"One Way" and All Points West

Just to continue with the "scope of doctrine" theme.

According to historic teachings the Pure Land lies to the West. Amida will come at the last and carry us there. Alternatively, the Pure Land is NOW, a "now" seen with new eyes. And just who (or what) carries us there is a path unique to each, our life as lived each and every moment in each and every day.

Making sense of such diversity is perhaps more for the academics than the rank and file of us common folk, an opportunity for theologians to get their teeth into whatever Holy Book is their own choice of God's Word. It is called hermeneutics. All good fun; that is until the bullets ( or arrows ) begin to fly and the racks of the Inquisition come into play and the faggots lit. 

The idea of "one way" (only) to "salvation" has always appealed to many, with the One Way invariably being their very own. There can only be one truth, they claim, so it all stands to reason.

I just happened to be reading some sort of analysis of Four Quartets, the poem by T S Eliot. There is a passage in the Introduction that seemed to capture my own approach so well that I feel bound to quote it here, and hopefully it will be easier to understand than my own strangled waffle. The author is speaking of Eliot's use of various doctrines of various faiths:-

Eliot feels no compunction in alluding to the Bhagavad Gita in one section of the poem and Dante's Paradiso in the next. He neither asserts the rightness nor wrongness of one set of doctrines in relation to the other, nor does he try to reconcile them. Instead, he claims that prior to the differentiation of various religious paths, there is a universal substratum called Word (logos) of which religions are concretions. This logos is an object both of belief and disbelief. It is an object of belief in that, without prior belief in the logos, any subsequent religious belief is incoherent. It is an object of disbelief in that belief in it is empty, the positive content of actual belief is fully invested in religious doctrine.

So given such a thought stream, the "one way" is a "universal substratum", called in Christianity "the Word" (logos), but a Word that can be expressed in various guises. In fact, as I would claim, can be expressed according to the lights and faculties of each and every human being, each unique. 

In Pure Land symbolism, the undifferentiated nature of enlightenment is represented by gold, while the individual nature of each human being is expressed as a lotus flower. In pictures of the Pure Land there are often seemingly infinite golden lotus flowers blowing in the breeze. 

A golden lotus flower

All this could be called a "universalist" position, one that can be found in various Buddhist Scriptures. As here in the Vimalakirti Sutra:-

The Lord speaks with but one voice, but all beings, each according to their kind, gain understanding, each thinking that the Lord speaks their own language. This is a special quality of the Buddha. The Lord speaks with but one voice, but all beings, each according to their own ability, act upon it, and each derives the appropriate benefit. This is a special quality of the Buddha.

Or here, in the Hua-Yen Sutra:-

Just as the nature of the earth is one

While beings each live separately,

And the earth has no thought of oneness or difference,

So is the truth of all Buddhas.

Just as the ocean is one

With millions of different waves,

Yet the water is no different:

So is the truth of all Buddhas.

Just as the element earth, while one,

Can produce various sprouts,

Yet it's not that the earth is diverse:

So is the truth of all Buddhas.

And again here, in the Lotus Sutra, in the Parable of the Dharma Rain:-

I bring fullness and satisfaction to the world,

like rain that spreads its moisture everywhere.

Eminent and lowly, superior and inferior,

observers of precepts, violators of precepts,

those fully endowed with proper demeanor,

those not fully endowed,

those of correct views, of erroneous views,

of keen capacity, of dull capacity -

I cause the Dharma rain to rain on all equally,

never lax or neglectful.

When all the various living beings

hear my Law,

they receive it according to their power,

dwelling in their different environments.

The Law of the Buddhas

is constantly of a single flavour,

causing the many worlds

to attain full satisfaction everywhere;

by practicing gradually and stage by stage,

all beings can gain the fruits of the way.

The Dharma rain falls

That's all for now folks.