Sunday, July 17, 2016

I don't miss meditation since I met the Primal Vow of Amida Buddha


Question: 
Do you ever feel like anything is "missing" for you without regular meditation?

My answer: I really do not feel something is missing. For an ordinary person meditation is useless anyway because no one can attain Enlightenment through it in this last Dharma age. More than this, meditation can even be a distraction from the Primal Vow. If Amida wanted us to practice meditation and considered meditation to be helpful to us, then He would have included it in His Primal Vow, which He didn't. As Honen said, Amida chose only His Name from the myriad practices. Why? Because this Name is supreme and all-powerful, and will take us quickly to freedom from birth and death.

Wednesday, July 6, 2016

Nobody is beyond criticism - an example of Rennyo criticizing a Hongwanji family member


Rennyo Shonin, the eight Monshu (Patriarch)
of Hongwanji 
"Rennyo's criticism of divergent views and beliefs reached into the interior of Hongwanji.  In particular, in a letter dated the ninth month of 1473 (Bunmei 5), he severely admonishes the laziness of 'a certain young person' who was holding himself out as a member of the 'first family of the Hongwanji in Kyoto'. The content of the letter indicates that this person was likely one of Rennyo's sons who had been assigned to a temple in Kaga. The young man would always declare to others,

'I understand about the settled mind (anjin). I recite the nembutsu often. Also, I have never performed anything like the miscelaneous practices, nor worshipped other Buddhas or Bodhisattvas. I am, in particular, a member of the first family of Kyoto. Everyday I eat whatever I want to eat and if then feel like sleeping, I can lie back and sleep whenever and for as long as I like. No one can ever complain. I am not especially concerned about the Buddha-Dharma. Besides, I can learn about it through listening to what others say about any temple matter. As for the benevolence of the Master Shinran, I only think about it from time to time.'
(Other Letters, in SSS, P. 157)

Monday, July 4, 2016

Amidaji Construction News 2016 (part II) - THE LIBRARY

scroll down for the latest updates!

building the concrete platform for the library
1) The plan for the library
One of the most important steps in the Amidaji project is the library. The original plan was to build a bigger Hondo (Dharma Hall) near the actual one, which will be then transformed into the library. But as the funds needed for the new bigger Hondo are beyond my financial possibilities, I decided to build a little wooden house this summer and use it as a library. When that bigger Hondo will be built and the present one will be transformed into the library, this little house will be used only for the accomodation of visitors.

The truck with the building materials 
for the new wooden house arrived on June 13th. 
I also had a service and Dharma talk on  the12th 
and did various little works in the courtyard of the temple.
The thing is I have a great ammount of copies of my books (especially those printed in Romanian by the CBBEF), as well as various old and new Jodo Shinshu English translations that need to be stored in a proper building. Now many of them are kept in precarious conditions near the place dedicated to the temple, and in the homes of some of my trusted friends and readers. So, while many copies will still remain at these friends who help distribute them in their respective towns, I urgently need a suitable place to store the books I have at my disposal, and where the visitors can easily come in contact with them.

Tuesday, June 28, 2016

My answer to a comment comparing Zen with Jodo Shinshu

Faith, saying of the Name and wish to be born
 in the Pure Land are the only three elements
 of Amida's Primal Vow. 
A person wrote to me recently as a comment to my article, "Faith is simple, nothing special", comparing Zen with Jodo Shinshu. Here are some ideas that he expressed:

"I just want to add that in other traditions to "gain mind" is also deprecated. In Soto Zen the ideal state is the Mushotoku (no gain mind), achieved by growing Bodaishin / Boddhichita. The practice of Shikantaza in Soto Zen is not successful if not "just sit". There is no  egoic intent to achieve something in Shikantaza".

He also compared the koan in Rinzai Zen with what Shinran called, giving up to any calculations. Then he mentioned this: "I would say that any practitioner of any Mahayanist school who is practicing with an obsessive mind for results, is in error". 

This was my answer:
As long as they are not enlightened, sentient beings will always have an obssesive mind. Only a Buddha can just sit in shikantaza; any other person is just an immitator. Also, only the Buddha can be without ego, sit without ego, and do whatever He wants without any personal goal. Thus, only a Buddha is trully Mushotoku.

Thursday, June 23, 2016

Amidaji is strictly a Jodo Shinshu temple - short discussion between me and Zuio Inagaki Sensei

I was recently asked by Rev Zuio Hisao Inagaki (June 22nd 2016):

"I wonder if your temple is purely Jodo Shinshu or Zen or combination of both. I am in favor of seeing a combination of both, or a new way of Buddhism".

This was my answer:

My temple is strictly Jodo Shinshu. I am strongly against any combination between Jodo Shinshu and Zen or Jodo Shinshu and anything else.

As Shinran or Rennyo did not make any combination, I myself will make none. We are ignorant, unenlightened beings and so we do not have the authority nor the wisdom to play with various Dharma gates  or create a "new way of Buddhism", as you say. I even think that this is very dangerous and leads people into confusion. We, as priests and teachers should try to be as simple as possible, so that even illiterate can understand the Call of Amida, and have a simple faith in Him. We live in times of great confusion in the international sangha with various clerics and scholars teaching many wrong views, like the "Pure Land is here and now" or "in our minds", or describing Amida as a metaphor, fictional character, etc, and this makes ordinary people to depart from true birth in the Pure Land. To add more to this big mountain of confusion, like mixing Jodo Shinshu with Zen, is something I will never do.

My goal is to escape Samsara as quickly as possible and to help others escape it as quickly as possible. Without the Primal Vow, there is no chance of doing this, and in the Primal Vow there is no mention of anything else than entrusting ourselves to Amida Buddha, say His Name in faith and wish to be born in His Pure Land. Thus, Amidaji is a temple which limits itself to the Primal Vow. 

***
Here is another short question and answer between me and Inagaki Sensei:

Dharma talks on my youtube channel