Talk:Pure land

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Buddism is fun to da — Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.204.137.195 (talk) 16:42, 5 April 2012 (UTC)

Chinese inclusions

I am reticent at present to edit the inclusions of a contributor literate in the Chinese orientation of the Tradition. I am not fluent in Chinese and do not want to misrepresent the representation. The grammar and lexical choice is decidedly unclear. That said, if a reader reads attentively with an open heart the truth of the essential meaning shines through. I may refine this in future but I will wait until timely. Sri Sri Sri
B9 hummingbird hovering ^{(talk • contribs)} 02:03, 16 November 2009 (UTC)

Sorry, as Pure Land Buddhism has been most popular in East Asia, many good sources are in Chinese. Online translators may help little but you and everyone with an open heart would improve it. Einstein Li 37 (talk) 16:23, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

It really has to be rewritten specially the later sections are really hard to comprehend even for someone specialised in the subject. I tried to improve it a bit but some parts is even difficult to actually understand in what direction the thought is going..needs an experts attention! Loupiotte (talk) 01:27, 3 June 2012 (UTC)

Christianity and Pure Land Buddhism

There has been widespread discussion regarding the influence that Christianity may have had on the establishment of Pure Land Buddhism. Whether or not this is true, there is compelling reason to discuss this in an encyclopedic article on Pure Land Buddhism. For further reading, please refer to Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy article on Japanese Pure Land Philosophy. Ormr2014 (talk) 12:51, 1 August 2014 (UTC)

There is actually an abundance of evidence that Pure Land was the Buddhist response to Christian proselytizing within the region. According to several scholarly sources, including Academia.edu,"Thus, while Buddhism shaped central Asian Christianity, Christianity seems to have shaped Mahayana Buddhism as well, particularly the Pure Land form popular in Japan and Korea". See also Richard. C. Foltz,Religions of the SilkRoad, 46; Etienne Lamotte,History of Indian Buddhism (Louvain: Peters Press, 1988), 668–75; Ralph R. Covell, Confucius, the Buddha, and Christ (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis,1986), 30–1; Samuel Hugh Moffett, A History of Christianityin Asia (Vol. I), 301–2; Philip Jenkins, The Lost History of Christianity, 14–6, 91–3.

There is, unfortunately, a tendency among many modern Buddhists to discount Christian influence within the religion, claiming that there is "no evidence" and that such is "mere speculation", despite an abundance of evidence to the contrary. On the other hand, these same individuals have no qualms about the Buddhist influence of Christianity being present on the pages of Wikipedia.

That's because it's a fringe theory without a leg to stand on. Tengu800 06:25, 5 August 2014 (UTC)

The fact of the matter is, bias of any sort is out of character for a "encyclopedic" reference and those of you holding on to inaccurate opinions and censoring anything that doesn't conform to your idealistic world view here should not be editors here.Ormr2014 (talk) 16:55, 4 August 2014 (UTC)

An encyclopedia article is not a "discussion" between editors. It is meant to present the best information from reliable sources, especially specialists in the field. Again, what are the reliable sources for there being a Christian origin of the buddhaksetra concept? Standard academic discourse on Mahayana Buddhism does not acknowledge any such origin for the buddhaksetra concept. By the way, Academia.edu is not a reliable source, and the Stanford article only mentions that there may seem to be some parallel concepts between some forms of Japanese Pure Land Buddhism (i.e. Shin Buddhism) and Christianity. It never claims that Shin Buddhism was influenced by Christian discourse. Tengu800 06:02, 5 August 2014 (UTC)

In retrospect, it really doesn't matter much to me whether or not the Christian/Pure Land connection, or lack thereof, is discussed in this article. I would, however, like to point out that "an encyclopedia article" is not only a compendium of verifiably accurate information, but also information that is relevant to the subject, in that it is widely held to be true, even if the possibility exists that it isn't. Failure to include all pertinent information would thus constitute unnecessary bias. Furthermore, a cursory review of any reputable encyclopaedic reference will reveal that this is the case universally... Ormr2014 (talk) 23:04, 5 August 2014 (UTC)

Part of the problem with views like this is that they are usually mentioned by authors who do not generally qualify as reliable sources. In any case, I have added some material here: Pure Land Buddhism#Japanese_Buddhism.

Please note that the template should not have been on this page, as this pure land article does not refer to the Pure Land tradition, but to the Indian Buddhist concept of a buddhaksetra, popularly known as a "pure land." Tengu800 04:15, 6 August 2014 (UTC)

Fair enough. Thanks for being open minded about this. Ormr2014 (talk) 14:36, 6 August 2014 (UTC)