This month, the Shin Reader reviews the book Behold the Buddha: Religious Meaning of Japanese Buddhist Icons (2020) by James C. Dobbins.

Bradley Cooper’s new Leonard Bernstein drama Maestro begins with this quote from its subject:

 A work of art does not answer questions, it provokes them; and its essential meaning is in the tension between the contradictory answers.     

Leonard Bernstein

The movie was not the best but I really loved this quotation. It sums up the theme of James C. Dobbins new book Behold the Buddha. He is in search of the “religious meaning of Japanese Buddhist icons.”

But this is not an easy task as most of us view art as representational – that is, art as an endeavor which aims to depict the physical appearance of things. Pushing back against this approach can be difficult as noted by the Buddhist scholar Rita M. Gross.

Years ago, at the Brooklyn Museum, I was looking at a Tibetan statue of a multi-armed figure when a middle-aged white couple stopped to view the statue, and as they did, one said to the other, “What is that about? Do you suppose they were trying to portray a freak who was born that way?” Then, before I could say anything, they moved on. As I, or anyone else familiar with the Indian cultural milieu, might have told them, the multiple arms were not intended to be a photograph-like portrait. Their intent is symbolic not literal. They symbolize the deity’s multiple abilities and capabilities. Only if one were completely blind to symbolism could one so completely misread the meaning of the statue’s multiple arms, imagining that they were intended to be an accurate physical representation of an actual person born with many arms.

https://tricycle.org/magazine/matter-truth/

Dobins begins by defining categories that may help the viewer orient themselves. First, there are three types of Buddhist statues that are ordered chronologically as: 

1)     The Quest along the Path

2)     Realization of Insight

3)     Practicing Compassion

The Buddha is either depicted along the spiritual path, as realizing awaking or teaching the Dharma. The vast majority of Buddha statues are in category #3. This is also where we would place statues of Amida Budha.

These three categories can also be appreciated in one of three ways:

1)     Symbolizing an Event

2)     Embodying a Quality

3)     Immersing the Viewer

The first does represent a moment in the Buddha’s life but it is often idealizes the event as something mythical or transcendent. Next the statue actually radiates a feeling or a state of mind when viewed. Lastly, the viewer is actually invited into the world that the statue inhabits. Again, I think #3 is the artisitic world that Amida Buddha would inhabit. When see an Amida statue and say Namoamidabutsu then we can say that we have become active participates within this world of art and sound. Dobbins describes Amida Buddha in this way,

Pure Land, more than many types of Buddhism, makes eloquent use of form – visual, verbal, meditative, and iconographic – to engender a Buddhist frame of mind, while simultaneously affirming Mahayana themes of formlessness – emptiness, suchness, Dharma body, and Nirvana – which are considered conguent and implicit in these Pure Land forms.

This is one of the unique features of Pure Land Buddhism. It uses form to communicate profound spirtual meaning. For example, our naijin is visually overwelming which is also by design. We are captivated by it and immersed within it whenever we behold its beauty. You might even think of it as a life sized diorama representing the awakened mind which in turn awakens the world around it. Dobbins describes it in this way.

Images of the Buddha have a narrative quality about them, as if telling a story or describing a momentous occurrence ... It thus constitutes a sacred narrative that undergirds the religion as a whole. Observers who are attuned to it while engaging the icon are able to “behold” the Buddha and “hear” the story.

Not only are our senses overwhelmed but also our thinking. We are transported to a different state of mind. Dobbins draws this conclusion below, which is also a valid response to the couple that Rita Gross overheard at an art museum.

The sacred story that expresses and embodies its core values, goals, and ideals. Neither philosophical principles nor moral truths can be a substitute for it, for they cannot exert the emotive influence that the story does.

Namoamidabutsu, Rev Jon Turner