what is it like to believe in heaven?

Pure Land Buddhism is an interesting religion. Its legendary founder, if founder is the right term, was a primordial being called Amida who, after millennia of austerity and meditation, achieved Buddhahood and forced the cosmos to grant him two wishes. His first wish was to be granted his own transcendental ‘land’. His second wish was that all people who say ‘Namu Amida Butsu’ ten times would, after their current life, be reborn in his land. There they would live in paradisical surroundings eating fabulous vegetarian cuisine and receiving tuition in Buddhism until they achieve Buddhahood – liberation - though I suppose they might just prefer to stay in the Pure Land for all eternity. I know I would. But then again, perhaps what makes the Pure Land so paradisical is one’s knowledge that nirvana, the boundless rapture of liberation, is its inevitable sequel. The Pure Land is blissful because nothing is so blissful as having something blissful to look forward to.

There are lots of Pure Land Buddhists, especially in Japan, but not every Pure Land Buddhist is happy with the idea that all you have to do to go to the Pure Land is chant Namu Amida Butsu ten times. That sounds too easy. Any slob can do it. But perhaps they are missing the point. Perhaps the biggest stumbling block to nirvana – or any form of happiness - is the prideful human tendency to disdain freebies, even priceless ones.

Pure Land Buddhism offers a doctrine of radical grace, but not everyone can handle grace, perhaps because it’s not meant to be handled; it’s meant to be left alone to do its thing. Once the practice of jumping through spiritual hoops is wiped from one’s religious syllabus, one is free to live dangerously, courageously and fully; but such freedom is not everyone’s cup of tea. God of course does not foist this freedom on us. Lots of religious people try to tell us that God is good; they should also mention that he is good-mannered.

According to some Roman Catholic thinkers, Purgatory is a far happier place than earth. Sure, you are being purged, but on the plus side, you know you are going to heaven. The Catholic Purgatory is like the Buddhist Pure Land in this sense. Protestants don’t believe in Purgatory, although some Protestants (C.S. Lewis for one) think the idea makes sense. Few of us are perfected in this life, and Lewis thought it weird to posit that we are perfected in Heaven, so (Lewis conjectures) something must happen between the two worlds. Lewis compares earthly life to being in a dentist’s chair, and likens Heaven to leaving the dentist’s surgery with a gleaming smile, and he suggests that between the two there is probably some sort of metaphysical equivalent to spitting into a small sink. Lewis was not always as picturesque as his Narnia books might lead one to believe.