Hi! As someone new to exploring Pure Land after a few years of meandering through various other Buddhist traditions, this is my experience thus far.
I have a very inquisitive mind. I want to probe and understand all sides to an issue. With religious matters, that's meant I quickly see the logic of each kind of practice and dive in enthusiastically. "Ah, this is it, now I can do something truly good." Then a while later, it's like the inquisitive side has been working 24/7 to find the drawback. Doubts creep in. I would feel steadily more disappointed, and the doubts became convincing reasons why X or Y practice wasn't for me. Everything seemed inaccessible.
I couldn't practice Theravada, because the jhanas were described as essential, and I couldn't even approach access concentration. Then seeing how people pounced on any claim of stream-entry, one of the most fundamental levels of progress, I was greatly discouraged. "Even the most basic step is out of reach!" I soon had 100 reasons not to practice Theravadan Buddhism.
I couldn't practice Kagyu, because I was too smart to believe in deities, and seeing them as expedient means made it feel like trying to lie to myself when I already knew "the truth". Not to mention visualization doesn't come naturally to me.
Then I couldn't do any Mahayana because saving all beings just seemed like a total impossibility when I couldn't even stop my own temper.
Then I couldn't do Zen because just sitting there felt like giving free rein to all my old habits, and my depression and temper quickly worsened.
Then I couldn't do Christianity, because if I found some of the basic metaphysical claims of Buddhism inaccessible, claims of a bodily resurrection of some stranger 2,000 years ago seemed totally irrelevant. I tried accepting at face value that God was real and loving, and that Jesus could help me. So I prayed and tried to see the world as a loving creation. But it didn't feel right.
Over this time, one thing has become very clear: this doubting, calculating mind can find fault with anything at all, and those faults are painful. Initially, I liked Buddhism because of its intellectual appeal, the logic and rigor. But that didn't touch my heart at all. Patience and love for others seemed a distraction next to understanding how reality REALLY is. In any case, that chameleon of doubt eventually sauntered over and I was convinced Buddhism was actually pessimistic, because look how difficult it is to be free from even basic suffering, let alone attain some supposedly natural birthright of an enlightened existence.
I believe it's our own Padma von Sambha who said that Pure Land is stupid. So stupid that it's brilliant. I can think myself into and out of any philosophy. I've only recently started entertaining the possibility that there's someone or something that can help me beside my own efforts, my own clever mind. And looking at it now, what that really means for me is the idea that the universe doesn't revolve 100% around me and my problems, that my doubts are not statements of fact but sometimes a kind of suffering. Staying glued to my doubt made the world very narrow, and possibilities scarce. But of course the world is not so small!
But when so much of my current way of thinking is what
I have to do for
my enlightenment to help
others who aren't me, I feel like having a
someone instead of a something to share these doubts with, to emotionally hand them over to for safekeeping, has been so helpful already.
When thoughts come roaring in, instead of trying to select which of the 1,000 antidotes would work, or trying not to get discouraged and tell myself negative stories, I say "Amitabha". Then it feels like the matter is taken care of. It's like permission not to worry about it.
When doubts pounce, "Amitabha" to soothe that old thorn in my side. Those doubts can manage themselves.
When rationalizing talks its way in, that Amitabha is a clever gimmick to trick myself, "Amitabha". I don't have to figure everything out all the time, I can take a break now and then.
When my temper flares and I'm ashamed, "Amitabha", and I can do something different this time. Even just thinking a name is different than beating myself up or saying something I'll regret.
For someone very new who knows little about the Pure Land sutras or the details of Amitabha's vow or qualities, I feel like what I've needed most lately is the feeling that
something at all is possible. When you've talked yourself out of every religion and feel like you're backed into a corner, what you sometimes want most is a hand to lift you back to your feet.
I don't know if the Pure Land is "real" or if the Buddha even taught about it.
But I do know that feeling some modicum of hopefulness, and the ability that this basic baby practice of Amitabha has given me to
take a step beyond what I believe I'm capable of, or how I "just" am, and stop running towards more suffering, more fault-finding doubts, that to me shows there's something to this.
Through these many periods of doubt, I've still gravitated towards learning about the Paramitas and what I can read about Buddhism. If Pure Land is the reason I can begin to cultivate love again and not waste my life in abstraction, then that to me makes it a valuable support to practice. That's with continuing to try to abandon negativities, cultivate goodness, and tame the mind, just basic things I think decent human beings can do with themselves.
My goal is to reduce suffering where I can. And I need all the help I can get.
