Now, Jones is once again breaking new ground with this study of Chinese Pure Land Buddhism, which is the first book in any western language to provide a comprehensive overview of the Chinese Pure Land tradition, a notably understudied area in western-language Buddhist Studies scholarship.

Jones is the author is several articles and books, including Buddhism in Taiwan: Religion and the State 1660-1990, which was a foundational work in the field and the first history of its type to be published in any language. He will be speaking with us about his new book Chinese Pure Land Buddhism: Understanding a Tradition of Practice, just published in the Pure Land Buddhist Studies series with University of Hawaiʻi Press. Jones, Associate Professor and Director of the Religion and Culture graduate program in the School of Theology and Religious Studies at the Catholic University of America. However, the author himself states that his mission was providing an accessible introduction to Pure Land, not evangelization, and on that point he succeeded greatly.Today’s guest is Charles B. That is to say, my intellectual curiosity was tickled, but I don't see myself reciting the nenbutsu after finishing this book.

Finally, the dryness and academic tone conveyed the objective historical appeal of Pure Land practice, but did not strike a chord with me personally. Things got a little dry at times but it did not linger on points long enough to become dull. This had its benefits in avoiding excessive meandering and getting into the weeds, which the book on the history of Zen I'm currently reading is somewhat guilty of, but so much of the history had to, by necessity, delve into the advances and ruptures in theory and practice associated with the principal exponents of Pure Land that I wonder if it was necessary. The book is split into the main section on the history of Pure Land, and a shorter section focusing on the practice itself. This book did a good job anticipating readers' questions and satisfactorily answering them. There was a lot I didn't know, from the scriptural foundations of Pure Land, to the diversity of nianfo practice and the amount of syncretism throughout the past millennium. Pretty much exactly what I wanted from this: a concise history of the development of the Pure Land tradition, or, more accurately, Pure Land practice and its eventual emergence as a distinct school of thought and practice.

Pure Land by Charles B. Jones