1. On Contemporary Shin Buddhist Thought 2. Author Affiliations: Ryūkoku University, Kyoto
關鍵詞
佛教人物=Buddhist; 淨土=Pure Land; Pure Land=淨土; Sukhavati=極樂世界; Duhkha=Dukkha=苦; Buddha Nature=佛性; Sukhavati-vyuha=無量壽經; Amida Buddha=Amitabha Buddha=阿彌陀佛; 菩提心=Bodhicitta; 慈悲心=Loving Kindness=Compassion
摘要
A comparison of the two notions, Buddhist and Christian, is beyond the scope of this paper, although I hope the essential difference—particularly in terms of the cause of duḥkha rather than in terms of the religious experience of duḥkha —will become clear through this discussion. I feel that ‘suffering’ as an equivalent for duḥkha is omitted not only because it is misleading, but further because of a great divergence between Christianity and Buddhism in their approaches to the reality of this world. Therefore, I shall try to use the Sanskrit term duḥkha as often as I can This paper is constituted of four sections. Section One surveys the Buddhist realization of duḥkha . It shows how duḥkha has come to be taken as the intrinsic mode of human existence. Section Two treats the scriptural teaching of duḥkha expounded in the Larger Sukhāvatīvyūha Sūtra , which provides the foundational witness for the whole structure of Pure Land Buddhist salvation. In this section I will argue that, rather than the general Buddhist mode of Gautama’s teachings, which aims at the attainment of enlightenment through ‘self-power’, it is the Buddhist mode of the teaching of Amida, which leads us to enlightenment through Amida’s vowpower, namely, ‘other-power’, that has fathomed the depth of human duḥkha and carried the Buddhist doctrine of duḥkha to its ultimate development. Section Three focuses upon the bodhisattva’s compassionate practice of vicarious duḥkha , which is the ground upon which Amida’s salvation of all sentient beings is made possible. The concluding section clarifies the Pure Land Buddhist way to emancipation from duḥkha . I will argue here that it is the only way possible for all sentient beings to be able to attain nirvāṇa , the goal of Mahāyāna Buddhism.
