Richard K. Payne, Kenneth K. Tanaka, eds.. Approaching the Land of Bliss: Religious Praxis in the Cult of Amitābha. Kuroda Institute Studies in East Asian Buddhism. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2004. 304 pp. $32.00, cloth, ISBN 978-0-8248-2578-2.
Reviewed by Pamela Winfeld
Published on H-Buddhism (October, 2006)
Stated simply, Approaching the Land of Bliss: also created false dichotomies in academe. It has Religious Praxis in the Cult of Amit?bha is a deli‐ pitted philology against ethnography, doctrine cious read. It is a stir-fry of scholarship with chap‐ against practice, clergy against laity, and sectarian ters on Chinese, Taiwanese, Tibetan and even con‐ identity based on select scripture against wide‐ temporary Newari Pure Land practices, all laid spread and popular cults dedicated to individual upon a core bed of chapters dedicated to Pure deities (e.g. Avalokite?vara, Manju?ri, Bhai?ajyar? Land in Japan. Co-editors Payne and Tanaka have ja-guru, Maitreya or Vairocana). thus served up an eminently satisfying recipe for As an alternative to this geo-textual dissemi‐ re-evaluating Pure Land Buddhism in the pan- nation trajectory, this volume proposes the useful Asian sphere, and in so doing have provided post- categories of "cult and praxis" (p. 2) as organizing graduate, graduate and even upper-level under‐ themes for analysis. Specifcally, it broadens the graduate researchers with much food for thought strictly sectarian identity of Pure Land Buddhism to consume and digest. by examining the cult of Amit?bha worship This latest volume in the Kuroda series in throughout Asia. Nine well-known scholars inves‐ East Asian Buddhism explicitly sets out to break tigate the remarkable variety of cultic practices down the meat-and-potatoes "texts and nations" and ritual performances throughout Asia that are (p. 1) approach to Buddhist studies, which tradi‐ associated with Amit?bha and his heavenly Pure tionally has traced the historical transmission of Land in the Western Paradise (Sukh?vat?). With scriptures from India through China to Japan. fve out of the nine chapters devoted to Japanese This "three-countries model" (p. 1) has falsely set Pure Land practices, one might initially assume up Japan as the fnal culmination of all Buddhist that that the three-country model has yet to be thought and practice, with Korea astonishingly fully deconstructed. Yet even within Japan, one absent and Tibet often added fourth as an after‐ learns to appreciate the wide variety of practice thought. This model's dominant focus on texts has associated with Pure Land Buddhism. This sabo‐ H-Net Reviews tages any possibility of a formative model or strict and Impurities Are Not A Problem': Radical Amida sectarian boundaries for Amit?bha worship. Cults and Popular Religiosity in Premodern Matthew Kapstein opens the volume by rec‐ Japan." Richard Jafe also makes us refect on is‐ ognizing and subverting the common perception sues of authority and authenticity in "Ungo Kiy?'s that Pure Land refers solely to an East Asian sec‐ ?j?y?ka and Rinzai Zen Othodoxy," which focuses tarian phenomenon in "Pure Land in Tibet? From on Ungo Kiy?'s (1582-1659) insistence on the pre‐ Sukh?vat? to the Field of Great Bliss." Daniel Getz cepts, his integration of nenbutsu practice as a also speaks to the fexibility, malleability and am‐ complement to Zen meditation, and his place in biguous nature of sectarian delineations in the institutional politics of Rinzai Zen. Todd "Shengchang's Pure Conduct Society and the Chi‐ Lewis' "From Generalized Goal to Tantric Subordi‐ nese Pure Land Patriarchate" by re-evaluating nation: Sukh?vat? in the Indic Buddhist Traditions Shengchang's (959-1020) Pure Land lineage in of Nepal" provides ethnographic evidence to reit‐ light of his Huayan thought and activities. Jacque‐ erate Kapstein's observation that Pure Land is a line Stone's "By the Power of One's Last Nenbutsu: generalized, non-sectarian soteriology that as‐ Deathbed Practices in Early Medieval Japan" out‐ sumes various forms in Nepal, while Charles lines the core devotional practices of Pure Land Jones' "Buddha One: A One-Day Buddha-Recita‐ even before it obtained separate sectarian status tion-Retreat in Contemporary Taiwan" dovetails during the Kamakura period (1192-1333). She nicely with Jacqueline Stone's earlier chapter as presents her consummate scholarship on tenth- he narrates a nianfo retreat designed to cultivate through thirteenth-century beautiful deaths, mer‐ the mind of faith in Amida's vow. The volume as a it transfers, post-mortem funerary rites and nen‐ whole thus works together nicely, and the au‐ butsu incantations designed to awaken the mind thors' frequent references to each other's contri‐ of faith in Amida's vow. Following the roughly butions lends the collection a coherence and in‐ chronological order of chapters devoted to Amida tegrity not often found in edited volumes. worship in Japan, James Sanford's "Amida's Secret Taken together, these investigations reveal Life: Kakuban's Amida Hishaku" presents four major themes, as Payne outlines in his con‐ Kakuban's (1095-1143) highly syncretic and con‐ cisely crafted introduction. "[F]irst, the place of troversial text that equates Amida Nyorai with Amit?bha and Sukh?vat? in the broad range of Dainichi Nyorai, the main Buddha of Shingon eso‐ Mah?y?na and Vajray?na Buddhism; second, the teric Buddhism (this text was controversial of variety of practices directed towards Amit?bha course, only from the perspective of kogi "old and Sukh?vat?; third, the importance of the way school" Shingon). in which conceptions of orthodoxy and hetero‐ Hank Glassman's chapter on Sukh?vat? visu‐ doxy are created; and fourth, the sociohistorical alizations by and for women further deconstructs locatedness of religious practice" (p. 12). This, I familiar normative Pure Land notions (such as think, is far too modest an assessment of the con‐ the prerequisite male body for rebirth in the tributions this volume presents. Western Paradise) in "Show Me the Place Where This collection is signifcant frst for making My Mother Is: Ch?j?hime, Preaching and Relics in scholars look at ritual and practice, not just doc‐ Late Medieval and Early Modern Japan." Fabio trinal text (though of course Pure Land as a sect Rambelli pushes this orthodox-heterodox enve‐ has its own highly developed doctrinal literature lope to its limit as he tackles radical Amidist as well). Second, it compels us to consider serious‐ groups and the carnivalesque reversal of social ly the practices of one of the most popular forms norms in "'Just Behave As You Like; Prohibitions of Buddhism in the global theater today. This new
2 H-Net Reviews focus on popular Amida practice remedies the scholarship. Finally, I believe I believe the book academy's somewhat elitist bias towards the kind could have benefted from a more thoughtful or‐ of philological-philosophical-sectarian scholar‐ ganization of chapters, as Payne's introduction ship that has largely marginalized Pure Land to initially indicated. Specifcally, one could have date, denigrating lay and clerical Amida practice grouped the Mah?y?na chapters (Jacqueline as somehow unworthy of wide scholarly atten‐ Stone's Pure Land, Hank Glassman's Ch?j?hime tion. Many other sectarian scholars have there‐ and Charles Jones' Taiwan) and the Vajray?na fore adopted an apologist stance, glossing over or chapters (Matthew Kapstein's Tibet, Todd Lewis' simply ignoring syncretized Pure Land elements Nepal, James Sanford's Kakuban, and some of within their groups, and conveniently but artif‐ Fabio Rambelli's radical Amidists). One could also cially following the age-old process of ranking add Zen into the mix, for both Richard Jafe's scriptures (ky?han) to sanitize them into pure Ungo Kiy? and I might suggest, Daniel Getz's doctrinal categories. This volume helps to muddy Shengchang speak to this form of Buddhism. the waters again, especially in the case of Pure Getz of course did not explicitly address Zen Land and Shingon (in Sanford's case of Kakuban) in his chapter, but in deconstructing Shengchang's and Pure Land and Rinzai Zen (in Jafe's case of Pure Land identity via Huayan, he inadvertently Ungo Kiy?). Other confations and ambiguities are hints at some tantalizing Chan/Zen associations. presented as well, such as Shengchang's Huayan He mentions for example that Shengchang stud‐ turned Pure Land in standard hagiographies, the ied "mind-only" (i.e., Chan, not Yog?c?ra) with generalized non-sectarian presence of Amit?bha Zhifeng, the founder of Fayan Chan, and that he worship in Tibet and Nepal, and the decidedly copied the Pure Conduct chapter of the Huayan antinomian cast of Rambelli's radical Amidist jing in blood. In his own commentaries on that groups, so contrary to Tibet where one's own ef‐ very chapter, D?gen (1200-1243) later tells us this forts are a prerequisite to rebirth in Sukh?vat?. A was of particular interest to his S?t? Zen founder volume such as this thus flls in a glaring lacuna Quingyuan/Seigen (d. 740), who also reputedly in scholarship and incidentally reveals a strange copied the transmission in his own blood. Com‐ irony: the text-centered attitude that was so in‐ bined with Shengchang's interest in Mañju?r? im‐ strumental in the so-called Protestantization of agery, the latter being prominent both in the Buddhism paradoxically created a blind spot Huayan jing and Zen's literary and iconographic when it came to Pure Land, arguably the form of traditions, this chapter frmly speaks to the pit‐ Buddhism that resembles Protestant theology and falls of purely sectarian thinking (Huayan includ‐ original demographics the most. ed) and to the cross-fertilization of Buddhist prac‐ Shedding light on old blind spots however, of‐ tices. For like Pure Land itself, Huayan too was a ten reveals new ones. Korea continues to be over‐ generalized set of ideas that infuenced a number looked here despite its importance to East Asian of other sects, including Zen. Buddhism, and the absence of any Silk Route In conclusion, the editors and contributors scholarship is curious for a volume dedicated to have provided a timely and above all useful vol‐ pan-Asian Amida worship (there is interesting ume to the feld. They have ambitiously set out to work being done on Amida's hens? transforma‐ accomplish nothing other than restructure the tion tableaux at Dunhuang, for example). On a re‐ way we approach Buddhist studies, and on the lated note, I believe the volume could have been whole they succeed. Given their analytical tools of strengthened by more illustrations, especially giv‐ cult and praxis, we can better critique prescrip‐ en Pure Land's rich visual tradition and the edi‐ tive doctrinal texts such as the Da?abh?mika- tors' stated objective of departing from text-based
3 H-Net Reviews vibh?s?-??stra which are so blatantly biased against the path of faith for the "simple-minded." However it will take time and hopefully more vol‐ umes such as this to refne the analytical tools of cult and praxis. In this volume, these categories are basically employed to demonstrate that Pure Land is more than just a single sect and the sim‐ ple invocation of Amida-Buddha's name. However in the future, I believe the categories of cult and praxis could be employed for much more sophisti‐ cated analyses, which re-integrate the textual component of Buddhist studies (e.g., s?tra-copying as a merit-making praxis, or the insertion of scrip‐ tures to consecrate statues). For, in the end, I am not certain we need to throw the baby out with the bathwater. I am not sure we will ever be able to overcome our reliance on text; indeed, many of the practices examined here are based on ritual manuals or written accounts from centuries ago. Regardless, this volume has all the ingredients for a nourishing and satisfying read.
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Citation: Pamela Winfeld. Review of Payne, Richard K.; Tanaka, Kenneth K., eds. Approaching the Land of Bliss: Religious Praxis in the Cult of Amitābha. H-Buddhism, H-Net Reviews. October, 2006.
URL: https://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=12465
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