“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.’”
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
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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