Fellow Travelers

Rev. Gregory Gibbs

Amida Buddha can properly be said to be the Ultimate Concern for Buddhists in the Pure Land stream of Mahayana tradition. Amida Buddha is my ultimate religious concern in the sense that the Rolling Stones' "Beggars Banquet" is the ultimate 60's Rock album, Walter Hill's "Hard Times" is the ultimate action adventure film, Duke Ellington the ultimate Jazz composer, Perry Como the perfect T.V. crooner and Sophia Loren the ultimate film "goddess" (in my opinion).

If someone were to object to my aesthetic taste saying, for example, "Sgt. Peppers" has a breadth and complexity which the Stones' album lacks, "Hard Times" pales by comparison to 90's films like "LA Confidential" and "The Fugitive," Count Bassie wrote purer melodies less compromised by considerations of marketability than the Duke, Dean Martin had a better voice than Perry Como and Michelle Pieffer is a better actress than Sophia and a prettier woman,...what could I say in defense of my notions of ultimacy? Not much to be honest. Although I think Sophia Loren is a fine actress, it is true that I prefer brunettes. I like the Beatles too, and how much of the Stones' popularity derived from the illusion that they were more radical than the Beatles? How could I prove that the Duke's melodies are more beautiful than Count Bassie's?

Beauty, profundity and inspiration can be found in the popular arts. Without some access to the fine and/or popular arts we will never fully understand what beauty and aesthetic depth are. The best thing you ever heard is your access to beauty in music. Someday I may encounter something more beautiful than Beethoven's late quartets. Nonetheless, those pieces have remained my standard for musical perfection for thirty years. I would be anxious to listen to any musical piece which someone suggested to me as "perhaps superior to Beethoven's quartets." If I were to drop Beethoven to second place in my estimation, I would still continue to revere his work and credit him with having put me in touch with the heights of artistic creation.

Somebody once tried to convince me that Foghat was the best rock band in the world. I don't think I ever listened to them again after a night in the summer of '78 that a friend of a friend insisted that I listen to the same Foghat album twice.

Amida is a person and a reality which transcends the limits of what we usually consider a person to be. Amida Buddha is probably the most vast Awakened reality in Mahayana Buddhist thought (the Esoteric Buddhist personage Dai Nichi Nyorai may be even more vast although the concept of this Buddha may be incoherent). Despite being one of the most powerful and compassionate Buddhas in our religious pantheon, Amida is finite. The compassionate assistance of Amida Buddha cannot extend backwards to a time which preceded his Awakening. Through him we encounter Awakening itself, a timeless infinite reality. Let us let others encounter the Ultimate in their preferred finite forms.

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