scholarly journals Charakterystyki krainy Sukhāvatī w kontekście przemian buddyjskiej kosmologii i soteriologii. Część pierwsza

2021 ◽  
pp. 153-170
Author(s):  
Robert Szuksztul
Keyword(s):  
East Asia ◽  
Pure Land ◽  
Mahayana Buddhism ◽  
Buddhist Tradition ◽  
Buddhist Practice ◽  
Mahāyāna Buddhism ◽  
The Buddha

Tekst podejmuje analizę Sukhāvatī – świata („pola buddy”) Amitabhy, określanego również jako Czysta Kraina. Pewne jej cechy – przynajmniej na pozór – odbiegają od standardowych wyobrażeń na temat buddyzmu. Skłaniało to niektórych badaczy do poszukiwań bezpośrednich zapożyczeń z innych religii i kultur, co miało wyjaśnić źródło nazwy, położenie i cechy tej krainy. Charakterystyki te można jednak bardziej przekonująco wyjaśnić, analizując proces ewolucji samego buddyzmu, co stanowi główne zadanie tej pracy. Tekst podzielony został na dwie części. W części pierwszej przedstawione jest założenie o wewnątrzbuddyjskich źródłach pochodzenia Sukhāvatī wraz z uzasadnieniem tego wyboru. Następnie omówiona zostanie ewolucja buddyjskiej wizji kosmologicznej, która ostatecznie doprowadziła do koncepcji pól buddów, w tym Sukhāvatī. Część druga poświęcona zostanie analizie charakterystyk tej krainy w świetle Krótkiej i Długiejsutry Sukhāvatīvyūha, w kontekście innych tekstów buddyjskich, aby wykazać, że Sukhāvatī skupia w sobie następujące buddyjskie wątki: (a) w warstwie wizualnej przedstawienie raju, (b) w wymiarze niematerialnym aktywność nirwany, (c) w aspekcie ścieżki łatwe praktyki charakteryzujące warunki odrodzenia dla niższych niebios. Characteristics of The Land of Sukhāvatī in The Context of Changes in Buddhist Cosmology and Soteriology. Part One The text analyses Sukhāvatī – Amitābha’s purified buddha field, also known as the Pure Land. The vision of Sukhāvatī became immensely popular in Indian Mahāyāna Buddhism, and in East Asia it started a new Buddhist tradition. Some of its features – at least on the surface – differ from standard ideas about what Buddhism is. The descriptions of the activity of the Buddha Amitābha, who brings salvation to all beings, by enabling them to be reborn and live a blissful and virtually endless existence in his paradise land of Sukhāvatī, where achieving the ultimate goal of Buddhist practice is quick and easy, led to attempts at showing the structural similarities of this tradition with, for example, Christianity. There were also attempts at proving direct borrowings from other religions and cultures, which was supposed to explain the source of the name, location and characteristics of this land. These characteristics, however, can be more convincingly explained by analysing the process of evolution of Buddhism itself, which is the main focus of this work. Due to its volume, the text is divided in two parts. The first part defends the assumption about the intra-Buddhist origins of Sukhāvatī and the justification for this choice in the context of various other theories about the origin of that land. Then the evolution of the Buddhist cosmological vision that eventually led to the concept of purified buddha fields, including Sukhāvatī, will be discussed. The second part will be devoted to an analysis of the characteristics of this land in the light of the Shortand Long Sukhāvatīvyūhasutras, and in the context of other Buddhist texts, to show that Sukhāvatī combines the following Buddhist themes: (a) in the visual layer, the presentation of a paradise, an ideal land that lacks any existential ills, (b) in the non-material aspect, the activity of nirvāṇa, (c) in the dimension of the Buddhist path, the easy practices that characterise the conditions of rebirth for the lower heavens.

Was Gandhāra Art a Product of Mahāyāna Buddhism?

1964 ◽  
Vol 96 (2) ◽  
pp. 104-119
Author(s):  
Y. Krishan
Keyword(s):  
Buddhist Art ◽  
Human Form ◽  
Mahayana Buddhism ◽  
History Of ◽  
Mahāyāna Buddhism ◽  
The Buddha

I. The Gandhāra and Mathurā Schools of Art made a revolutionary contribution to the traditions and history of Buddhist art. Early Buddhist art was aniconic. At Bhārhut, Sānchi and Amaravātī before the 1st century a.d., the Buddha was represented only in symbols; a riderless horse, the tree or wheel, stūpa, and the rest indicated the great renunciation, enlightenment, preaching of the doctrine and the nirvāṇa. In Gandhāra and Mathurā art, however, the Buddha was represented in human form, and many sculptures representing bodhisattvas have been found in Gandhāra.

Modern Pure Land Thinkers

2017 ◽  
pp. 180-200
Author(s):  
Mark Unno
Keyword(s):  
Pure Land ◽  
Western Thought ◽  
Mahayana Buddhism ◽  
Japanese Buddhism ◽  
Shin Buddhism ◽  
Mahāyāna Buddhism

Kiyozawa Manshi (1863–1903) and Soga Ryōjin (1875–1971) were Shin Buddhist thinkers of the Pure Land tradition of Higashi Honganji, one of the two main branches of the largest sect of Japanese Buddhism. Kiyozawa, together with his student Soga, spearheaded the modernization of Shin Buddhism by addressing and incorporating Western religious and philosophical ideas as well as the broader context of Mahayana Buddhism, as religious seekers attempting to deepen their own realization, and as institutional leaders who sought reform in what they perceived as an antiquated, corrupt ecclesiastical hierarchy. Kiyozawa focused on the synthesis of Shin Buddhism and Western thought and Soga on the reformulation of Shin within the Mahayana. Kiyozawa emphasized Amida Buddha as absolute other power. Soga reformulated Dharmākara Bodhisattva as the embodiment of the “storehouse consciousness” (Sk. ālaya-vijñāna) of the Yogacara.

Quán Thế Âm of the Transpacific

2017 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 83-107 ◽  
Author(s):  
Allison Truitt
Keyword(s):  
Essential Element ◽  
Pure Land ◽  
Vietnamese Refugees ◽  
Mahayana Buddhism ◽  
Historical Structures ◽  
Mahāyāna Buddhism ◽  
Alternative Ethics ◽  
Spiritual Geography

Bodhisattvas are an essential element of the Pure Land branch of Mahayana Buddhism practiced in Vietnam and its diaspora. Many Vietnamese lovingly refer to Bodhisattva Quán Thế Âm as a “gentle mother,” and the circulation of her name and image constitutes a spiritual geography of the transpacific in distinctly Buddhist terms. Through a reading of two miracle tales, I argue that Quán Thế Âm mediates the divergent histories of Vietnamese refugees without dissolving the historical structures of difference that separate the diaspora from the homeland. Devotion to the bodhisattva should thus not be seen only in terms of Mahayana doctrine but also as the embodiment of an alternative ethics of how Vietnamese refugees make sense of their place in the aftermath of war.

Avalokiteśvara: The Bodhisattva of Compassion

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chün-fang Yü
Keyword(s):  
Distinctive Features ◽  
Mahayana Buddhism ◽  
The Future ◽  
Mahāyāna Buddhism ◽  
The Many ◽  
The Buddha

Avalokiteśvara is one of the most famous bodhisattvas in Buddhism. The worship of bodhisattvas (beings of enlightenment) is one of the most distinctive features of Mahāyāna Buddhism. Whereas early or mainstream Buddhism recognizes only two bodhisattvas—the Buddha in his previous lives and Maitreya, the future Buddha—there are a number of bodhisattvas in Mahāyāna to whom one can appeal for help and guidance. Of the many bodhisattvas, Avalokiteśvara is identified specifically as the embodiment of compassion and as such has been worshipped throughout Buddhist Asia.

The Iconostasis and Darśan in Orthodox Christianity and Mahāyāna Buddhism

2020 ◽  
Vol 24 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 38-64
Author(s):  
Junhyoung Michael Shin
Keyword(s):  
Visual Culture ◽  
East Asian ◽  
Russian Orthodox ◽  
Pure Land ◽  
Orthodox Christianity ◽  
Mahayana Buddhism ◽  
Religious Traditions ◽  
The Gaze ◽  
Esoteric Buddhism ◽  
Mahāyāna Buddhism

Abstract This essay discusses how Orthodox Christianity and Mahāyāna Buddhism understood the acts of both seeing and being seen by the divine, and how such ideas affected the making and use of icons in these two religious traditions. I focus on the visual culture of the Byzantine and Russian Orthodox churches between the eleventh and fifteenth centuries, and that of the East Asian Pure Land and Esoteric schools between the ninth and fourteenth centuries, respectively. I interpret the function of the iconostasis as an enduring remnant of the Jewish veil used to obstruct God’s vision. Here, Jacques Lacan’s concepts of the gaze and the screen provide a thought-provoking rationale. In turn, I investigate the mandala and icon in Japanese Esoteric Buddhism, in which both seeing and being seen by the divine were deemed spiritual blessings granted by the divine being. This thematic comparison brings to light the less discussed aspects of Christian and Buddhist visual experiences.

Modern Zen Thinkers

2018 ◽  
pp. 246-270
Author(s):  
Mori Tetsurō ◽  
Minobe Hitoshi ◽  
Steven Heine
Keyword(s):  
Zen Buddhism ◽  
Pure Land ◽  
True Self ◽  
Mahayana Buddhism ◽  
The Third ◽  
Japanese Buddhism ◽  
Mahāyāna Buddhism

This chapter consists of three parts, each of which presents the philosophical contributions of an influential modern Japanese thinker closely affiliated with Rinzai Zen Buddhism: D. T. Suzuki (Jp. Suzuki Daisetsu), Hisamatsu Shin’ichi, and Masao Abe (Jp. Abe Masao). The first part focuses on the kernel of Suzuki’s “Zen thought,” namely the “logic of is/not” that he sees as underlying Zen koāns and teachings. The second part focuses on the key themes of Hisamatsu’s thought: his understanding of the “true self” in terms of a formless and thus completely unobjectifiable “absolute nothingness” and his claim that this true self is “absolute autonomous.” The third part provides an overview of Abe’s contributions to the philosophical analyses of Zen texts and teachings as well as to intrafaith (especially between Zen and Pure Land schools of Japanese Buddhism) and interfaith dialogue (especially between Mahayana Buddhism and Christianity).

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