Are faith and devotion two different things?

Question: Are devotion and faith two different things? Faith seems to be constant while devotion is sometimes felt more or less depending on our inner circumstance and our emotional states of mind. However, faith is not affected by our changing emotional states, so I ask if these are two different things.

Answer: Faith (shinjin) is a simple entrusting. As I always like to say, its similar with entrusting John who is a mechanic to fix your car because you can’t do it yourself. In the same way, we entrust to Amida Buddha to take us to the Pure Land of perfect Enlightenment because we can’t go there through our self-power.

Devotion does not always imply a specific emotional state of mind, but always means dedication. When you have faith you are dedicated entirely to Amida Buddha, you entrust only to Him, you say only His Name and wish to go only to His Pure Land. This exclusive focus on Amida Buddha in your religious life is devotion. It means you are entirely devoted to Amida. It does not matter that today you make more bows or say Nembutsu many times and tomorrow you do no bowing and say less Nembutsu. It means that no matter what happens in your daily life you continue to be devoted exclusively to Amida. Faith never disappears from your heart once it arrived there. So, as long as you have faith in Amida you are automatically devoted to Amida. Faith means devotion. Even those who don’t have mental stability have devotion towards Amida Buddha if they entrust to Him. So, faith and devotion are never separated.

We can always say the Name of Amida Buddha

Question: If it is said that it does not matter how many times we recite Nembutsu then why does Shinran urges us to say it constantly in this hymn:

“Those who deeply entrust themselves
To Amida’s Vow of great compassion
Should all say Namo Amida Butsu constantly,
Whether they are waking or sleeping.”

Answer: Shinran also said:

"In the Primal Vow are the words:
'Saying my Name perhaps even ten times'.

What does it mean to doubt the wisdom of the Buddha?

Question: Doubting the Buddha's wisdom is like saying that what He teaches is false therefore, a person is not born in the Pure Land for doubting the Wisdom of the Buddha?  Not to doubt the Wisdom of the Buddha is equal to Shinjin?

Answer: Yes, not to doubt the wisdom of the Buddha means that you accept Amida Buddha knows better than you how to save you. That He devised the best method to save you, and so you follow exclusively His instructions in His Primal Vow.

To doubt the wisdom of the Buddha means that although you hear the requirements of the Primal Vow you think you know better than Amida and so instead of following the exclusive requirements of Amida – “say my Name perhaps even ten times” you think that you need to say Nembutsu many times or that you can combine Nembutsu with something else, like other practices. This means you doubt Amida’s wisdom and think you know better than Him what is needed for your salvation.

Although you hear Amida said, “entrust to me”, which means only to Him, you mix the reliance on Amida with faith in other Buddhist and nonbuddhist religious figures. Instead of wishing to be born in His Land as Amida asked you to do, you think you know better and you lie to yourself that you are already in the Pure Land of here and now. Although is clear from Amida’s own description (in the Larger Sutra) of the enlightened qualities of those born in the Pure Land, who indicate that the Pure Land is NOT here and now, you continue to believe that you know better and that the Pure Land is here and now when you clearly don’t have the same qualities.

These are just a few examples of playing smart and doubting the wisdom of the Buddha.

How to help friends and family create a connection with Amida Buddha

Question: “Sometimes, one may be concerned about friends and family, because they have chosen different religious ways, or decided to believe in nothing at all. Of course, they also think that their path is the correct one and even if this can change during a lifetime, they might never have access to Buddhism. If we try to bring them on the path, they might block this from the beginning. It is just too early for them from the karmic point of view. How can we work discreetly on them, so that they develop interest in Buddhism, if not in this life, at least in one of the coming lives? What is your advice?”

Short advice for a person with doubts and attachments to Christianity

 

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A Dharma friend told me that  although he finds the Jodo Shinshu Buddhist teaching very appealing  he still has feelings of attachments to Christianity and Jesus. He said that if it wasn’t for my writings against monotheism he might have been swayed by them. He also asked me:

“How can I safeguard myself against these things as I still have lingering doubts and do not want to be led astray? I can’t help but think it may be the tug of Maras (celestial demons) because I’m so close to being out of their grip…”

This is my letter to him:

Let go of your monkey mind and entrust to Amida Buddha

Question: Josho – I need your help regarding the issue of shinjin (or lack of). I know that I do not have settled shinjin, as much as I would like to have it. I follow the Amida Dharma for a while but then I fall off the rails and think that perhaps another path is or more suited to me.  So…I try to follow another path just to arrive at the place where I realize (again) that I cannot “succeed” in any type of spiritual progress by my own efforts and that I need Amida.  So…. I return to Amida. 

Intellectually I believe in the existence of Amida and His Pure Land, and I do want to go there, but there is obviously some kind of emotional or other block which is preventing me from having settled shinjin and from really experiencing Amida as a living presence in my life.  What is your advice?  Can you help?

Answer: My advice is very simple:

Amida Buddha does not require from us to become martyrs (video teaching)

 This is one of my recent video teachings recorded during a zoom meeting with some of the members of Amidaji. You can see the whole playlist DHARMA TALKS at this link (click here).

 

Unlike other religions, the Buddha Dharma and Amida Buddha himself do not asks us to be martyrs. This must be well understood as a very important difference from Christianity or Islam. Amida Buddha does NOT suffer like the monotheistic god from the need for attention. He does not threat us to punish our children and grandchildren until the fourth generation if we do not obey him like the so-called god of the monotheists (see the 1st commandment). Our Amida Buddha is a mature, enlightened Person without any trace of jealousy and ego. I've always noticed there is an obsession with blood and drama in monotheistic religions. Too much telenovela for a god with a psychopathic personality disorder.

What to do if followers of other religions say that they pray for us

A friend recently wrote to me and said that he feels insulted by the fact that some of his Christian or Muslim co-workers often tell him that they are praying for him to abandon his Buddhist Path and turn to their god. This was my answer:

Try to not become upset, but have compassion for them like a grown up towards ignorant children or like a sober person towards a drunken fellow who doesn't know what he's saying.

Shakyamuni Buddha said in the Sutra on the Questions of Maudgalyayana (as quoted by Shinran in his Kyogyoshinsho, chapter II) that those who "follow the ninety-five wrong paths" are blind and deaf. He said: " I call such people 'those without eyes' and 'those without ears'."

False or unsettled shinjin

 

A friend asked me what is false or unsettled shinjin? Then he gave me a quote from Kyogyoshinsho:

“1. One’s faith is not sincere; at one time it exists and at another it does not;

2. One’s faith is not single-hearted, because it is not firm;

3. One’s faith is not constant, because it is mingled with other thoughts.”

Worldly benefits and otherworldly benefits of Nembutsu

Question:  According to what I have read in some teaching of the Chinese Pure Land school, they say that it is incorrect to say that Nembutsu does not bring benefits to this life, like for example, longevity and other physical and worldly benefits which is in contradiction to Shinran’s thought.  I for my part contemplate the ten benefits which have nothing to do with my longevity or other worldly benefits that I know I do not have and I'm not very interested in them either.  Why do these schools wish for more benefits as if going to the Land of Amida is not enough?

My answer: If one does not have aspiration for birth in the Pure Land then he does not meet the requirements of the Primal Vow: “entrust yourself to me, say my Name and wish to be born in my land”. It is very clear that according to the Primal Vow we must say the Nembutsu with faith in Amida Buddha and aspiration for birth in His Land. Amida did not say that we should say the Nembutsu while wishing to get worldly benefits and long life. However, due to a combination of personal karma and Amida’s help we might indeed receive more benefits than the usual ten, including long life, although this is not why Amida manifested His Name and instructed us to say it as an expression of faith. Honen Shonin said:

How to help friends and family create a connection with Amida Buddha

Question: “Sometimes, one may be concerned about friends and family, because they have chosen different religious ways, or decided to believe in nothing at all. Of course, they also think that their path is the correct one and even if this can change during a lifetime, they might never have access to Buddhism. If we try to bring them on the path, they might block this from the beginning. It is just too early for them from the karmic point of view. How can we work discreetly on them, so that they develop interest in Buddhism, if not in this life, at least in one of the coming lives? What is your advice?”

Mind precedes matter

Question: Can matter evolve and become conscious?

Answer: Matter itself without a conscience is not alive and life does not appear out of dead matter. Life has always existed, so it does not come suddenly into existence from matter. Life or conscience of a certain being takes a form (body) according to its karma, so we can say that conscience inhabits matter, not matter becomes conscious.

Also, conscience precedes matter because matter appears due to the personal karma of one conscience and the collective karma of many consciences. Thus, the outside world we see around us as matter is actually the karmic manifestation of conscience. It is the dream and the illusion of conscience. When we dream at night we also see various worlds and outside objects but when we wake up in the morning we realize they are not real but the effects of our minds and thoughts during the daytime.

However, not even when we wake up in the morning we are not awake as we are still in the samsaric dream, so the dream at night is just a dream within a dream.

We believe that a dream is something not real when compared with our waking life, which we regard as truly real. For Buddhas, however, neither our dreams during the night nor our perceptions during the day are real. So, the matter we see around us appears due to our minds and as a correspondence to our minds. If we have minds filled with cruelty, then the matter around us will appear as fire and various punishments and our bodies will be the bodies of hell dwellers. If our minds are filled with stinginess then our bodies will take the form of hungry spirits, if our minds are dominated by animal instincts for food and sex our bodies will take the form of animals and so on. Also, the Enlightened Ones (Buddhas) have glorious Sambhogakaya bodies free of obstacles because their minds are enlightened and free.

Thus, again, mind precedes matter.

How can one know that he received shinjin (faith) if he has no access to a temple or priest?

Question: “Because nothing physical happens or is done to the person receiving shinjin (baptism /Dharma transmission, etc.) how can that seeker know he/she has indeed received shinjin (faith) and attained the rightly established state? This question above assumes that the person referred to has no physical access to a Shinshu Buddhist temple or priest, which is a sad reality across most of the world except for Japan.”  

 

My answer: Fortunately, in our school there are neither gurus nor masters who can give or confirm the receiving of faith in the heart of the practitioner. Jodo Shinshu is a personal and exclusive relation between Amida Buddha (a real and living Buddha) and the person who has faith in Him. They are like mother and child.

Thus, the Mother (Amida) is always sending her love to the child and she knows if the child entrusts to her while the child (the follower) knows that he is loved and has faith in the Mother.

Question: What does it mean to seek to be born in the Pure Land through a false, deceitful and poisoned good?

This was a question asked at one of our sangha meetings

Answer: To seek to be born in the Pure Land through a false, deceitful and poisoned good means to aspire to be born in the Pure Land through transferring one’s personal merits. Shinran said that personal merits are always mixed with the poison of ego, ignorance and attachments, so he considered that we do not actually have genuine merits. In relation with this, we should remember the story of the meeting between Master Bodhidharma and Emperor Wu of Liang.

It is said that when Master Bodhidharma came to China, Emperor Wu called him and asked him: “I’ve built many temples and I’ve offered many lands to the path of the Buddha; now please tell me what merits have I gained? Bodhidharma’s answer came shocking but true: “None, not one merit.” Why Bodhidharma said that? It was because the merits the emperor described above were worldly merits gained with a mind full of attachments and lacking the wisdom of ultimate Reality.

In Buddhism we speak about two kinds of merits: worldly merits and supramundane or otherworldly merits.