“Once a devotee from
the Chinzei district came up to Kyoto to visit Honen at his cottage.
Before meeting him, he
asked one of Honen’s disciples if it was a good thing to meditate upon the Buddha’s
signs of eminence while one is repeating the Nembutsu. The reply was that it
was an excellent thing to do.
Honen who was sitting
in the adjoining room before the Buddha’s image, overheard the conversation. He
opened the sliding door and remarked, ‘I don’t think so. It is as Zendo (Master
Shan-tao) says, ‘If a single one of the sentient beings in the ten quarters of
the world should fail to be born into the Pure Land through calling of my Name
at least ten times, then I refuse for myself the perfect Enlightenment of Buddhahood.
Now the fact is that He did become a Buddha and now exists as one. So from this
we are perfectly sure that His Great Primal Vow was not in vain. If therefore
any sentient being now does call upon His Name, he shall certainly attain Ojo (birth
in the Pure Land). No matter how much we may meditate upon the Buddha, we
cannot do it in the perfect way as Shakyamuni explained it (in the Contemplation
Sutra). So the only thing for us to do is to put our trust deeply in the Primal
Vow itself, and call upon the sacred Name with our lips. This is the one and
only way to practice religion.’”
Commentary:
We should always come back to the Primal Vow whenever we
have a question. So, where in the Primal Vow did Amida mention that we should
say His Name while meditating upon His signs of eminence? Nowhere! The inquiry
in the above passage was made on the basis of the thirteen contemplations in
the
Contemplation Sutra which is a
provisional teaching for those who still cling to their self-power. However, it
has absolutely no connection with the Nembutsu of the Primal Vow or the Nembutsu
of Amida centered Power. In His Primal Vow, Amida asked us to entrust to Him
and say His Name
“perhaps even ten times”
which means that our
relaxed saying of Nembutsu (without being obsessed with
numbers) should be an expression of faith in His Power. It is a simple saying
of the Name without adding anything to it. The Primal Vow mentions a simple
saying of the Name in faith because Amida wanted this to be the easiest Path
among all Dharma methods. As long as He didn’t consider to add anything else
except the saying of His Name in faith and the wish to be born in His Pure Land,
why think we are smarter than Him and add something else? Certainly, the Primal
Vow does not need any improvement.
More than this,
Amida linked this Path of birth in the Pure Land with His own attainment of perfect Enlightenment:
“If, when I attain
Buddhahood, sentient beings of the ten quarters who sincerely entrust
themselves to me, desire to be born in my land, and say my Name perhaps even
ten times, should not be born there, may I not attain the supreme
Enlightenment.” (
The Primal Vow)
As He actually attained Enlightenment, we should have no
doubt that to say His Name in faith leads to birth there. A Buddha never breaks
His promise and He is the only one to know the karmic causes for birth in His own
Pure Land, so have trust in Amida and do exclusively what He told you to do. Those
who think that the requirements of Amida in His Primal Vow are not enough to
cause birth in His Pure Land doubt His wisdom and do not have genuine faith.
Words in brackets are my own. 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. 442-443
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