From the point of view of Traditionalist or Perennialist thought, the reason we can trust Jodo Shinshu (Shin Buddhism) is closely related to the reason we can trust “religion” (the great World Traditions) in general.

Richard Dawkins made what seems on the surface like an excellent criticism of religion. He points out that most religions – and many sects or denominations within religions – believe that they are exclusively right and the others are wrong.

If this is the case then even if one of them is right, all the others must be wrong. And if at best nearly all of them are wrong, why should we believe one particular one to be right?

Naturally Dr. Dawkins makes an exception for his own sect – “scientific materialism”, which is no more “scientific” than any other belief.

By its nature (and this is its fundamental source of strength) science restricts itself absolutely to observable and measurable phenomena.

So it can have no opinion whatever on non-quantifiable questions like life after death. Therefore credal atheism, despite abusively using the term “scientific” is simply another exclusivist philosophy claiming to be “the truth” and calling all the others wrong.

Some people may say that since science at least has an observable basis this lends some support to this creed as opposed to others, but since science has no opinion on the questions concerned, that is no more a valid argument than saying that since the Pope can be proven to exist Catholicism must be true.

All it has in its favor is the cultural pressure of a world where the suggestive force of “science” (popularly taken to be some kind of oracular entity rather than a method) tilts the playing field in in favor of this particular non-sequitur.

Traditionalism, on the other hand postulates the “transcendent unity of religions”, arguing that at the deepest level all the great traditions are saying fundamentally the same things, but in different cultural “languages”.

This latter is natural precisely because that which transcends the observable world of time and space cannot be expressed in literal terms – our language can only deal directly with phenomena that are – or at least could be – part of the spatio-temporal realm.

From this standpoint, if the Transcendent Unity can be established – and I believe it has been* – then the differing religions and traditions, far from diminishing each other become the ultimate witness to the underlying truth behind them – and thereby also to each other.

Jodo Shinshu makes a promise that may seem too good to be true. One that may appear to be at variance with Buddhism (especially Buddhism as popularly perceived in the West) and with Tradition as a whole.

But in fact it is in line with the thinking of a large segment of tradition, particularly in its approach to the Latter Days (a universal concept – in Buddhism called Mappo).

The Prophet Muhammad said in a hadith that in the first age of Islam, those who fail to keep one-tenth of the law will be lost, but in the last age those who keep even one-tenth will be saved.

Jodo Shinshu does not require us to keep even one-tenth of the Law (or the Precepts). All that is needed is to put all one’s faith and trust in Amida Buddha and say the Holy Name.

Now this concept of salvation by faith will be familiar to Western people. It was present in Christianity from the beginning, but became more prominent as the age progressed – as did the same concept in Mahayana Buddhism.

The figure of a Savior who takes all upon himself by a herculean effort (Christ died on the cross, Amida Buddha worked for literally eons to establish the Primal Vow by which we are saved and the Pure Land itself) is clearly not exclusive to Pure Land Buddhism.

The reciting of the Holy Name as the best practice for the Mappo (the latter days when human spiritual ability declines radically) is found in various Indian traditions (where the Latter Days are termed Kali Yuga) and came to special prominence with the rise of devotion to the savior-figure Sri Krishna.

It is perhaps more usual for Shin Buddhists and Buddhists in general – particularly in the West – to argue for the uniqueness of their path and to be at pains to deny or brush aside similarities to other Traditions.

This I think is because of the materialistic “historicist” tendency in the West that dismisses similarities as stemming from external influence and belittles shared concepts as “derivative”.

Our point here is the opposite. Such profound areas of similarity are guarantees of a fundamental Orthodoxy that transcends mere derivation (Christianity had no influence on the formation of Jodo Shinshu in Japan and even less did Islam).

Neither does it take away from the uniqueness of each tradition.

But what it does tell us is that Jodo Shinshu is not an aberration from the underlying Reality of the Great Traditions. It is not fantastical or heterodox.

It is something in which, precisely because it is in line with multiple strands of Universal Tradition, we can put our trust.

If you are new to the Traditionalist philosophy, the question you need to ask yourself is this. If all the world’s great traditions are telling us fundamentally the same things albeit in different “spiritual languages”, are they likely to be wrong? Has humanity been completely misguided for millennia in its most fundamental thoughts and in the philosophies that formed the very basis of all civilizations, including our own?

Has all of this been mere folly and ignorance as the proponents of the fundamentalist version of the “scientific world-view” would have us believe – even when we know that their ideology is founded in pseudo-science?

We need to think about this very carefully, because everything depends on it.

__________

---

• Most notably in the various works of Réne Guénon, Ananda Coomaraswamy and Frithjof Schuon.