The Rev. John Paraskevopoulos tells us that:

Buddhism assuredly has its hells (sixteen of them in fact!) but they are not eternal. Some individual karmas are worse than others and therefore require more radical expiation but, in the end, all beings are destined for the Pure Land.

On the other hand I was taught by the Rev. Shaku Shou Shin that Amida-sama regards us as beloved children. Oyasama (Amida-sama seen as the Great Parent) watches us play in the world of samsara. The Great Parent will save us without any expiation. Indeed if we could save ourselves we would have no need of Amida-sama’s salvation. We would already be able to become Buddhas or at least Bodhisattvas.

As the Rev. John Paraskevopoulos tells us, all beings will ultimately be saved, and this must be through the saving grace of Amida-sama (of course, different Traditions will use differing Names for the One, but the One by definition is One, and for us the One is only Amida-sama).

The totality of beings will never be capable of self-salvation. That is why every current tradition provides a path of salvation based on some form of Other Power.

So why do we need to be reminded of expiation and the sixteen hells? Very simply because while we can be saved without expiation, we cannot be saved without Faith.

If Faith is all that is needed, why is it necessary to mention such things as expiation and the sixteen hells?

Because in order to have faith we must be aware of what is at stake for us in this life and in those to come. If we fail to escape samsara in this life, a terrible fate assuredly awaits us. This is because we must spend time in each of the six Courses, two of which are terrifyingly harsh and the others by no means perfect (the heavenly Course alone comes close to perfection). It is not an eternal terrible fate as the rhetoric* of the Abrahamic religions has it, but a very long-lasting one.

So it is necessary to have the awareness and motivation to accept salvation in this life.

Also by making us aware of the terror we are saved from, we also become aware of the “cosmic” vastness and mystery of Amida-sama’s saving power. Thus a sense of true “religious awe”** grows in us.

Frithjof Schuon tells us that the only “unforgivable sin” is the rejection of the Divine Mercy that is offered to us.

Of course, it cannot be eternally unforgivable or all beings could not be saved, but it is “unforgivable” in terms of this “incarnation”.

Therefore it is necessary for us to know and be told what is at stake.

The Great Parent watches us play. The Great Parent knows that we are incapable of keeping Amida-sama in mind all the time. Knows that we are going to say the Nembutsu only in those moments when we half-awaken from the ensnaring illusion of the samsara.

But for the Great Parent to save us we must have those half-awakened moments and must know what is at stake. If we know that, we are able to do the one thing necessary for our salvation – and that is entrusting.

In those half-awakened moments we must give ourselves wholly to Amida-sama and say the Nembutsu, as often as we remember, with all our hearts.

Knowing that only the Great Parent can lift us out of the snare of samsara and bring us safely into the Pure Land.

Namu Amida Butsu

Namu Amida Butsu

_______

*As Ananda Coomaraswamy tells us, the term “rhetoric” originally meant the art of making Truth accessible to all kinds of people – not just metaphysical minds or “intellectuals”. Please refer to this essay.

** The term “awe” in its modern sense derives directly from the Biblical usage in relation to the Abrahamic perspective on the One – the personal creator God.

In Buddhism there is no Creator and the “creation” (samsara) simply unfolds with no apparent cause or meaning. Both views of creation contain what are theologically termed “mysteries” – things that are inexplicable and apparently illogical (if not repugnant) to ordinary thinking.

In one case the meaningless and purposeless manifestation of the samsara. In the other case the apparent cruelty and arbitrariness of a God who creates creatures whom He knows from the beginning are doomed to eternal damnation at his own hands. Or if we say that He did not know how individuals would use their “free will”, or how much suffering his created world would entail, then we also have to abandon either the traditional definition of God as omniscient or else the definition of God as good.

Christian mystics have understood and resolved this Mystery (“All manner of thing shall be well” in the words of Dame Julian of Norwich). But since the full Truth is ineffable and cannot be explained with human words or logic, they cannot express what they know.

On the Dharmic side, Enlightened ones understand the apparently causeless and meaningless nature of the samsara, but again cannot express their Enlightenment with human words or logic.

As we have noted, in the case of the Dharmic religions the “mystery” is the apparently causeless and meaningless and cruel manifestation of the samsara. Eternal damnation of course is simply the Abrahamic rhetoric, at least from the Buddhist perspective, but in a sense the samsara doctrine creates its own version of “eternal damnation” – the apparently endless presence of beings in the pain and terrors of the samsara.

Christian mystics have penetrated the contradiction, or to use the correct theological term, “mystery”, of the goodness of God, just as those in a state of Satori have penetrated the mystery of the apparently meaningless, causeless and cruel manifestation of the samsara together with the inherent implication that, in contradiction to all Mahayana teaching, all beings cannot be saved (since the samsara appears to go on forever and always contains beings).

These solutions cannot be expressed with human words or logic, as the full Dharma is inherently inexpressible.