As foolish beings, our Saha world minds are prone to delusion and ‘doubt’. That is part of our hopeless condition as bonbu. Perhaps those who have doubt after receiving shinjin are loved all the more by Amida Nyorai, because Amida recognizes the great need to embrace these hopeless, helpless beings in their delusional state of doubt. A Chinese Pure Land Master once said, “You may not ever doubt Buddha Amitabha (Amida), but, you will doubt yourself.” (I realize that those who have shinjin have Amida’s own faith through His merit transference to us, and that Amida Buddha cannot doubt himself).
At some level, most Westerners, who are converts from some form of Christianity, know they are ‘risking their very eternal lives’ (souls?) to receive, and possibly transmit, the Dharma of our school of Buddhism.
Could it be that ‘all Buddhas and Bodhisattvas praise the person of Nembutsu,’ because of that person’s stubborn reliance on the Great Vow and belief in the sutras preached by Shakyamuni at a ‘fundamental’ level? Are people of shinjin heroes to all the beings of all the worlds?
Are these children of Amida Buddha recipients of the ‘Present Benefits’ because they recognize their stupidity and know, beyond any doubt, that the one thing they cannot do is save themselves from birth and death?”
My answer:
A person who has received shinjin (faith) cannot doubt Amida’s salvation. To have shinjin means, in the words of Shinran, to hear the Primal Vow of Amida without any doubt. So, doubt and shinjin cannot coexist with one another.
Of course, in terms of his personal daily life, the follower can have doubts related with many things, like his relations, his friends, even his own self, but he never doubts his own birth in the Pure Land and subsequent attainment of Buddhahood.
Generally speaking, the follower who has faith in Amida should not expect to feel special things, acquire qualities that he hasn’t had until then, or to overcome his ordinary problems and fears. I do not deny that various changes may occur in a person of faith, but he should not think that shinjin is a mean to change his personality or purify himself of illusion and blind passions. Simply stated, he can remain an ordinary person filled with delusions and attachments even after receiving shinjin. However, there is one big difference – he knows that from now on (from the moment of his first thought of entrusting) a great burden has indeed been taken off his shoulders, which is the burden of becoming a Buddha. He certainly knows, without any doubt, that he has become assured of birth and Buddhahood in Amida’s Pure Land at the end of this life.
He knows all these, but in the same time, fears of various kinds, delusions and difficulties might continue to coexist with this faith, just like in any ordinary person. Shinjin or faith is an “outside element” in the heart of the believer because it is not his creation but rather what Amida has planted inside him.
Shinjin is also like the big and warm arms of the mother who carries the frightened child across the turbulent waters of a flooded river. The child continues to cry, being scaried of various things he sees and hears around him, but he is safely kept in his mother’s embrace.
Fears of many types are present but there is also entrusting in the mother. For example, he might be scared when he sees a big wave coming toward him or hears a thunderbolt in the sky or the rain pouring over his face, but he knows he is safely carried away by his mother to the other shore.
Fear is an instinctual habit which cannot completely disappear from our hearts and minds until we have become Enlightened. For example, even when we are in a big and solid house we might fear for a moment when we hear a powerful thunder. In the same way, we continue to fear death even if we know that when we die we go to the Pure Land and become Buddhas. Fear of death is the manifestation of our powerful attachment and identification with our bodies. It is the same with fear from being injured, but I would not call these fears the same as doubting Amida’s salvation.
If we were asked to have no fear in our daily lives in order to be saved by Amida, then who would be saved? Who can say that he is completely free of fear? We even fear a tooth extraction because we don’t like to feel pain, even though we know we are safe! So, Amida Buddha does not require us to be without fear (without attachment to our bodies) as there is no mention in His Primal Vow of anything like this. If we read the Primal Vow, we see that He only asks us to entrust in Him (saying of the Name and aspiring to be born being the same as entrusting).
In the ultimate sense, faith in Amida is not the product of our unenlightened minds. It is said that in a forest filled with poisonous trees, there cannot appear any tree with good fruits. So, in the hearts filled with illusions and attachments, faith in Amida cannot appear unless Amida causes it to appear. It is the same as the love of the mother who makes the child entrust to her. Without the love of the mother, the child can do nothing. The calling of the mother echoes in the child’s heart and makes him respond with faith, just as it is with Namo Amida Bu which is the expression of faith. It is the mother’s love that works inside the child and makes him entrust to her. This is how I explain in limited verbal terms the impossible to understand concept that shinjin comes from Amida and is not our creation.
Because shinjin (faith) comes from Amida, it is called the diamond-like shinjin, which means it cannot be destroyed by anybody, be it a demon or a person from a different religion. Even if we hear other people telling us that because we left a monotheistic religion we’ll go to hell, it is like hearing thunderbolts and heavy rain from inside a big, strong and safe house. The thunderbolts and heavy rain might sound frightful for a moment, because we are used to hearing many threats all our life since childhood, but we remember that we are safe in the house, which is a metaphor for Amida’s embrace.
It is the same when watching a horror movie. We can become scared, but in the end we know we are safe and that it is only a movie. After all, the reality is that we are safe with Amida Buddha and carried to His Pure Land where we’ll too become Buddhas.
I repeat, in matters related with the salvation offered by Amida Buddha there can be no doubts for one who has shinjin. No matter what happens or how he feels, sometimes good and sometimes bad or scared by various things, he knows deep inside him, due to his faith, that he is saved by Amida and destined to become a Buddha in the Pure Land.
There is nothing that we, ordinary people, can do with our fears, attachments and problems, so there is no need to worry that they may remain with us for the rest of our lives. The most important thing is that we rely on Amida and that we have a simple faith in Him, being sure that this is our last life as non-Buddhas.
Please do not forget that fear, suffering and attachments are different and separated from shinjin. The first are the product of your own illusions and attachments, while the latter originates from Amida and is the assurance that He saves you and accepts you as you are.
People of Nembutsu are praised by all Buddhas and Enlightened Bodhisattvas not because they made something special through their own power, but because they follow the most important teaching of all Buddhas by entrusting themselves to Amida. All Buddhas know that the Amida Dharma is the supreme Dharma because it can save everybody, no matter how great or small are their spiritual capacities. The goal of all Buddhas’ appearance in the world is to save all beings, and what method is indeed capable to save everybody and corresponds to this goal, if not the Nembutsu of faith in Amida? So, to be open to this Dharma, to accept it, to venerate it and to say the Nembutsu of faith is what all Buddhas praise even if the follower does not have anything special inside him.
It is due to Amida that persons of shinjin are praised by all Buddhas. We are not heroes, because without Amida we can do nothing but end up in hell or other lower realms. We can rather say that we are the children with the most important father or mother in the universe. If you have Amida as your Parent you can be certain that all Buddhas will praise you, even though you are nothing special by yourself.
Also it is one thing to know yourself by using the light of your own wisdom and another to realize your limitations while being illuminated by the infinite Light of Amida which enters your being through faith (shinjin). It is the difference between sitting in a dark room with a small candle and illuminating it with lots of modern electrical devices. Shinjin, or connecting to Amida’s Light, is what causes you to receive the ten benefits in this life and the praise of all Buddhas.
All one needs to do is listen deeply again and again to the teaching about the Primal Vow. Even if he doubts many times, he should continue to listen, ask questions, meditate on himself and on what he has heard, and one day he might become open to Amida and entrust to Him. Then he will be sure of his birth in the Pure Land no matter if his mind remains as ordinary as before.
0 comentarii:
Post a Comment