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

the best of intentions?

one of the things we come up against time and again in Shinran's teachings is this issue of the purity of our intentions. though we might like to believe our motivation behind a given action to be sound, dig a little deeper and we quickly come to realise how mired in self-servitude we are - for example, how often do we resent not receiving praise or thanks for an act of generosity? can we in all honesty say then, that the motivation was selfless? or was it purely to validate our sense of self-worth in the eyes of others?

thinking through this issue of intent a bit more thoroughly than i've perhaps done in the past, leads me to wonder whether i've not been just paying lip-service to the notion of what compassion must really mean in the Mahayana path. of course it sounds wonderful, who wouldn't like the thought of leading all sentient beings to liberation? but in practice....hell, if i can't even disentangle my selfishness from one single attempted act of dana then what hope is there? because each action can only mean something truly worthwhile if the intention behind it is for the liberation of all beings, that's why in Words of My Perfect Teacher we're told -

"Even when you do something good, check your motivation carefully. If your intention is good, act. If your motivation is to impress people, or is based on rivalry or a thirst for fame, make sure you change it and infuse it with bodhicitta. If you are quite unable to transform your motivation, it would be better to postpone the meritous act until later."
- pp.126-127

Such is the problem Shinran acknowledged in himself -

I am such that I do not know right and wrong
And cannot distinguish false and true;
I lack even small love and small compassion,
And yet, for fame and profit, enjoy teaching others.
- Shozomatsu wasan 116

i see this somewhat as the starting point - confronting our selfish nature and awakening to how deeply entrenched it is within ourselves. this in turn can lead us, just as it did Shinran, to abandon our reliance on self-effort, and throw ourselves into whole-hearted refuge in the Buddha, the Dharma and the Sangha, as they alone are the pure well-spring from which truely selfless, compassionate action flows forth.

but still, i feel that leaves a hanging question hovering over the individual as far as Shinshu is concerned. in other traditions there are clear pointers towards arousing and maintaining this compassion, through meditative and visualisation techniques. as such, when faced with the suffering of others, the practitioner, if he has followed the instructions of his teacher well, will quite naturally respond with this selfless compassion. in Shinshu though, all that is left is to entrust to the Buddha. there are no such clear signs or markers for generating compassion. because it is something received entirely through Other.

as such, i can't really offer any nice and tidy resolution to this posting because it is still something i wrestle with. i have my suspicions though. in both cases the individual is drawing upon something other than the small self - the Buddhadharma. perhaps the form or manner differs, resting in Dharma through practice on the one hand and on the other resting in Dharma through entrusting. but each constitutes a fundamental turning away from our previous habitual reliance on self. maybe then, the more we rest in this Other, the mind to liberate all beings becomes something quite naturally outflowing. as natural as the love a mother has for her child, devoid of calculation or thought of personal gain. such naturalness lies outside of any effort and just "is".

i guess the next question i'd ask myself is what does this actually mean in practice? how does such naturalness engage with the suffering faced by so many throughout the world? that's something i have to continue to reflect on, drawing from the Three Jewels for guidance. as such i'll leave this blathering there for the time being, but as ever welcome any thoughts, input, comments, experience, w/e...

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

natural inclination / inwardly false

Often what seems to be love is really an unspiritual emotion, because there is usually some trace of natural inclination, our own wishes, the hope of repayment and the desire to further our own ends

- Thomas a Kempis, Imitation of Christ: XV

We should not express outwardly signs of wisdom, goodness, or diligence, for inwardly we are possessed of falsity.

- Shinran Shonin,  KGSS III: 13

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 

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

Accepting the Blame

i just wanted to gather together some quotes and sayings regarding a matter dear to my heart at the moment. a lesson that i am slowly learning and in my own clumsy way trying to live by right now.

"Enlightenment is to turn around and see MY own mistake. Other's
mistake is also my mistake. Others are right even if they are wrong.
I'm wrong even if i'm right. "

- Master Chin Kung

i remember when i first came across this saying by Venerable Master Chin Kung that it completely stopped me in my tracks. it seems so radical and completely contorary to what we believe and how we behave. "other's mistake is also my mistake" - it is the epitome of placing others before oneself. consider how much reconcilliation between people there would be if everyone lived by these words. it is, admittedly quite the challenge.

"In this and all my other lives,

While turning in the round without beginning,

Blindly I have brought forth evil,

And incited others to commit the same"

- Shantideva

to really consider, in the light of innumerable kalpas spent wandering the realms of samsara, how much wrong-doing we have commited and how much we have lead others to commit is a  frightening thought! truely, our small minds can't even grasp the depths of it! so how then, came i become angry if another criticises or blames me? is it not more than certain that there is much truth in what they say? but so often i would wish to deny and to place blame at the feet of others.


"I am such that I do not know right and wrong
And cannot distinguish false and true;
I lack even small love and small compassion,
And yet, for fame and profit, enjoy teaching others."

- Shinran Shonin


if Shinran, a man humble enough to say that he had no followers, could still see the faults contained within his heart and the deceit and vanity contained within his mind, who then am i to deny such within myself? heed the first line - "I am such that I do not know right and wrong - remember what i said about the depths of our wrongdoing? how then can we truely know what is right and what is wrong when our minds can't even grasp these depths? in the light of all these teachings from the Masters i attempt to walk (more often than not fall or stumble) forward mindful that 10 times out of 10, if someone criticises or blames me, i am worthy of such.


namu amida butsu

The Human Body - a Cage of Suffering or a Precious Gift?

my first night back at work last week after having spent a precious fortnight visiting family and attending Shokai. i walked through the door to immediately hear the unfortunate news that several colleagues have contracted swine flu. now, i could go into detail about how the swine flu pandemic is a convenient excuse employed by government and media to re-affirm and strengthen the culture of moral panic and fear we live in (don't forget to check under the bed for any terrorists hiding there before you turn out the light) but that's not really the issue i want to reflect on here and further, i think it'd be a tad insensitive of me to do so given this news.

instead, i want to address the view of the human body found in the Buddha's teachings and how this view can be verified in real-life encounters and experiences. let's start by looking at what the Sutta Pitaka has to say. in the Saccavibhanga Sutta, Sariputta gives a detailed step by step analysis of the four noble truths, beginning with the truth of dukkha. for the purpose of the discussion at hand i'd like to focus on two ways in which we experience this suffering which Venerable Sariputta highlights for us -

"And what is aging? Whatever aging, decrepitude, brokenness, graying, wrinkling, decline of life-force, weakening of the faculties of the various beings in this or that group of beings, that is called aging.

[...]

"And what is pain? Whatever is experienced as bodily pain, bodily discomfort, pain or discomfort born of bodily contact, that is called pain."

- MN 141, Saccavibhanga Sutta: An Analysis of the Truths

it doesn't paint a pretty picture does it? but as long as we have these bodies then we are subject to both pain and aging. i think of my work friends lying in bed at home, in pain and discomfort and am reminded of the many times i have been ill - the headaches, the difficulty breathing, the temperatures, the pain in ones' throat, the vomiting, the nausea, the loss of sleep, the feeling of exhaustion.

and again, it may seem premature to consider aging at the (relatively!) young age of 29 but the fact of the matter is, from the minute we come into this life we begin to age. the stark reality of this hit home in a  particularly forceful manner earlier last week as i was asked to help one of the nurses bathe a patient at the hospice i volunteer at. seeing the frailness of this patient's body, the complete dependency on others to help with what we take so often for granted as such a simple act of washing oneself reminded me that it is a real possibility i too may one day rely on others to perform this and other everyday tasks for me, just as i did during my first years of life.

but if all this seems to portray the human body as a purely negative source of constant affliction and suffering then i can't help but feel we're missing an important point somewhere. this point revealed itself to me in a very implicit way whilst reciting the nembutsu yesterday. but before we get to that, let's go back to the sutta and look at what Sakyamuni has to say about Sariputta -

" Like the mother giving birth: That's Sariputta. [...] Sariputta trains [others] to the fruit of stream-entry; [...] Sariputta is capable of declaring, teaching, describing, setting forth, revealing, explaining, and making plain the four noble truths in detail."

now it's not my intention to clarify the intent in such a comparison, i believe the Buddha's meaning is readily apparent here. rather, to focuss on the implications of such an image for the discussion at hand. consider those words - like the mother giving birth. much as our human bodies are a source of suffering they are also the precious gift bestowed to us by our parents. how can something that causes us pain, withers and eventually dies be seen as such? it is simply this - as the nembutsu came from my lips, as i bowed my head to the floor before the Buddha i was made aware that without this body i had been given by my parents i would not be able to perform such acts. i would not be able to hear the Dharma, read the Dharma, discuss the Dharma or praise the Dharma. Sariputta, if not for his parents would not have been able to clarify the Buddha's teachings.

didn't Sakyamuni also tell us that this human birth was rare? that it provided the best opportunity to practice Dharma? don't we owe our very ability to practice to our parents? and this is why, although it may be a cage for our suffering it is also a precious gift, a gift because it is freely given and precious because the Buddhadharma is immeasurable in value, both to oneself and to others around oneself.

don't we have a duty then to look after and care for this gift? shamefully, when i consider all that i've done to this body of mine and all that i've used it for, i see how little i've valued the boundless kindness of my parents. i've put intoxicants into it, junk food into it, denied it the rest it's badly needed. i've used it to utter harsh words or spread gossip or lie.

it is not just that this body is a precious gift but that in order for it to be given, ones' mother must put herself through an incredible amount of physical pain that even ends sometimes in, well let's be honest about it - tragedy. no, in fact let's be frank about it - death. lest we forget, Sakyamuni's own mother Maya laid down her life in giving birth to him.

clearly then, this is not a gift to be taken lightly, handled roughly and abused and mistreated at ones' own selfish leisure. how can we ever begin to repay this debt, if indeed we can at all? well, i believe the answer is there in that last quote - simply put, to continue to practice Buddhadharma. in the case of Sariputta it was to teach and lead fellow aspirants to stream-entry. but one may well, as a lay-person, feel a twinge of apprehension at such a lofty goal (i mean, come on Jon! we're talking about Sariputta here!). but practice is not limited exclusively to this worthy objective. one day our parents will grow old, their bodies become increasingly frail and their dependency on their children to return the love and compassion they have given them throughout their lives by helping them bathe, walk, provide clothing and food increase. such love and compassion returned is this practice. and although we can never hope to fully repay what they have done for us during our lives, this care is our means of acknowledging and respecting it.

ofcourse, i've only touched briefly and limitedly on the issue and certainly the practice of Buddhadharma is much more than just caring for one's parents. and this care and love we return to them should not be put off or postponed until their old age, rather it is a life long practice. similarly, we are not indebted exclusively, and neither should our compassion be limited to, them. it is much, much greater than that. and, with this point in mind i would like to close with a quote from the Tannisho which really illustrates how far this debt extends and provides much more to consider -

"As for me, Shinran, I have never said the nembutsu even once for the repose of my departed father and mother. For all sentient beings, without exception, have been our parents and brothers and sisters in the course of countless lives in the many states of existence. On attaining Buddhahood after this present life, we can save every one of them.

Were saying the nembutsu indeed a good act in which I strove through my own powers, then I might direct the merit thus gained towards saving my father and mother. But this is not the case.

If, however, simply abandoning self-power, we quickly attain enlightenment in the Pure Land, we will be able to save, by means of transcendent powers, first those with whom we have close karmic relations, whatever karmic suffering they may have sunk to in the six realms through the four modes of birth."

- Tannisho Ch. 5

namu amida butsu