Beyond Religion
One of the West’s leading teachers of Shin Buddhism speaks about his own path to Shinran’s way of true entrusting.
Late last August, I stopped by the Buddhist Study Center in Honolulu to talk with the Rev. Dr. Alfred Bloom. Now in his early eighties, Bloom is widely regarded as one of the most important American figures of the past five decades in the Jodo Shin school of Buddhism. During this time he studied in Japan and the United States, served as a professor at Harvard and the University of Hawaii, became an ordained Buddhist priest, ran the only Shin seminary in the West, wrote numerous books on Pure Land Buddhism that are both scholarly and accessible, and pioneered the development of a far-reaching Shin presence online. It is not surprising, then, that in 2002 the dozens of Hawaiian Shin temples designated him a Living Treasure.
Jewish by background, Christian by upbringing, and Buddhist by heart choice, Bloom is probably history’s most accomplished Shin practitioner who has no Japanese ancestry. As such he has served as an example and mentor to non-Japanese Buddhists interested in the Pure Land tradition, while also spending a lifetime working within the Japanese-American community. He recently released a detailed memoir that describes his experiences in this unique position, A Life of Serendipity: Blown by the Wind of Amida’s Vow.
Bloom’s hair is white these days, and he carries a cane, but he shows few signs of slowing down. Still active as a writer and lecturer, he has lost none of his intense fascination with the revolutionary teachings of Shinran, the 13th-century founder of Shin Buddhism. Over the course of a warm afternoon, we sipped tea and discussed how Shinran’s vision of a radically egalitarian Buddhism centered on power-beyond-self had worked a transformation in Bloom’s life, leading him from Baptist missionizing in Japan to become a preeminent presenter of Buddhism to the West.
—Jeff Wilson
(Japanese National Treasure; courtesy of Itsukushima-Jinja)
Many people of your generation who got involved in Buddhism were drawn to Zen or Theravada practice. What was it about Shin Buddhism that spoke to you? I think we all respond to things based on our personal background. In my case that included Baptist fundamentalism, and I brought this narrow, arrogant fundamentalist attitude with me to Japan during the Second World War. One day, during the postwar occupation, I was giving a talk at a Japanese Christian church in which I spoke of Paul’s concept of grace, and the minister who was translating said to me, “This is like Amida.” It shocked me! In the fundamentalist view, you don’t make comparisons with other religions, because that implies there’s something on the other side that has meaning or that could be true. If you have the only truth, anything else out there is from the devil.
I was only nineteen when I first went to Japan, and my view of Christianity was, of course, quite unsophisticated. After I came back to America, I came to view fundamentalism as an erroneous interpretation of Christianity. While studying at Harvard Divinity School, I met a Jodo Shinshu minister’s son from Hawaii. This young man had some translated Shin texts, which he gave to me. One of them was Shinran’s Tannisho (translated as “A Record in Lament of Divergences”), and when I read it I was amazed. I thought, “My God, such a radical. I’ve never seen anything like this in Christianity.” So I began to study Jodo Shinshu.
What was it in Tannisho that struck you as being so radical? Shinran had this tremendous vision of the universality and the oneness of all people. We all know how divisive religion can be. Coming from a fundamentalist background, I knew this especially well. Religions so often are based on who has the truth and who doesn’t, who is good and who is bad, and which group is right and which group is wrong. For Shinran, Buddhism was about liberating us from religion.
People would come to Shinran and ask, “What is your teaching?” He would say, “Well, I follow my master, Honen,” and then he would explain various things. But at the conclusion, Shinran offers what I consider a really important phrase, “It’s up to you to decide what you will do or believe.” It’s your responsibility. He didn’t cram his beliefs down people’s throats or say if they didn’t follow his way they were going to hell. He was so free from the authoritarian perspective that you find in so many religious figures. He said, Yeah, I have my faith. I know where I stand, and I’m witnessing to that. But at the exact same time he also said, It’s up to you to take it or not, as you see fit.
Shinran said that we’ve all been mother, brother, father, and sister through infinite transmigrations, so everybody is related. His teaching is inclusive, not divisive, and that had a big impact on me. He doesn’t condemn those who are different or think differently. He is always trying to bring people together.
