Amida's revelation is not to be sought after by our own efforts; it comes upon us by itself, of it's own accord. Amida is always in us and with us, but by means of our human understanding we posit him outside us, against us, as opposing us, and exercise our intellectual power to the utmost to take hold of him. The revelation, however, would take place only when this human power has been really exhausted, has given up all its selfishness, when we have come back to our simplicity.
namu amida butsu
Hi Jon, I have no argument with this passage ... it speaks to my experience. What sometimes bothers me though is the question of whether the language and terminology of Shin, especially in English, lumps too much into terms like 'effort'. To think that we can 'gain' Amida through calculation or intellect is undoubtedly false, but at the same time I feel that we have been given certain 'lights', certain skills, in which I think we are called to exert ourselves. I also find in my life a kind of dynamic where simplicity is the ultimate resting place, like the bottom of a pendulum swing, but is only known through movement which is life itself.
ReplyDeleteI guess what I'm trying to get at is that my experience of the path has been one in which falling away from simplicity is always part of the whole process of awakening to simplicity.
Hi K, thanks for your thoughts. Very quickly before i get ready for work - i think a great deal of the concern you express has been to some extent addressed in our discussions on jiriki recently, both here and on Echoes. i do share your feelings though.
ReplyDeletewill come back to this in due time once the trivialities of work are out of the way :)
It is interesting in this context to read this passage by DT Suzuki in 'Buddha of Infinite Light'
ReplyDelete"It is all right to say that Other-power does everything by itself. We just let it accomplish its work. Nevertheless, we must become conscious of Other-power doing its work in us. Unless we are conscious of Amida's doing work in us, we shall never be saved. We can never be sure of the fact that we are born in the Pure Land and have attained our enlightenment. To acquire this consciousness, we must exhaust our efforts. Amida may be standing and beckoning us come to the Other Shore, but we cannot see Amida until we have done all we can do. Self-power is not what is really needed to cross the stream of birth and death, but Amida will extend his helping hand only when we realise that our self-power is of no account." and "Other-power is all -important but this truth is known only by those who have striven by means of self-power to attempt the impossible".
hi Jishin, great to hear from you! yes, i think Suzuki's comments raise important points about awareness of Other-power only once self-power is exhausted. this was perhaps missing in my earlier postings on the subject.
ReplyDeletein which falling away from simplicity is always part of the whole process of awakening to simplicity.
i think this takes it even further and is worth some serious thought. there is this exhaustion of self-power, and yet it would be wrong to equate this with an exhaustion of blind passions...
"i think this takes it even further and is worth some serious thought. there is this exhaustion of self-power, and yet it would be wrong to equate this with an exhaustion of blind passions...
ReplyDeleteHi Jon, I'm not quite sure that I would put it exactly that way but yes this is headed toward the distinction and point that I wanted to make. Too often Shin is presented in such a way that people suppose that 'over the horizon' of the one-though-moment-of-entrusting doing and 'falling away from simplicity' have no role to play. Yet its not that everything becomes an undifferentiated field of other-power but that the relationship between self and other is clarified; "not one, not two, in greater oneness".