The evolutionist explosion that rocked the West had relatively little impact on the Dharmic world.
The Vedic portion had long been used to the idea of the world – from a star to a sparrow – “unfolding” from the One, the Center of Being.
It had also been long established that the One and all the components of Being – including the Atma, or soul of sentient beings – are non-dual and ultimately the distinction between them is illusory.
On the Buddhist side the idea of the Samsara as the beginningless and endless process of being is part of the very foundation of the teaching of Shaka-sama (Shakyamuni, the this-world historical Buddha).
Also non-dualism is clearly established in the Mahayana. The distinctions between Shunya (void) and the Samsara are illusory.
In terms of Japanese history an interesting coincidence occurred. At approximately the same time that the Evolutionist revolution was sweeping the West, the early Meiji Era was unfolding in Japan.
In those early days there was a relatively brief anti-Buddhist movement in government and other intellectual circles. The slogan “Out of Asia. Expel the foreigner” was designed to signify both cutting ties with Asia and ending the foreign domination that began with Admiral Perry’s black ships.
Japan was to be a “civilized modern country” on a par with the colonizing West and superior to the surrounding Asian cultures.
In line with this, an embrace of Shinto (impeccably Japanese with strong Imperial connections) and a rejection of Buddhism (a “foreign death cult”) was promoted in government and other influential circles.
Buddhism could not compete with Shinto in terms of “Japaneseness”, but it could take on the religions of the West in terms of representing itself as a “rational system” free from theistic “superstitions”.
This “rationalist” representation has had a huge influence in the West and influenced much modernist “Shin Buddhist” thinking, again especially in the West.
In Japan, where these issues did not loom very large outside of certain circles in a certain relatively brief period, the influence was, and is, much more limited, though by no means non-existent.
Consequently, while its influence in Japan remains relatively minor, it has played a huge role in shaping current Western Shin Buddhism in a rationalist/modernist and in some cases New Age-influenced direction.1
Buddhism is in a strong position to take on the theistic traditions of the West with their strong dogmatic (in the proper theological sense) nature.
This dogmatism prohibits the asking of certain questions and the postulation of various theses such as multiple rebirths, which would negate the strict heaven and hell rhetoric (this word also in its proper sense2) of these traditions.
This has inhibited many deeper interpretations, including those of Origen, a well-established father of the Church. The early Church went through two major “Origenist crises” and those who continued to accept Origen’s work did so on the grounds that he “could not” have meant rebirth in any literal sense.
Recent modern Fundamentalist-leaning Christians see interpretations of Origen’s work that accept rebirth in any meaningful sense as New Age-influenced aberrations.
In truth, the New Age concept of “reincarnation”, rooted in the earlier ideas of H. P. Blavatsky and her circle, and strongly influenced by non-scientific “evolutionism”, has very little in common with the reality of 輪廻 (rin’ne) – ever-recurring rebirth – as taught by the Dharmic traditions and many other cultures from Egypt to Siberia to native North and South American traditions, Africa and the Far East.
The Traditional doctrine is directly comparable to the heaven and hell dogma of the Abrahamic traditions. While there is no way of expressing the inexpressible – that which transcends this world and all its possible rational and verbal theses – the practical upshot as it pertains to salvation is the same.
And salvation is all that matters. The universal Traditions in this final degenerate Age3 are, in origin, entirely concerned with rescuing those who – for the most part – are incapable of rescuing themselves, and for the few who are so capable, providing Paths suitable to these spiritually very difficult times.
The core and starting point of this rescue mission is teaching the fact that we face a stark choice in this life. Its end will lead to one of two things: salvation (or re-uniting with the One in blissful union), or a very long (possibly aeons long) exile in worlds that are mostly painful and horrifying, some bearable to partly pleasant and a few mostly happy.
This is and should be a terrifying prospect. All genuine doctrines of rebirth accept that one may – and will, many times over the course of aeons – be reborn as an animal or an insect or as something far, far worse.
This is an emergency, and one that it is the primary function of the universal Traditions in this Age to address.
The Blavatsky-influenced New Age notion of reincarnation (which now has fairly wide currency in modern culture) is based on a loose, pseudo-scientific reading of “evolution”. This idea is that once one is human, one has “evolved” to a point where one will always be born human – just as lesser life-forms evolved into humans in this world.
This is in stark contrast to all Tradition and has no basis whatever.
The state of non-regression indeed exists but this is only when one has fully and completely entrusted oneself to Amida-sama (or equivalent states in other Traditions). Non-regression is not attainable outside of a saving Tradition. It is certainly not the inevitable product of some imagined “evolution” – a concept that did not exist until relatively recently.
Frithjof Schuon writes of Christianity and Buddhism:
They consider it [the here-below] not in relation to its symbolism, which connects all things essentially, qualitatively or vertically to the divine Prototype, but solely in relation to its character of manifestation, creation, hence of non-divinity, imperfection, corruptibility, suffering and death.4
The reason Christianity and Buddhism (in many respects outwardly opposite in approach) both take this stance is that both are universal traditions made available to all people without distinction of ethnicity or culture. These are very practical traditions focused primarily on rescuing humans – especially humans whose cultures have become estranged from Tradition5 – from their deadly peril. For this reason they are more focused on the rhetoric of this peril than the less pressing Truths that more established Traditions have leisure to pursue.
The heaven-and-hell rhetoric also exists in Buddhism since there are hells and a heaven in the six courses. On a deeper level, from the Jodo Shinshu perspective, the true Heaven is the Pure Land and the true Hell is return to the endless and terrifying cycle of rebirth.
Metaphysics – and therefore symbolism – begins to be re-introduced into Buddhism with the Mahayana. This is a natural development since by that stage Buddhism is beginning to mature into a fully-developed Tradition in its own right, with the space to address the universal Truths of metaphysics.
One aspect of this re-establishment of metaphysics – especially important from our point of view – is found in the Sutras describing the Pure Land.
“Pure” is a well-chosen description. The meaning of it is “untainted by any of the elements of this world and therefore shaped by metaphysical Reality”.
Among other things the Pure Land contains many birds and other creatures. These cannot be what birds and animals are in this world – that is, beings trapped in the near-eternal cycle of rebirth. These are the pure Essences or Archetypes reflected on the earthly plane by the equivalent creatures.
With this, Buddhism rejoins the world of Plato6 and all the ancient Traditions – including, of course, the wider Dharmic Tradition.
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1 See “Fundamentalism vs Modernism – Enemies Joined at the Hip”
2 See this essay by Ananda Coomaraswamy for the deeper meaning of “rhetoric”.
3 Indian Kali Yuga, European Age of Iron, Christian latter days, Buddhist Dharma-ending age or mappo, Islamic end times, etc.
4 Schuon, Treasures of Buddhism, p.96
5 We may tend to think of loss of Tradition as a modern phenomenon, but even in what are relatively “ancient” times from our point of view, cultures lost contact with their original Traditions. It was largely for the peoples of such cultures that the universal Traditions came into being.
6 Plato’s work consists essentially in re-stating the sanatana dharma – the timeless and universal Tradition – in terms ingestible by the people of the latter phase of the Iron Age. His explications have held good for over two millennia and are still valuable to all who wish to explore the universal Tradition further.
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