About petitionary prayers and superstitions

Question: What do you think about petitionary prayers and superstitions? How can one use Nembutsu as a petitionary prayer?  

 

My answer: To say the Name of Amida in order to receive worldly benefits, like wealth, possessions, success in love affairs, etc., or to think that by reciting it in a certain manner will bring good luck and good fortune is to use the Nembutsu as a petitionary prayer and as a superstition.
To believe in luck is in itself a superstition as this implies the denial of the law of karma according to which one reaps what one sows. Luck it is said to appear from nowhere or from the will of a divine being, while the karma implies that everything has a cause in one’s own actions, deeds and thoughts. One cannot be a Buddhist and believe in luck or good fortune. Thus, the urge that we often meet in Jodo Shinshu to not depend on petitionary prayers and superstitions were especially promulgated to prevent us from falling in two wrong views:

1. to misinterpret Nembutsu as a divination method or a petitionary prayer for worldly benefits, and

2. to discourage wrong dependency upon various gods and higher beings. 

 

But what if we cry to Amida Buddha, like a child calls his mother when he feels sad or when he is in danger? Can this be considered wrong, too?

For example, when I was in a plane twenty years ago and I was passing through strong turbulences I prayed to Amida and asked Him to protect my life. I simply didn’t care then if this was a petitionary prayer or not, and I also think that Amida was not upset with me.

I am an ordinary person who is afraid of death, and in times of great sorrow or fear anybody may cry to Amida: “please help me, I am afraid of this or that….” I think it’s all right to do this. Amida Buddha is always present, can hear our cries, and understands our need for protection. 

 

Nobody is supposed to have no fear of death after he or she entrusts to Amida. If we were supposed to have no fear after receiving shinjin (faith) then it would mean that Jodo Shinshu is not a path for ordinary people, as ordinary people are always capable of experiencing fear. To be free from fear in this life means to no longer be in the category of ordinary people. And Amida Buddha especially saves ordinary people.

Shinran said to Yuien-bo in Tannisho that he himself was afraid of death and did not wish to go to the Pure Land quickly. Instead of putting him outside the Dharma, this fear is exactly what assured him even more of Amida’s salvation:

“Having no thought of wanting to go to the Pure Land quickly, we think forlornly that we may die even when we become slightly ill; this is the action of blind passions. It is hard for us to abandon this old home of pain, where we have been transmigrating for innumerable kalpas down to the present, and we feel no longing for the Pure Land of peace, where we have yet to be born. Truly, how powerful our blind passions are! But though we feel reluctant to part from this world, at the moment our karmic bonds to this saha world run out and helplessly we die, we shall go to that land. Amida pities especially the person who has no thought of wanting to go to the Pure Land quickly. Reflecting on this, we feel the great Vow of great compassion to be all the more trustworthy and realize that our birth is settled”. 

 

Of course, it is not the fault of Amida that I suffer and have to pass through many kinds of dangerous situations. Due to my heavy karma from the past I deserve to experience any injury – this is the law of cause and effect. But in the exact moment of being injured, who can really have a calm state of mind and say to himself: “I am now experiencing the results of my heavy karma so I should stay calm and not cry to Amida for help”? Some might be very powerful and can do that but not everybody is the same. I myself cannot really promise that when facing danger, I will not pray to Amida Buddha for protection. It’s really impossible for me to never say “Please Amida, protect me”. Perhaps a Jodo Shinshu soldier in war, or a person living in a bad neighborhood will also pray to Amida for protection and I really find no doctrinal problem with this. 

I think we should not be strict when approaching Amida in our daily lives or when we meet with problems. We can ask for help, without becoming upset if, due to causes and conditions unknown to our limited minds, we still suffer and apparently receive no help as we wished. But surely we are helped and supported even if our minds can’t understand how a Buddha helps us. 

 

As I said previously, I think that the exclusion of petitionary prayers in Jodo Shinshu comes from fearing that some might misinterpret the Nembutsu as a petitionary prayer or use it to transfer his so-called “merits” to this or that worldly gain, or that we can obtain material wealth ignoring the law of cause and effect by praying to higher beings and deities. 

 

It should be very well understood that Nembutsu is not a magic formula to solve one’s problems in daily life, but only the manifestation of faith in Amida which causes our attainment of Buddhahood in the Pure Land. Through the Nembutsu of faith one receives the assurance of attainment of Buddhahood in the Pure Land, not money, fame or a good wife or husband.

To end all suffering, to become a Buddha and to help others indefinitely, this is the natural outcome of Nembutsu. Once we have received faith in our hearts and have started saying the Nembutsu of faith, our karma is cut and we are assured of birth in the Pure Land.

Having our karma cut means that it doesn’t plant its seeds in another life filled with ignorance and suffering. However, as long as we live we continue to experience the results of our past actions from this life or the beginingless past. It is like a flower taken from the ground – it will soon wither away and die but still it preserves its color for a few hours or days. Our karma is like that flower after receiving faith – it’s a sterilized karma. We still suffer until we die and we are born in the Pure Land, but after death our suffering is 100% finished and we become Buddhas. 

 

I think there is a great difference between using the Nembutsu for worldly goals and crying for help in times of danger when we are overwhelmed by fear. The latter is simply the child’s cry toward his mother (Amida Buddha) and no one can say it is not doctrinally correct for a child to cry to his mother. 

We should be relaxed in our relationship with Amida Buddha because He is our spiritual Parent and we, as His children, should be able to talk freely with Him. How can I, a child of Amida, not be allowed to call on Him in times of great sorrow, fear or danger? A mother or father never judges a child like an adult. Similarly, a Buddha never relates to an ordinary person like to a Buddha.   

 

I do not know how my last moments of life would be, so I cannot promise that I will die like a courageous person, facing death with bravery, although I wish this so much. But no matter if in my last breaths I ask helplessly not to die due to my unconscious attachment to life and I finally die, I know I will go to Amida’s Pure Land and become a Buddha myself. Shinran said in his Letters that he gives no special meaning to one’s last moments. If one has shinjin (faith), then he can die in any circumstances as he will surely go to the Pure Land after death. 

 

To have fear or ask for protection and help from Amida in times of great danger and suffering is due to our own blind passions, while to be saved as we are from birth and death is due to Amida’s Power. These two have no connection with one another.

In concluding this chapter, I wish to mention one more thing. I know that the example of Shinran’s giving up the recitation of the Pure Land sutras for the benefit of others[1] is always shown as a proof against petitionary prayers and wrong interpretation of practice in Jodo Shinshu. But what Shinran tried to do when he chanted Amida-kyo in that specific situation was transference of merit. He hoped to achieve merits by sutra recitation which he intended to be transferred to those in need. He then realized this attempt is not in accord with the Pure Land teaching, and he stopped.

In comparrison with this, what I did when I prayed to Amida Buddha in that dangerous situation was not a transference of merit but just a cry of help in a time of suffering and fear. Now I like flying and I find no problem with turbulences, although sometimes I might not be physically well due to high altitude, but this does not mean that I am a person free of any fear in any circumstace. I am sure that faith and the Nembutsu of faith can co-exist with some cries of help in the middle of great suffering.  Amida will not be upset. 

 

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[1] It is said that one day, when Shinran saw the immense suffering of peasants from an area devastated by hunger, he secluded himself and concentrated on chanting the Three Pure Land sutras many times in order to benefit them. But after a period he gave up this practice realizing it was a mistake to think that he could rely on his own power of chanting to save others. To chant sutras and transfer the merits thus gained is a custom in many Buddhist schools, but not in Jodo Shinshu because we think that only Amida, as a Buddha, has true merits that can be shared with others.