The complexity of the reform we need

the altar of Amidaji temple

click here for the Spanish version of this article

Definition of reform: By reform I mean a return to the roots of our religion and a refusal of the so-called modernist or "progressive" ideas which deny our basic doctrines or redefine them to conform to the worldly ideologies and faithless minds of various times.

First and foremost we must stand up and counteract such horrible ideas supported by many deluded scholars nowadays which present Amida as a myth, symbol, fictional character, etc, or His Pure Land as not being a real enlightened place to be attained after death but something in our heads or"here and now". This is the greatest of all evils and we must fight against it with all our strength. I am already doing this in my book The True Teaching on Amida Buddha and His Pure Land as well as in the articles I wrote in the section dedicated to this topic.

However, unlike many of my colleagues I think that the reform of Jodo Shinshu Buddhism must go deeper than counteracting such wrong views about Amida and His Pure Land. The problem is more complex than that. Buddhism and religion in general is under constant attack by a hoard of disturbed people who are not actually religious but who find religion very useful as a tool to promote their worldly ideologies like gay marriage, destroying the role of father and mother (or man and woman) and replacing them with so-called parent 1 and parent 2, inventing new sex identities and denying that humans are men and women or saying that sex is something we can chose and not a reality from birth, etc. The proponents of such clearly insane ideas are LGBTQ, a group centered on destroying families and normal relations between men and women and already promoted in various Jodo Shinshu centers across the world, especially in USA, where gay marriage is already an abnormal “normality”. Also, in clear disregard to Buddhist teachings on the illusory differences between human beings, some Jodo Shinshu centers in USA officially support racist or hateful ideologies like Black Lives Matter (click here to read) whose members have done many killing, looting and beatings and who specifically single out one race among the others. In the future I am afraid that if we allow such attitude to continue, many other extremist ideologies will be supported in the name of Jodo Shinshu in total disregard to general Buddhist teachings, Buddhist morality and the real purpose of the temple or dojo. 

We might tend to think that these things are not so important, but I remind you that many of those who promote such aberrant views also describe Amida and His Pure Land as metaphors, symbols or fictional literature, deny the authenticity of the Larger Sutra and Mahayana sutras in general or life after death. They are (with some exceptions) part of the same group of beings who can't accept religion as it is with all its values and beliefs from centuries past and always want to change what they do not like. 

The mind who thinks that he can change or disregard (pretend that it does not exist) the elements he doesn’t like in Buddha Dharma in general and Jodo Shinshu (Amida Dharma) in particular is the cause from which all kinds of distorted views appear. Buddha Dharma and Jodo Shinshu are not the property nor the creation of unenlightened minds so it does not really matter if our egos like some aspects of it or not. As sick patients (unenlightened beings) we must accept the medicine prescribed by the Doctor (the Buddha). As Jodo Shinshu Buddhists we must accept the specific teachings related with Amida Buddha and His Pure Land as taught by Shakyamuni and the Masters of our lineage, but also the general Buddhist teaching on cosmology, karma, life after death, morality and family. Jodo Shinshu is NOT something separate from the whole Buddha Dharma and Mahayana. If we respect Shakyamuni we will consider that ALL His teachings are true. It does not mean that we must follow all the practices He taught but that we can't deny or pretend that His other teachings on various topics do not exist.

I am telling you this in full responsibility - if we allow modernists or so-called progressive people to change whatever they want in the general Buddhist teachings as long as they do not touch Amida and His Pure Land, a day will come when they will distort (it is already happening) the teaching on Amida and the Pure Land, too. It is what these people do - they change, destroy and recreate a religion in their own image. They are not religious but they use religion as a tool to satisfy their hunger for approval and domination. So, if we want to clear and heal the international Sangha we must do total spiritual war against any type of modernist ideas and re-emphasize the importance of all Buddhist teachings on family, parents and children relation, morality, etc. Our orthodoxy and conservative approach must be applied in all aspects of the general Buddhist teaching and Jodo Shinshu in particular or we’ll fight a lost cause. 

The denial of the real existence of Amida and His Pure Land is not a separate incident but part of a more general attempt to destroy religion and Buddha Dharma. People who are working on this are all followers of the same worldly ideologies and part of the same evil. With such a wide spread enemy we must fight on all fronts in the same time. This is exactly why you can see me defending the specific doctrines of our school as well as the natural union between man and woman, or why I am against using the temples to justify and institutionalize sexual misconduct (gay marriage). When Shakyamuni Buddha gave advice to couples, He always did that to men and women, not men and men, or women and women, so there is enough doctrinal basis to defend in our sanghas the union between man and woman. 
He also referred to parents as father and mother in all His sutras (discourses) and instructions on how to treat and respect them, so again we have the doctrinal bases and natural law on our part to defend normal family. 

To those who say we should not talk about such things in the sangha because they are political I say that matters related with family and couples were already taught and discussed by Shakyamuni in various sutras, so these are Buddhist matters, not political. Also, how to organize our local sanghas and temple on Buddhist principles is a healthy spiritual preoccupation, not a political affair[1].

If we have good temples with members and families devoted to the Buddha Dharma where nobody picks and chose what they like and disregard what they don’t like, where followers do not bring worldly ideologies of any kind, there will be natural openness towards Jodo Shinshu (Amida Dharma) as well. In a place where all Shakyamuni’s teaching is accepted and any modernist view is rejected, His specific teaching on Amida Buddha will have more chances to be received in faith.

It is like trying to preserve one room (Jodo Shinshu) in a decayed building (general Buddhism). No matter how clean we keep that room, if the entire house is neglected our room will soon be infested by rats (fake teachers and followers) from other rooms. Thus, we must treat our room (Jodo Shinshu) as part of the entire house (general Buddhism/Mahayana teaching) and be orthodox and conservative with all general Buddhist views and teachings while insisting of course, on our specific Jodo Shinshu.

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[1] However, sometimes religion must act in the political arena to defend its rights, especially in a society where unnatural marriage already started to be imposed in some churches across the world – see the recent cases of priests or pastors who were accused and brought to justice for refusing to perform gay marriages. In some places in our world there are even talks of forcing the acceptance of gay marriage by law in the society and churches, so a religious resistance in such matters is very important.