Paradise in Pure Land Buddhism

Historical Context: 10th C Japan

• imperial court based in Kyoto

• strategic intermarriage: Fujiwara family ruling instead of emperor

• life was pretty stable

• Buddhism for elites

  • requires direct transmission and training

• itinerant priests -> travel the country

  • Kuya

    • distils teaching down to one phrase: the nenbutsu

    • opens religion to the people, anyone can achieve paradise

    • Welcoming Descent: at death Amida Buddha will take your soul to paradise

Appearance of Paradise

• goodness according to the sutras of the Amida Buddha: recite nunbutsu once

• Western Paradise

  • perfume, flowers, jewels, treasures

  • Tarma Mandela 14thC

    • based on Chinese palatial architecture

How to Die

• sit upright in meditation pose, no distractions, reciting the nenbutsu, right frame of mind

Genshin’s Essentials of Salvation

• 1st Period: Flourishing of Law (1,000 years)

• 2nd Period: Decline of Law (next 1,000 years)

• 3rd Period: Degeneration of Law (last 10,000 years)

  • in Pure Land Buddhism, no longer possible to achieve awakening from 2052

Phoenix Hall

• Uji, built by Fujiwara no Michinaga

• inherited by Fujiawra no Yorimichi

• paradise looks like a Chinese palace

• Yorimichi turns Phoenix Hall into paradise

• Amida shrine

Golden Hall

• Hiraizumi -> northernmost outpost of Japanese power

  • Golden Hall in Chusonji

    • Minamoto no Yorimoto -> first Shogun, chased his brother north, burned much of the temple down

  • run by Northern branch of Fujiwara

    • repressed Ainu

    • worried about Karmic weight

      • had themselves mummified

      • put corpses inside statues in paradise recreation