ABSTRACT
The classical Western view of Buddhism as “ahistorical,” “passive,” and “pessimistic” is well known. According to Thomas Tweed, a scholar of early Buddhism in America, these very qualities 2 contributed to the failure of Buddhism to make greater inroads into American culture in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century (Tweed: 133–156). Among the various Buddhist traditions, Pure Land doctrine is especially prone to this characterization on account of the otherworldly, transcendent qualities of its cardinal doctrines. Sukhāvatī Pure Land, for example, is said to exist far beyond our Sahā World, “billions of Buddha lands to the west” (Taishō 12: 270a, 346c). Similar separation characterizes later views on of the relationship between the spiritual and the secular realms. Rennyo (1415–1499), for example, urged his Jōdo-Shinshū followers to keep their faith private: “First of all, outwardly, take the laws of the state as fundamental…. Inwardly, rely single-heartedly and steadfastly on Amida Tathāgata for [birth in the Pure Land in] the afterlife” (Rogers: 215–16). 3
