Asian Religions, page 22
Survey 5 Religious Dimensions of Gender and Sexuality
The weblink for this survey is http://goo.gl/mT8UVM. The survey is inspired by Buddhist monastic values and assumptions. It measures attitudes concerning the relationship between gender and sexuality as well as between gender and religious practice.
Notes
1 Quoted or summarized from “Vatta Khandhaka: Collection of Duties,” translated by Thanissaro Bhikkhu. Access to Insight, June 30, 2010. At http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/vin/cv/cv.08x.than.html (accessed on April 25, 2012).
2 All these passages come ftom “The Celibate Life,” from Awareness Itself by Ajaan Fuang Jotiko, compiled and translated by Thanissaro Bhikkhu (Geoffrey DeGraff). At http://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/thai/fuang/itself.html (accessed July 25, 2013).
3 Holmes Welch, The Practice of Chinese Buddhism (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1967), p. 117.
4 Karma Lekshe Tsomo, Sisters in Solitude: Two Traditions of Buddhist Monastic Ethics for Women (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1996), pp. 28, 81–82.
Part VI
The Mahāyāna Buddhist Tradition
24
Faith
Most Buddhists have no intention of becoming monks or nuns. They integrate their religious practice into the social and economic patterns of the householder's life. They make every effort to live a good, moral life and to follow the Five Precepts of lay Buddhist practice, and they express their faith in prayer and offerings. While in the West lay Buddhists focus on meditation, in Asia lay Buddhism is primarily faith-oriented. For most Buddhists over many centuries, Buddhism has consisted of worship and offering, hope for better circumstances in this life and the next, and prayer for family fortune and good health.
The Mahāyāna tradition developed a great cosmic system of multiple realms featuring mythical mountains, parallel worlds, layered destinies of richly described heavens and hells, and powerful mahāsattvas (“great beings”) with magical powers harnessed for the salvation of living beings. The compassion of these god-like celestial beings is so great that, simply by “calling upon their names,” one can evoke their miraculous response. Philosophically, this idea of universal salvation is based upon the doctrine of interdependence (pratītya-samutpāda), which asserts that individual salvation is both ethically and conceptually impossible. Religiously, this is expressed in the bodhisattva vow – the vow of the “enlightened being” (which is the literal meaning of bodhisattva) – to delay his or her own “complete disappearance” (pari-nirvāa) and to remain in this world of samsāra, in this world of rebirth and suffering, until all beings in the universe are saved as well. These bodhisattvas employ infinite means to bring about universal salvation, and their enlightened natures are made manifest in their display of upāya – a capacity to use whatever means are needed (including supernormal powers and physical self-transformation) to ease suffering wherever it is found. The term upāya is often translated as “skillful means” or “efficient means,” which suggests the bodhisattvas' marvelous responsiveness and supernatural power to ease suffering, especially the simple pains and anxieties of everyday life: they can bring about a healthy pregnancy and birth, success in a middle school exam, recovery from an illness, financial prosperity, protection from traffic mishaps, or give one the strength to overcome a drinking problem, to cope with an abusive spouse, to mourn the death of a loved one, or to face financial difficulties. Given the inevitability of everyday – but still formidable – concerns of this kind, bodhisattvas are invoked often and everywhere, and their grace extends to every place in every moment.
Cosmic Buddhas and Bodhisattvas
The buddhas and bodhisattvas are too numerous to count, much less to name, so we will look at a small sampling of the most widely worshipped mahāsattvas.
Amitābha (Radiant Light)
The most widely worshipped of all the buddhas is Amitābha Buddha, also named Amitāyus (Radiant Light) in the Sanskrit Mahāyāna scriptures (see Figure 24.1). The name Amitābha is transliterated in Chinese characters O-mi-tuo-fo (阿彌陀佛), and the same characters are pronounced Amida-butsu in Japanese. Just as Śākyamuni Buddha is the wheel-turning monarch of this world, Amitābha Buddha sits on his kingly throne in a heavenly paradise called the Pure Land. On the strength of either good works or faith, those who believe in the saving grace of the Buddha Amitābha hope for rebirth in his Pure Land, a heavenly realm described in scriptures like Sukhāvatī-vyūha (The Pure Land Sūtra). In the Pure Land all cares fade away, one's lifespan is extended indefinitely, one is surrounded by loved ones, and all this takes place in a beautiful and serene environment of verdant hills, songbirds, tender animals, and sparkling waters.
Figure 24.1 The Buddha Amitābha, Kamakura. © tiger_barb / iStockphoto.
Pure Land Buddhism developed first in China, where it was eventually integrated into Zen (Chinese “Chan”) as the “dual practice” of Zen meditation and Pure Land faith, and later in Japan, where it became the most widely practiced form of lay Buddhism in Japanese culture. Taking as its foundation the “doctrine of pure grace” of the great Japanese theologians Hōnen (法然, 1133–1212) and Shinran (親鸞, 1173–1263), the New School of Pure Land Faith (Jōdo Shinshū, 淨土真宗) describes rebirth in Amida's paradise, based on “faith alone” and on Amida's universal grace. Today Jōdo Shinshū has a congregational structure: local parishes, ministers, choirs, and regular worship services similar to Protestant Christianity.
Devotional practice directed toward Amitābha Buddha has a meditative aspect. The scriptures of the Pure Land tradition, with their rich descriptions of the heavenly paradise, are employed as visualization manuals. The devotee reads and recites the scripture, then practices a discipline of focused visualization of the various elements of the Pure Land. As the devotee is picturing this heavenly realm, his or her mind becomes calm, filled with the positive energy of a perfect world. The visualizer creates a personal Pure Land in conceptual space.
Another type of worship consists in repeating or reciting the name “Amitābha” in chanting sessions that can last for an hour or more and generate hundreds, even thousands of repetitions. These repetitions are recorded by the devotee in a small booklet; every filled circle represents 100 repetitions of the Buddha's name. As the devotee chants the name of the Buddha, he or she counts on a rosary bracelet of sandlewood or jade beads, which is worn on the left wrist. This worship practice is called 念佛: nian-fo in Chinese, nembutsu in Japanese. It is perhaps the most common form of Buddhist devotional practice in Asia.
Maitreya (The Kindly One)
Maitreya is an “advanced bodhisattva” – that is, an enlightened being who has tremendous supernormal powers he extends to the world in order to bring beings to salvation. In the case of Maitreya, salvation takes the form of this-worldly transformation, expressed in concrete terms. Maitreya rewards those who worship him in the process of their own efforts to better themselves and the world, both materially and socially. In its simplest form, this bodhisattva is represented as the fat, jolly Buddha that one often sees in Chinese businesses: a bearer of mirth, wealth, and blessings, both spiritual and material. As the “future Buddha,” Maitreya promises “future reward” – including financial prosperity.
Maitreya is also venerated in the context of social and political reform movements, especially movements of liberation from colonial rule. The Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi has invoked the name of Maitreya when addressing political oppression in Burma (Myanmar). In Qing Dynasty China, Maitreya was called upon to protect laborers seeking a more just and equitable distribution of land and wealth, and in other parts of Southeast Asia Maitreya is a divine protector in the face of state-supported violence against disenfranchised populations.
Avalokiteśvara (The Perfect Companion)
The bodhisattva Avalokiteśvara is the most immediate, most present, and most accessible of the cosmic buddhas and bodhisattvas. Though male in Sanskrit scriptures dedicated to him such as The Lotus Sūtra, in China and Japan Avalokiteśvara is portrayed in feminine form, as a kind and powerful goddess known as 觀音 – Guanyin or Kannon. One especially illustrative form of this bodhisattva is her representation as “Kannon of a thousand eyes and a thousand hands” (see Figure 24.2), symbolizing her sensitivity to the suffering of the world (her thousand eyes) and her power to bring suffering beings to salvation (her thousand hands). In one famous temple in Kyōto, Japan, a thousand such images were constructed, each 5–6 feet in height, gilded and jeweled. These marvelous religious statues constitute one of the greatest displays of religious material culture in the world.
Figure 24.2 Statues of Thousand-Armed Kannon at Sanjūsangendō (三十三間堂), Kyoto. © Christophe Boisvieux / Corbis.
Guanyin/Kannon appears in numerous other forms as well – “fish-basket Guanyin,” the “white robed Guanyin,” the great aide to Amitābha Buddha, and so on – being named after the various, in fact theoretically infinite forms in which the goddess can appear. Guanyin is a “shape-shifter,” demonstrating her marvelous powers of self-transformation – that is, her upāya (“skillful means”). According to The Lotus Sūtra, for example, Avalokiteśvara is capable of appearing in any of 32 forms, depending on her devotees' particular needs, including a king, queen, monastic elder, householder, priest, peasant, man, woman, boy, girl, or non-human spirit. In the Chinese and Japanese tradition, Guanyin/Kannon also appears as a child prodigy who cures her cruel father's mortal illness with flesh from her own body (even her own liver and eyes). She also appears as a prostitute who employs sexual seduction to heal a man from sexual addiction, and as a fishing girl who saves sailors from shipwrecks at sea.
How does one receive these rewards? By single-mindedly calling upon the name of the bodhisattva, by offering food and incense to her images, and by practicing charitable giving and compassionate acts of kindness and caring to those in need.
Kitigarbha (Earth Matrix)
The realm in which Kitigarbha aids those in need is the realm of the various hells and purgatories of the Buddhist cosmological system. Because the law of karma is so exact and, one might say, so just, punishment for wrong-doing is finely calibrated and fits exactly the “crime”: there is a mechanical distribution of karmic cause and effect. In fact there is no “divine judge” in Buddhism, no cosmic law-giver, only the law (the dharma) itself, which works impersonally, like the natural laws that govern action and reaction in the physical universe. The only god-like beings who participate in this process are bodhisattvas, who work to ameliorate the suffering of “guilty parties” and to lessen their pain. One of the most powerful of these hell-relievers is Kitigarbha.
Kitigarbha is best known in Japan, where he is called Jizō (地藏, Earth Matrix, a reference to something like the underworld of the Western tradition). Jizō enjoys the worship of persons who believe that they are wrong-doers and fear a hellish destiny. Jizō temples come alive late at night, when they are visited by underworld figures (criminals, gang members, prostitutes and call girls). Even more commonly, Jizō temples are visited by women who have miscarried or have elected to abort an unborn child, and a Jizō temple will conduct a funerary rite for the fetus and a rite of forgiveness for the mother. The aborted fetus is called in Japanese a “water baby” (水子, mizuko), as represented in Figure 24.3, and the rite is called a “propitiation of the water baby” (水子供養, mizuko-kuyō).
Figure 24.3 Line of stone statues of the bodhisattva Jizō, carved by the disciples of archbishop Tenkai (1536–1643). Nikko, Japan. © Albert Mendelewski / iStockphoto.
Kitigarbha also protects other children who have died prematurely. A few years ago, when I was living in Taiwan, I was curious about a small shrine to Kitigarbha (Dizang in Chinese) placed near a railroad crossing. I was informed that the shrine had been erected in propitiation of the spirits of two small boys who had been struck and killed by a train several decades ago. The spirits of the boys who died prematurely are calmed by the bodhisattva, so as not to harm other children. Children at play are now protected by the bodhisattva from suffering the same fate.
We can notice several unique characteristics of a religious system that has populated the cosmos with saviors – beings such as Amitābha, Maitreya, Avalokiteśvara, and Kitigarbha. For those many millions of people, past and present, who have preserved their faith in these mahāsattvas, the following statements are true:
No matter how dire one's present circumstances, belief in the existence of powerful, compassionate saviors instills confidence, optimism, and hope.
The marvelous power of self-transformation exhibited by Avalokiteśvara and other cosmic bodhisattvas means that anyone one encounters in life could be a bodhisattva in human form; believing this, one treats all beings with reverence and appreciation.
Persons who believe they have done wrong are confident that there are divine beings whose grace extends even to them; in the case of women who have chosen to abort a child, Buddhism offers a ritual means to care for their spirits.
Faith and devotional acts are accompanied by good works, such that anyone is capable of rebirth in heaven.
In the face of unjust social and economic conditions, buddhas and bodhisattvas (such as the Future Buddha Maitreya) are cosmic defenders of righteous protest and rebellion.
The Bodhisattva Path
Though the cosmic buddhas and bodhisattvas described above are certainly extraordinary, if not supernatural, the Buddhist tradition insists that anyone can become a buddha by following the path of the Buddha, the Buddha-dharma. We have already explored the Eightfold Path of the monastic tradition. This path was expanded in the Mahayāna tradition, which places emphasis on universal salvation – a form of salvation extending to monastics and laypersons alike. It is a linear 10-step path beginning with lay practice, advancing to monastic practice, and finally reaching the four supernormal skills of the bodhisattva:
A lay practice: 1 dāna (giving, generosity, cultivation of merit);
2 śīla (moral virtue, responsibility for one's actions);
3 kānti (patience, forbearance in adversity, avoidance of anger, perseverance in the path);
B monastic practice: 4 vīrya (energy, vigor, mindful alertness as cultivated by a monk or nun);
5 dhyāna (meditation, comprehension of the “four noble truths,” mastery over concentration/samadhi, skills in math, medicine, poetry);
6 prajñā (wisdom, full insight into conditioned arising/pratītya-samutpāda and emptiness/śūnyatā);
C bodhisattva practice: 7 upāya (skillful means, a heavenly savior/mahāsattva who magically projects him-/herself into many worlds in order to teach and help others according to their needs);
8 praidhāna (non-relapse, certainty about attaining Buddhahood, mastery over the transfer of merit and of the gift of grace);
9 bala (power, perfecting the use of upāya for any nature of being);
10 jñāna (knowledge – a tenth-stage bodhisattva like Maitreya resides in the Tuita Heaven, aided by lesser bodhisattvas, all-knowing and all-seeing).
Rather than describing each of these stages in detail, we can make several observations:
First, anyone – not just monks and nuns – can be on the path to enlightenment, to becoming a tenth-stage bodhisattva, and eventually a Buddha. Monks and nuns – even bodhisattvas and buddhas – are not qualitatively different from the rest of us, not a “different order of being.” We are all on the path together.
Second, the path begins with charity, for instance the sharing and the basic acts of kindness that we encourage in our children and that soon come naturally to them. It is easy – appropriate even for children – to be on the path to enlightenment.
Third, the path to enlightenment is not private but universal, and always involves others. The focus of Mahāyāna practice is kindness and compassion.
Fourth, “supernatural powers” are merely an extension of the “natural” acts of kindness and religious self-cultivation of “this-worldly” practice – not something beyond or outside the world of everyday experience.
Finally, we can see that the early Western representation of Buddhism as an “atheistic non-religious” practice of self-effort in emulation of the Buddha is an incomplete picture at best. Buddhism as practiced in East Asia and elsewhere contains a rich cosmology of multiple worlds governed by multiple divine beings, all of whom can be present to us in our daily lives. Buddhism is not simply a meditative tradition, but a “religion” in every sense of the word. Even “Buddha” is not simply “a man,” but rather an abstract idea in many forms. In the Mahāyāna tradition Śākyamuni Buddha is merely one form, the nirmāna-kāya, or “transformation body” of Buddha. In addition, there is the sambhoga-kāya (the “bliss” or “cosmic” body), multiple in form and including all the buddhas and bodhisattvas, and the dharma-kāya, the “formless” body of Buddha that is beyond any concrete description – a conception that ultimately inspired the Mahāyāna tradition known in the West as “Zen.”
