Sunday, June 19, 2022

Focus on Amida’s Name, not on your monkey mind

 


“Question: ‘When evil thoughts will keep arising within the mind, what ought one to do?
Answer (by Honen Shonin): ‘The only thing to do is to repeat the Nembutsu.’”[1]
 
Commentary:
This is something that I often say in my books, articles and discussions with my Dharma friends. We cannot fix our samsaric minds. We cannot eliminate evil thoughts. We cannot stop thinking. All we can to do is change the focus from whatever appears in our mind to Amida, through the saying of His Name. Just as you don’t take a monkey serious, don’t take your mind serious. We are not saved because of any quality that can be found in our minds and we are not obstructed to be born in the Pure Land by our blind passions and evil thoughts. Our salvation comes from outside of our samsaric mind, so we do not need to bother about it anymore. 
Accept yourself as you are because you are saved by Amida Buddha exactly as you are. Accept that it is impossible to have pure thoughts while you are still in this samsaric environment, itself the effect of personal and collective karma. Here everything is a temptation and an obstacle, so it’s impossible that thoughts of attachments, desire, aversion, etc, do not arise in your mind. If you had no evil thoughts then you would be a Buddha, and for a Buddha the Primal Vow would be useless. In that Primal Vow Amida asked you to entrust to Him, say His Name and wish to be born in His Pure Land. He did not tell you to have pure thoughts or to develop special qualities in your mind. Basically, He asked you to come as you are, entrust to Him as you are with all your problems and blind passions, say His Name as you are, and wish to be born in His Pure Land as you are. There is no need to self-exclude yourself from His salvation by inventing obstacles that He never put in the Path to His Pure Land, so simply say His Name without worrying about your monkey mind.
 
There is no problem if your mind is agitated or chaotic. Nembutsu does NOT depend on your mind and is not improved or affected by anything that can be found in it. Why? Because the Name  “AMIDA” belongs to AMIDA! You did not invent the Holy Name!
 
Only Nembutsu is true and real”, said Shinran Shonin, which means that Nembutsu does not belong to the illusory samsaric world, but to the reality of Enlightenment. I repeat this because it is extremely important - although we say it with our lips, Nembutsu does not belong to us and is not improved or affected by us. We can’t soil Nembutsu with our thoughts. More than this,  Nembutsu was invented especially for beings like us. It is not a mantra that should be recited in a special way or with a special state of mind, but a Name that can be easily said by anybody, no matter how high or low they are on the scale of spiritual evolution. It is the Name that does not exorcise demons, as demons themselves can say it in faith and be saved and transformed into Buddhas in the Pure Land of Amida. It is the Name that low level beings like us can say it as they are and enter the stage of non-retrogression for birth in the Pure Land. It is the ultimate expression of the Infinite Compassion of Amida and all Buddhas.
No matter where you go in the ten directions and no matter how far you search in all religions you cannot find a Name so powerful and yet so Compassionate and easily accessible to all.
Namo Amida Bu


 
[1] Honen the Buddhist Saint - His Life and Teachings, volume III, compiled by imperial order, translation by Rev Ryugaku Ishizuka and Rev Harper Havelock Coates, The Society for the Publication of Sacred Books of the World, Kyoto, 1949, p. 426


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