Zen And Pure Land

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There lie two branches of Mahayana Buddhism, Zen and Pure Land. In essence, the two branches appear to be polar opposites, however, upon closer analysis, one can find mutual underlying themes. This essay will first explore the apparent differences between Zen and Pure Land, then argue that despite the two’s differences, there is indeed an underlying theme that runs between the two religion’s interpretation of concept of jinen hōni and ishness, of rescue, of enlightenment, and of Bodhisattva’s compassion, which is the concept of emptiness. D.T Suzuki in his essay, “What is Zen?” defines Zen Buddhism as a “discipline in enlightenment” (Suzuki p.5) with the goal becoming a Buddha. However, the notion of realizing enlightenment, or realizing …show more content…
As soon as we try to do this, it disappears” (Suzuki p.6). In other words, verbalism seeks to describe the indescribable and grasp the ungraspable. This often leads to to the creation of illogical and unanswerable riddles, also known as koān, such as the Staff Riddle: “a staff is staff and at the same time not a staff, or that staff is a staff just because it is not a staff” (Suzuki p.7). The Staff Riddle has no answer (although, it is tied to the concept of non duality of duality and non duality, which will be explored later in the essay), but Zen Buddhism is not interested in elucidating the koān, instead it is interested in “reach[ing] to the mind itself, which exudes or secretes [the answers], as inevitably as the cloud rise from the mountain peaks” (Suzuki p.7). Similarly, actionalism expresses the “futility of verbal instruction and conceptual presentation” (Suzuki p.10). Actionalism builds upon the philosophy of verbalism, only now, an element is added, the body. A story that best illustrates the concept of actionalism is the story of the Burglar’s Son. It tells the tale of

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