Why I sometimes use harsh language against proponents of wrong views

Japanse temple guardian in fierce form

Some suggested that even if I speak the truth I should say it in a moderate way. However, in a world filled with so much ambiguity, relativity of values, secularism and various wrong views I think that strong voices are very much needed. There are many priests and religious organizations nowadays that nobody knows what they actually teach and stand for because their language is too polite and too pleasing with everybody. It is of course, not the case with myself as everybody knows in detail who I am and what I stand for. Being the founder of Amidaji I want some things to be extremely clear from the start so that there is no confusion among people who might intend to become members.

What I am against for is the grave karmic sin of slandering the Dharma. To say that a certain thing is good and virtuous when the Buddha Dharma says it is wrong and unvirtuous might not be a problem for many but for me, as a priest, is worse than killing all the beings in all the universes. To deny the Larger Sutra, the existence of Amida Buddha and His Pure Land, to deny the Buddhist morality, the teaching on rebirth and life after death which are the main elements denied by various fake Buddhists and modernists nowadays falls under this category. This is because if you kill one person you are merely destroying his body, but if you destroy the Dharma you are shutting the door to liberation for all sentient beings. It is like killing them and throwing them in the fire house of samsara again and again. This is the reason why slandering the Dharma makes one go to the deepest hell for many kalpas.

Imagine you are a doctor and you are seeing other doctors applying bad treatment to a sick person that may lead to death. You will surely be very tough with them and fiercely protecting those patients. There is absolutely no difference between this and protecting sentient beings from wrong views. You must understand that spreading wrong views about any Dharma topic is NOT a cultural or intellectual matter, but a matter of life and death and even more grave than that. If one does not see the Dharma as the supreme medicine given by the supreme Doctor – the Buddha, to His sick patients (us) and does not see himself as a sick unenlightened being but thinks he can change the Dharma as he likes then he is a danger for all humans, gods, spirits and all beings and should NEVER become a priest or teacher.

Those who are upset that I sometimes compare the proponents of wrong views with worms should remember that the Buddha himself invented this comparison! In Japanese Buddhism there is this analogy of shishi-shinchū-no-mushi which is actually present in many schools and it means “worms inside the body of a lion”. It refers to those who, despite being followers of Buddhism, destroy its teachings, just as worms born from the carcass of the lion devour the lion. This analogy appears in the Benevolent Kings Sutra, the Brahmā’s Net Sutra, the Lotus-like Face Sutra, and elsewhere. It is intended to point out that members of the Buddhist Order, rather than non-Buddhists, are capable of destroying Buddhism. For example, the Benevolent Kings Sutra says that the upholders of the three treasures of Buddhism, and not non-Buddhists, will become the destroyers of the three treasures, just as worms within the lion’s body devour the lion. The Lotus-like Face Sutra tells that, though no other creature ventures to eat the flesh of a dead lion, the worms born from the lion’s body devour it; likewise, though the Buddha’s teachings cannot be destroyed by outside forces, evil monks (priests, teachers, etc) who exist within “the body” of the Buddha’s teachings can destroy them.[1] Also in the Brahma Net Sutra it is said:

“Only worms inside a lion’s body, not worms outside its body can eat its flesh. Likewise, only Buddha – sons (Buddhist disciples), not non-Buddhists or celestial maras,  can destroy the Buddha Dharma”

Am I a radical when I compare the heretics and proponents of wrong views with worms? Then call the Buddha a radical, too! Were the Buddha, Master Shinran and Rennyo moderate or hard liner? They were clearly very harsh and straightforward and used a lot of “bad language” when they needed to describe those who propagated wrong views. You should know this before blaming me for being harsh and radical when trying to stop the worms of wrong views from destroying the Holly Body of Buddha Dharma! Just remember Rennyo’s words as recorded in Rennyo Shonin Goichidaiki Kikigaki:

"Hearing that there were some in the Mutsu Province who caused disruption of the Shinshu teaching, Rennyo summoned Joyu from Mutsu and angrily reprimanded him, saying, "How outrageous it is to disrupt the tradition of our Founder Shonin! What a pity it is!". Gnashing his teeth, he groaned, "I would even cut him up to pieces. Nothing is more contemptible than distortion of the teaching of this school".[2]

Imagine that I would say this nowadays! All the snowflakes would cry in despair and report me on Facebook. Certainly for such words Master Rennyo would be banned from Facebook or Twitter indefinitely, not three days like me, while Shinran would be blamed publicly for kicking his son out of his house because he spread heresies. I can give you many examples of various Masters from different schools who described in harsh language the decadent situation of their own school and the Dharma practitioners of their times, calling them oxen, worms, animals, and all sorts of names to wake them up and make everybody aware of the grave karmic danger they were in.

We have all seen what the politics of appeasement towards Hitler until 1939 achieved. Many politicians during those times thought that Hitler is a man you can reason with and discuss like gentlemen while he was grabbing more and more territories for his Nazi Germany, until one day they realized that force was a better way to deal with him. What have we achieved by expressing ourselves in an ambiguous manner, by paying tributes of polite silence and having politically correct talks  with those who spread wrong views like  Amida Buddha is a myth, symbol and fictional character, that the Pure Land is in the mind and not after death, with those who deny rebirth and life after death, who say that people can be both Christians and Buddhists and mix practices, or with those who want to use our temples for the worldly ideologies such as LGBTQ and other deranged organizations? We achieved nothing but were invaded and infiltrated more and more by them so that nowadays almost all temples in USA, Canada and Europe spread such wrong views about Amida and  are used not for listening the Dharma and receive shinjin but for bazaars, worldly entertainments, gay weddings and as platforms for LGBTQ[3] and other worldly ideologies propaganda. Nowadays, thousands of people everywhere have become proponents of wrong views themselves and there is almost no Buddhist organization where such worms (as Buddha called them!) do not destroy the body of the Dharma and Sangha.

This is exactly why I say that enough is enough! I do not ask members of Amidaji to call the proponents of wrong views as “worms” or in other ways the Buddha and various Masters of the past called them. They can be politer than the Buddha if they so wish, but they must also be as unmovable as them in teaching only what the Buddha and the Masters taught. I for my part, sometimes use harsh language and images as metaphors to make people aware and describe the decadent state of the Sangha today. 

The reason I am so harsh is especially because I want to show the gravity and karmic effects of slandering the Dharma and saying to be right what the Buddha said it is wrong. I also wish to stop those not open enough or not possessing the good karma from the past as Rennyo said to come and infiltrate Amidaji. I have seen so many sanghas infiltrated by all kinds of people without any true aspiration for shinjin (faith) and liberation and who, because of the ambiguous language used there they constantly tried to impose their personal views while disturbing the atmosphere in the Sangha. I do not want to see the same people coming at Amidaji and then suddenly cry that they are discriminated. It’s always better they know what Amidaji stands for from the start so that they decide if they really want to join or not.

 I have seen many proponents of wrong views fighting so hard to “expose” Amidaji and convince their fellow progressive and liberal friends to never consider joining Amidaji. I am telling them to stay calm because I don’t want their friends here anyway! In my case and Amidaji, the word “expose” is stupid just like the people who are using it because it suggests to reveal something hidden that I or Amidaji don’t want to be known. However, everything I believe in and everything I say is PUBLIC on my website, my books, my Facebook pages, my Twitter, etc, so there is nothing to expose. I take full responsibility for everything I say, all the words, all the situations and all the harsh language I use. I do not retract any word but I encourage everybody to know the context of everything I said, although for this you must study my books carefully.

Amidaji is clearly not for people who can’t stand criticism and attacks from enemies of the Dharma and I am not a smiling priest in search of approval. I am here in human form to do my duty, say all that is needed to be said, correct what needs to be corrected, be a sinner filled with blind passions, show that sinners who accept themselves as sinners are saved, and then go to the Pure Land. Meanwhile as I am still in this body, doing what I have to do here, I don’t give a shit if people love me or not or if I will remain the only member of Amidaji because I am too radical for their taste.

Some say that many will not come to Amidaji because I am harsh and radical. So what! Let them not come! Rennyo Shonin said that we should not teach those who have no good from the past or no openness towards this type of Dharma Gate. Our target when teaching the Dharma are not those who are eager to deny the Mahayana sutras, life after death and rebirth, Amida Buddha and His Pure Land or who intend to use the Dharma and our temples to promote their deluded sexual or social ideologies. Our goal is to find those who although they are filled with blind passions and drowned in all kinds of grave karmic sins they are able to accept themselves as such when hearing the Dharma and happy to know about Amida’s unconditional salvation.

Those so-called progressives and liberal “Buddhists” who refuse to hear what the Buddha Dharma says about them and their karmic sins do not belong to the category of people I am interested in, so let them say what they want about us as they are speaking for their deluded audience only. Many readers and Dharma friends with good karma from the past found me after seeing those fake Buddhists talking about me on various forums and discussion groups, so  I am very grateful to all who criticize me and Amidaji because they are actually making us a lot of publicity. This is one of the reasons I don't care what they write and never read nor engage with them but let them do the job they are so good at – doing publicity and sending people to my website and books.

The reason I am never worried about any attack or sabotage is because I am convinced of what I stand for and I know the Power of Amida, all Buddhas and Dharma protectors as well as the working of karma. The methods I use, sometimes calm language, sometimes strong language, sometimes this or sometimes that, is because I know such things work. Laughing and making fun of modernists, heretics, lgbtq propagandists, etc or describing them by metaphors as well as using Dharma arguments and passages will make the right people come and those with evil aspirations stay away from Amidaji.

 

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[1] http://tibetanbuddhistencyclopedia.com/en/index.php/Worms_within_the_lion%27s_body

[2] Rennyo Shonin Goichidaiki Kikigaki (Thus I Have Heard from Rennyo Shonin), Dharma Lion Publications, p108-109

[3] Just imagine how can a Buddhist support such deranged organizations as LGBTQ who promote not only the unnatural union (according to the Buddhist teaching!) between people of the same sex, but also say that one’s age of sexual consent should be lowered, that children should receive sexual education since the age of four (as they are trying in some countries!) and be taught how to masturbate, or that boys can chose to be girls or vice versa from early years and parents should be forced to support them and even help them make sex change or hormone treatment! Or when they invent many types of genders and say that men can be considered women and women can be considered men, thus encouraging sexual dysphoria as normal and imposing it on society and religion! How can a sane person does not recognize the danger posed by this organization and how aggressive they are in imposing their views on the society and religion? What is wrong with me that I call them what they really are and indicate to the evil karma they will inherit for another life for propagating and imposing such distorted views on society and religion?  What is wrong in calling them freaks and perverts? They are freaks when they get naked in the streets and perverts when they try to pervert and hypersexualize children! With such heavy karma arising from their actions of promoting sexual perversity as normal I would not be surprised to hear that they were reborn as worms living in shit as many Buddhist texts describe various places of torment for people who engage in and promote sexual misconduct.