Dharmakara's Vow*

By Frithjof Schuon Studies in Comparative Religion, Vol. 4, No. 1 (Winter, 1970) World Wisdom, Inc. www.studiesincomparativereligion.com THE notion of "myth" is one which generally evokes an image of traditional stories that are full of symbolism but more or less devoid of historical foundation. Now this latter opinion should not enter too peremptorily into the actual definition of myth; it is sufficient to say that the function of myth is such that the question of historicity is, in practice, without interest in the very measure that that function is understood. That which guarantees the spiritual function of a sacred story is its symbolism on the one hand and its traditional character on the other: in the case of stories belonging to the Mahyna, it is the Buddha who stands surety for the reality and hence for the efficacy of the story; that is to say, if he does not guarantee the historicity of the facts in an absolute sense, he certainly guarantees at least their spiritual truth which takes precedence over historicity,2 and also their virtue as means of salvation, which is the reason for the existence of myth. To speak thus does not imply an intention to cast specific doubt on the existence of a Bodhisattva called Dharmakra; all one is trying to do is to stress the fact that the story in question is a manifestation, by the Buddha Skya Muni, of the saving coincidence of Mercy and faith. One can furthermore admit that the Buddha Skya Muni, in offering us this story, spoke of himself and offered an aspect of himself: insofar as he was a personification of the total Logos, he was able to give the name of Amitbha, "Infinite Light", to his own power of Mercy and to describe the mystery of this coincidence in terms of the history of Dharmakra and his Vow. But this symbolical transference of a power of Skya Muni to an anterior Buddha quite obviously could not exclude the possibility of historical fact; in that case, it is in his capacity of "absolute Buddha" or di-Buddha that Skya Muni has the power, not only to define and actualize himself in terms of a "story-symbol", but also to refer himself back, concretely and as savior, to the work of a historically previous Buddha, one representing more particularly the aspect of Mercy. This power would be analogous to the power which, in the cosmic sector of Islam and not outside it, pertains to the Arabian Prophet in relation to the Semitic Prophets who preceded him. Another analogy, situated this time on the divine plane, is the following one: in the Koranic Revelation God at once commands and permits Himself to be invokeda permission which implies a command and a command which implies a permissionand for this purpose He proposes, not only the Name Allh which is the Name-Essence or the Name-Synthesis, but also the Names of Mercy Rahmn and Rahm3 and even, though doubtless in a more conditional way, the other divine Names.4 It is in this way, therefore, that Skya Muni is able to actualize, in his quality of Logos-Essence or Logos-Synthesis, the illuminative or saving powers of other Buddhas, envisaged in this case from the point of view of their differing qualities and not of their single essence; whether it be question here of different Buddhas or of different qualities of the single Buddha then becomes practically no more than a matter of perspective or even of dialectic. Examples taken from Islam have been cited here, not because these are the only ones

possible, but because in their case the analogy is particularly direct; in Christianity, the use there of the Psalms provides an example of the same order, in the sense that the Christ, "Son of David", projects himself in some sort into this anterior Revelation and makes it his own, so much so that the Psalter has become something like an authentic song of Christ, prophetically preexperienced by David moreover, for the relationship is reversible. However, here the analogy with the case of Buddhism is less direct because the emphasis remains focused on Christ, whereas in Buddhism it is laid on Amitbha, that is to say on the predecessor; which does not, however, do away with the need, in order to have access to the grace offered by the latter, to take refuge in the historical Buddha and submit to his Law and enter his Community.5 * * * The Bodhisattva Dharmakra, on the threshold of Nirvna, made the vow not to enter there if, once become Buddha, "Enlightened", he were unable to offer a Paradise of Purity to all those who would pronounce his Name, henceforth become nirvnic or divine, with an unmixed faith and in the conviction of being incapable of saving themselves by their own merits. Once become Buddha under the Name of Amitbha, the celestial personage keeps his word: by his Name he delivers the multitude of believers; and the Buddha Skya Muni shares in this work by bringing it to the notice of the men of this world or this cycle. In this sacred story we have first of all the confrontation between Dharmakra and Nirvna; next we have their fusion in the person of the Buddha Amitbha. One has the right to ask oneself what is the meaning of this vow which exercises a kind of pressure on the nirvnic Reality: "if You do not grant me what I demand"- in substance this is what Dharmakra says to the infinite Reality and the supreme Bliss"I refuse to enter into You"; what is the meaning of this refusal in principle and of the pressure it comprises? For it appears that metaphysically there is no common measure between man and the Absolute: the latter can determine all things, whereas man has no power over the Absolute. This is self-evident, but does not exclude the fact that there is an aspect under which the relative finds itself comprised in the Principlefor "all is Atm" (to use the Vedntic expression), and so much so that the relative itself no longer appears other than a kind of internal dimension of the all-inclusive Absoluteness; however, this answer would be insufficient if one did not add one further argument which moreover is a function of the preceding one, namely that Nirvna comprises (on the basis of what has just been said) a pole or mode that could be described as "feminine" or "receptive" and which is in fact the divine Prakriti, primordial Substance, here envisaged according to the Buddhistic perspective of Voidness and Enlightenment. When things are viewed from this angle, that is to say on the basis of the "relative absoluteness" of manifestation and of the "femininity" of the already relative pole of the divine Principle, one is prepared for grasping the meaning of the Vow. There is a well-known Far-Eastern symbol which suggests the reciprocity in question in a particularly expressive way: this is the Yin-Yang which offers, firstly a white field and a black field, and after that a black speck in the white field and vice versa. Which amounts to saying, following the application which here imposes itself, that Nirvna comprises a sector of relativity open to the Cosmos while the Bodhisattva for his part possesses an element of absoluteness which integrates him in a certain respect in the absolute and metacosmic nature of Nirvna6: Nirvna-Prakriti in virtue of its relativity (failing which there would be no possible contact between Heaven and earth) "desires" man; to speak of the attractive quality of Heaven is to imply the dimension of relativity pertaining to the latter. Now this dimension is none other than Goodness; and without a world, there is no Mercy. Man, who as such is relative, looks towards

the Absolute; but Nirvna under its relative aspect does not want to absorb relative man, it wants man in virtue of his mystery of absoluteness; in other words, it wants the Bodhisattva in order to give birth to the Buddha. It is this reciprocity, where the superior desires the inferior in virtue of an element of inferiority and where the inferior determines the superior in virtue of an element of superiority it is this reciprocity which allows us to understand, either indirectly or directly, that "there will be more joy in Heaven over one sinner that repenteth than over ninety and nine just persons who need no repentance "and also (to give a Hindu parallel) that when a jvan-mukta, one "delivered in this life", quits this nether world "the Heavens resound with his glory". It is in a similar sense that it was able to be said that a Brahmin commands the dvas with other paradoxes of this kind; lastly, the Buddha Amitbha would not come down together with his archangelic Bodhisattvas and all his celestial court to meet his chosen one if there were not to be found in the latter a nirvnic and metacosmic element that the Nirvna open to the cosmos might "desire".7 This extrinsic Nirvna, which attracts and which creates Mercy, is "Virgin" and "Mother" or even, as the Song of Songs puts it, "Sister" and "Spouse": it radiates and absorbs at the same time, it enlightens and it desires. Face to face with Heaven become Prakriti in the direction of the cosmos, the latter becomes Purusha,8 not of course in virtue of the cosmos as such, but in virtue of the divine Purusha with which the cosmos becomes identified by Grace and Gnosis. The feminine Divinity, who loves the masculine God, likewise will love the reflected image of the latter in the cosmos and will seek to deliver that image by appropriating it, therefore by absorbing and rendering it divine. * * * The vow of the Bodhisattva Dharmakra, which in its fulfillment belongs to the Buddha Amitbha, appears at first sight like a very particular and unusual favor, of a strangely remote character; in point of fact, it does not signify anything else but the divine Principle of universal attraction, therefore also of Mercy. In other words, if "remembrance of Amitbha Buddha" gives access to the "Pure Land", this is because the name of this Buddha, which is a Name of the Buddha one and only,9 is really the vehicle of nirvnic Power. Proof that such is the case lies in the fact that this Name has been uttered by the historic Avatra, whereby we are caused to rejoin a principle already mentioned above, namely that it is the fact of the Revelation which guarantees both the truth and effectiveness of the means of salvation. Thus, if the Name of God is "holy" this is true, not because it is a word referring to God, but because it has been revealed by God Himself and by this very fact conveys something of the divine Might, and in principle all the Might that the meaning of the Name suggests. To draw a parallel example from Islam, the Name Allh, revealed at the origins of the Arabic language and confirmed by the Koranic Revelation, admits of no limitation, whereas the Names of Mercy convey the divine aspect of Mercy but not the terrible aspects. Whether one is dealing with Islam or Buddhism or any other cosmic sector, to say of the Saving Name that it is a divine gift and that it really saves, signifies: firstly that the Name contains the divine Absoluteness, which is exclusive; secondly and more directly, that it contains the divine Infinitude, which is inclusive and which inaugurates the third aspect carried by the Name and transmitted most directly, namely Mercy, which is attractive. Application of this same principle of theophany to the Name of Jesus imposes itself powerfully; so also does it impose itself through the Name of Mary, for reasons which certain of our preceding considerations can but corroborate.

The Name of Amitbha, so it is said, contains both the Savior and the saved: for the latter has no power of his own, even his faith in Amitbha is conferred on him by this Name; it is enough for us to hear this Name and when hearing it to continue pronouncing it and when pronouncing it (or when hearing it) to avoid closing ourselves to the faith it contains and communicates to us. All this is said, not in order to dispense us from effortwithout effort no life and a fortiori no spiritual way is possiblebut in order that we may be persuaded that no merit properly belongs to ourselves and that we should not compromise our self-abandonment to "the divine Other" by any kind of accentuation of egoity. In Christian language, one might say that we have to put Christ in place of our mind and the Virgin in place of our soul: renunciation and union are Christic virtues, humility and charity are virginal ones, which means that we have to exercise these virtues without attributing them to our own selves. In Pure Land Buddhism focused on Amitbha it is faith which includes the other fundamental virtues; in Christianity this allinclusive function devolves on love. * * *

The saving quality of the Name of Amitbha is a function of its holiness: to say that the Name is holythis we have seen alreadymeans that it has been revealed and that it thereby proves its divinity under the double heading of origin and substance, hence also its qualities of Absoluteness, Infinitude and Mercy. Now the holiness of the celestial gift demands, on the part of man, an initial sanctification which reflects the holiness of the Name in some manner and this, under the form of a ritual consecration on the one hand and of a spiritual vow on the other. Purity of intention, which this vow expresses and confirms, comprises the fundamental virtues of the soul; quite evidently, it precludes the spiritual means from being employed for a purpose below the level of its own contents, such as the pursuit of extraordinary powers or the wish to be famous and admired or the secret satisfaction of a sense of superiority; purity of intention likewise precludes this means from being used for purposes of experiment or for the sake of sensuous results or other profanations of this kind. This is precisely what the vow aims at avoiding, as is clearly brought out in similar fashion by the Islamic promise, made to the Prophet by his Companions and mentioned several times in the Koran, to "fight while offering their goods and their lives" (bi-amwlihim anfusihim)10; in both the above cases this amounts to saying that there is no spiritual way properly so called without a consecration and a vow. The need for this vow allows one to appreciate what the author has called, without any dubitative intention, the "myth" of the Buddha Amitbha, since it will be easy to see that the earthly or human vow is like an answer to the celestial or divine Vow: if man must commit himself in regard to Heaven, this is because Heaven committed itself, through the very fact of Revelation, in regard to man; one promise must answer another. As for the pure intention that every spiritual vow implies, this can but contain two essential components, the one being strictly human and the other purely spiritual, and these two are moreover far from excluding one another: first of all, the goal of the Way is the saving of man's soul (in whatever sense we understand this word), but for any man who is capable of grasping it, its goal is equally "that which is", Truth in itself, or the omnipresent reality of the nirvnic Principle.11 * * * It is profoundly significant that the Buddha (in the AmityurDhyna-Stra) related the

story of Dharmakra-Amitbha to a woman in distress, the queen Vaidehi, thus indicating that the celestial gift is offered to pure receptivity and presupposes a consciousness of our samsric (existential) distress; it is equally significant that he allowed Vaidehi to see the Paradises of the Buddhas and that it is she who chose out of them all the paradise of Amitbha, thus becoming a collaborator after her own fashion in the Revelation to follow. According to the traditional interpretation Vaidehi represents the spiritual pilgrimage of man, which is considered to lead into the Way of Amitbha in view of the fact that the perspective of the Pure Land stras is amitbhic. Vaidehi's vision of other "Buddha-lands" and her own choice of Amitbha's land symbolizes, according to the said perspective, the very process of Enlightenment or the steps of a spiritual life. There have been differences of opinion as to whether queen Vaidehi, as co-revealer of the Amityus-stra,12 was a Bodhisattva or a plain mortal and whether the Pure Land doctrine is addressed to superior men or to the generality; each of these opinions can be justified by some passage in the sacred texts. For our part we can say that Vaidehi was a Bodhisattva destined to incarnate simple mortals in all the distress of their samsric exile and that the Pure Land sutras address their message at one and the same time to "pneumatics" and to simple "psychics" (to use the language of gnosis), for the one does not exclude the other: extremes meet, wisdom and holy childlikeness have their meeting-point.13 Here we have all the mystery of simplicity: the nirvnic Voidness is simple and so is childhood; between the two extremesif such a schematic treatment can be applied to the incommensurablethere lies all the complexity of the universal possibilities, whether of good or evil, including the complexity of human reasonings. Simplicity is neither ignorance nor platitude: the decisive factors of our spiritual destiny are discernment between the Real and the illusory and permanent union with the Real; wisdom is simple, inasmuch as its expressions converge on that which alone is, and wisdom has the gift of simplifying; but it also comprises, by that same token, all the sanctifying riches which the human soul, so diverse as it is, can stand in need of during its pilgrimage towards the Immutable. * * *

Absoluity or exclusive Reality; Infinity or inclusive Reality; Goodness or liberating Substance; Revelation or compulsive Manifestation; the whole of Doctrine hangs on these words. If our day-to-day experience confronts us with things that are real at their own levelthat is to say, if in the world "such and such" realities exist, this is because Reality "as such" comes first of all, which is not the world but by which the world is. And if the world is, this is because Reality as such, or the Absolute, comprises Infinity or All Possibility, whereof the world is a consequence and a content. If the world is the world, this is because the world is not God: unable to be either Absoluteness or Infinity, the world is relative and finitehence the presence of evil, which by its character of privation proves a contrario that the cosmic Substance, and consequently and a fortiori the Divine Nature, is essentially Goodness. And if in the world there is necessarily both good and evil, and if the good manifests by definition the divine Qualities, hence Goodness, it

follows that the latter has also to manifest itself in a particular way and this it does through Revelation; and also since Goodness exists it compels, for man cannot but opt for the good. In Revelation and through it man rejoins the saving Goodness, the Infinite that includes all, the Absolute which is that which is and which alone is. From the viewpoint of Maya (the Cosmic Art which is also the Cosmic Illusion) the Absolute appears like a kind of contraction, which it cannot be intrinsically since no limiting determination can apply to it; one could then say (to speak as simply as possible) that Absoluteness in the sense of extrinsically contractive Reality necessarily comprises a compensating aspect of an expansive nature, namely Infinity. Now Infinity, which includes all, requires an apparently negative dimension, namely creative Manifestation, which is positive in as much as it expresses the Absolute but is nonetheless privative in virtue of the relativity of its nature and its productions. Creative Manifestation in its turn requires the saving Manifestation, namely the Prophets and Revelations; and these Manifestations demonstrate a new Hypostasis, namely the essential Goodness of the divine or nirvanic Reality. Infinity in function of Absoluteness; creative Manifestation in function of Infinity; saving Manifestation likewise in function of Infinity but also, by that very fact, in function of the essential Goodness inherent in the Infinite: it is with the liberating Mercy, which leads back to the Absolute, that the circle of divine Deployment closes. The Universe is like a Revelation of the divine Nature or like a sport in which the nirvanic Reality reveals itself to itself and is mirrored in its own inexhaustible dimensions.

(Original editorial inclusions that followed the essay:) When Sa'id B. al-Musayyib was at Mecca a man came to him and said: "Tell me a lawful thing in which there is nothing unlawful". He replied: "Praise (dhikr) of God is a lawful thing in which there is nothing unlawful and praise of aught else is an unlawful thing in which there is nothing lawful", because your salvation lies in the former and your perdition in the latter.

story to which this title refers belongs traditionally to the Buddhist schools going under the name of "Pure Land" (Japanese Jd): it tells how a certain Bodhisattva called Dharmakra, when on the threshold of Enlightenment, was so moved by compassion for the multitude of beings he was about to leave behind, a prey to indefinite transmigration and suffering, that he vowed never to enter Nirvna unless he was able to share his deliverance with them, down to the last blade of grass. Dharmakra, however, did in fact attain Enlightenment and now reigns as the Buddha Amitbha over the Western quarter, which is a proof that his vow did not fail in its object; suffering beings will all be delivered if only they will have faith in the vow and call on Amitbha's Name. The Pure Land teaching and method trace their efficacy to this episode. Translator's note.

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If such were not the case, it would not be possible to explain why the four Gospels are able to contradict one another about certain details or why the ancient Christians were not worried by this fact, nor why the visions of the Saints can ever diverge. This same principle of the primacy of spiritual reality explains with all the more reason the "mythical" differences between religions. 3 The first of these denotes the intrinsic and unique aspect of the infinite Goodness, while the second denotes its extrinsic and multiple aspect. 4 That is to say, it is always permissible to recite the series of ninety-nine Names, but not to recite the terrible Names in isolation. 5 This is the "Triple Refuge": Buddha, Dharma and Sangha, whereby one becomes a Buddhist. 6 In the language of the Sufis, this is the "secret" of the heart. If blasphemies against the "Father" and "Son" can be forgiven, but not against the Holy Spirit, this is because the latter is concretely present in the soul since it inspires us, so that an injury inflicted on the Spirit cannot be due to an ignorance or an error. Let it also be pointed out that the prostration of the Angels before Adam, in the Koranic story, is not unrelated to the mystery of the element of absoluteness in the Heart-Intellect. 7 This global mystery has given rise to many ill-sounding enunciations, of which the most common one has it that "God could not subsist without man"; to be sure, this statement is not lacking in profundity, but the drawbacks of such a formulation greatly exceed its slender advantage. 8 Purusha and Prakriti: the active and passive poles of Being. 9 Hence the, as it were, "henotheist" absoluteness attributed to Amitbha by his own adepts. 10 It will be noticed that the first term concerns a man's attachment to the world and the second concerns attachment to his ego: one must give oneself to God with all one "possesses" and all that one "is". In the Amitbhic tradition, the human response to the celestial Gift consists in the "Triple Attitude", namely sincere intention, perfect faith and "the wish to be born in the Pure Land", the latter being a cosmic anticipation of Nirvana or a liberating projection thereof. 11 It is in this sense that St. Bernard was able to say "I love because I love" and not "because I wish to be saved"; evidently, there is no incompatibility here, but the two attitudes are situated on different planes. The superior attitude is not unconnected with the theophany of the Burning Bush: "I am that I am". In the order of Evangelical counsels, the vow of "poverty" refers to separation from the world; the vow of "obedience" to separation from the ego; the vow of "chastity" to choice of the heavenly Beatitude alone. Obedience (Perinde ac si cadaver essent) is founded on Christ's invitation: "follow Me", a fact which proves that this vow implies something very different from a simple moral discipline. Christ (who must be followed) in practice is the same as "interiority" (with a view to the Kingdom of Heaven that is "within you") together with "voidness" (for the sake of God: vacare Deo): these two attitudes when combined are the equivalent of "chastity". 12 Amityus, "Eternal Life", is an aspect or complement of Amitbha, "Infinite Light". 13 Otherwise one could not explain the fact that minds like Shan Tao, Hnen and Shinran could have chosen the way of the Pure Land and made themselves its champions.