Question:
What did Shinran mean by "mindfulness is Nembutsu"?
“Saying the Name is in itself mindfulness;
mindfulness is
Nembutsu;
Nembutsu is Namo
Amida Butsu”.
Answer: We need to know that whenever we meet
the word “mindfulness” it is in no way referring to the modern idea of
meditation based on self-power. For Shinran “mindfulness” always referred to
faith and to Amida Buddha. So, he said that mindfulness is Nembutsu and that
Nembutsu is Namo Amida Butsu. What does Namo Amida Butsu mean? It means “I take
refuge in Amida Buddha/Homage to Amida Buddha”. What does Nembutsu represent?
What do we express by saying Namo Amida Butsu? We express faith, so Namo Amida
Butsu or Nembutsu is the expression of faith. It is faith as there can be no
faith separate from Nembutsu and no genuine Nembutsu separate from faith.
Shinran Shonin said:
"Although the one moment of shinjin and the one moment of Nembutsu are
two, there is no Nembutsu separate from
shinjin (faith), nor is the one moment of shinjin separate from the one moment
of Nembutsu.”
Rennyo Shonin also said:
"'Namo' means 'to take refuge in'; it means
to entrust yourself to Amida with the assurance of your salvation.”
So,
according to Shinran, mindfulness is faith and the Nembutsu of faith. It means
to be mindful or aware of Amida Buddha’s Primal Vow and of His indiscriminative
salvation. It means to have the twofold profound convictions according to which
1) we know that we are people of deep karmic limitations, incapable of
attaining Buddhahood through our own power and 2) that only Amida Buddha can
save us through His Vow Power without asking anything from us. This is the
mindfulness of the Jodo Shinshu Path – to entrust to Amida Buddha, to be aware
of His indiscriminative salvation and of our karmic limitations, to know that
only Amida Buddha can save us. A person who says the Nembutsu of faith is aware
of all these.
Shinran
Shonin also said in Shoshinge:
“When a thought of
mindfulness of Amida’s Primal Vow arises,
At that instant we
spontaneously enter the stage of definite assurance.
Always reciting
only the Name of the Tathagata,
We should seek to
repay our indebtedness to His Great Compassion”.
To
repay indebtedness means to say thank you to Amida Buddha.
In
chapter III of his Kyogyoshinsho,
Shinran also said:
“Deep mind is deep
faith. Deep faith is steadfast deep faith. Steadfast deep faith is decisive
mind. Decisive mind is supreme mind (because this is the Bodhi Mind). Supreme
mind is true faith. True faith is enduring mind. Enduring mind is sincere mind. Sincere mind is mindfulness. Mindfulness is the true One Mind. The
true One Mind is great joy (relief at knowing the burden of liberation is taken
from your shoulders by Amida). Great Joy
is the true entrusting heart. The true entrusting heart is adamantine faith.
Adamantine faith is the aspiration for Buddhahood. The aspiration for
Buddhahood is the desire to save sentient beings. The desire to save sentient
beings is the desire to embrace sentient beings and bring them to the Pure Land
of Peace and Bliss. This desire is the Great Bodhi Mind. This mind is the Great
Compassion, for it arises from the wisdom of Infinite Light.”
Also,
Master Jih-hsiu is quoted by Shinran as saying:
“Those who attain
Birth through a single thought of mindfulness are the same as Maitreya.”
As
you well know, Shinran also considered that faith is what makes you the same as Maitreya, the future Buddha, because in a way which is somehow similar to Him
we are future Buddhas. So, again, we see that mindfulness actually means faith
(shinjin).
In
the Hymns in Praise of Amida Buddha,
Master T’an-luan said:
“His Light shines
everywhere at all times.
For this reason,
the Buddha is also called “Unceasing Light”.
By accepting in
faith the Power of His Light, with continuous mindfulness,
We all attain
Birth. Hence I prostrate myself and worship Him.”
Here
again there is this connection between faith and continuous mindfulness. What
does “continuous mindfulness” means?
It means that one who has faith will always have the twofold profound
conviction of faith: he will always know that he is a person of deep karmic
limitations, incapable of attaining Buddhahood through his own power and that
only Amida Buddha can save him through His Vow Power without asking anything
from him. There are many other passages
in Shinran’s works which show that mindfulness means faith.
Master
Shan-tao also said:
“Of those who
abandon the sole practice of Nembutsu and seek to perform sundry acts, very
rarely, one or two out of a hundred or, very rarely, three or five out of a
thousand, will attain Birth (in the border land which shows how hard
it is to attain birth there!). Why? For the following reasons: miscellaneous
conditions confuse their minds and so they lose right mindfulness; they are not
in accord with the Buddha’s Primal Vow, they run counter to the Buddha’s
teaching, they do not follow the Buddha’s words, their concentration does not
continue, their mindfulness is interrupted, their merit transference and
aspiration are not sincere and truthful”
To
“lose right mindfulness” means to
stop trusting Amida Buddha, to not be in accord with His Primal Vow (18th
Vow), to give up the sole reliance on Amida alone and go against the teaching
of sole reliance on Amida. They cannot focus their salvation on Amida and their
mindfulness of Amida is interrupted because they are tempted by various other
practices. Their merit transference and aspiration is not sincere and truthful
because the very idea of merit transference is false as no unenlightened person has genuine supramundane merits and their aspiration is not in accord with the
Primal Vow that is, they do not aspire to birth in the Pure Land through the
Power of Amida. Extremely few of such people who “abandon the sole practice of Nembutsu and seek to perform sundry acts”
can attain birth in the border land of the Pure Land if they are very serious
in the practice described in the 20th Vow.
“Those who serve
gods and yet receive such retributions –
Why do they not
abandon such beliefs and practice mindfulness of Amida?”
To
“practice mindfulness of Amida” means
to think to Amida with faith.
Master
Chih-yuan of Mount Ku said:
“Through the power
of faith, one firmly accepts the Name in one’s heart. Through the power of
mindfulness, one keeps it without forgetting.”
Faith
and mindfulness are inter-related. Only because one has faith, can one say the Nembutsu as an expression of
faith and never forget it. Faith leads to Nembutsu and to never forget the
Nembutsu, never forget Amida, never forget that we are weak beings in need of
Amida’s helping hand, never forget that we are saved as we are and assured of
birth in the Pure Land.
This
faith is mindfulness. This faith is Namo Amida Butsu.
Lamp for the
Latter-Ages, letter 11
Thus I Have Heard from Rennyo Shonin -
Rennyo Shonin‘s Goichidaiki Kikigaki
As quoted by Shinran in his Kyogyoshinsho, chapter V.
Kyogyoshinsho, chapter VI
Master Shan-tao as quoted by Shinran in his Kyogyoshinsho, VI
as quoted by Shinran in his Kyogyoshinsho, VI.
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