My Spritual Journey so far
By Shaku Myokaku Fernando
Andaluz
Namo Amida Butsu
First things first, I
recognize that I am no extraordinary person nor am I capable of attaining
Buddhahood by myself, much less within this lifetime.
After trial and error, despite
my best efforts and the best of spiritual guidance within the Triple Jewel, I
failed miserably on achieving the slightest amount of peace of mind, enhanced
mindfulness, awareness and settlement of any spiritual achievement whatsoever.
In short, my story is that of
failure upon the path of self-empowerment and finally end up surrendering to
the Other Power, that is, the power of Amida Butsu.
I was born and raised in a mixed family, a devoted but faithful and moderate Roman Catholic mother and a liberal Jewish father. My first experience with the “powers to be” was during my early childhood when at my elementary school, run by nuns, a missionary who had been to Africa came over to talk about his journey and the love of Jesus Christ for all mankind. Right away, I felt a lot of respect for this monk and started asking him questions openly about the inequities and the hardships he encountered upon those starving children whom he was committed to help. Quickly the questions and dialogue escalated to the point where I subconsciously, and truly meaning no ill will, began to question the contradiction between God and Jesus Christ loving everyone and being merciful towards all mankind. Soon after the confrontation came towards the narrative of a loving all-powerful all-knowing and all-merciful God and his son, letting innocent children to starve and endure the horrors and nightmares of war, poverty and colonialism.
A couple of days later,
unbeknownst to my parents, the head of the school, the superior nun, brought me
to a private meeting with other nuns from other orders and a dude who seem to
be the one truly in charge. With a very sinister but friendly vibe, he asked if
I understood the meaning of the phrase “see no evil, hear no evil and speak no
evil”. I answered that I did, just like the common folk would understand it,
which means don’t speak evil things, don’t seek to look, pay attention, engage
or watch evil things and don’t listen, pay attention or indulge in hearing evil
things. His answer was that such understanding was a misconception, the real
meaning of such phrase is to keep your mouth shut when something evil happened,
to pretend you didn’t listen anything when something evil happened and to
pretend that you didn’t see anything if something evil happened. He later on
told me that they had great hopes on me and I had the potential to become a
great leader if I followed the rules and paid attention.
The moment I felt something wrong was going on, I basically declined the offer and a couple of weeks later I became the target of intense bulling and a systematic harassment all the way from your classic bully to the authorities at the school.
During that time, my father,
unbeknownst to my mother, began to teach and read to me the Babylonic Talmud,
discuss the works and treaties of Maimonides in order to begin the journey to
become a man according to Judaism. He also incorporated me to activities such
as Judo and basic maintenance at a commercial building that belonged to him. The
time came to do my “secret” Bar mitzva and everything went according to
tradition, again unbeknownst to my mother and sister. The whole thing was going
so well indeed that my father, in hopes to procure better future for me,
managed to contact an albeit and they agreed to train me in order to properly
convert me to Judaism with the intent of train me to later become a Rabbi for
the liberal Jewish branch. The whole thing went south when we began to study
certain key aspects of Judaism that involve several wrong views about several
things. This led me to once again, decline the offer and walk away.
After some decision making, I
began to choose the stuff that I considered to be good and discard the things
that I felt wrong. My father grew resentful and began distancing from me, which
led me to grow resentful and feeling abandoned. This also permeated deep into
my subconscious and began to pile up along the rest of these feelings, views
and perceptions about a distant, tyrannical, hypocritical, racist and narcissistic
all-mighty creator and ruler figure.
I ended up in a group of AA
known as the 4th and 5th step, trying to find a way to
deal with my neurosis and conflicting feelings, I discovered the value of
catharsis and an honest retrospect. Yet I felt stuck and trapped, making
matters worse, I was forced to study a career that I didn’t like much less the
way it was imposed to me by my parents which kept threatening me with the
premise of being kicked out of the house and be left by my own means if didn’t
become an engineer.
During this time, Jujitsu and
Krav Maga helped me to channel the anger and frustration so I became more and
more immersed in tournaments and visits to other dojos. It was during one of
these visits that I was recruited by a field operator who was part of a
security initiative nationwide back in the day. During that time, feeling
trapped and anguished, a dear friend of mine from high school, who was
attending to the same university and was studying the same career, invited me
to an introductory course about Tibetan Buddhism.
Right from the beginning I
knew this was it, everything made sense, the Four Noble Truths, the concept of
Buddhahood, Samsara and emptiness. This institution, which I hold dear to my
heart until this day as part of my entry point to the Buddha Dharma, was a very
well crafted, precise and mindful hybrid between the Kagyu, Nygma and Gelugpa
Tibetan schools and lineages of the teachings of the Buddha. Several guests,
retreats and conferences were given over the time, it was during one of these
conferences where I got the mental imbuing of “Sunyata” or voidness, difficult
to express what it is.
Also, during one of these
retreats I was aspiring to enter into the first jhana, rather what I found
during a meditation about impermanence, based on the walk-through visualization
of a sudden death under pathetic circumstances, was the reality about the
miserable condition of our so-called personalities and how futile is our
existence. This led me into a state of total disrespect for myself and others,
while feeling a terrible pain on how useless were our attempts to break away
from samsara.
I begged Avalokiteshvara for
help over this very threatening existential crisis, and a couple of months
later, the 14th Dalai Lama (Kun Dun) came to visit Mexico where he
gave the Avalokiteshvara empowerment to the audience. Having the opportunity to
be at that time amongst the audience, and not being able to remember anything
from the empowerment ceremony, felt like a gift received with folded eyes only
to lose the gift at the confusion of the party.
Taking refuge in the Triple Jewel
and receiving the empowerment of Avalokiteshvara basically within months of
joining the sangha, gave me a false sense of achievement and the wrong feeling
that something big was about to happen, perhaps becoming an arhat or a
Boddhisattva within this lifetime after a couple of years of practice. Knowing
that mental imbution is possible in order to achieve the realization of certain
teachings, I made my mind to travel to Europe at a certain institute where the
practitioner who shared the realization of Sunyata resided.
Since back in the day, I had
no money or means, nor would my parents support me in any ways, I got hired by
a merchant boat as part of the maintenance crew. Once in Europe, a former
instructor from my unit, offered me a contract as part of his PMC filial
company.
It was during this contract,
where I had a close encounter with death and the surreal of being in the middle
of a low and middle intensity armed conflict. It was shocking and surreal to
find myself at the mercy of some warlord about to chop my hand with a machete
just because I was providing security to the truck that was delivering food and
medicine to one of the villages this thug and his mates were harassing and
targeting. I don’t regret calling for air support, nor do I regret spending all
of the money I earned upon that contract in procuring such air support, I know
I gave that village and myself the chance to live another day. I’ve never
killed anyone in my life, I was specific upon the parameters and non-lethal use
of force upon the air strike.
That being said, there are
some people who I can’t feel empathy or compassion for, I’m not a Buddha yet,
but I trust that once I become a Buddha, thanks to the Power of Amida Butsu,
the hatred and thirst for justice that burns
inside me will turn into compassion, patience and skillful means to make
these people surrender to the Triple Jewel and change their ways.
Back in Europe I was totally
disconnected with reality, I couldn’t come to terms with the fact that, on one
hand I saw people living their lives carelessly, in dreamlike conditions, while
on the other hand, I just witnessed the worse of humankind and the worst of
European and western colonialism less than an hour ago.
I just wanted to go home, I
felt a great disconnection with the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas.
Coming back to my country,
tragedy began to struck, my mom lost our house, she felt severely ill and
witchcraft was being done to my family and I. After my mom lost our house, my
father believed that I was in cahoots with her and decided to abandon us,
cartels wanted to take away his businesses and properties and finally came back
to us just to be killed a month later.
Ironically, right before my
trip to Europe, I began to feel a strong curiosity about Ksitigarbha and the Bardo
Todol. I began to do a thoroughly research on what to tell someone when they
asked me what to do in case they die, how to avoid Mara and his traps, how to
avoid the fraudulent trials by lord Yama and how to keep an emotional balance
in order to avoid falling into the lower realms.
I remember rehearsing such
conversation and telling this imaginary audience how to appeal and ask
assistance from the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas in order to assure a favorable
rebirth or being taken into a Pure Land. I remember placing special emphasis in
using the image and help from Amitabha as a last resource, the red Buddha who
had power over sentient beings and could ultimately procure them a favorable
rebirth in His Pure Land.
The last deep and honest
conversation I had my father, was about exactly the Bardo Todol, the moment he
explained to me that his life was in danger I went through the whole
walkthrough about the Bardo Todol and what to do, including the “Amitabha last
resort”.
In retrospect, I’m thankful
that Amitabha and Ksitigarbha gave me the chance to at least explain these
things to him before he died at the hands of these cartels.
About seven months later I was
kidnapped and held captive for a couple of hours losing all of my money to pay
the ransom and getting my freedom back. This is when reality became a living
nightmare, I lost all faith in the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas.
Still, I kept praying to
Ksitigarbha for the safeguard and wellbeing of my father, crying every night
and trying to figure out what did I miss or what could I have done in order to
exfiltrate my family and keep them safe. All of my training, skills and willing
to adapt, improvise and succeed failed miserably. I couldn’t protect my family,
I couldn’t save my father, I felt guilty for being the one who survived. To my
eyes, it would have been better if it was me instead of him, at least the
Buddhas and Bodhisattvas could grant me a temporary settlement to procure the
continuity of my practice and I could oversee the safeguard of my family due to
the transfer of merits.
I had help from friends and
family back then to get back on my feet and Ițm truly thankful and grateful to
all of them. I will assign them and my parents the utmost priority unless told
by Amida otherwise as He knows better what to do once I become a Buddha in
Sukhavati.
After two years of somewhat
having stability, my mother and I decided to move to the US in order to move
away from the violence in Mexico. It was in the US where I found a Pure Land
temple and I truly began to understand to concept of who Amitabha is and what
exactly His Pure Land is.
Despite what the head of the
temple instructed me, about Amitabha being real but Sukhavati being more like
an aspiration to a mental state of wellbeing and non-suffering, I knew that
Amitabha was really an approachable Buddha and Sukhavati was real.
After all, as an engineer, I
knew that certain alloys, technologies and systems of systems are far beyond
our current reach but such things can definitely be done by an Enlightened
being. It was my initial curiosity about artificial intelligence and neural
networks what spark my interest and made me give my friend a chance back in the
day when he first invited me to join him at the Buddha Dharma course.
So, I decided to believe that
Amitabha was real and so was Sukhavati, I just needed to have the certainty of
getting a fail-safe mechanism so I could guarantee my assured admittance
despite the potential obstacles given by my defects, habits and lack of
spiritual growth.
I was about to put my theory
to the test when tragedy struck again. This time my mother and my sister kicked
my former wife and me out of the house that they bought in part with my money
and left me without any real chances of having a future. Entering into this
level of stress, poverty and desperation completely blocked my path towards not
just Enlightenment but the chance to see if Amitabha had a way to assure my
entrance into Sukhavati.
With the firm belief that only
through a deep focused and continuous mental state of mindfulness and aperture
to the whole Amida subject, my wife and I opted for the easy path of chanting
and repeating mantras in order to purify some bad karma and hopefully gain the
favor of the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas to achieve better circumstances in life
and thus, procure a safe and favorable environment to try the whole Amida
theory. That never happened, despite having a good job at an engineering firm,
I began having panic attacks and I lost my job whilst acquiring a heavy medical
debt due to the panic attacks.
I also had to let go of other
jobs because I started having these severe panic attacks while driving on the
highway, I didn’t want to die and much less to cause a major accident and have
other people killed. Everything went to hell and out of desperation came back
to Mexico, I still wasn’t able to keep a job and ended up in poverty again, my
wife began to stress due to our conditions and something had to be done.
My mother came back from the
US and decided to give me a second chance and move in with her but only if I
left my wife go. My wife and I decided that it was for the best, she went back
to the US with money that my mother lend me for her ticket and we would reunite
once I manage to make money and get back on my feet again. I was hopeful that
my mother would finally help me to get started with either a small business or
to have enough means to get a decent job, but that never happened.
Despite my best efforts about
convincing my mother to lend me some money, trying to find investors or trying
to find a well-paid job, I finally gave up and started to let go of everything.
My wife ended up having an
affair and we decided to get divorced while leaving in relatively good terms. Time
passed by and I couldn’t find a solution to my living situation. Finally, I realized that my mother had sold
the house she and my sister bought back in the US and took a hefty loan to buy
a piece of land while spending all of our money in such real estate investment.
The loan started charging interest rates upon her pension and she lost
everything overnight. Not having access to her pensions and without any source
of income she began to panic and rather than calling of the purchase of the
real state lot, she kept clinging to it until her last breath.
My mother died out of a
diabetic coma and left me with debts and without the means to at least pay for
her funeral. None of her family members came to her funeral, except for her
younger brother. My sister only gave a fraction to cover the funerary expenses
and asked me to never contact her again.
On the other hand, she did
relinquish and forfeit her rights to my mother`s will and belongings, but she
wouldn’t help me to get the trial started in order to get the inheritance back.
Still, I kept praying to Tara
to take my mother with her and keep her safe, not letting her fall into the
hell realms, pretas or animals, knowing how much she enjoyed bashing and
slandering the Triple Jewel.
Despite of my anger and strong
resentment against her and what she did, my main concern was about her
borderline consciousness being stuck upon the wrong views about this benevolent
god. In her own words, she would never give me access to my money unless I have
proven to her that I had indeed found the “light of God” and I will make good
use of that money, in accordance and adherence to God’s guidelines and
guidance.
Finally, Tara somewhat let me
know that she was taking care of my mom but this situation would require me to
intercede for her and my father over several trials that both will face during
their processing and they will be moved from different Buddha lands to another
until I would become a Buddha and take them in myself. To me, this was good
enough, I managed to buy my parents some precious time to see if in the
meanwhile they would change their attitude towards the Triple Jewel and perhaps
adhere to some kind of deal offered by the Triple Jewel.
Once the priority of taking
care of my mother and her not falling into the lower realms, it was time to
face the nightmare I was left upon. A neighbor came later on and cut me a bad
deal where he would give less than a third of the value of the real state lot
in exchange for covering the expenses of the trial. I ended up, broken going
through another nightmare because of the trial, I had to back to the city where
my father was killed and deal with everything at once, alone again.
Only when I ran out of money
and in deep desperation, I remembered the idea of Amida and I gave it a try.
A couple of weeks later, I
found Jodo Shinshu and Amidaji. Turns out, my theories about Amida being an
approachable Buddha and guaranteeing the admittance to Sukhavati were true. So
here we are, entrust to Amida Butsu, say His Name with a trusting heart and
wish to be reborn in Sukhavati. Amida Butsu will do the rest.
I repent and vow to the
Buddhas of the three times and the ten directions, I regret causing any harm to
any sentient being in this life and since the beginingless time. I want to go
home, to Sukhavati, repair the harm I’ve caused and help to save as many
sentient beings as possible thanks to the power of Amida Butsu.
I don’t know if I’m going to
make it past this year, or if I will end mentally ill and homeless, but at
least I know that Amida Butsu will come and take me to Sukhavati at the end of
this current rebirth, and the nightmare will be finally over.
Thank you Josho Adrian Cirlea
for finding and fighting to get the true Amida Dharma and make it accessible to
the common folk again.
Namo Amida Butsu
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