GOD as PEACE-BESTOWING BUDDHA/CHRIST: Shin Buddhism & Whitehead's  Process Theology in an Age of Religious Pluralism

Steve Odin, Professor
Department of Philosophy
University of Hawaii

Confessions of a Christian-Buddhist Religious Pluralist

            I was born and raised as a Christian with both  Protestant and Catholic family ties, living in an extended household with converted Methodist parents downstairs, and very   Catholic grandparents from Portugal upstairs—my grandmother who as a  young teenage girl in fact witnessed that event known as the "Miracle of Fatima." Yet in later years I became more and more deeply influenced by the Buddhist metaphysical vision of actuality as an undivided aesthetic continuum of interpenetrating qualitative events arising and perishing in the ceaseless flux of impermanence  that are directly felt in immediate experience through progressive meditative exercises.  This lead to that existential problem as to how one can be both a true Christian and yet somehow also a Buddhist in a pluralistic age?  But then, in the very first semester of my freshman year as an undergraduate student in philosophy at the State University of New York, I took a course with Robert C. Neville on the process cosmology and process theology of Alfred North Whitehead—and the problem was for me at least partially  solved.  For myself, Whitehead's process cosmology and process theology would become the unifying transcultural framework by means of which to illuminate as well as integrate both Christianity and Buddhism, in a manner which preserves their uniqueness, while also bringing into clarity those points of convergence in both traditions.

            During the 1984-85 academic year when I was a visiting scholar at Ryukoku University in Kyoto, the academic center for the Pure Land Buddhist school of Nishi Hongwanji, I came to realize that from the perspective of Protestant Christianity, the most remarkable development in the history of Mahayana Buddhism is to be found in the Japanese  Pure Land tradition of Shin Buddhism based on the teachings of Shinran. For it is Shin Buddhism which sets forth a theistic, indeed monotheistic, savior deity called by the Name of Amida Buddha.  Unlike the naturalistic traditions of Buddhism like Zen, the Shin Buddhist school holds that the dynamic process of evolutionary flux whereby momentary events coarise into actuality through mutual interpenetration of many into one is itself guided and saved by the operation deity, namely, Amida Buddha. The Shin Buddhist teaching of salvation through faith in the other-power grace of Amida Buddha most clearly approximates the Lutheran teachings of salvation by grace alone through faith alone. Thus, again it must be asked: in an age of religious pluralism, is it possible to have an intense, passionate, inward, subjective faith in both the grace of God as Jesus Christ, and the other-power of Amida Budda? For me, one of the very most profound answers to this problem was to be found in the Whiteheadian process theology of John B. Cobb Jr., who develops the Primordial Nature of God as the Logos or divine creative Word, and then goes on to argue that both Christ and Amida refer to  this very same reality of the Logos, further arguing that the function of providing divine aims to all self-actualizing occasions by the Primordial Nature of God is itself parallel to the Primal Vows of Amida Buddha to guide and save all sentient beings.  In what follows, I have endeavored to further edify this uplifting discourse on Christian-Buddhist interfaith dialogue between process theology and Shin Buddhism that has emerged with the advent of a new age of religious pluralism, having a special focus upon the notion of "Peace" as that ultimate spiritual value bestowed upon those with inward faith in the grace of both God as Christ in Whiteheadian process theology and Amida in Shin Buddhism.

            Finally, it should be pointed out that I have written the following essay as the brief outline for the final section of a booklength manuscript to be entitled: TRAGIC BEAUTY in WHITEHEAD'S PROCESS THEOLOGY & JAPANESE BUDDHISM.  In Part One of this work-in-progress, I endeavor to demonstrate those points of convergence between Whitehead's process cosmology and the Japanese Buddhist concept of impermanence (J. mujô ), wherein the abstract category of "substance" arising from the fallacies of simple location, vacuous actuality, and misplaced concreteness, is itself abandoned for the more concrete notion of momentary qualitative occasions arising and perishing in the dynamic undivided aesthetic continuum of nature. Part Two probably constitutes the more original aspect of this work.  Scholars of Japanese culture have often cited the notion of mono no aware,  the pathos or tragic beauty of evanescence, as being  the  most uniquely Japanese of all concepts. But in his most visionary work titled Adventures of Ideas,  A. N. Whitehead sets forth his religio-aesthetic category of Tragic Beauty (AI 296) emerging in the Adventure of the Universe as creative advance to novelty.  Here I underscore the axiological dimensions of this east-west philosophical encounter, wherein it is shown how  both Whitehead's process cosmology and Japanese Buddhism have converged upon a religio-aesthetic vision of Tragic Beauty rooted in the pathos arising from that suffering inherent in the perpetual perishing of momentary aesthetic events in the ceaseless flux of nature.  Indeed, this religio-aesthetic vision of Tragic Beauty is itself one of the very deepest points of contact between Whitehead's process cosmology and the Japanese aesthetics of perishability with its underlying Buddhist  metaphysics of impermanence. Part Three, however, goes on to examine how the problem of suffering and evil inherent in the Tragic Beauty arising through the perpetual perishing of transitory self-creative aesthetic occasions in the ceaseless flux of nature is itself overcome only through the operation of deity, including both the Consequent Nature of God as the Kingdom of Heaven that saves all momentary occasions everlastingly in its function as the divine memory, as well as Dharmakara Bodhisattva/Amida Buddha which saves all dharmas in its functioning as personification of the Storehouse Consciousness. Moreover, it is clarified how the suffering of Tragic Beauty is resolved  through the transpersonal experience of Peace (AI 284-296). This immediate exerience of transpersonal Peace is itself only bestowed upon an awakening of faith in the grace of the the montheistic savior deity called God as Christ in Christianity and Amida Buddha in Shin Buddhism, both of which are operations of the Primordial Nature of God as Logos or the divine creative Word.   Hence, in what follows I take up this interfaith dialogue between Shin Buddhism and Whiteheadian process theology as the basis for exploring the topic of religious pluralism.           

            This essay takes up the notion of transpersonal PEACE as a theme for East-West  comparative philosophy and Buddhist-Christian interfaith dialogue in an age of religious pluralism, with a special focus on the ideal of Peace in Jôdo Shinshû, or True Pure Land Buddhism, based on the teachings of Shinran Shonin (1173-1263), in relation to  the organismic process theology and process cosmology of Alfred North Whitehead.  Here I attempt to clarify that while Amida Buddha and the God of traditional Christian theology are very different, Amida and the God of Whitehead's process theology are strikingly similar notions. To begin with, it will be demonstrated that like Amida Buddha in Shin Buddhism, the God of process theology is not an omnipotent creator of the universe. Like Amida Buddha, the God of Whitehead's process theology is to be envisioned through the image of "care," so that for both traditions reality is compassionate or caring in nature. Fundamental to Whitehead's process theology is that God is "dipolar" and therefore has two natures: (i) the Primordial Nature which acts as a  persuasive lure  for all events to realize God's divine aims for them; and (ii) the Consequent Nature, a repository which acts as the divine memory that saves all events everlastingly in the kingdom of heaven. Whereas the Primordial Nature of God has been compared to the Primal Vow of Amida by process theologian John B. Cobb, Jr., the Consequent Nature has been compared to the understanding of Dharmâkara/Amida as a personification of the "Storehouse Consciousness" by  John Yokota.  Cobb even identifies the Name of Amida Buddha with Christ as the divine Logos or Word that incarnates into each occasion of experience through the grace of deity. After clarifying this Buddhist-Christian  interfaith dialogue between  Shin Buddhism and  process theology, I argue that transpersonal Peace is the ultimate spiritual value derived from God in process theology as well as Amida in Shin Buddhism. Peace in Whitehead's process theology is similar to Buddhist nirvana, insofar as it is not only a goal of civilization, but also an expanded awareness transcending the ego self whereby one achieves deliverance from the suffering and tragedy inherent in the perpetually perishing nature of impermanent events in the flux of  interrelational existence. Finally, it is shown that for Whitehead's process theology, transpersonal Peace is not achieved  through personal effort, but comes only as a "gift" of divine grace through the divine immanence of a caring God, just as for the Shin Buddhist teachings of Shinran, rebirth into the Pure Land of Peace is not achieved by "self-power" (jiriki ), but only through a "gift" (ekô )  received from the transformative grace of Amida Buddha's compassionate "Other-power" (tariki ).

            Various  scholars have noted how out of all Buddhist schools it is Japanese Shin Buddhism which most nearly approximates Christian theism, just as Amida Buddha as the compassionate Savior of all sentient beings comes nearest to the Christian monotheistic idea of God.   In response to the question, "Is Amida Buddha a Buddhist 'God'?"—Kenneth Tanaka has given the following response:  You could say that Amida is "God," but only if you define God as the dynamic activity of understanding (wisdom) and caring (compassion). But clearly, Amida is not a personal God who is 1) the creator of the universe, 2) a divine, transcendent being, 3) an omniscient (all knowing ) being who knows my daily activities, and/or  4) a judge who decides my final destiny. (1997, 153)  As indicated by Tanaka, Amida Buddha is not "God" in the sense of traditional Christian theology, wherein God is described as: {1) creator of the universe, {2} absolutely transcendent, {3}omniscient, and/or {4} a moralistic judge. However, none of the divine attributes enumerated by Tanaka are applicable to Whitehead's revolutionary concept of God.  To begin with, against the traditional Christian theological conceptions of God, Whitehead argues that "the nature of God is dipolar. He has a primordial nature and a consequent nature" (PR 345). While the dipolar God is absolute, transcendent, impassible (unfeeling), eternal, and unchanging in his Primordial Nature, God is also relative, immanent, sympathetic, temporal and changing in his Consequent Nature. {1}  The most radical aspect of Whitehead's process theology is that God is not to be understood as divine Creator of the world, but rather, as a caring deity that aims to save all occasions in world-process: "He does not create the world, he saves it" (PR 346). According to Whitehead's process theology, "God" is  not the omnipotent creator of the universe, since the ultimate metaphysical category is "creativity" (PR 21), according to which all events in nature are self-creative, in that they arise through a process of creative synthesis,   a dynamic activity of unifying the dynamic web of interrelationships into a novel event or occasion with beauty and value.  (2) In his critique of the Judeo-Christian and Islamic traditions, Whitehead argues that dogmatic notions of God as an absolutely transcendent, omnipotent deity who creates the world ex nihilo  by divine fiat, has long been a basic theological fallacy: "The notion of God as...transcendent creator, at whose fiat the world came into being, and whose imposed will it obeys, is the fallacy which has infused tragedy into the histories of Christianity and of Mahometanism" (PR 342). (3) For Whitehead,  as well as for Charles Hartshorne, John Cobb, and other leading process theologians,  insofar as all events arise though a process of creative synthesis, they are spontaneous, emergent, and unpredictable, so that God cannot be "omniscient" in the sense of an infinite, unqualified knowledge that sees the outcome of all decisions made by occasions emerging in the present,  or of future occasions that have not yet arisen into actuality. {4} Finally, Whitehead clearly rejects the image of God as a legalistic judge, lawgiver, or "ruthless moralist" (PR 343). Instead, God is to be envisioned through the image of "care" (PR 346).  Hence, while traditional notions of the Christian God might be very different from Amida Buddha, Whiteheadian process theology provides a description of God that resonates deeply with the Shin Buddhist vision of Amida  as a peaceful, gentle and caring deity that operates to forever lure all events toward realizing its divine aims toward value, beauty, goodness, truth, harmony, peace, and salvation.   It might be said that the dipolar God of Whitehead's process theology functions like Amida as the Cosmic Buddha defined as a dynamic activity of wisdom and compassion.

(a) The 'Primordial Nature' of God and the 'Primal Vow' of Amida           

            The Buddhist-Christian interfaith dialogue between Shin Buddhism and Whitehead's process theology was initiated by John B. Cobb Jr. in his groundbreaking work Beyond Dialogue: Toward a Mutual Transformation of Christianity and Buddhism. In this  work Cobb endeavors to show various parallels between the "Primal Vow" as the working of the compassion of Amida Buddha's Other-power and the "Primordial Nature" of God in process theology: "Whitehead's account of the Primordial Nature of God addresses the same feature of reality as that spoken of by Shinran as the primal vow of Amida. Both of these are remarkably analogous to...accounts of the Word of God or Logos or Truth which is Christ" (1982, 128). He then goes on to make the bold declaration: "The conclusion from  the above is that  Amida is Christ.  That is, the feature of the totality of reality to which Pure Land Buddhists refer when they speak of Amida is the same as that to which Christians refer when we speak of Christ" (1982, 128; italics added).  Here, it should be pointed out, Cobb in agreement with the view of Nishida Kitarô (1870-1945), founder of the Kyoto school of modern Japanese philosophy, who likewise argues that the Name of Amida Buddha in the Shin Buddhist teachings of Shinran, is to be identified with Christ as the divine Logos or Word of God in Christian theology (Nishida: 1987, 195).  The profound insight of Cobb is that Christ as the divine Logos or Word is itself the  Primordial Nature of God, which incarnates  into each and every occasion as the "initial aim" toward realizing maximum harmony and value, while moreover identifying the Logos or Primordial Nature with the Primal Vow of Amida. Whitehead describes the Primordial Nature of God as a "lure"  (PR 344) to realize value. For Cobb, the lure of God in his Primordial Nature is a theological equivalent to the Primal Vow of Amida, or as it were, the "call of Amida" (1982, 136). Elsewhere, Cobb refers to Whitehead's idea of  Primordial Nature of God or Logos in its working as a divine lure  prescribing initial aims, as "the call forward," and therefore describes God as "the One Who Calls" (1998,43-66). For Cobb, the lure of God in his Primordial Nature as Logos or Word is therefore a Christian theological equivalent to the Primal Vow of Amida Buddha, or what he otherwise describes as the "call of Amida" (1982, 136).  

            Finally, Cobb argues for another similarity between Amida and the dipolar God, holding that the ultimate metaphysical category of creativity as an indeterminate formless  activity of creative synthesis, is itself conditioned by the determinate forms of harmony provided by the Primordial Nature of God, just as the formless emptiness of Dharmakaya Buddha is conditioned by the Primal Vows of Amida (the Sambogakâya Buddha) in Shin Buddhism: "It is the Primordial Nature which qualifies creativity in a way so strikingly similar to the qualification of the Dharmakaya by the primal vow. Just as the Primordial Nature of God is the primordial decision for the sake of all creatures, even more clearly the primal vow is made for the sake of all sentient beings" (1982, 131).

            The profundity of Cobb's view of the divine lure of the  Primordial Nature of God or Logos as the One who Calls,  and its applicability to the Primal Vow of Amida Buddha as the "call of Amida," can at once be seen when considered in relation to the view of leading Shin Buddhist scholars, as well as the views of Shinran (1173-1273), founder of Shin/True Pure Land Buddhism in Japan.  Shinran sums up the Larger Pure Land Sutra by describing its essence as Amida's primal vow (hongan ) and its embodiment as Amida's divine Name (myôgô ), as well as the practice-faith of calling the Name of Amida Buddha through the nembutsu   of NAMU-AMIDA-BUTSU. These two aspects, the primal vow and the nembustu   were stressed to the exclusion of the other by the competing faith and practice factions of the Pure Land school. Shinran, in his interpretation of the teachings, considered the two aspects united in the Larger Pure Land Sutra, thereby avoiding the extremes of the factions.  In the second fascicle of this work, Shinran aims to clarify how nembutsu   is the one true religious practice assuring birth in Pure Land.  Namu  means "I take  refuge in" (kimyo ), and indicates the act of turning toward Buddha. Shinran, however, interpreted "taking refuge in"  as "the beckoning command of the principal vow" (hongan shôkan no chokumei ) (see Dobbins: 2002, 34). The primal vow (hongan ) of Amida, identified by Shinran as  the divine Name (myôgô ) of Amida, and the active practice of reciting or calling the Name (nembutsu ), does not occur by calculation (hakarai  ) of self-power (jiriki ),  but through the lure, magnetism, or attraction of the primal vow of Amida's compassionate Other-power (tariki  ), here understood as the divine call to enlightenment. In Shinran's phrase "the beckoning command of the principal vow" (hongan shôkan no chokumei ),  the key term shôkan  means to beckon, invite, or call.  Although through the practice of nembutsu   we  call out the Name of Amida Budda in order to receive his gift of saving grace through the openness of shinjin  or faith, at the same time, it is Amida's call for us to realize perfection in that the nembutsu  is not an act of self-power,  but the compassionate Other-power of Amida.  To sum up this point, Shinran's idea that the primal vow to save all beings through the nembutsu   or calling out of the Name of Amida, and both of these as "the beckoning command of the principle vow" of Amida, is what Cobb describes as the "call of Amida."   The "beckoning command" is the imperative and urgent call  of Amida implanted into each sentient being to achieve perfection,  enlightenment, awakening, and Buddhahood. However, by identifying the Name of Amida Buddha with the Christ as the Logos or Word of God, and by further identifying  both with the Primordial Nature of God as the divine magnetic "lure" or beckoning call   to perfection, Cobb has made a breakthrough contribution to interfaith dialogue, showing how the notion of Amida Buddha in Shin Buddhism might be comprehended from the standpoint of Whiteheadian process theology and process metaphysics.  

            In his book published under the title Naturalness: A Classic of Shin Buddhism,   Kanamatusu Kenryo describes the Other-power of Amida Buddha as follows: This Unthinkable Power [= tariki, the Other-Power of Amida Buddha] stronger than ourselves, this persistent urge impelling the the self to transcend itself, is a call  to us of the All-feeling Compassionate heart, the Eternal Spirit of Sympathy, who is in his essence the Light and Life of all who is World-concscious. To feel all, to be conscious of everything, is the Spirit ...this Light and Life, this All-feeling Being is in our hearts.  (2002, 3-4)  Kanamatsu's  assertion in the above passage that the Other-power of Amida as the urge of the self to transcend itself, "is a call  to us of the All-feeling Compassionate heart,"   reinforces Cobb's view of the Primal Vow as the "call of Amida," and thus by extension, its similarity to the Primordial Nature of God as the "One that Calls."  In his interpretation of Whitehead's process theology, Cobb emphasizes that the Primordial Nature of God as the One that Calls is not a coersive, but a persuasive agency, so that even though God inwardly calls   the arising self-creative occasion to achieve perfection,  nonetheless, the occasion is free to accept or reject God's divine aims for it. Likewise, Kanamatsu states that "shut up within the narrow walls of our limited self, we ...turn a deaf ear to the call   welling up from the inmost depths of our heart" (2002, 2).   Here, it should  be further noted, Kanamatsu describes Amida Buddha as the "All-feeling Compassionate heart "and the "All-feeling Being who is in our hearts." He adds that Amida Buddha is "that basal, pure,  universal feeling   that interpenetrates all objects" and that to achieve enlightenment, the self must "sink into this basal pure feeling " (2002, 4). Thus, as will be discussed later in this section, Kanamatsu's writings suggest how the striking similarities between the notion of Amida Buddha in Shin Buddhism and the dipolar God of Whitehead's process theology are based on a concept of ultimate reality as pure feeling. It will be discussed that just as for Whitehead, all actual occasions are centers of feeling, including God, as the supreme actual entity that feels all other occasions everlastingly in their full subjective immediacy, so in Kanamatsu's classic of Shin Buddhist theology, Amida Buddha is the" All-Feeling Heart of compassion," just as for human beings enlightenment is acheived through perception in the mode of " pure feeling."

            The depth of Cobb's penetrating interpretation of the Primal Vow in Shin Buddhism as the "call  of Amida," can further be established by reference to the writings of Taitetsu Unno, a leading academic scholar and ordained minister of Shin Buddhism.  In his introductory book about the Pure Land teachings of Shin Buddhism, Unno develops his  understanding of  the nembutsu,   or vocal recitation of the Name of Amida Buddha of NAMU-AMIDA-BUTSU, as the "Name-that-Calls" (Unno: 1998, 26-35). In his hermeneutics of Shin Buddhism, Unno asserts that nembutsu,  the vocal practice of reciting the divine Name of Buddha,  is to be interpretively translated into English  as "the Name-that-calls" (1998, 32). Unno states that the nembutsu  is the Name that calls one to go beyond the ego-self and achieve their full possibility for enlightenment as an awakened human being (1998, 31). Even though one calls to Amida through the nembutsu,   at the same time, since the nembutsu  is recited only through a gift of Amida's compassion, the nembutsu   is ultimately to be conceived as the Name-that-Calls, that is, it is the beckoning call   of Amida to transcend the ego-self through reliance on the compassionate Other-Power grace of Amida Budda.  As Unno elsewhere asserts:  "If I were to translate nembutsu  into English, it would be the 'name-that-calls,' for it calls us to awaken to our fullest potential to become true, real and sincere  human beings" (2002, 24). Unno clarifes that the Name-that-calls is an "Interpretetive translation for nembutsu,  NAMU-AMIDA-BUTSU, which is the beckoning call to human beings from the side of Amida Buddha to take leave of delusion and awaken to reality-as-it-is" (2002, 257). He further explains how according to the Shin Buddhist teachings of Shinran, "the  saying of nembutsu  is experienced as a call from Amida, but simultaneously it is our response to that call" (2002, 5). Again: "In Shin Buddhism the ultimate goal of transformation occurs in the saying of nembutsu,  NAMU-AMIDA-BUTSU. ...the nembutsu   is the flowing call of the Buddha of Immeasurable Light and Life, coming from the fathomless center of life itself, as well as our response to that call withourt any hesitation or calculation" (2002, 23). Since the nembutsu  of  NAMU-AMIDA-BUTSU  is the Name-that-calls, accordingly, the central practice of Shin Buddhism is that of "deep hearing" (monpô ), or as it were, "deep hearing of the call of Amida" (2002, 19). Unno states: "Religiously speaking, deep hearing means that we have no choice but to hear and respond to the call of boundless compassion.  It is through the Name-that-calls that Amida Buddha gives us the ultimate gift of true and real life...Thus, the invocation of the Name, NAMU-AMIDA-BUTSU, is...a voicing of the call that comes from the bottomless source of life itself, the Buddha of Immeasurable Light and Life" (2002, 52).

            From Unno's understanding of  the nembutsu   or vocal recitation of the Name of Amida Buddha of NAMU-AMIDA-BUTSU, as the "Name-that-Calls" (1998, 26-35), one can thereby come to appreciate the profound significance of Cobb's interfaith dialogue between Whiteheadian process theology and Shin Buddhism. For it is Cobb's landmark contribution to have reformulated Whitehead's notion of the initial aim or lure toward perfection for self-actualizing occasions derived from the Primordial Nature of God  or Logos as "the call forward" from the power of deity  as the "One who Calls," while at the same time identifying this with the Primal Vow of Amida Buddha,  understood as the "call of Amida."  

            From the standpoint of contemplative practice, here it  should be pointed out that the great strength of Shin Buddhism is its practice of nembutsu, effortless natural vocal recitation of the divine Name of Amida: "Namu Amida Butsu, Namu Amida Butsu, Namu Amida Butsu." But I  fully agree with the Shin Buddhist  scholar Unno Taitetsu (1998, 29), when he says that the closest parallel to this nembustu practice is the Jesus Prayer as described in a book called The Way of the Pilgrim, which urges people to undertake the effortless practice of ceaseless prayer of the Eastern Orthodox Church as a call upon the Name of God— "Lord Jeus Christ have mercy on me." Morever, it must be pointed out that the divine form of the aesthetic image of Amida Buddha as depicted in the Mandalas of Pure Land Buddhism in Japan, has much in common with the  archetypal image of the sacred artistic icons of Jesus Christ depicted in the Eastern Orthodox Church, so that one can easily visualize both Christ and Amida as imaginative variations of the Logos or divine creative Word of God. But it is the notion of the Primordial Nature of God in Whitehead's process theology which most clearly articulates the reality of the Logos or divine creative Word represented by Amida in Shin Buddhim and Christ in Christianity.

(b) The 'Consequent Nature' of God and Amida Buddha as the 'Storehouse Consciousness'

            {i} Although Cobb analyzes  parallels between the Primordial Nature of God and the Primal Vow of Amida Buddha to save all sentient beings through the working of compassionate Other-power, he does not find any parallels between the Consequent Nature of God and Amida. Cobb argues that whereas the value-qualities realized by momentary events arising and perishing in the world of creative process function to influence and enrich the Consequent Nature of God, he sees no sense among Buddhists that dharmas contribute anything to Amida: "There is, in other words, nothing [in Shin Buddhism] comparable to what Whitehead calls the Consequent Nature of God" (`1982, 131).

            However, the  very significant contribution of John Yokota, a scholar of both Shin Buddhism and process theology, is to have demonstrated the profound relation between the Consequent Nature of God and Amida Buddha. More specifically, Yokota argues for a parallel between the Consequent Nature of God as the repository functioning to save all perishing events, and the nature of Dharmâkara Bodhisattva/Amida Buddha as the "Storehouse Consciousness." Yokota rightly asserts: "The tradition [of process theology]  is unanimous in its understanding of God as this final and unifying repository of all events. God is the keeper of the past" (2000, 91). In Whitehead's process theology, when an event perishes it then becomes a cause influencing all future events, thereby to acquire what he terms an "objective immortality." Yet with the passing of time, the causal influence of each passing event in its objective immortality would become dimmer and dimmer, gradually fading away into oblivion, if not for the functioning of the Consequent Nature of God. For according to Whitehead's process theology, the values realized by all events in fact  do not fade away with the passage of time, because they are retained, stored and saved everlastingly in their full intensity and vividness as imperishable data in the divine memory: namely, the Consequent Nature of God as the collective repository of the past.              Explicating the relevance of the Consequent Nature of God in process theology to Amida Buddha in Shin Buddhism,  Yokota  states: "As the [Buddhist] tradition develops, one encounters the notion of alayavijnana  or the storehouse consciousness that is comparable to the collective unconscious.  It is the storehouse of all karma ...It is interesting to note that the Shin Buddhist scholar Soga Ryôjin equated Amida with this storehouse consciousness" (2000, 95).  Yokota here makes reference to the insights of the Shin Buddhist scholar Soga Ryôjin (1875-1971), a former president of Otani University, who endeavors to locate Pure Land Buddhism within the mainstream of the Mahâyâna Buddhist tradition by showing how Dharmâkara Bodhisattva/Amida Buddha, is the personification of the Storehouse Consciousness, the repository of all dharmas or karmic events (Soga: 1982, 221-231). Because of his compassionate Primal Vow that aims to save all sentient beings, Dharmâkara Bodhisattva was to become Amida Buddha presiding over the Pure Land of Peace and Bliss. In his analysis of the name Dharmâkara, Soga clarifies how the meaning of the Sanskrit word âkara  (J. zô ) is "storage," so that Dharmâkara  (J. Hôzô) is the "Dharma storehouse" (1982, 228). According to Soga, "Dharmâkara Bodhisattva of Pure Land doctrine is synonymous with the Storehouse Consciousness, the âlayavijnâna  of traditional Mahâyâna Buddhism" (1982, 223). He further asserts: "Many years ago I called the âlayavijnâna, this supraconsciousness in which all dharmas  are stored, this 'storehouse consciousness,' Dharmâkara consciousness" (1982, 228).  Furthermore, Soga emphasizes not only that Dharmâkara/Amida is the personification of the Storehouse Consciousness, but that the Storehouse Consciousness is itself  the "Buddha Nature" (1982, 224-225),

            I myself have developed parallels between Whitehead's Consequent Nature of God with both the Collective Unconscious of Jungian depth psychology as well as the Storehouse Consciousness of Buddhism, in my book about the microcosm-macrocosm conception of reality as a dynamic network of interrelatedness, interdependence, and interpenetration formulated both in Whiteheadian process metaphysics and Hua-yen (J. Kegon) Buddhism (1982, 159-171).  However, from the perspective of Shin Buddhism, Yokota specifically clarifies how the  Consequent Nature of God in process theology relates to Dharmâkara Bodhisattva and his fully realized state as Amida Buddha, in his function as the Storehouse Conciousness. Yokota  states: "As the discussion of objective immortality noted, it is in the incorporation into God of the entirety of an occasion in all its vividness and completeness that the evil of perpetual perishing is resolved. Amida too is seen as taking in the entire person in that the karma of that person is taken on by Amida in its entirety...." (2000, 95). Yokota's point is that just as for Whitehead's process theology  all events in their objective immortality functioning as causes which condition all future events would gradually fade away if not for being fully retained, stored and saved in the Consequent Nature of God, likewise, the karmic influence of all dharmas on future events would also gradually fade away into insignificance if it were not for the working of Dharmâkara Bodhisattva/Amida Buddha, who as the personification of the Storehouse Consciousness functions as the collective repository of the past which saves all dharmas in their full vividness and intensity.

            {ii} There is yet a further dimension to the parallel between the Consequent Nature of God in Whiteheadian process theology and Dharmâkara/Amida  in Shin Buddhism which needs to be explored.   In Shin Buddhism, persons are saved through the compassionate Other-power of Amida Buddha upon rebirth in the Pure Land. Likewise, in process theology all perishing events are "saved" (PR 346) as they enter into the everlasting divine life of the Consequent Nature of God, explicitly identified by Whitehead as the Kingdom of Heaven.  At the conclusion of his final chapter titled "God and the World" from Process and Reality,   Whitehead propounds: "Thus the consequent nature of God is composed of a multiplicity of elements with individual self-realization....This is God in his function of the   kingdom of heaven " (PR 350; italics added).  He continues: "The kingdom of heaven is with us today. The action of [this] phase is the love of God for the world....What is done in the world is transformed into a reality in heaven and the reality in heaven passes back into the world....the love in the world passes into the love in heaven and floods back again into the world" (PR 351). Thus, here we find yet another convergence between Shin Buddhism and process theology: namely, the idea of salvation through rebirth in Amida's heavenly paradise as the Pure Land of Peace and Bliss, and Whitehead's soteriological notion whereby events are saved by passing into the everlasting life of the Consequent Nature of God as the Kingdom of Heaven.

            {iii} Although he does not discuss either Whitehead's process theology or the idea of Amida Buddha as the Storehouse Consciousness, nevertheless, Taitetsu Unno clarifies the deep spiritual meaning of this consequent function of the divine nature from  the perspective of the Japanese Buddhist poetics of impermanence. Unno explains how the Buddhist teaching of  "impermanence" (J. mujô ) was depicted in Japanese poetry of the Heian Period (794-1185) through the image of fleeting dewdrops. This Heian poetics of impermanence came to be known as mono no aware, the "tragic beauty" of perishing events in the flux of becoming.  Unno goes on to say: "In this early period the notion of impermanence had a negative tone, carrying a tone of sadness, regret, pathos. But with the passing of time it took on a more positive tone, an encouragement to discover an enduring, unchanging reality beyond the phenomenal world" (1998, 164). Unno (1998, 164) then illustrates this with a poem by the priest-poet Ryokan (1756-1831), a Zen monk filled with the spirit of  the Pure Land who wrote  poems on Amida:

If not for Amida's inconcievable vow
What then would remain to me
As a keepsake of this world?  

 Ryokan encouraged people to follow the path of nembutsu  to find salvation from the suffering of impermanence where all transitory events  disappear like falling dewdrops by taking refuge in the everlasting Pure Land of Amida—the Buddha of infinite Light and Life:

 Return to Amida
Return to Amida
So even dewdrops fall

Unno goes on to interpret the above poems from the standpoint of Shin Buddhism as follows: "Everything in our evanescent world constantly reminds us not to rely on passing, unreliable things, but to entrust ourselves to that which is timeless— Immeasurable Light and Life that is Amida" (1998, 164).

            The closest Western parallel to the Buddhist teaching of "impermanence" (J. mujô ) and  the Japanese poetic ideal of mono no aware  or the tragic beauty of impermanence is to be found in the process theology of A. N. Whitehead. At the conclusion of his chapter titled "Peace" from Adventures of Ideas,  Whitehead holds that due to the immanence of God, which provides divine aims to be actualized by events, each occasion realizes some degree of beauty, or aesthetic value-quality. Yet the beauty realized by events is always a "tragic Beauty" (AI 296), in that the aesthetic value-quality of each occasion perishes immediately upon becoming in the incessant flux of process as the creative advance to novelty. For Whitehead, the problem of tragic beauty  arising from the ultimate evil of the  perpetual perishing of events in the ever-changing flux of becoming is thus to be resolved through the concept of deity formulated in his process theism, according to which, all perishing events are retained, stored, and saved everlastingly in all their vividness and intensity  in the Consequent Nature of God.  Likewise, the Japanese poetic ideal of the tragic beauty of transitory dharmas in the ceaseless impermanence of universal flux  is overcome in the Shin Buddhist tradition through salvation by rebirth into the Pure Land of Amida Buddha. Hence, just as for Whitehead, the tragic beauty of perpetually perishing occasions in the stream of process is overcome through retention in the Consequent Nature of God as the Kingdom of Heaven, so for Shin Buddhism, the tragic beauty of impermanence is overcome through salvation by rebirth into the heavenly paradise of the Pure Land of Amida Buddha as the Storehouse Consciousness which saves all dharmas forevermore.

            It is indeed remarkable that both Whitehead and Japanese Buddhism have converged upon an organismic process model of actuality as a temporal stream of arising and perishing events.  Also, both Whitehead's process philosophy and the Japanese Buddhist metaphysics have converged upon a religio-aesthetic vision of Tragic Beauty, whereby suffering, pain, and tragedy are intrinsic to actuality due to the loss of beauty attaching to each arising and perishing aesthetic event in the ceaseless flux of impermanence.  Moreover, in both Whitehead's process theology and Shin Buddhism, the suffering and Tragic Beauty of perpetually perishing occasions is itself ultimately overcome by the grace of deity as the divine memory which everlastingly saves the beauty or directly felt aesthetic value quality of all events, namely, by what is termed the Consequent Nature of God as the kingdom of heaven in Whitehead's process theology, and Dharmakara Bodhisattva (J. Hôzô)/Amida Buddha, as the personification of the Storehouse Consciousness which saves and stores all dharmas forevermore in the Japanese tradition of Shin Buddhism.  

'Compassion' in Shin Buddhism and 'Care' in Process Theology

            One of the most significant points of contact between the frameworks of Whiteheadian process theology  and Shin Buddhism is that both envision the divine nature of God/Amida as a caring or compassionate deity, just as both underscore how care, concern or compassion is rooted in the metaphysical structure  of ultimate reality itself, insofar as it is not constituted by separate, independent,  and unrelated substances, but rather, by dependently arisen dharmas or events co-originated from out of an interdependent matrix as a dynamic web of relationships in the flux of becoming. For Shin Buddhism, the nature of Amida Buddha is that of unconditional "compassion" (jihitariki  or "Other-power" as expressed by the "Primal Vow"  (hongan)  working through the call of Amida's ) with its aim, or compassionate intent, to save all sentient beings. Describing the divine nature of Amida Buddha's salvific Other-power as boundless compassion, Taitetsu Unno therefore asserts:  "The working of the Primal Vow, the compassion of the Buddha of Immeasurable Light and Life, is called Other Power" (1998, 36).  Yokota explains both the compassionate nature of Amida Buddha's Primal Vow to save all sentient beings through the grace of Other-power as a call to compassion as well as the centrality of compassionate moral conduct based on a wisdom seeing the emptiness/openness of reality as interdependence: The whole point of the Buddhist analysis of reality with its emphasis on impermanence, becoming, openness/emptiness, and dependent arising is that it tells us that reality is like this so that we can act accordingly ....in short, we should act compassionately. We act compassionately because a world of openness and dependent arising is a compassionate world....If compassion is the primordial character of existence, then a personal center to existence is undeniable. Compassionate intent (the primal vow) is present and undeniable as well.  (2000, 211).

            Like the Shin Buddhist tradition, Whitehead's organic process metaphysics articulates a doctrine of concern, care, or compassion based on a metaphysics of interconnected, dependently arisen events that emerge from out of a relational web or network of causal interconnections in the dynamic, creative, undivided aesthetic continuum of nature. Although Whitehead does not use the language of emptiness  per se  he does formulate the most comprehensive Western theory of interrelated events arising through prehensions,  or sympathetic feelings of relations to all other events, which at once calls to mind the Buddhist doctrine of pratitya-samutpâda : dependent co-origination, interconnectedness, or relational existence. For Unno, this awareness reality of reality as "vast network of interdependence" is itself the core of Shin Buddhism (1998, 141), further emphasizing that, "Interdependence is an elemental truth. When one awakens to this fact, compassion that sustains us strikes us with full force, and we are made to respond to the world with the same compassion" (1998, 142).  Whitehead's metaphysical principle of "universal relativity" functions as a generalized category expressing the interrelatedness, interdependence and interpenetration of all events.  The principle of  relativity states that "every item of the universe including all the other actual entities are constituents in the constitution of any one actual entity" (PR 148). Again, the principle of relativity asserts that "every item in the universe is involved in each concrescence" (PR 22). Indeed, Whitehead's principle of relativity is at once reminiscent of the Buddhist doctrine of  sûnyatâ   (J. kû ) or "emptiness," which has been alternatively  translated as "relativity" and "universal relativity"  by the Soviet Buddhologist Th. Stcherbatsky  (1927, 42).

            In Whitehead's organismic process metaphysics the Buddhist theme concerning the "indivisibility of emptiness and compassion"   is articulated in terms of what the former calls the "concern" structure of causal process and universal relativity, wherein each act of  prehension, or "feeling of feeling," is itself comprehended as an act of "sympathetic concernedness." In the technical vocabulary of Whitehead's process cosmology,  each dependently coarising occasion or event is a unified subject  arising through prehension, sympathetic feeling, or "concern" for all multiple objects  of the past: "The occasion as subject has a 'concern' for the object. And the 'concern' at once places the object as a component in the experience of the subject with an affective tone drawn from this object and directed towards it" (AI 176). Whitehead further states: "It must be directly understood that no prehension...can be divested of its affective tone, that is to say, of its character of a 'concern'...Concernedness is of the essence of perception" (AI 180). This concern structure of causal process whereby events arise through their concern for every other event,  is further clarified by his notion of "sympathy," or feeling of feeling, whereby each occasion arises through sympathetic feelings of its relationships to all other events (PR 162). Hence, for Whitehead,  "concern" is a functional equivalent to compassion (deriving from the Latin verbal root compassio  meaning "to feel with"), understood as sympathy or feeling of feeling. Like Buddhist compassion , Whitehead's concernedness involves  sympathy with all phenomena  arising out of the dynamic network of interrelationships.  

            Here it should  be further clarified how the dipolar God of Whitehead's process theology relates to the image of Amida Buddha.  In Whitehead's process theology, God is not the omnipotent creator of the universe,  just as in Shin Buddhism, Amida Buddha is not understood as  a divine creator, since all dharma events naturally emerge from out of the dynamic web of interrelationships through the causal process of dependent coarising, the coalescence of a field of causal relationships. According to Whitehead's process theology, in its Primordial Nature, the dipolar God is a "lure for feeling"  (PR 344)—not an authoritarian deity who rules by forceful coercion—but a caring deity who lures events to achieve maximum  depth of aesthetic value, beauty, harmony and peace through gentle persuasion. Whitehead rejects the images of God as an unmoved mover, an imperial ruler, or a  ruthless moralist, and instead envisions a patient, tender and caring God who lures events to realize divine aims. He writes that in contrast to these other images, the origins of Christianity in Jesus suggest a new image of a caring God that "dwells upon the tender elements in the world, which slowly and in quietness operate by love" (PR 343). Whitehead describes the  divine care operating through the Primordial Nature of God in terms of the image of tenderness : "His tenderness is directed towards each actual occasion, as it arises" (PR 105).  Again, in his description of the Primordial Nature of God in its function as a lure toward value, Whitehead asserts that God is "the poet of the world, with tender patience leading it by his vision of truth, beauty, and goodness" (PR 346). In its Consequent Nature, the dipolar God is a caring deity who saves all beauty achieved by creative events as everlasting value-qualities in the divine memory. Describing the cosmological function of God's Consequent Nature, Whitehead thus writes: "The image...under which this operative growth of God's nature is best conceived, is that of a tender care  that nothing be lost" (PR 346; italics added). Just as in his organic process cosmology Whitehead describes the "concern" (AI 176, 180) structure of interrelated events arising through the causal process of sympathy, or feeling of feeling, whereby an occasion emerges into actuality by sympathetically feeling its relations to all past occasions, so in his process theology he emphasizes that God's ultimate divine nature is that of "care." In his Primordial Nature, the care of God lures all events to actualize his divine aims for them to realize harmony, beauty and value, just as the Primal Vow of Amida's compassionate Other-power grace calls out to all sentient beings to achieve enlightenment, nirvana, and rebirth into the Pure Land. The Consequent Nature of God as the Kingdom of Heaven is a caring deity that  operates like the compassionate nature of Dharmâkara/Amida as the Storehouse Consciousness which functions to save all  sentient beings through rebirth in his heavenly paradise as the Pure Land of Peace and Bliss.  Hence, both Whiteheadian process theology  and Shin Buddhism envision  the divine nature of God/Amida through the image of care  or compassion, just as they view the metaphysical character of ultimate reality itself as  caring or compassionate, due to the concern  structure of existence itself as composed of dependently coarisen events or dharmas emerging from out of  their sympathy, or dynamic process of feeling the feelings of all past events, which have arisen out of the dynamic interconnected matrix of relationships in the flowing continuum of nature.

            In the classical tradition of Christian theology, God is an unchanging absolute, characterized by attributes of transcendence, immutability, and impassibility, thus to be completely unaffected by events in process. By contrast, the Consequent Nature of God  in Whitehead's process theology is a caring God who feels the feelings of all becoming and perishing events, and is thus forever changing, growing and evolving with the world-process as the creative advance into novelty. Above it was shown how Whitehead's dipolar God is to be conceived through the image of "care" (PR 346), just as the structure of ultimate reality itself is to be described as the  "concern" structure of causal feelings  (AI 176), whereby events emerge by their "sympathy," or feeling of relationships with all other events (AI 176, 180). In opposition to traditional Christian theology, wherein one of the fundamental attributes of God in His absolute transcendence is that of "impassibility," or total absence of feeling as an unmoved mover, Whitehead clarifies how the Consequent Nature of God is a caring deity who by concern, prehension, or sympathy, comes to  feel the feelings of all other events, and therefore also feels both the suffering and joy of all becoming and perishing events in the creative process.  Whitehead therefore asserts:    "God is the great companion—the fellow sufferer   who understands" (PR 351; italics added).

            Thus far, the interfaith dialogue between Whiteheadian process theology and Shin Buddhism   has not yet addressed the importance of this notion of "divine suffering" in both traditions. However, Professor Takeda Ryusei of Ryukoku University, an eminent Japanese scholar of both Jôdo Shinshû  and Whiteheadian process theology, has clearly explained the Shin Buddhist notion of duhka   (J. ku ) or "suffering"  in his article titled: "Pure Land Buddhist View of Duhka " (1985).  In this essay Takeda explicates what he calls "the bodhisattva's compassionate practice of vicarious duhka" in Shin Buddhism.

            This dynamism of the bodhisattva's ceaseless 'de-substantializing' [self-emptying] is embodied as the universal creativity of Dharmakara Bodhisattva's Primal Vow, whose fulfillment is Amida Buddha's untiring dynamism of saving all sentient beings. The uniqueness of Amida's compassion...is the ultimate form of bodhisattva's vicarious duhka. (1985, 15)

            Like Whitehead's God of care who acts as a "fellow sufferer" who understands, Dharmâkara Bodhisattva/Amida Buddha is a compassionate deity who saves all sentient beings by  feeling their suffering  as its  own through vicarious duhkha.  Although he does not explicitly refer to Whitehead in this essay, Takeda nevertheless shows the unmistakable influence of process theology by his use of Whitehead's distinctive technical term "ingression" when discussing the influx   or incarnation of divine grace as a gift of faith from the Primal Vow of Amida Buddha's compassionate Other-power, thereby implying a parallel between the ingression ,descent, or incarnation of grace from the divine immanence of the Primordial Nature of God, such as when he writes: "For Shinran, buddha-nature is faith. Faith is given by Amida to each being, and through this gift of faith the buddha-nature ingresses   itself into each being" (1985 21; italics added). Again, he states, "Apart from the bodhisattva's actualization as ingressing  his will into the actual existence of each being, the 'de-substantializing' [self-emptying]  reality turns out to be so abstract that any sort of reference to it falls into delusive attachment to that reality itself, which is none other than its dogmatic substantialization"  (1985 15).

PEACE  in Shin Buddhism and Process Theology  

            Imamura Yemyo  (1867-1932), one of the earliest pioneer missionaries who transmitted Shin Buddhism to America, and the Bishop of Honpa Hongwanji Mission of Hawaii —the first Buddhist temple in America, proclaimed a Gospel of Peace grounded in the Primal Vow of Amida to bestow the gifts of peace, happiness and salvation to all beings.In his essay "Democracy According to the Buddhist Standpoint," he writes: "Peace! Peace! " is the universal cry; for this is the only condition in which we can realize our ideals of truth, goodness, and beauty. But we cannot have a permanent peace unless we have a thorough understanding as to the true signification of peace. (Moriya Tomoe: 2000, 87).  Imamura concludes: "We cannot stop short of propagating the gospel of true peace  based upon the Will-to-Save [Primal Vow] of the Buddha" (Moriya Tomoe: 2000, 108).

            The process theology of Whitehead similarly holds to a vision of God as having a Primordial Nature that out of concern aims to lure all events toward realization of peace, happiness, and salvation. For Whitehead, Peace is the ultimate spiritual value which comes as a gift of God's divine grace.  As will be seen, the God of process theology is a poet of the world luring it toward his vision of beauty, goodness and truth, along with their unity in the supreme Harmony of Peace. Whitehead holds that the divine nature of God as well as the generic metaphysical structure of reality are revealed in an epiphany of the person, life, and teachings of Jesus Christ through his gospel of peace, love, and sympathetic care for all creatures. For Whitehead, as for Shin Buddhism, the realization of Peace as cosmic Harmony is both an ultimate goal of civilization, as well as an expanded transpersonal state of consciousness beyond the ego-self analogous to resolution of suffering through overcoming attachment to an ego-self in the Peace of nirvana. Hence, in this final section, I want to clarify how both Whiteheadian process theology and Shin Buddhism culminate in a Gospel of Peace, including both the both the social ideal of Peace as the goal of civilization and the soteriological goal of an expanded consciousness transcending the ego-self in a cosmic Harmony of harmonies.

            (i)  PEACE  in Shin Buddhism : The imaginative picture of Amida Buddha depicted in the three great mandala  images representing the three Pure Land scriptures, as magnificently reproduced in The Three Pure Land Sutras  by Inagaki Hisao, illustrate the serene countenance of Amida Buddha in his Pure Land of Peace and Bliss. This same tranquil and quiescent visage of Amida Buddha's sublimely calm expression is shown through such great religious art as the famous Daibutsu, or Great Buddha, located in Kamakura. Throughout the Pure Land scriptures, along with the writings of Hônen, Shinran and other Japanese masters of Shin Buddhism, it is constantly repeated that the Pure Land of Amida Buddha is the realm of Peace, as imparted by a variety of technical Japanese terms in the lexicon of Jôdo shinshû, including annyo  (Land of Peace), annyo jodo  (Pure Land of Peace), annyo josetsu  (Pure Land of Peace), annyo kai  (Land of Peace),  anraku bukkoku  (Buddha Country of Peace and Bliss), anraku butsudo  (Buddha Land of Peace and Bliss), anraku jodo (Pure Land of Peace and Bliss), anraku koku  (Land of Peace and  Bliss), anraku kokudo (Land of Peace and Bliss), and anraku sekai  (World of Peace and Bliss)— to list a just a few representative examples (Inagaki: 1995b, 3).

            As noted by James Frederiks, for Shinran, Rennyo and the whole Jôdo shinshû tradition, "the true sign of saving faith came to be 'peace of mind' (anjin )" (1998, 56).  Shinran's notion of  anjin, or "peace of mind," is itself the criterion of true shinjin, or faith— the state of openness and receptivity to the transformative grace of Amida Buddha's compassionate Other-power. Hence, in the writings of Shinran the faith-consciousness of shinjin  is called the "peace-bestowing pure mind" (CWS I, 171).

            In  Kyôgyôshinshô   and other writings from his Collected Works, Shinran often quotes from the Pure Land scriptures about the Buddha's teachings on Peace. Thus, in The Sutra of the Tathagata of Immeasurable Life , Amida Buddha declares: "I will benefit the world, bringing peace and happiness" (CWS I, 15). Again, "Such people as these, hearing the Buddha's Name, Will be full of peace and obtain the supreme benefit" (CWS I, 16). For Shinran, these kind of scriptural passages declare Amida Buddha's Primal Vows (J. hongan ) to compassionately bestow infinite Peace on all who call out Buddha's Name while at the same time guaranteeing the effectiveness of reciting the Buddha's Name through  the nembutsu  of NAMU AMIDA BUTSU for rebirth into the Pure Land of Peace and Bliss. For Shinran, "practicing the saying of the Name alone" leads one to "birth in the Pure Land of peace" (CWS I, 113). Shinran further quotes the authority of Master Tz'u-yun: "Only the nembutsu is quick and true as the pure act that brings one to the land of peace; therefore, practice it" (CWS I, 49).  Moreover, Shinran underscores how rebirth into the "Pure Land of Peace" (annyo jodo) through recitation of nembutsu itself spontaneously, effortlessly, and naturally springs forth as the expression of shinjin, faith. It is therefore asserted, "Swift entrance into the city of tranquillity ... Is necessariy brought about by shinjin " (CWS I, 73).  Shinran remarks, "We see, therefore, that the realization described above is all the great benefit we receive in the Pure Land of peace, the inconceivable , perfect virtue of the Buddha's [Primal] Vow" (CWS I, 62).

            The Primal Vow of Dharmâkara Bodhisattva/Amida Buddha that aims to compassionately bestow Peace on all who recite his Name is cited by Shinran in such passages as follows: "When I attain Buddhahood, the sentient beings throughout the countless, immeasurable, inconceivable, numberless worlds throughout the ten quarters who receive the Buddha's majestic light and are touched and illuminated by it shall attain peace..." (CWS I, 117). For Shinran, the realization of the pure mind of "enlightenment" is characterized by the overcoming of "suffering" (ku ) and the experience of divine Peace as the "gift" (ekô ) of the saving grace of Amida's compassionate Other-power (tariki ) received in the openness and receptivity of shinjin, faith. Shinran cites The Sutra of Immeasurable Life :  "The peace-bestowing pure mind (so termed) because (the bodhisattvas) eliminate all sentient beings' pain" (CWS I, 169).  Again, "[T]hey follow the gate of compassion. They eliminate all sentient beings' pain and become free of thoughts that do not bring peace" (CWS I, 169).  Shinran remarks,  "The undefiled pure mind is in accord with the gate to enlightenment (CWS I, 169). Also: "Enlightenment is the realm of purity that brings peace to all sentient beings" (CS I, 168-9). In his commentary on these scriptural passages, Shin ran further emphasizes that Amid Buddha's Primal Vows arise from the heart of "compassion" (jihad ) and  promise to eliminate the problem of suffering due to impermanence by bestowing Peace on all who recite his Name in the state of  or faith: "[Concerning compassion (jihad )] 'To eliminate pain is termed ji ; to give happiness is termed hi . Though ji   one eliminates the pain of all sentient beings, through hi  one becomes free of thoughts that do not bring them peace" (CWS I, 169).  The Pure Land is continually referred to as "the land of peace" (CWS I, 194). Shinran continues: "Thus we clearly know from the Tathagata's true teaching and the commentaries of the masters that the Pure Land of peace is the true fulfilled land" (CWS I, 202)

            (ii) One of the most neglected categories in Whitehead's scientific process cosmology and Christian process theology is his notion of transpersonal Peace.  Yet his idea of transpersonal Peace is not only the crown of his process cosmology and process theology; it is also the nearest parallel to the ultimate Buddhist goal  of nirvana,  or Peace. The notion of Peace is therefore a central point of intersection between Whiteheadian process theology and the Shin Buddhist idea of rebirth in Amida's Pure Land of Peace and  Bliss, as well as its idea of the Peace of nirvana  as a gift of the divine grace of Amida Buddha. It might be said that both Amida Buddha in Shin Buddhism and the dipolar God of Whitehead's process theology, represent the Peace-bestowing Buddha/Christ whereby there comes to be the ingression , influx, or descent of  transpersonal Peace, as the divine aim toward cosmic Harmony in each dharma event through the grace or persuasive agency of divine immanence as the Primordial Nature of God, the Primal Vow of Amida.  For Whitehead, Christian theology explains Christ as a revelation of God's persuasive agency in the world as a lure toward the divine aims of peace, love and sympathy: "The essence of Christianity is to appeal to the life of Christ as a revelation of the nature of God and the world" (AI 167). Whitehead then describes the revelation of the life, person and teachings of Jesus Christ as occurring through  "his message of peace, love, and sympathy" (AI 167). In Process Theology,  co-authors Cobb and Griffin write, "Christian Peace is an expansion of care for self to care for others" (1976, 140).  This statement underscores how in process theology there is a deep relation between God's function as bestowing Peace and the divine nature as care, concern, compassion, love, and sympathy.

            Whitehead's most visionary book, Adventures of Ideas,  concludes with a remarkable chapter entitled "Peace" (AI 284-296).  According to Whitehead, transpersonal Peace is not only the ultimate aim of civilization; it is also an expanded state of consciousness wherein the self is transcended in a cosmic Harmony. In Whitehead's process metaphysics of becoming and perishing events—suffering, pain, and tragedy are intrinsic to the dynamic evolutionary temporal process of creative advance into novelty: "Decay, Transition, Loss, Displacement belong to the essence of Creative Advance" (AI 286). And just as for Buddhism, deliverance from the "suffering" of impermanence is realized only in the Peace of nirvana, so for Whitehead, salvation from the tragedy, pain, and suffering of existence as the perpetual perishing of momentary events in the flux of becoming, comes only with the immediate experience of transpersonal Peace, the Harmony of Harmonies: "The Adventure of the Universe starts with the dream and reaps tragic Beauty. This is the secret of the union of Zest with Peace: That the suffering attains its end in a Harmony of Harmonies. The immediate experience of this Final Fact...is the sense of Peace" (AI 286).  Whitehead further describes his concept of Peace in a manner consonant with Buddhism  when he writes: "Peace is the understanding of tragedy" (AI 286). Again, "The inner feeling belong to this grasp of the service of tragedy is Peace—the purification of the emotions" (AI 286). The salvific transpersonal dimension of Peace is  then indicated by Whitehead in a manner reminiscent of Buddhist  muga  (Skt. anâtman  ), or no-self: "Peace is...the width where the 'self' has been lost, and interest has been transferred to coodinations wider than personality" (AI 285). Again, "Peace carries with it a surpassing of personality" (AI 285). Moreover, "Peace...is a broadening of feeling due to the emergence of some deep metaphysical insight" (AI 285). Whitehead even identifies the immediate experience of transpersonal Peace as the "attainment of truth" (AI 292) and with "extreme ecstasy" (AI 289).

            In Process Theology   by John Cobb and David Griffin, the co-authors state: "To whatever extent our lives become aligned to God's ever-changing aims for us, we can have 'that Peace, which is the harmony of the soul's activities with ideal aims that lie beyond any personal satisfaction' " (1876, 124).  They further clarify that, "it is the immanence of deity as a whole, with its Primordial and Consequent Natures, its creative and responsive love, which is the source of Peace: 'It is the immanence of the Great Fact including this initial Eros and this final Beauty which constitutes the zest of self-forgetful transcendence belonging to Civilization at its height...The immediate experience of this Final Fact is the sense of Peace" (AI 381)' " (1976, 125).  Through the caring persuasive agency of God's Primordial Nature as the divine lure there is implanted in each dependently coarising event an initial aim toward realizing the harmonic value-qualities of beauty, art, adventure, and truth, as well as their unity in the supreme aim of Peace, the cosmic Harmony of harmonies:  "The presence of God in us is divine grace (Cf. AI 205). It gives rise to adventure, and to art. To it we owe the beauty...It works at all times in all people. The supreme gift is Peace, which is an alignment of ourselves with God's grace" (126). As again emphasized here, this aim toward Peace in each occasion derived from God's Primordial Nature as the divine lure is the functioning of grace, and  the realization of Peace in each occasion as a result of this grace is itself the gift  of God through Christ as the divine Logos which incarnates into each occasion. Cobb and Griffin therefore conclude: "Peace is the gift of Christ" (1976, 127).

            Whitehead himself writes that ,"The experience of Peace is largely beyond the control of purpose. It comes as a gift " (AI 285; italics added). Again, "Peace carries with it a surpassing of personality....It is primarily a trust  in the efficacy of Beauty....The trust in the self-justification of Beauty introduces faith,jiriki ), but only as a "gift" (ekô ) of the transformative grace of Amida Buddha's compassionate "Other-power" (tariki ) realized in tranquil inwardness  of shinjin,  faith.   It is in such a manner, then, that we have arrived at this vision of Amida in Shin Buddhism,  and the dipolar God in Whitehead's process theology, as the caring and compassionate Peace-bestowing Buddha/Christ that forever guides and saves all events coarising from the dynamic network of interrelationships in the ceaseless flux of becoming.

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References to the Works of A. N. Whitehead

AI        — Adventures of Ideas   (1933). New York: The Free Press.

IS        — The Interpretation of Science: Selected Essays   (1961) .  Ed.  A. H.Johnson. New York: The Bobs-Merrill Company.

MT      — Modes of Thought   (1981). New York: The Free Press.

PR       — Process and Reality  (1929). Corr. Ed., ed. David Ray Griffin & Donald W.                                   Sherburne. New York: The Free Press, 1978.

RM      — Religion in the Making  (1926). New York: Meridian, 1974.

S          — Symbolism: Its Meaning and Affect.  New York: MacMillan,  1927.

SMW   —  Science and the Modern World  (1925). New  York: The Free Press, 1967.