WHAT IS BORN IN the Pure Land? Where does the self come from and where does it go? Who is this self? In seeking to answer these fundamental questions, we will engage in a discussion of ideas beginning with Plato up through modern and contemporary Western philosophy. Our inquiry will also look into ideas developed in Mahayana and Pure Land Buddhism, with emphasis on the thoughts of Dogen (1200 - 1253) and Shinran (1173 - 1262).
LOCATING THE PROBLEM
Where do we go when our human existence comes to an end? Is it that nothing exists after death and that death simply returns this self to nothingness? Or is it that some other world exists after death and that we will go to live there in some form? These questions are as ancient as the history of the human race. Yet, though we are living today in a modern technological age, these are questions that are not far removed from us at all.
It is likely that primitive people had already faced these questions, albeit in a nebulous way. However, they were probably first posed selfconsciously in around the fifth Century B.C.E., a time that Karl Jaspers referred to as the "axial age" (Achsenzeit). It could be said that Western metaphysics, which began with Plato, as well as world religions such as Buddhism and Christianity, were set in motion by questions such as these.
These questions perplexed philosophers in modern Europe as well. The fundamental problem addressed in Descartes' Meditations on First Philosophy concerned proofs for the existence of God and the immortality of the soul. The critical philosophy of Kant later denounced as dogmatic the proofs set forth by those metaphysicians, but it did not consider the questions themselves to be meaningless. The existence of God and the immortality of the soul (Seele) could not be proven through theoretical reason. However, it was possible to inquire into them as the objects of faith within the scope of practical reason. What this means is that the inquiry of practical reason is a matter of great significance as it relates to the depths of human existence itself. Metaphysical studies of subjectivity in German idealism after Kant, including Fichte and Hegel, further sought to resolve the same problems in the new direction that had been established by Kant. In place of the traditional schools of metaphysics, which from the time of the Greeks had considered such things as "god" or "mind" from the standpoint of their substance (Substanz), there arose a new perspective that viewed them as subject (Subjekt), or as "spirit." Yet despite this shift, the problems themselves continued to exist. The thinking of Kierkegaard, who opposed Hegel's metaphysical speculation, and that of the existentialists associated with Kierkegaard focused on these problems as well. Their thinking dealt exclusively with the problem of transcendence in human existence.
In Mahayana Buddhist thought, this problem corresponds more than anything else to the issue of birth in the Pure Land as set forth in the Pure Land teachings. "Birth in the Pure Land," it could be said, actually constitutes a Buddhist symbol for transcendence. However, in Pure Land thought and faith, the words "Pure Land" and "birth" are losing the potent sense of reality and the power to arouse that they had previously possessed. This phenomenon parallels one found in Western philosophical and Christian thought, in which views pointing to the transcendent are on the verge of vanishing.
Such is the state of the contemporary age. For this reason, in order for the idea of birth in the Pure Land to be restored to its place of importance within the life experiences of people in the contemporary age, it will definitely be necessary to approach the problem with the proper attitude. That is to say, we must break through the outer shell of those concepts and enter into their interior, and there seek to comprehend the concepts once again, from a point of life that exists prior to concepts. I am referring here to the hermeneutical situation that Heidegger and others set forth for the interpretive study of classic texts.
In an early essay entitled, "Phenomenological Interpretations with Respect to Aristotle," 2 Heidegger discussed the significance of the hermeneutical method. When we who live in the present seek to understand ideas from the past, he stated, we must also comprehend them experientially. The extent to which we can grasp ideas from the past will be dependent upon the extent to which, and whether, we who are presently engaged in interpretation can keep alive our own questions. Nowhere does there exist a transparent text that will always be clearly evident to all people. Our questions are established vertically, up from the ground of the present reality of the hermeneutical situation. That source of our questions is also the fundamental situation that allows the past to talk about the past itself...