"While holding the Nembutsu
in your heart and saying it always, please pray for the present life and also the next life of those who slander it". |
Question: What attitude should I have, as a Jodo Shinshu disciple, towards those who try to harm me or lead me away from Amida Dharma?
Answer:
The truth is that there is NO being who was not, somewhere in the beginingless
past, your own mother and father. So, you should look to them as to your own
parents who went mentally sick, and cannot recognize you. This is not just a
metaphor, but the truth in accordance with the Buddhist teaching. Samsara is a
disturbed horror movie, in which loving parents from a previous life may kill
their children in the next, and vice versa. However, even if we accept this
Buddhist truth of inter-relatedness of all beings, we should be aware of our
present limitations and do not pretend
to be saints when we know we are not, so perhaps for the majority of us is
better to stay away from those who wish to harm us or lead us astray
with their behavior.