Ministers in the Buddhist Churches of America (BCA) began performing same-sex marriages approximately forty years ago. These were among the first clergy-led religious ceremonies for same-sex couples performed in the modern era, and were apparently the first such marriages conducted in the history of Buddhism. In this article, I seek to explain why Jodo Shinshu Buddhists in America widely and easily affirmed same-sex weddings in the later 20th and early 21st centuries. My argument is that there are three factors in particular—institutional, historical, and theological elements of American Shin Buddhism—that must be attended to as contributing reasons why ministers were supportive of same-sex marriage.

Everything has the potential to support and realize spiritual life.

Amida Buddha’s vows form the foundation of the Pure Land tradition’s vision of universal salvation. While emphasizing that these vows create the Pure Land as an ideal realm for awakening, Bloom underscores that Amida, as dharmakaya, represents the buddha-nature inherent in all things—making awakening possible anywhere.

Our passions, while remaining just as they are, become one with great wisdom, so that they are gradually transformed like ice melting into water through the working of the wisdom.

This article explores the concept of “deeply entrusting mind” (shinjin) in Shin Buddhism. It highlights Amitabha Buddha’s compassion, the expression of his name, and the transformative experience that follows the awakening of shinjin.

On the one hand, it stands squarely upon a Mahayana Buddhist conception of enlightened wisdom as radically nondichotomous and nondual with reality. On the other hand, it directly confronts the nature of human existence in its ineluctable finitude: karmically conditioned, discriminative and reifying in awareness, and given to the afflicting passions…

From its origins in the Buddha Fields of the early Mahāyāna, to Hōnen’s twelfth century Nembutsu teachings, to Shin’s twentieth century engagements with Christian philosophy, this encyclopedia entry gives an overview of the history of Pure Land thought in Japan.

contemporary Buddhist women actively work through ritual to create meaningful relationships with one another.

promising him special access to a better future life and even nibbāna, that possesses great appeal to him. […] When people engage in religious behavior, they are trying to see where there is a concentration of power to which they can connect themselves. So, the question is, where do you think such concentrations of power lie?

When the weizza appear, the sermons that they convey are simple, basic, Buddhist lessons. There’s nothing unusual about what they prescribe to people as the way to be good Buddhists. So, while the circumstances in which these lessons are conveyed is most unusual, their content is altogether garden-variety, Burmese Buddhism.

A discussion on Guillaume Rozenberg’s 2010 French anthropology work on miracle cults in Myanmar (Les immortels: Visages de l’incroyable en Birmanie bouddhiste), published in English translation in 2015.

The Pure Land was often very concretely present in the Chinese landscape or made present through ritual practice, but it was not owned by a single religious tradition.

the neurophysiological correlates of religious chanting are different from those of meditation and prayer

[The] regional increase in endogenous generation of delta oscillations [is] not due to peripheral cardiac or respiratory activity, nor due to implicit language processing, and is associated with feelings of transcendental bliss and decreased self-oriented cognition.

Shinjin is the true cause of birth in the Purland.

This talk by Rev. Miyaji first discusses how Jodo Shinshu Buddhists do not believe in luck and astrology, but rather, they follow closely the principle of cause and effect. In part two, Miyaji explains how karma is understood from a self-power and other-power perspective. Rebirth into the Pureland depends on faith in the loving compassion of Amitabha Buddha, therefor merit and demerit do not bar a person from entry. Yet, when this loving compassion is fully understood, a person does not want to perform negative actions.

Bombu refers to a foolish being such as myself.

When I could finally admit this to myself, I saw that the license plate had to go …

Some questions to ponder and discuss after watching this video:

• Are there any minority groups that have not historically or still might not feel welcome in your community?
• What norms or behaviors contribute(d) to that?
• Are there any people you’d have a hard time “greeting with a smile” if they showed up at your temple?

With Ch’an but no Pure Land, nine out of ten people will go astray.

How Ch’an and Pure Land were combined over a thousand years ago.

Just as I was talking about the unhindered Light,
In rolled the morning fog

A collection of “waka” verses on chanting the nembutsu.

Amida Buddha emerged in Mahayana Buddhism from among the multitude of Buddhas, Bodhisattvas, or other Indian divine beings to become the primary expression of Unconditional Compassion and Universal Wisdom [for Pure Land Buddhists]

… neither of those positions equipped anyone to address concrete social, political, or any other kind of human problem

It is possible to know the original intent of our sacred literature.

An impassioned defense of mythology and orthodoxy in the modern world.