Highlights

Although I became interested in Buddhism very early on, it was not until the early 2000s that I began seriously to look again at the Buddhist tradition and, in 2007, I read something written by Michael McGhee which introduced me to the work of the Japanese 20th-century philosopher, Tanabe Hajime. I was so taken with what I read that I immediately emersed myself in Tanabe's 1946 masterpiece, "Philosophy of Metanoetics" in which he drew powerfully upon some key ideas of Shinran Shonin and the Jōdo Shinshū tradition of Pure Land Buddhism.

"Shinran's religious thought deserves special attention in our times [1946] precisely because it is relevant to the needs of present-day intellectuals. Its profound and wide-reaching truth can appeal to the hearts of our people -- nay, to all people everywhere. I have no doubt that of all the sects of Buddhism, the doctrine of Pure Land Buddhism is the most accessible to the Christian world. It is comparatively easy to read its mythological elements in symbolic terms, and its doctrine makes no appeal to miracles or anything that contradicts the scientific mind. If, as we shall see shortly, the core of Shinran's thought lies in metanoetics [i.e. repentance and letting-go of self-power], it has internal affinities with science through the principle of absolute criticism described earlier. In this sense, we might even say that it is more accessible to the modern scientific spirit than Christian theism is."

This struck me, and continues to strike me, as right and so for the next 16 years I found myself exploring ever more deeply, not only the Kyoto school of philosophers but also the Shin Buddhist tradition as a whole, but especially that represented by the Shinshū Ōtani-ha branch of Jōdo Shinshū through figures like Kiyozawa Manshi, Soga Ryojin and Yasuda Rijin. This is also the tradition to which Miki Nakura-sensei belongs

one author whose work I particularly came to value was Alfred Bloom, an American scholar who pioneered Jōdo Shinshū studies in the English-speaking world.

In a short, biographical essay called, "A Spiritual Odyssey: My Encounter with Pure Land Buddhism," he tells us what then happened:

"[I had the] opportunity to give talks in Christian churches in English as a means of helping Japanese youth learn English and hear the Gospel. On one occasion, as I preached on the Christian idea of grace, the minister translated my words. He said, "This is like Amida [Buddha]."

Bloom recounts that, this brought him up short because he had been taught to believe that only Christianity had the truth about how the world is and our place in it. For him, the sudden experience of the Gospel being translated so directly into the terms of another religious tradition proved to be a pivotal, life-changing moment in his own journey of faith. Naturally, for me, as a liberal Christian, Unitarian minister who was now intra-acting powerfully with Jōdo Shinshū thinking and practice, Bloom's story was of greatest interest to me and, taken together with the earlier experience of Carpenter, I began to understand that my own spiritual journey, though unusual, was not one which was taking me through wholly unknown or new territory. Instead, I began to see it was a journey with a long and honourable lineage.

Bloom wrote (the quotation is found on p. 15 of the pdf, on the page numbered, 115):

"Shinran's thought completes the evolution of liberal religion as it has developed in western society. It permits a person to maintain a critical religious stance which is a key element in religious liberalism, while at the same time, it promotes a deep religious commitment and devotional perspective harmonious with intellectual endeavor. It makes possible a more integrated religious existence in the western context than is now provided for by many traditional western denominations."

To put it simply, after 43 years of exploring liberal religion from within the liberal Christian and Radical Enlightenment tradition, I think Bloom is right and, basically, this is why I have taken the step I have today.

although my own religious life "has been nurtured equally by both Buddhism and Christianity" I have reached the point where I know that, "temperamentally, I . . . lean more towards being a Buddhist than a Christian" ("God or no God?", Creation, Issue 77, 1957)

Quotes

• species:
• themes:

Notes

Collations

Annotations

References

Brown, Andrew James. “A Brief Address on the Occasion of My Kikyoshiki.” Caute, 1 Oct. 2023, https://andrewjbrown.blogspot.com/2023/09/a-brief-address-on-occasion-of-my.html.