Tricycle | Awake in the World

And what about some of the challenges it is facing? Pure Land doesn’t get a whole lot of respect in the Buddhist community. There’s a lot of misunderstanding about what it is. Other Buddhists think that we’re a bunch of lazy-asses because we don’t do the fancy practices and rituals that they do. But in reality, for the people who get into Pure Land, it is a very challenging path. It’s a path that challenges you all the time; it’s psychologically rigorous.

Part of the misunderstanding is due to the poor translations that we have. And part of it is just that we need to get people more familiar with our tradition so that they don’t dismiss it out of hand. Pure Land is not for everybody, but for some people it is exactly what they need.