Looking for the Pure
Land: A Visit to Xuanzhong Monastery
Guoying Stacy Zhang
Buddhistdoor Global | 2017-09-22 |
According to the major sutras of Pure Land
Buddhism, the Larger Sukhavativyuha and the Smaller Sukhavativyuha,
Amitabha Buddha’s Pure Land (Skt. Sukhavati) lies beyond 10 billion
Buddha-lands west of our World of Endurance. Having been fully
developed from the mid-6th to the early 9th centuries, the belief
in rebirth in such a place and the recitation of Amitabha’s name to
achieve this goal became central to Pure Land Buddhism, serving as
an expedient for the meditative path to enlightenment or even as a
method of equal importance since the Ming dynasty (1368–1644). To
better understand the nature of the Pure Land and how it is related
to the world in which we sentient beings live, I visited one of the
birthplaces of Pure Land Buddhism—Xuanzhong Monastery
(玄中寺)
in Jiaocheng County, Shanxi Province, China.
Since its establishment in 472, Xuanzhong
Monastery has stood on the same site in the Shibi Mountains, remote
and secluded. Three patriarchs of the Pure Land school, Tan Luan
(曇鸞,
476–542), Dao Chuo (道綽, 562–645), and Shan Dao (善導, 613–81), resided and
spread the teachings there. For this reason, Xuanzhong Monastery
received continuous imperial patronage during the Tang dynasty
(618–907). When Kublai Khan ruled China, he also granted the
monastery imperial protection. Khan’s edict, inscribed in stone in
both Chinese and the ‘Phags-pa script,* has been well preserved in
the monastery’s stele collection. Today, Xuanzhong Monastery is
lauded as an ancestral court by Pure Land Buddhists in China, as
well as by followers of Jodo Shu and Jodo Shinshu—two Pure Land
sects in Japan.
During my stay at Xuanzhong Monastery, I was
warmly received by Venerable Wufeng (悟峰). He has been the
acting abbot since the passing of the former abbot Venerable Master
Gentong (根通, 1928–2015), who was born in Guandong
Province, and later became an influential Buddhist leader in Shanxi
Province and the seventh vice director of the Chinese Buddhist
Association. Venerable Wufeng is from Ili Kazakh Autonomous
Prefecture in Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region. In his teens, his
interest in Buddhism was ignited by the 1982 film The Shaolin
Temple, and he was determined to become a kung fu master to benefit
the world. However, during his initial monastic life at the Shaolin
Temple, Venerable Wufeng realized that his desire to learn kung fu
was driven by fame and self-interest, and he became convinced that
true happiness and perfection cannot be achieved by combat, but
rather, by wisdom.
Nowadays, success is usually measured by
action and tangible outcome. For those unfamiliar with Buddhism, it
may be difficult to comprehend how the monastic sangha can
contribute to the world while choosing to withdraw from it. “It is
true that at the turn of the 20th century—a time of turmoil in
China—many sangha members either focused on self-cultivation or on
performing rituals for the dead,” Venerable Wufeng explained. “As a
response, Venerable Master Taixu (1890–1947) pioneered the idea of
Humanistic Buddhism, calling on sangha members to construct a Pure
Land on Earth by engaging with society, integrating Buddhist
teachings into everyday life, and guiding people in good conduct,
mind purification, and spiritual cultivation.”
This effort to build a Pure Land on Earth is
in every way compatible with faith in Amitabha’s Pure Land. While
clearing defilements from their minds and from this world, Pure
Land Buddhists long for an even better place—a perfect and
magnificent realm free of suffering. On the surface, Amitabha’s
Pure Land in Mahayana Buddhism and Heaven in Christianity may sound
similar: both are of a metaphorical nature, describing a state of
consciousness or condition of existence. Nevertheless, they reflect
two fundamentally different tenets of cosmology and soteriology.
“For instance,” Venerable Wufeng clarified, “in Buddhism, heaven is
yet found in the six realms of samsara, but Pure Land is beyond
that, transcending the cycle of rebirth. Moreover, in the Christian
Heaven, each being is a subject of God, while in the Buddhist Pure
Land, each being becomes a Buddha themselves, possessing the same
virtue and capacity as the Buddha.”
On one hand, the path to Amitabha’s Pure Land
lies in the merit gained from this life and our past lives. On the
other, as Venerable Wufeng elucidates, the vision of Amitabha’s
Pure Land makes us less attached to this world. In the Buddhist
view, all wars and killing originate from nothing but human
selfishness. Venerable Wufeng commented, “Kings and warriors are
heroes because they conquer others. The members of the Buddhist
sangha are sages because they conquer themselves. They are masters
of their own minds, so they are able to spread wisdom and
compassion, benefiting others in a selfless way.” Indeed, since the
beginning of the 20th century, Xuanzhong Monastery has played an
instrumental role in Sino-Japan relations. During the Second World
War, Venerable Ekei Sugawara (菅原恵慶), a Pure Land
master from Japan, traveled to Xuanzhong Monastery to pay homage.
Having devoted the rest of his life to the research and promotion
of Pure Land Buddhism, his ashes were buried at Xuanzhong Monastery
at his request. This gesture was not just a religious statement,
but also one for world peace.
Chinese Buddhism developed the concept of
various Pure Lands, such as Maitreya’s Tusita, Bhaisajyaguru’s
Vaiduryanirbhasa, and Vairocana’s Padmagarbha, all expressing a
general goal of rebirth in an ideal place. However, Amitabha’s Pure
Land became the most popular, thanks to the nianfo
(念佛),
the method of reciting Amitabha’s name devised by the Pure Land
school patriarchs. It is so approachable that even the least
enlightened person can recite “Namo Amituofo” for salvation anytime
and anywhere. Today, “Amituofo” has become a greeting among
Buddhists in China, regardless of the Buddhist tradition one is
affiliated with. You could be facing a layman, a Chan master, or
even a Tibetan lama, and as soon as you start a conversation with
“Amituofo” and joined palms, you already have their goodwill and
trust.
“Reciting the name of Amitabha can be compared
to using a point-and-shoot camera. It looks simple, but it has all
the necessary functions. This method is like a small spring, and
ultimately it flows into the ocean of Buddhist teachings”,
Venerable Wufeng explained to me. Apart from merely reciting
Amitabha’s name, there are another three nianfo methods for people
of different meditative and spiritual capacities, namely reciting
the name of Amitabha in front of his image, reciting the name of
Amitabha while visualizing his image, and reciting the ultimate
essence of Amitabha.** According to Venerable Wufeng, in the
practice of the last nianfo method, one experiences the merging of
Amitabha’s name being recited and the mind that recites Amitabha’s
name. He elaborated: “If Amitabha’s name is snow, the ultimate
essence of Amitabha is water, as snow melts into water; if
Amitabha’s name is floating clouds, the ultimate essence of
Amitabha is void, as clouds disappear into the void. Through this
method, one sees Buddha nature (Skt. tathagatagarbha) and the
Buddha’s true body (Skt. dharmakaya). The method itself is Chan, is
esoteric knowledge.”
** See Wufeng,
“Xuanzhong Monastery and Pure Land Buddhism,”