Buddhology, or the systematic study of the Buddha and Buddhahood, has its roots in the earliest beginnings of the early Dharma. Asked if he was man or god, Shakyamuni simply replied that he was Awakened. No doubt an inspiring and affecting response, but within many of the early suttas are questions from diverse and curious disciples, skeptics and teachers: who is the Buddha? What is Buddhahood? During the colonial period, Buddhology came to be associated with Europeans anxious to impose their own projections of what they believed Buddhism to be onto the great traditions of the surviving Theravada and Mahayana schools. This was ultimately unsuccessful, however. The schools of the Blessed One proved, at least intellectually, far more tenacious than colonialists and exploiters expected. Some even began to take Buddhology seriously as an ancient discipline that dated to the epoch Shakyamuni walked this earth, which is called Endurance in the Buddhist tradition. This is the fundamental thrust of Buddhology and cannot be forgotten. It is of unsurpassed importance that scholars, philosophers, and historians return to what Buddhology fundamentally seeks to understand: to meet the Buddha and share in the inconceivable, holy enlightenment that is Buddhahood.

The universality of Buddhological study is such: like all other endeavours in the spiritual tradition, it fosters personal growth in the form of intellectual refinement, open-mindedness, and spiritual curiosity. It provides the conditions necessary for Amitabha’s infinite light to illuminate the pathways of one’s potential. The trails that whisper to the secretive heart are suddenly brightened and seem more comfortable, less daunting. But personal development is not limited to the academic sphere. Buddhology is certainly complex and sometimes even unfathomable, for it is as vast and deep as the ocean and cannot be mastered in one lifetime. One must revisit the subject over many returns. But in doing so, the scholar becomes an activist, and the student becomes a meditator. The universality of Buddhology lies in a true “Buddha-remembrance” that follows the untraceable footsteps of the Pure Land masters: to remember the Buddha and the Buddha’s loving compassion. Sentient beings, without exception will be enlightened and experience complete bliss. This is the soteriological truth of that Buddhology, like all other Buddhist disciplines, testify to. All that remains is to determine how to express these truths and experiences so that the humans of Endurance can prepare for their turn to return to the world as blissful bodhisattvas of limitless light and limitless life.

In the postmodern world, Buddhology has to be reclaimed as a field in which the very study of Shakyamuni, and indeed all other Buddhas, have some significance to those who tremble with spiritual hunger. Buddhology must be erudite, scholarly, and intellectually rigorous, no doubt. We owe much to the scholars, both Eastern and Western, who have developed it into such a stern discipline within the fields of history, anthropology, and sociology. However, a practical approach to Buddhology must speak to Buddhists as well as teachers and writers who may or may not be Buddhists. For without the Buddha, there is no Dharma, and there is no Sangha. In this sense Buddhology has no choice but to be universal, and ever more pertinent to our pluralistic society of diverse spiritual disciplines.

The cosmic Buddha is always present everywhere but also closely intimate to individual sentient beings. In Buddhist cosmology, the universe is composed of worlds upon worlds, ad infinitum. Our world system, Saha, means “endurance,” referring to the many afflictions and suffering that permeate it, although its inhabitants endure it, for better or for worse. The Buddha, who is cosmic, is referred to by many names, though in the Avatamsaka Sutra this name is given as “Vairocana,” or Great Sun (Illuminator). Vairocana’s Pure Land is in fact the Flower Store World, which is the entire cosmos, every particle of dust, every atom of totality. However, the grandeur of the Buddha should not detract our attention away from revering the Buddha intimately. An example would be the practice of visualizing Amitabha, the Lord of Ineffable Light, Ineffable Light itself. The sacred gaze is important not only because it is a central religious concept in Mahayana Buddhism, but also because it is the most intimate pedagogical tool of the Buddha.

In Schroeder’s words: “What Dogen calls ‘face-to-face’ transmission,’ in which teacher sees disciple, and disciple sees teacher, is a bodhisattvic exchange that is direct and unmediated, relying on no fixed criteria and no substantial doctrines, and in which liberation is revealed as intimacy and love of another. Upaya reflects this unmediated encounter, showing that spiritual transformation occurs in a liberated ’space’ where one’s body and mind is fully present, and where the sheer ‘emptiness’ of anything fixed or tangible leads to a deep sense of vulnerability and intimacy” (2001, p. 156). The presence of the Buddhas and emptiness, sunyata, therefore can only be expressed in “word-play,” in rather difficult terms of non-duality. The Vimalakirti Sutra says: “The true nature of things is beyond the limiting concepts imposed by words.” This is echoed by the earlier Perfection of Wisdom literature, which formulated complex dialectical structures to linguistically demonstrate the tradition’s understanding of language’s limits whilst affirming its usefulness for practical purposes.

The Blessed One said: “Subhuti, when you consider the number of particles of dust in this world system of three million world systems, would they be many?” Subhuti answered: “Yes, Blessed One, many. And why? Because what was said by the Tathagata to be particles of dust, the Tathagata has said are no-particles. In this sense, the Tathagata has said ‘particles of dust’. Moreover, that which is a world system is said by the Tathagata to be no system. In this sense, he says ‘world system’.” (Conze, e.d., 1957, Vajracchedika Prajnaparamita. Rome: Serie Orientale Roma XIII, p. 38 [5a])

In all circumstances expressible and inexpressible, the Buddha is always present in the being and hearts of all sentient beings.