What is the meaning of the concept God or Gods in Pureland Buddhism?

[Katrien Sercu]

I only know the childish katholic image of The God. Beneath that i recognise the cosmos, nature, the world, life as a whole, with all different levels and processes.
What means God in Pureland Buddhism: has this a place or not? In which way?
I'm interested and i want some clarifying, so...i ask to others, who maybe know. Namo Amida Bu

[Seiyo]

I have thought about this a lot lately since I have been examing many different religions. There is one thread in all of the religions and that is God. Buddha never responded when asked about God. It is my impression that his response would have been way too difficult to understand for most of us. I was brought up as a Catholic and was taught that God was to be feared, had a long white beard, could condemn one to hell if they didn't obey the ten commandments and on an on. Then I switched to Zen Buddhism and took the Precepts. The precepts were like suggestions that would help each of us have a more comfortable life with no condemnation of we violated them.

But I do believe that there is a God. But let's forget the word God. I like how the Dao Te Ching says that the eternal name cannot be named. Dao (God) is something that IS and leave it at that. (Is this why Buddha did not want to get into this definition and explantion?. Perhaps Buddha wanted to teach us how to end suffering and not dwell on the God issue).

What if we called ("God") the Way, Supreme Being, Higher Power, That Which Is, Energy or some other term which we feel comfortable with? The term God has many bad connations associatied with it. I have heard the term used "what's behind everything" to explain the word God. This is how I view my feelings on this topic.

Yes, there is something that holds everything together and I leave it at that. If we all lived by following the Golden Rule of "Do Unto Others" and understood the undeniable the fact of Karma "You reap what you sow", can you imagine what this world would be like? No anger, no wars, no envy, no jealously, etc.

My belief in the Pure Land of Amitabha could not be any stronger. Daily I recite the Nembutsu and I do pray for help to Kuan Yin.

Thank you for asking this question and letting me share my views and opinions.

Namo Amida Butsu!

Seiyo

[Richard Modiano]

I can't say I was raised as a Catholic. My father was a Jew and my mother was a mildly observent Irish Catholic. However, I did attend Roman Catholic parochial school from ages 12 to 18, and by 17 I had lost all faith in the trinitarian creator God of Catholic theology. I just discovered Buddhism at that time and transferred my faith to the Buddhadharma.

As for the God of monotheism, I can say with Bakunin, "If God really existed, it would be necessary to abolish him." Speaking for myself, the Dharmakaya as compassion in the form of Amida Buddha is as close as I come to acknowledging a higher power, and Amida has nothing in common with the creator god who judges and punishes.

[Katrien Sercu]

It feels good, Richard Mondiano, that you're so clear and powerfull in your words: "If God - the creator god who judges and punishes - really existed, it would be necessary to abolish him". Much Catholics have to abolish this in their mind. Even i try to be aware of it, this old image influences me in an unconscious, childish way: in contact with others and in opening myself to Amida. So, i'm looking to open and extend this word god, because in my feeling 'god' has a place, but i don't know in wich way. I can find myself in the words of Seiyo. I also 'believe' in a higher power, while you acknowledge this (is this the right word?), clearly in your words. Insofar i can understand and feel, Amida Buddha is Other Power, a higher power; not God, but more than a human being! I can feel like you, that Amida Buddha can be close, but this does not exclude in my opinion that there is nothing 'goddish' in Amida Buddha. I'm exploring to get free from this limited and distorted image, without throwing all away...So thanks for exploring together.

[richard meyers]

Hi Katrien,
Just found this discussion. I agree with what you say about opening and extending the word god, (or God too for that matter) I too was raised a Catholic and sadly had much of my childhood tarnished by it. In my teens I chucked out the whole thing as toxic.

In later life I think via meditation practice and reading such as Thomas Merton and David Steindl Rast, I came to look again at it and found much that is nourishing. For me one thing that is really lacking in the Church is something equivalent to the Buddha, Dharma and Sangha, especially the latter. The welcoming support that I'm finding here. In terms of God - you could call the creative energy of the universe God or you could call it Amida. In my own practice, the main focus is with Shin Buddhism as I'm discovering it via the Amida Trust.

My intuition suggests that we are held by a 'higher power', a power of which we are a part, as Christ and Siddartha are also, my feeling is that we are in some way co-extensive with this power, which formed the night sky and the oceans. My little Bombu mind reels when attempting to contemplate existence. It's all mysterious and in it's vastness beautiful. What a thing it must have been to look at earth from space for the first time. The divisive nature of one religion against another when we take this larger stance is shown for what it is: a mistake. At least that is how it appears to me.

[Katrien Sercu]

Hi Richard, you awake this discussion. Nice! You write on a mystic poëtic manner, showing your nature i guess, what speaks to the heart.Thank you! So i like to see how my feelings in that matter are changed since 2 august. And i try to express it, with too little english words: awfull. It's not knowledge Richard; it's as you say: my intuition suggests...as far as i can experience or understand life. Right? I don't know; it's just how i feel and try to express it.
The core idea of Love and its disappointment of Dharmavidya gave me a deep 'aha-erlebnis'. I really did not understand nor accept life, because of 'good and bad'. Why bad/evil in life, a question since childhood. Now i really can see that the essential in the whole universe is Love and Light. Light as unconditional Love. This is not a god/God to me. Love and Light is all, including cosmos, worlds, gods, life, acceptible to us, as sentient beings....Men are incarnated, limited, little, bombu, so conditioned, but in connection with Love and Light, unconscious or conscious. All races, cultures, religions, visions on life.. represent different incorporated parts of this Whole. Some people become a Buddha in life and different forms of Buddhism grows. A man became a Christ and different forms of Chistianism grows...same with Allah and all names of gods/gods: wise loving people who get able to refind in life the unconditional Love -the Whole-, despite their conditioned body. Example and source for all other people. They merit the name of a god, in my view. So there are many gods; different men have affinity with different gods: different ways to refind the unconditional love, by many lifes. So instead of looking to the differences between religions and fighting, we can see the connecting Whole in it: Light as unconditional Love. And in some way we can feel connected by Christianism and in an other way by Buddhism, even in all their different forms.
I see the richness in mystic of katholicism. I love the joy, kindness, humbleness in Buddhism, for me now the right way. I beleive Richard, that even in katholicism the're wunderful sangha's, but we meet here on ning and yes, this is a wunderful way: so much support, inspiration and friendship.By Amida buddhism i could stop to be determinated by the only God, "creator of the world, father of the Christ", judging into hell and heaven: a childish image that influence so much people in a bad way, including myself. But Christ became a god, as Amida became a god...both worthy to be inspired by them. Affinity with one or the other gives a choice...that's all...no better or worser..
I try to express how i can feel it now, without any pretention to be right. Please reply when you mention that i see things in a narrow view.

[Katrien Sercu]

Thanks Seiyo for your view and opinion. I can find me in your words. You open en extend the word God (yes, with mostly a bad connotation) to the Energy in life, that holds everything together, that lives (in and) behind everything. In this combination of your words (you gave more!) i can find an approach to the concept of God that is useful. It opens my heart, while the old concept of 'The God' scares and shrinks my mind. Maybe we don't need this concept for walking on the Path, learning on the way?
Also thanks to give an answer on this question, to give your view. Maybe until another time.
Namo Amida Bu

[Robert McCarthy]

This drives my passion to better know dharma. Two things i think we are told is not to be giving too much concern about this business of creation and all is an illusion- which is saying the same thing anyway. Now science is telling us that the material world is illusion. What is the nature of this life is the mystery, the how of it beyond my knowing.