"where Buddha speaks to Buddha..."

just to add to the the prior discussion of muryoju, i came across this quote from Kanamatsu's Naturalness which seemed pertinent -

 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

Muryoju (a reply of sorts)...

last week my good friend Kunga D wrote a piece over at his blog, Why are we amazed? myself being an admitted hopeless romantic, prone to burying my head in books of haiku, dreaming of misty-mountain revelations and deep sunyatic realisations awoken by the smell of falling plum blossom, i must admit the frankness of his squawking at first ruffled me. however, once i'd straightened out those feathers and had time to ponder his words with hopefully a bit of clarity i found myself thinking about two aspects of the Jodo Shinshu path.

the first is a word we all encounter in one form or another pretty early on when studying/practising the Pure Land schools. In Japanese it is rendered "Muryoju" - Eternal Life. bear with me here, as it might appear i'm running off in completely the opposite direction of what my friend is saying (really, i'm not lol). Amida Buddha has many names or titles if you like, all referring to his different aspects, but perhaps the two most well known are Amitabha - Infinite Light and Amitayus - Eternal Life. the former is symbolic of wisdom (light breaking through the darkness of ignorance) whereas the latter of compassion (so long as there are sentient beings unawoken to the vow he will be here, leading them to his Pure Land).
the reason i picked up on the latter aspect - muryoju - is in remembering an account mine and Kyoshin's sensei told our samgha one time. he had received a piece of calligraphy from the late DT Suzuki (of whom, he was his last student) to take back to his Dharma mother at the temple. it bore simply the character for Muryoju. realising he could not take it back without an explanation, he returned to Suzuki-sensei, asking what the character meant - "Sensei, regarding the calligraphy you did for Ekai-san, what does this 'Eternal Life' mean." He replied, "Well, see that cat moving over there and the daffodils blooming in the garden? All of it is Eternal Life. Yes, everything's the working of Eternal Life."  http://bit.ly/fH4KrJ

the second thing i picked up on was the 'gyo' part of the Kyogyoshinsho, which most people are familiar with as meaning 'practice'. however, in a translation just short of complete before his death, Suzuki chose to translate this term instead as 'living' believing it closer to Shinran Shonin's intent. Great Practice becomes Great Living, placing it firmly in the midst of our lives, and thus resolving the tendency we often have to seperate the two.

following this musing then, i can acknowledge the danger Kunga mentions in sublimating or spiritualising everything that is meaningful. a common trap i've fallen into many a time is chasing after intense feelings of joy experienced on the path, believing that somehow if i can't get back to them then i'm missing out on the Vow. of course, this thinking fails to realise the Amitabha - light penetrates all corners - and also, while busy chasing, so distracted as to look past "everything's the working of Eternal Life."
that everything is the working, means not only those times we experience great joy but also those times we seem to be picking our way through the darkness. we'd like to seperate the two and place the former in the realm of Amida and the latter in the realm of suffering because to a self-orientated mind, the alternative seems perverse. but to do so is to deny the compassion which is itself muryoju. when we receive an awareness of this working, then our whole being is re-orientated and the dichotomy we might place between practice and living is nulled.

namu amida butsu

some thoughts on jiriki...

Self-power is the effort to attain birth, whether by invoking the names of Buddhas other than Amida and practicing good acts other than the nembutsu, in accordance with your particular circumstances and opportunities; or by endeavoring to make yourself worthy through mending the confusion in your acts, words, and thoughts, confident of your own powers and guided by your own calculation.
- Lamp for the Latter Ages 2


what is jiriki really? this is something which has been bugging me for quite some time now. usually when jiriki, or self-power is referred to it's through the lens of practice. entrusting to Amida means the whole-sale abandoning of practice and instead placing firm faith in and reliance upon all the merit generated by Dharmakara towards the establishment of a Pure Land for all sentient beings. nothing doing, it's all been done.

the problem i have with this approach is i can't help but feel it places emphasis on the wrong point. we should ask ourselves why Shinran Shonin encouraged an abandoning of practice - ultimately, what it boils down to is not the external form of practice itself per se, but the intent behind such an act. entrusting isn't really about abandoning practice, it's about abandoning reliance on the ego-ridden self to bring about enlightenment. whether your practice is zazen, ngondro or riding a unicycle backwards through Times Square singing yankee doodle dandy really shouldn't matter, what should is the letting go of a goal-orientated fixation.

the thing is, i see people getting into all kinds of knots and tangles, beating themselves up because of the way jiriki is approached. someone who wants to add recitation of the Heart Sutra to their daily otsutome shouldn't feel that it doing so they're somehow a failing nembutsu-sha. personally, at the beginning of my path i had a close affiliation to and affection for Arya Tara and i still enjoy reciting the 21 Praises now and then. the temple i attend offers meditation classes. are we somehow failing because we're doing something other than chanting the nembutsu and reciting the traditional liturgy? of course not!

i'm wary of saying that all the various traditions are essentially the same as Jodo Shinshu, certainly there are valid differences to be acknowledged and appreciated but here's the thing, i'll say it quietly - actually, i don't think there is such a thing as jiriki as far as genuine Dharma practice goes. because the act we all do, each and every school, going for refuge - isn't that the ultimate abandonment of reliance on our own efforts, a renunciation of ours and the worlds petty hang-ups, desires and attachments and instead an entrusting to something greater?

focussing on practice to encapsulate the teaching of tariki over jiriki just doesn't make sense to me. for sure, ego is a tricky thing and will arise time and time again even as we tell ourselves we are resting in the midst of effortless action. but regardless of whether we have anything concrete we can label as practice or not, the calculating mind will not let up. and looking back to the quote we came in on, doesn't it appear that intention rather than practice in itself is what's emphasised (effort to attain birth)?



initially i thought this feeling contrary to orthodox opinion, but in searching for references to clarify the 'orthodox' now i'm not so sure...perhaps a further clarification addressing the matter directly can be taken from the seven forms of deep entrusting provided in fascicle two of Gotuku's Notes, Shinran clarifies the fifth - To entrust oneself to the Buddha's words alone and rely decidedly on the practice [of the nembutsu] - with three kinds of guidance -

 Practicers "abandon what the Buddha brings them to abandon."
Practicers "practice what the Buddha brings them to practice."
Practicers "leave what the Buddha brings them to leave.

rather than worry about whether practice somehow disqualifies us from the Pure Land, wouldn't it make more sense to reflect deeply on this?

namu amida butsu

Enlightenment seeking Enlightenment

not sure if i'll have the chance to post much, if at all, over the next month as i'm taking a TEFL course. in the meantime though i'd like to share this article by Paraskevopoulos. despite Shinran's mentioning Ashvaghosa twice in the KGSS (once in True Buddha and Land and again in Transformed Buddha-Bodies and Lands) both references are brief, with only the former quoting directly from The Awakening. given this, i'd always presumed it held more relevance for the Chinese Pure Land schools, buddhanusmrti as recitation viewed through the lens of practice. Paraskevopoulos' essay really opens up the relevance of the text for the Shinshu tradition though and two excerpts in particular (the first a direct quote from The Awakening)  really highlight its significance in my mind -

 It may be said that there is the principle of Suchness and that it can permeate into ignorance. Through the force of this permeation, Suchness causes the deluded mind to loathe the suffering of birth-and-death and to aspire for Nirvana. Because this mind, though still deluded, is now possessed with loathing and aspiration, it permeates into Suchness in that it induces Suchness to manifest itself. Thus a man comes to believe in his essential nature...
__________

In this way, one can see that the initiative for seeking enlightenment can only come from Enlightenment itself. Strictly speaking, our limited egos can contribute nothing to this process because they are ultimately insubstantial and unreal - 'empty' of self-being and thus incapable of generating light out of darkness. All we can really do, under these circumstances, is to maintain mindfulness of Amida's Dharma through monpo, or 'hearing' (Skt. sruta-maya-jnana).

be sure to read the whole thing, it's worth your time.

namu amida butsu

anger and the nembutsu

Taitetsu Unno in River of Fire, River of Water tells a wonderful story about his grandmother, a devout nembutsu-sha. answering a call one afternoon, the young Taitetsu hears her arguing angrily with a gentleman on the doorstep. after a while the door slams shut and his grandmother returns "huffing and puffing". the man in question, it transpires, goes around conning the elderly out of their money. she is furious and calls him a beast (perhaps the worst insult in Japanese, with its lack of profanity). what happens next though is that namu amida butsu immediately spills from her lips. the story can be found on p.176 for those interested, i only provide a shoddy re-telling as it raises something that's been on my mind for a week or two now.

it's easy to be grateful when happy or even when sad, then quiet naturally the nembutsu finds itself on my lips. but in the heat of the moment, when coming up against a person who annoys or infuriates me (and really just serves as a mirror for my own blind passions) then the mind of thankfulness for the Vow is seemingly nowhere to be found. Amida appears as far away from me as can be.

but really, i guess that's why they're called blind passions because of course - My eyes being hindered by blind passions, I cannot perceive the light that grasps me; Yet the great compassion, without tiring, Illumines me always.

always. and it's that same great compassion that allows me to acknowledge my anger, even if sometimes long after it has subsided, say "sorry" and move forward, entrusting all - happiness, sadness and yes, anger - to Amida.

namu amida butsu

Tolstoy Shinran Good Evil

currently making my way through Tolstoy's The Kingdom of God is Within You  the tome which served as a great inspiration for Gandhi's peaceful resistance movement. Tolstoy presents a pretty radical view of Christianity, one that i imagine wouldn't sit well with a lot of Christians - he pretty much rejects anything other than the Gospels for example - and it doesn't surprise me that its publication was suppressed by the church and state authorities of its day.

while i don't agree entirely with his complete dismissal of ritual, i must admit he argues his case extremely well and offers a refreshing take on what it must mean to live a life in imitation of Christ - in his eyes the complete adherence to a well known passage from the Sermon on the Mount,  Matthew 5: 38-39 "Ye have heard that it hath been said, An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth: But I say unto you, That ye resist not evil: but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also."

combined with his criticism of church and state, both of which he argues as fundamentally opposed to and contradictive of Christ's injuctions (1 COR 7: 23) Tolstoy has come to be seen as somewhat of a godfather figure to the anarcho-pacifists.

reading through, one thing that's grabbed my attention is his response in chapter 2 to a criticism levelled at his advocation of non-resistance -

"even if to use force against wicked men had been permitted by God, since it is impossible to find a perfect and unfailing distinction by which one could positively know the wicked from the good, so it would come to all individual men and societies of men mutually regarding each other as wicked men, as is the case now."

i was very much reminded with these words, of Shinran's own conception of the impossibility of comprehending what is truly good and what is truly evil such as Amida knows found in the third postcript of the Tannisho -

I know nothing at all of good or evil. For if I could know thoroughly, as Amida Tathagata knows, that an act was good, then I would know good. If I could know thoroughly, as the Tathagata knows, that an act was evil, then I would know evil. But with a foolish being full of blind passions, in this fleeting world- this burning house- all matters without exception are empty and false, totally without truth and sincerity. The nembutsu alone is true and real. 

while i acknowledge that there is a difference here in that Shinran is speaking about thorough knowledge of good and evil acts in and of themselves whereas Tolstoy is focussing on distinction between the two whereby positive knowledge of both is arrived at, nonetheless i think the comparison bears up.

it's interesting at least if nothing else and i may return to these thoughts the further into Tolstoy's tome i go.

namu amida butsu 

Amida is Foolish Too

"[...]But when I reflect it seems to me that Amida is foolish because Amida is never apart from us, who are foolish, and all the world, which is foolish too. Amida participates in our foolishness in order to relieve it. Amida doesn't cast out sinners in anger. Those who are hardest to reach are given the lion's share of Amida's compassionate attention."

- Jeff Wilson, Buddhism of the Heart


namu amida butsu

Pre- Chomon Reflections 2

thinking some more about the question and having talked it through with friends, i'm left wondering if this feeling and urge that i could be doing more or that i'm not doing enough or that there's a conclusion i must come to lying cruelly just beyond my reach is born out of mistakenly viewing Amida's light as constrained or bound by a fixed point in time, missing the crucial point that he is the Buddha of Infinite Light. holding the idea that if i could just find an answer then i will be able to bring this light closer towards me and keep a hold of it in my day to day life. but in being distracted by looking for an answer i'm thus failing to realise there's no need to bring this light closer to me because in the words of  Shinran -

with the light of the sun or moon, when something has come between, the light does not reach us. Amida's light, however, being unobstructed by things, shines on all sentient beings; hence the expression, "Buddha of unhindered light." Amida's light is unhindered by sentient beings' minds of blind passions and karmic evil; hence the expression, "Buddha of unhindered light."

- Mida Nyorai Myogotoku


but that still leaves the admonishment of Rennyo to make Buddhadharma fundamental to one's life. how does this fit? in Seikaku's Yuishinsho we find the following -


Suppose that there is a man at the bottom of a tall cliff unable to climb it, but there is a strong man on the cliff above who lowers a rope and, thinking to have the man at the bottom take hold of it, tells him he will draw him up to the top. However, the man at the bottom holds his arms back and refuses to take the rope, doubting the strength of the man pulling and fearing that the rope is weak. Thus it is altogether impossible for him to climb to the top. If he unhesitatingly followed the man's words, stretched out his hands and grasped the rope, he would be able to climb at once. It is difficult for people who doubt the Buddha's power and who do not entrust themselves to the power of the Vow to climb the cliff of enlightenment. One should simply put out the hand of trust and take hold of the rope of the Vow.

One should simply put out the hand of trust and take hold of the rope of the Vow.


namu amida butsu