Some people assert that Jodo Shinshu is a pessimistic faith. We can break down the grounds on which they do so into four different categories, two of which are common to Buddhism as a whole and two of which pertain especially (though not exclusively) to Jodo Shinshu.
Pertaining to Buddhism as a whole:
Pessimism about the world and human life
Pessimism about our ability to radically change the situation
Especially pertaining to Jodo Shinshu:
Pessimism about our ability to save ourselves
Pessimism about our moral character and about the afterlife
So let us tackle these one at a time.
Pessimism about the world and human life
This is the absolute starting point of Buddhism and the teaching of Shakyamuni (the this-world historical Buddha).
This world is characterized by dukkha – suffering and lack of satisfaction. This is not pessimism, it is realism. We can ignore the facts of human existence and that is how most people get by. But the facts do not cease to exist.
Every one of us is subject to sickness, old age and death. Even if we manage to escape any serious form of the first, we will certainly not escape the other two.
And neither will those around us. Whoever is precious to us, whoever we love will be lost to us. Not may, will. Each of us will die and leave our survivors grieving.
So there is no “happy ever after” in this world. There is only “happy for a while”.
When we want something, we are desperate to have it, but when we acquire it, normally it only makes us happy for a short time and then we move on to our next craving.
Permanent satisfaction is impossible in this world because of death, and temporary satisfaction is usually very short-lived.
These are the facts of human existence that began Shakyamuni’s quest to find true happiness for all beings.
This is why our stories must always have villains or conflicts. We are not even entertained by ever-after happiness. Such a story would seem boring to most adults. In other words, on some level we don’t even want ever-after happiness in its this-world form.
Some (especially Western) Buddhists attempt to ignore the very foundations of their faith and remodel Buddhism as a psychological self-help system or a model for reforming this world, or to miscast Buddhist meditation as a “mental technology” for improving our lives in this world.
All of this is a travesty of Shakyamuni’s real teachings, which are not concerned with this world. Shakyamuni specifically instructs us to ignore speculations that have no bearing on lifting ourselves out of the dire predicament in which we find ourselves.
He did this partly because self-power Buddhism (which is the subject of the early Buddhist teachings1) and its onerous disciplines and practices leave no time for such speculations or for addressing this-worldly issues.
Pessimism about our ability to radically change the situation
This question is hardly discernible from the first. If dukkha is the fundamental fact of human life, we are clearly never going to be in a position to change it. Shaka-sama described this world as a burning house from which we must find our escape route.
Western modernists may balk at this fact, dismiss it as pessimism, and try to redefine Buddhism as something entirely different from what it is – a means of making this world and human life better. But in doing so they are merely attaching the name “Buddhism” to a relatively recent Western progressist view of the world that is in fact completely antithetical to real Buddhism.
Pessimism about our ability to save ourselves
The criticism of Jodo Shinshu made by many practitioners of jiriki (self-power) Buddhism is that it belittles the ability of people to attain Enlightenment.
It does so because Jodo Shinshu is directed toward bonbu – ordinary people.2
We are not able to open satori for ourselves. We do not have the fortitude or dedication to undertake the rigorous disciplines of the Buddhist monk.
We are enwrapped in the desires and aversions of this world, only thinking occasionally of higher Truths. We are the akunin or bad person (bad from the Buddhist perspective of total dedication) that Shinran talks of – and a word that he used to characterize himself.
But we are not offended by this characterization. How could we be when our Shinran Shounin applied it to himself? We know that we are bonbu – foolish children playing pointlessly in the world. We know that the only points in our lives that really matter are those when we turn our foolish minds to Amida-sama.
We are small, silly children of the Great Parent who watches over us, fulfilling the Primal Vow to hold us tightly, never to let us go.
We are happy whenever we turn our childlike3 minds fully to the Great Parent – not least because we realize that all the happiness in this world is short-lived.
The descriptions of the Pure Land may seem fantastical and perhaps somewhat alien, but whatever may be our true heart’s desire is present in the Pure Land.
Frithjof Schuon speaks of “the uncreated Bliss that is none other than the positive content of Nirvana”. He also explains on the same pages, that:
if Paradise4 is regarded as an intensification or exaltation of all that is perfect and lovable in this lower world, then the “supreme Extinction” must also be regarded as an intensification or exaltation of what is positive and perfect, not only in the earthly world but in the entire universe.5
Since Shinran equated the Pure Land with Nirvana itself, I think we would not be wrong in suggesting that the term “Pure Land” means nothing other than “the positive content of Nirvana” – which is to say the fulfillment of every possible True Desire.
Some may object – very reasonably – that much desire is impure and tainted. I believe we can go further and say that all earthly desire is impure because it belongs to the manifest world which has impurity woven into the very fabric of its existence.
That is why the Pure Land is “pure” – it is void of everything that is tainted by the perpetual flux of “this world” – which includes the whole of samsara.
Consequently, the desires that are fulfilled in the Pure Land are not our old earthly desires, but the pure Archetypes of those desires purged of every taint of samsaric existence.
Pessimism about our moral character and about the afterlife
While the first criticism of Jodo Shinshu is typically made by practitioners in some other Buddhist schools, this one is more typically posed by non-Buddhists and is to some extent applicable to Buddhism as a whole.
The Buddhist teaching on the afterlife is the doctrine of the cycle of birth and death and the six courses. The six courses inevitably entail terrible fates because if better karma leads us to better lives, inevitably bad karma will eventually plunge us into one of the many hells.
This is the Buddhist view, but what other views of the afterlife are possible? They break down into four types:
The four views of the afterlife
1. The Abrahamic doctrine of Heaven and Hell
2. The Dharmic doctrine of the cycle of rebirth and the inevitability of horrible fates until one is reunited with the One.
This differs somewhat between the four Dharmic religions: Hinduism, Buddhism, Sikhism and Jainism, but essentially they all teach the stark alternative of reunion with the One or recurring evil existences on the wheel of rebirth.
Shinran Shounin often said that if he was not saved by Amida-sama his only destination was hell. He was right, of course, because unless one is reunited with the One, one must inevitably spend time in at least one of the hells unless one is lucky enough to be born human (or human-like) again for another chance before that happens.
The human-like state is the only one of the six from which one can escape the flux of samsara.
Shinran is giving us a much-needed warning. Hearing Shinran’s words we cannot help but think “If Shinran-sama himself is destined for hell if he is not saved by Amida-sama, what will be my fate?”
Our Shounin must have intended this reaction. In his usual unique way he was finding a way to bring us face to face with our peril.
We are perhaps beginning to see here that the Abrahamic and the Dharmic religions are essentially saying the same thing in their different Spiritual “languages”.
We are faced with two straightforward and stark alternatives: re-uniting with the One or facing horrors on the wheel of samsara.
3. Modern “reincarnationism”
This has its origin – at least as currently developed – in the work of Mme Blavatsky and her circle and is deeply influenced by the Evolutionist explosion taking place at the same time in the West.6
The postulate of this new theory is that we roll relatively comfortably through a long series of lives, “learning” and thereby slowly “evolving”. We cannot be reborn as an insect or animal or anything else (except perhaps some imagined this-worldly “higher life-form”) because we have “evolved” to human status and cannot de-evolve.
All this is pure invention of relatively recent origin. It has no basis in any form of Tradition and obviously no basis in real science either.
4. Death is the end. Our consciousness ends with the cessation of our bodily functions and brain activity.
This is perhaps the most widely-held view in the modern West because it is considered “scientific”.
However, it can have no basis in science because real science restricts itself to measurable and quantifiable this-world data.
There is no data about the afterlife, which cannot be observed and is not part of the material realm studied exclusively by genuine science.
If science steps outside this most basic parameter, it ceases to be science and becomes imagination.
Scientists hold various opinions of the afterlife, but none (either “scientistic” or religious) can be called “science”, only the non-scientific opinions of scientists.
These are the only four widely and seriously held theories of the afterlife.
Of the four I would say that the most optimistic is Jodo Shinshu.
Jodo Shinshu tells us that all we have to do is trust in Amida-sama and the terrible dichotomy at the end of life is solved for us by other-power (tariki). We can be at ease in this world and happy in the next.
So to return to the question of the title: Is Jodo Shinshu pessimistic? No, it is perhaps the most optimistic of all outlooks on the world except for those based on self-deception.
Some people call the “extinctionist” position of no life after death a happy one, but who really wants to be extinguished along with all her loved ones?
Reincarnationism really offers no “happy ever after” unless it is combined with some pseudo-religion or pseudo-“spirituality”, for which there is no Traditional basis since no real Tradition accepts it.
Jodo Shinshu begins by giving us stark teachings on the inevitability of old age, disease and death. We can bury our heads in the sand and pretend this is not true, or just decide not to think about it, but who can deny that this is self-deception?
Our faith teaches us some home truths about our own character and warns us of the perils of the wrong afterlife. All this is necessary.
But looking at all reasonable theories and positions, what is more optimistic than our Jodo Shinshu?
Notes:
1 The first turning of the Dharma Wheel
2 See The “Easy Path”: A Way for “ordinary people”
3 “Intellectuals” and the Great Ones of this world – and indeed any persons not in a state of satori – are childish from the ultimate perspective.
4 Paradise: The Abrahamic term for the Uncreated Bliss, or Nirvana, equivalent to the Indian ananda, of the formula sat chit ananda translated as “being, consciousness, bliss”, which represents the unchanging reality called Brahman.
It is also interesting to note that the concept of “consciousness” (chit) here is closely related to the concept of bodhi – precisely the quality represented by the term Buddhism itself, and meaning the state created by having Awakened.
5 Schuon, Treasures of Buddhism, pp. 83-84
6 See Evolution in Western, Vedantic and Buddhist Traditions