A Study on the Formation of Pure Land of Real-world Buddhism and Immediate Body Accomplishment in Silla Dynasty

2020 ◽  
Vol 26 (3) ◽  
pp. 5-18
Author(s):  
Shim-hun Kang ◽  
Shung-hyun Shin
Keyword(s):  
Real World ◽  
Pure Land

Pure Land, Real World

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Melissa Anne-Marie Curley
Keyword(s):  
Real World ◽  
Critical Energy ◽  
Nation State ◽  
Pure Land ◽  
Modern Period

For a thousand years, Japanese Buddhists cultivated vivid images of utopia in the form of the Western Paradise, but in the modern period, this utopianism became troublesome. Shinshū modernizers reinvented the Pure Land: some molded it into something the nation-state could tolerate; others used it to secure their own autonomy. Their reinterpretations encouraged new engagements with the tradition; during the war years, as the Japanese state bore down upon its citizens, thinkers with no obvious connection to Shinshū seized upon the twinned images of Shinran in exile and Amida’s Pure Land. For economist Kawakami Hajime, the Pure Land represented an inner realm of peace, the discovery of which allowed him to remain committed to Marxism through years in prison and forced seclusion. For philosopher Miki Kiyoshi, it represented the proletariat’s historical mission of liberating humanity, making Shinshū proof positive of the possibility of a proletarian religion. For historian Ienaga Saburō, it represented sheer negation of this world, grounding Shinran’s confrontation with society; Ienaga himself sought to uphold this legacy of resistance, rallying against a state that failed to live up to its ideals. These radical readings reveal that the critical energy of medieval Pure Land has not been exhausted.

The Modern Tradition

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Melissa Anne-Marie Curley
Keyword(s):  
Real World ◽  
Church And State ◽  
Nation State ◽  
Pure Land ◽  
Complementary Relationship ◽  
The Real ◽  
Pastoral Letter ◽  
Private Matter ◽  
Modern Nation State ◽  
The Ideal

Abbot Kōnyo’s pastoral letter of 1871 codifies an understanding of the Pure Land as a transcendent realm, attainable only after death, and of faith as a private matter of the heart. This understanding is valuable as a way of negotiating a place for Shinshū in the regime of the modern nation-state. Early Meiji thinkers like Shimaji Mokurai rely on this understanding of religion as internal in arguing for the separation of church and state. Shinshū reformer Kiyozawa Manshi pushes this focus on interiority to its limit, destabilizing the complementary relationship between the Buddhist law and the imperial law that his predecessors sought to secure. During the Taishō, Kiyozawa’s disciple Kaneko Daiei attempts to rearticulate the connection between the ideal Pure Land and the real world, while the Honganji-ha thinker Nonomura Naotarō argues that it is time for the Pure Land tradition to set aside the myth of the Western Paradise.

The Land in Pure Land

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Melissa Anne-Marie Curley
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Real World ◽  
Early Modern Period ◽  
Warring States Period ◽  
Pure Land ◽  
Community Based ◽  
The Real ◽  
Warring States ◽  
Modern Period ◽  
A Site

Polemical accounts suggest that the Western Paradise has traditionally been imagined as a strictly transcendent pocket universe, having no relation to this world. But medieval Pure Land believers sought the Pure Land in this world in a variety of ways, mapping it onto the landscape around them in order to rehearse the event of birth. Hōnen’s understanding of the Pure Land amplifies its supernatural character as a site within which the laws governing the real world do not apply. Shinran’s identification of himself as neither monk nor layman further knits together estrangement from the real world and birth in the Pure Land. Rennyo takes Shinran’s self-identification seriously, attempting to build a community based on the principle of mutual equality and organized according to seniority, reflecting the utopian values of the Warring States period. “Traditional” Pure Land does not begin to emerge until the early modern period.

Epilogue

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Melissa Anne-Marie Curley
Keyword(s):  
Social Relations ◽  
Real World ◽  
East Asian ◽  
Pure Land ◽  
The Real ◽  
Critical Engagement ◽  
Critical Hope ◽  
Ways Of Thinking

A recent revival of interest in Marxism in contemporary Japan suggests new ways of thinking about Pure Land Buddhist utopianism as politically significant. Drawing on the work of Japanese Marxist Hiromatsu Wataru and Korean historian Baik Youngseo, Nakajima Takahirō makes an argument for rethinking East Asian relations from the periphery. Shinshū—with its emphasis on exile, marginal places, solidarity, and conviviality—has much to offer theorists interested in new ways of approaching social relations, as is already apparent in the work of Hishiki Masaharu and his understanding of the Pure Land as a principle of criticism. This way of imagining the Pure Land in a critical engagement with the real world should not be understood as brand new; on the contrary, it represents a return to the kind of critical hope that characterized medieval Pure Land.

scholarly journals Reconstructing Pure Land Buddhist Architecture in Ancient East Asia

Religions ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (9) ◽  
pp. 764
Author(s):  
Young-Jae Kim
Keyword(s):  
East Asia ◽  
Real World ◽  
Central Axis ◽  
Pure Land ◽  
Sanskrit Literature ◽  
The Real ◽  
High Rise ◽  
Religious Behaviors ◽  
Conceptual Explanation ◽  
Over Time

Pure land comes from the Indian term “sukha,” which means welfare and happiness. However, in East Asia, Buddhism has been associated with the theological concepts of the immortal realm in the bond of death and afterlife. This study reviews detailed conception of Pure Land architecture in Sanskrit literature, as well as Buddhist sutras. The thesis notes that the conceptual explanation of Pure Land architecture, which describes the real world, becomes more concrete over time. Such detailed expression is revealed through the depiction of the transformation tableau. Hence, through Pure Land architecture situated on Earth, this research shows that Buddhist monks and laypeople hope for their own happy and wealthy settlement in the Pure Land. The building’s expression of transformation tableaux influences the layout and shape of Buddhist temples built in the mundane real world at that time. Moreover, this study notes that Bulguksa Monastery is a cumulative product of U-shaped central-axis arrangements with courtyards, terraced platforms, high-rise pavilions, and lotus ponds, plus an integrated synthesis of religious behaviors by votaries as a system of rituals. Further, it merges pre-Buddhist practices and other Buddhist subdivisions’ notions with Hwaeom thought, in comparison with Hojoji and Byodoin Temples that follow the Pure Land tradition.

Pure Land, Real World

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Melissa Anne-Marie Curley
Keyword(s):  
Real World ◽  
Pure Land

Replications can cause distorted belief in scientific progress

2018 ◽  
Vol 41 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michał Białek
Keyword(s):  
Real World ◽  
Scientific Progress ◽  
The Public ◽  
Psychological Science

AbstractIf we want psychological science to have a meaningful real-world impact, it has to be trusted by the public. Scientific progress is noisy; accordingly, replications sometimes fail even for true findings. We need to communicate the acceptability of uncertainty to the public and our peers, to prevent psychology from being perceived as having nothing to say about reality.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document