Page 104 - The Buddha‘s Noble Eightfold Path

our own times, there is More's Utopia, Bacon's New Atlantis,

Campanella's City of the Sun, and so on, right down to H.G.
Well's Men Like Gods. These are all daydreams of an ideal

society, daydreams of a world transfigured and transformed.

Buddhism, too, has its daydreams. Buddhism's daydream of the

ideal society is found in its conception — or vision — of Sukhavati
or the 'Pure Land' of Amitabha, the Buddha of Infinite Light, as

described in some of the great Mahayana sutras. * Especially as
taught by the Shin schools of Japanese Buddhism, a Pure Land of
the type represented by Sukhavati, the 'Happy Land' is a place, a

world, a plane of existence, where there is no pain, no suffering,
no misery, no separation, no bereavement, no loss of any kind. It

is a place where there is no old age, no sickness, and no death. It
is a place of perfect peace in which there is no conflict, no war,
no battle, nor even any misunderstanding — it is as perfect and

happy as that! These great Mahayana sutras also tell us that the
Pure Land or Happy Land is a place where there is no distinction

of male and female, and where no-one ever has to do any work,
no-one has to toil. Food and clothing just appear of their own
accord whenever they are needed. In the Pure Land no-one has

anything to do except sit on their golden or purple or blue lotus
at the feet of the Buddha and just listen to his exposition of the

Dharma. To crown it all, especially from our English point of view,
we are told that in the Pure Land, in the Happy Land, the
weather is always perfect. This is Buddhism's daydream, its vision

of an ideal society and an ideal world.

* See Sangharakshita, A Survey of Buddhism, Chapter Three, section VI, 'The Scriptures of
Devotional Buddhism'.

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