeking other power is not indolence but a recognition of the times. Second, other power is not without efficacy. Birth depends on the vow-power prepared by one who has already accomplished the task. Borrowing power is not the same as doing nothing, just as a passenger must still board the boat. Third, breaking self-conceit. Self-powered practice itself conceals the deepest clinging to self, "I am practicing; I have attained." Only by handing everything over can one break this further layer of conceit. This is the deepest defense; Part II will respond to it directly. All three pillars presuppose the same thing: the route of self-power is impassable. Once that premise is accepted, everything else in Pure Land follows naturally.

The sequence presents successive arguments, not six direct teacher-to-pupil transmissions. The Nāgārjuna attribution remains disputed as set out in the complete note. The original easy-path passage concerns recollection of many buddhas and the attainment of nonretrogression. The chapter distinguishes that passage from later elevation of the easy path, exclusive emphasis on Amitābha, and connection to rebirth in his land. It leaves the dispute over those reinterpretations undecided.

"Final Dharma" means the age of Dharma decline after the ages of the true and semblance Dharma. The first shared pillar therefore concerns self-power in that age, not an assertion that it could never succeed anywhere in the world. "Other-power is not no work" refers to the efficacy of borrowing already accomplished vow-power and the defense that borrowing it is not gain without effort. The three pillars are the author's synthesis of the defenses, not a statement that all six figures taught every pillar in those terms. The declining band is a schematic direction, not a measurement. Tanluan's priority in explicitly using "other power" remains provisional under the qualification in the note.

Challenges from outside the school: whom these defenses answer

The defenses reinforced above were not erected out of nothing. At each layer they ward off a particular charge. Setting out the principal charges makes clear where the defenses bear their weight.

First, easy practice is timidity. This challenge comes directly from Nāgārjuna's text. Nāgārjuna himself first condemns the request for easy practice as "weak, timid, and inferior" (the beginning of this chapter). Does elevating the easy path into the principal gate not pass off an expedient the Buddha opened for the timid as the ultimate true path? The line of the sages' path accordingly derides Pure Land as an inferior vehicle, an excuse for those unwilling to exert themselves. Pure Land's accounts of the final age and the three capacities answer this challenge directly. The responsibility lies with the age, not with the practitioner's timidity. In the final age, the difficult path has become objectively impassable.

Second, intention concerning another time. Historically, this was the fiercest challenge, coming from the Yogācāra school of the Compendium. The Compendium of the Mahāyāna identifies four "intentions" in the Buddha's speech, one being "intention concerning another time." The Buddha sometimes speaks of a distant fruit as though it were immediately attainable in order to spur the indolent to set out. The Compendium masters accordingly classified the Sūtra of Immeasurable Life's "immediate birth through ten recollections" under this intention. Recollection of the Buddha is only a remote cause of birth. The sūtra speaks of immediate attainment as expedient encouragement; it cannot be taken as a promise literally fulfilled. This interpretation almost cut off Pure Land's prospects in China. If birth is merely a matter of intention concerning another time, recollection in this life does not immediately constitute the cause of birth. In his Four-Fascicle Commentary on the Contemplation Sūtra, Shandao directly overturns the charge. He insists that the ten recollections in the sūtra are ten recollections "complete with faith and aspiration," a real karmic cause in accord with the Primal Vow, not an empty stipulation of practice without aspiration. Birth is therefore sown in that very recollection, and its fruition is not false; it does not fall under intention concerning another time.⁷ Much of Pure Land's doctrines of "recitation as the act of right assurance" and "accomplishment of the cause of birth during one's lifetime" is directed precisely against this challenge. As an aside, the "other time" on which it focuses will reappear in another form in Chapter 3 of Part II. Birth is indeed moved to another time, after death. This volume's question is not how long separates cause from effect, but that no one can return from that point to check.

Third, evil conduct presents no obstacle. This challenge targets the evil person as the proper recipient. If evil people have precisely the capacity addressed by the Primal Vow, does this not mean that evil conduct does not obstruct birth, or even that the more evil one does, the better one accords with the vow? In Japan this abuse developed into the popular practice of relying presumptuously on the Primal Vow to indulge in evil. Shinran himself had to warn against it repeatedly in the Tannishō. Having an antidote in hand is no reason to consume poison eagerly; trusting the Primal Vow is not receiving a license to do evil.⁸ This challenge most clearly exposes other power's ethical vulnerability. Part II will not develop it separately; its existence is recorded here.

The distinction must be clear. The critique in Part II of this volume differs from these challenges within and outside the school. The sages' path disparages Pure Land as inferior in a contest of rank conducted from the standpoint of self-power. The Compendium masters assess truth and falsity through intention concerning another time within Yogācāra's causal framework. This volume instead stands on the baseline of early Buddhism and asks just one question: as a proposal for ending suffering, how much verifiable content does Pure Land retain? The three challenges each have their standpoint; this volume's criterion is a fourth. They are placed side by side here so that readers can see Pure Land's varied defenses for what they are: a system that, under attack from all directions, has argued itself into an airtight position. What this volume asks is precisely what it has coherently substituted for the theory of liberation, not whether it is coherent. Part II begins there. What exactly is relinquished when self-power is relinquished?

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