To respond to this critique, it seems plausible to suggest, first, that in classical
India, when the idea of a Pure Land began to be formed, nature was not threatened in the
way that it is today; instead, the reality was quite the reverse, and humans might have felt a lot safer in cities. Besides, with forests, wilderness, and wild animals constituting a part of their everyday reality, it is unlikely that these things would have featured in their account of a heavenly realm. Indeed, it could be argued that the vision of a world decked in gold, silver, and jewels is comprehensible, given the value-system of the times, and it has often been argued that only when the West attained a degree of affluence did nature and its inhabitants begin to be valued intrinsically (e.g., Hollander 2003, 2). Therefore,there is no need to be too disturbed by the fact that there are no animals or other natural beings in traditional accounts of Sukhāvatī, the Land of Bliss; instead, these can be regarded as merely conventional descriptions of a reality that, strictly speaking, cannot be put into words, and today, we might feel compelled to re-describe the Pure Land in a more eco-friendly way.
Second, perhaps these aspects of the teachings might be regarded as expedient too, designed for those unable, for the time being, to see the inseparability of saṃsāra
and nirvana. It must be noted that rebirth in the Pure Land is not the same thing as
attaining nirvana, but constitutes, as it were, a sort of stepping stone to enlightenment.
The portrayal of the Pure Land as a fabulous place—without the ordinary features of a
landscape that make life difficult, such as steep mountain paths, rough terrain, and sheer cliffs, and without dangerous animals that threaten lives and livelihood—all these may be clever devices intended to encourage practitioners to aspire to attain that state. Perhaps they are designed for those of us who grasp at the idea of suffering as something real and truly existent in the world. This sort of belief renders us unable to see that, as expressed in the Zen tradition, "This very place is the lotus land [i.e., the Pure Land], this very body the Buddha" (Hakuin Zenji; cited in Kornfield 1996, 200).