She took his
advice, gave up the reading, and did nothing but call upon the sacred Name all
the rest of her life, till she at last attained Ojo (birth in the Pure Land).
In the village of
Shiraku, in the province of Tango, there was a cloister called Mirokuji, the
abbot of which was formerly a Tendai scholar, who afterwards, on retiring from
his priestly office, became a disciple of Honen, devoting himself exclusively
to the Nembutsu practice. He lived at Tomino-koji, Gojo Bomon (in Kyoto). One
day, when taking a mid-day nap, he had a dream, in which he thought he saw
purple clouds in the sky, and a nun in the midst of them with a face brimming
all over with smiles, who said, ‘Through the teaching of Honen Shonin I have
attained birth into the Pure Land. I was once a nun in the Ninnaji temple’.
With this he awoke. After a while he visited Honen at his residence at Kujo, and told the dream he had had, saying it must have been a mental illusion. Honen, after a little reflection said, ‘Well, there was such a person as this. And late he thought he would send a messenger to the Ninnaji temple, but as it was already dark, did not send till the next morning, when he told the messenger, ‘Today as I had business this way, I have just dropped in. Has anything special happened?’ As the messenger went and made the call, he was told that the nun had died the day before at the hour of the horse. Is this not a strange phenomenon?”[1]
My commentary:
As we can see above, Master Honen did not denigrate the self-power practice the nun chose to do before coming to him, nor did he say that the recitation/reading of the Lotus Sutra is wrong. He didn’t do that because he knew that the Lotus Sutra represents a genuine Dharma Gate taught by Shakyamuni Buddha. What Honen did was to emphasize the difficulty of that practice for a person her age and he kindly guided her to the Nembutsu of faith who contains the merits of all practices and fulfills all aspirations. We have to remember again and again how he and Master Shan-tao explained the merits contained in Amida’s Name. The following is a passage I keep close to my heart and show it to people who are afraid that by turning to Amida for refuge they somehow abandon their previous vows, when actually the saying of the Nembutsu is the surest way to fulfill them and their aspiration to attain Buddhahood for the benefit of all beings[2]:
"The Japanese
designation for Amitabha - Amida - consists of only three characters (A-MI-DA).
Within this Name, however, is the merit of the inner realization of Tathagata
Amida and His external activities, as well as the merit of Buddha Shakyamuni's extremely profound teachings (Lotus Sutra included!), which are as
numerous as the grains of sand in the Ganges. Who can fathom this?
Master Shan-tao, in
the chapter 'Essentials of the Commentary' of the 'Commentary on the Meditation
Sutra', interpreted this Name thus:
'The Chinese term for
Amida Buddha, 'A-mi-t'o-fo', is a transliteration of the language of India. It
was interpreted into Chinese as 'Enlightened One Whose Life Is Immeasurable
(Wu-liang-shou-chiao)'. 'Immeasurable Life (Wu-liang-shou) points to the
Dharma, and 'Enlightened One (chiao)' is a person. Both the Dharma and the
person are combined into 'Enlightened One Whose Life Is Immeasurable'.
Accordingly, He is referred to as 'A-mi-t'o-fo'.’ […]
Therefore, all of the merits of the teachings (Lotus Sutra
included!), the meditative practices on the phenomenal aspect of reality
and the noumenal principle, the unmatched power acquired through meditation and
wisdom, the wisdom of inner realization, and the merit of external activities,
as well as all of the virtues and undefiled Enlightenment of Tathagata Amida,
Bodhisattva Avalokitesvara, Bodhisattva Mahasthamaprapta, Bodhisattva
Samanthabhadra, Bodhisattva Manjusri, Bodhisattva Ksitigarbha, Nagarjuna, and
the Bodhisattvas[3] and Sravakas[4]
of the Pure Land are encompassed in the
three characters of the Name of Amida. This being so, would there be any Dharma not included in the teaching for birth in the
Pure Land?”[5]
To say that all Dharma Gates are included in the teaching for birth in the Pure Land (“would there be any Dharma not included in the teaching for birth in the Pure Land?”) means that the Primal Vow of Amida and His Name brings all beings to the attainment of Buddhahood which is, in fact, the goal of all Dharma Gates and teachings, including the Lotus Sutra.
By
guiding the nun to Nembutsu, Honen changed her mind from the pursuit of
accumulating merits through self-power effort to the already available
storehouse of infinite virtues that Amida concentrated in His Holy Name. By
saying the Nembutsu of Faith she automatically received the merits of the Lotus
Sutra and became a splendid Buddha in the Pure Land of Amida.
[2] Words in brackets are my own.
[3] Bodhisattvas in the Pure Land refer to those who attained Enlightenment in the Pure Land and are now Buddhas who manifest as Bodhisattvas. For a better understanding of this idea read chapter “The qualities of Bodhisattvas in the audience” from my book, Commentary on the Sutra on the Buddha of Infinte Life, p. 24,
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