Kitagaki - a person of shinjin

I received the last number of EKO magazine from my nembutsu friends in Jikoji (Belgium) and while I was looking through its pages, trying to find something in English, I came across a wonderful short article written by Zuio Inagaki Sensei about Mr.Motoyasu Kitagaki, a famous Buddhist calligrapher, but about whom I have never heard before. I read about his life and work which was described in short at the beginning of the article, then while reading the last two passages, I was suddenly filled with spontaneous joy and veneration. I kissed those words and raised the text to the forehead, reciting nembutsu. What a wonderful person of shinjin! I cannot abstain not to share with you those two passages which gave me so much joy and hope, that you can't imagine:

“Being a devout follower of the Jodoshinshu, Mr. Kitagaki lived a life of Nembutsu. Anyone who met him never failed to feel Amida’s compassion emanating through his warm and sincere personality. He was really a white lotus in the muddy pool of the human society.

According to what his widow, Maki, humbly recounts, a few days before Mr. Kitagaki died, he exclaimed to her: “Amida Sama has come to welcome me!”
“Where?” she asked.
“Can you see, Maki? Right there! How beautiful! With all the flowers, purple and yellow! Just as they are described in the sutras!”
“Do you see golden and silver towers, too?”
“Yes, I do, indeed!”
Mrs. Kitagaki had never seen her husband look so happy.

His life-teacher of Buddhism was Rev. Zuiken S. Inagaki. One day Mr. Kitagaki called to see him. Dispensing with the usual greetings, he opened his mouth to ask the teacher: “It is true that Amida Sama calls me to come to him just as I am?”
Rev. Inagaki replied: “Yes, he does.”
Mr. Kitagaki asked him the same question three times, to which the same answer was given three times. Then he left the teacher’s house.”

I wish to die exactly like him with the same joy of being received by Amida.

Without any formalities and introduction, he came and asked that simple and yet most important question three times! He came to his teacher's house only to ask that question! And then he left. No more questions, just one fundamental question to solve the matter of birth and death for ever.
What a wonderful person of shinjin he was. I can feel this just by reading those two passages. I have no doubt he is a Buddha now helping all beings to entrust in Amida and be born in the Pure Land.
Namo Amida Butsu

Conditions to believe in the Name

The late Master Zuiken Inagaki said:

"In order to ‘truly hear (believe in) the Name’, one should fulfill the following conditions:

1. One should believe in the law of causation.
2. One should believe in the Three Treasures - the Buddha, the Dharma and the Sangha.
3. One should believe deeply that one has been sinking in the sea of birth-and-death for innumerable kalpas, and that one has no hope of emancipation from evil karmas, for one is full of delusion, attachment and evil passions of love-and-hatred.
4. One should have an ardent aspiration for attaining enlightenment and becoming a Buddha.
5. One should think of one's own death, which is coming at one's heels, that is, one is ever threatened by death that may come at any moment.
6. One should think that one is now at one's deathbed.
7. One should remember that at their deathbed all dying persons must experience utter darkness, fear, hopelessness and solitude.
8. One should remember that the hell-fire is waiting for one.
9. One should realize that one has no ability to practice the highest good or the highest meditation for the attainment of salvation for oneself.
10. One should realize that one is like a man who is thrown into the rough sea in the dark night.
11. One should be free from all superstitions that falsely promise exemption from diseases, calamities and poverty through prayer and worship, or through divination and fortune-telling."

Question - discrimination in the saving activity of Amida?

"There is no heart far from Amida,

but a covered bowl of water cannot reflect the moon.

Once a friend asked me the following question:

"Why is that one person is ready for the nembutsu and others obviously not. And assumed the nembutsu comes only from the Buddha to us, as taught by Shinran, does the Buddha chose between those he wants to save now and those he does´nt want to save yet?"

This article was updated and moved to this link,

http://amida-ji-retreat-temple-romania.blogspot.ro/2018/05/faith-in-amida-buddha-is-not-creation.html

I was a "good" Buddhist

Many Buddhist practitioners are like a man staring at the sun, but with his body in a hole full of excrement.

Here the sun represents the ideal – Buddhahood to be attained through his own power. This ideal is of course very beautiful and the practitioner always likes to stare at it and to take delight in many beautiful words about Enlightenment, emptiness, Buddha-nature, that we are all Buddhas-to-be, etc. The hole with excrement is his true reality in the here and now, his deep karmic evil, his limitations, attachments and blind passions that cover all his body and mind.

However, he likes to dream about Enlightenment: he even thinks that this is something that can be attained in this very life. After all, we all have Buddha-nature, don’t we? …

And this dream continues as he practices in self-power for 20, 30, 40 years or more, until he finally dies like an ordinary unenlightened person, going to the next life with all his karma, attachments and his so-called “merits” accumulated in this life. 

 

I often meet with people that talk a lot about the fact that we all have Buddha-nature and because of this there is nothing that we have left to do but just realize this truth in our minds. They are always full of wise quotes by Buddhist masters and sages of the past from various schools, about Buddha-nature, emptiness, etc. Usually such people try many types of practices, always going here and there, never being totally satisfied with any school or teacher. “I’m still searching”, they say, always feeling comfortable with this searching, behaving as though they have all the time in the world. They enjoy good books and good meditation until they suddenly die. I said that they “suddenly die” because when death comes to them is like a surprise. In fact, they never seriously think about death: this is why they enjoy their “searching” for truth and the right practice. 

 

If they were really aware of the inevitability of their own death and impermanence, the next step would be to ask themselves in what state of mind death will find them if it comes not tomorrow, but today, at this very hour and second. If they were to ask themselves this question, then they could feel the smell of the excrement they are in and awaken from the self-satisfying dream of beautiful words about Enlightenment. 

 

I myself was a “good” Buddhist, staring at the sun until the awareness of my own death and impermanence hit me so powerfully and awoke me from my dream of self-satisfaction. I suddenly became aware not only of the fragility of my life, but also of the fragility and impermanence of my practice based on personal power. In that moment I abandoned myself and took refuge in Amida. Since then, I cannot deceive myself with my spiritual “realizations”. 

 

I imagine myself as a man lying helplessly in a deep and dark ravine with walls so steep and slippery that they cannot be climbed given my weak body. A good man sees me and throws a strong rope to me. But being so weak, I cannot climb myself on it, so he tells me just to tie myself to this strong rope and let myself to be lifted by him. He tells me not to be afraid and to have full trust in him. I do this immediately and I am finally released from the dark ravine. 

 

This dark ravine in which I was lying helplessly is samsara (the world of birth and death), the good man is Amida Buddha and the rope is His Primal Vow through which He tries to help me. His intention is not to have a good chat with me about emptiness or Buddha-nature, or encourage me to climb by myself up the steep and slippery walls, because He realizes that I definitely cannot do this. His only intention is to save me immediately, without delay and in this very moment. He even says to me: “I beg you, take this rope, take it immediately, there is no time!” This is what we mean when we talk about Amida Buddha’s call. 

 

The rope is so well secured that I only need to let my body be raised by it – I do not need to climb myself on it. You probably know the kind of ropes that are launched from helicopters when injured people are saved from various dangerous situations – these kinds of ropes are made so that injured persons can be lifted up to safety, they do not need to climb themselves on it.

To hear Amida’s call is to listen to the teaching, that is, to the intention of His Primal Vow. To let myself be lifted by the rope dropped to me by Him is shinjin (entrusting to His Primal Vow) and also Nembutsu – “yes, I rely on you and I am grateful that you have saved me.” Entrusting myself to Amida Buddha and being grateful to Him is Namo Amida Butsu. This how I understand the Jodo Shinshu teaching.

THE MOST IMPORTANT WORDS FOR ME

"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 (18th Vow) of Amida Buddha

The words of the Primal Vow are the most precious words for me in the whole Buddhism. I like to repeat them in my mind or loudly. I like to contemplate them. I like to savor them.
While reading them again and again I cannot stop my joy that these words really exists – they are true and real words said by a true and real Buddha called Amida. And they were said especially for people like myself.

I put all my trust in these words because they are the promise of Amida Buddha. Shakyamuni, the historical Buddha, told in the Larger Sutra the story of Amida . I accept this story and promise with simple faith. As a simple, stupid and full of blind passion Buddhist peasant that I am, I need nothing else – for me its enough to accept the words of the Primal Vow in faith.

Other Buddhists may be wiser than me, more virtuous, very much advanced in meditation, maybe they can understand the ultimate nature of all things, and to them I may look like a stupid person that have a very low level of Buddhist understanding. I do not mind, because this is exactly what I am. For me the words of the Primal Vow are enough. They represent Buddhism to me and through them I become a disciple of Shakyamuni and all Buddhas. These words are not a koan (1) or a subtle metaphor, but a simple and direct promise so that all stupid and low level Buddhists can understand. These words are the only one that make me to accept my life as it is, with ups and downs, and to accept my death that can come at any time. These words are the only one who can make me say: “It’s all right if I live and all right if I die”.

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Notes:
(1) Koan is a word or a phrase of nonsensical language which cannot be “solved” by the intellect. It is used as an exercise to break through the limitations of conventional thought and to develop intuition, giving the practitioner the chance to reach an awareness beyond duality. They are used as meditation objects in Rinzai Zen. However, very often these koans are treated by many as mere intellectual interesting games, loosing in this way their original function.

Bodhi Mind in Jodo Shinshu Buddhism (updated with a video teaching on August 2023)

Question:
What is Bodhi Mind or bodhicitta in Jodo Shinshu? What is the relation between Bodhi Mind and Shinjin?

Answer:
The Awakening of the Bodhi Mind – the aspiration to attain Budhahood for saving oneself and all beings – is fulfilled in the Awakening of Faith (shinjin) in the Primal Vow of Amida Buddha. Shan-tao said: “Awake your Bodhi Mind to Amida’s Compasion”, that is, aspire to your and other beings Liberation by relying on the Compasion of Amida (his Primal Vow).

So, the Awakening of the Bodhi Mind, the obligatory condition in Mahayana of attaining the supreme Enlightenment, appears in Jodo Shinshu in the form of the entrusting heart (shinjin).

Shinran Shonin said in the “Hymns on Patriarchs”:

“Faith is One Mind
One Mind is the Diamond-like Mind;
The Diamond-like Mind is the Bodhi-Mind;
This mind is given us by the Other-Power.”

The One Mind represents the cause of Enlightenment. Since this is the Bodhi-
Mind, it has two aspects[1]:

“To take refuge with One Mind in the Buddha
Of Unhindered Light Shining throughout the Ten Directions
Is the mind aspiring to become Buddha;
So says Vasubandhu, the Master of Discourse[2].”
(Hymn on the Patriachs 17)

“The mind aspiring to become Buddha
Is the mind seeking to save sentient beings;
The mind that seeks to save sentient beings
Is True Faith endowed by Amida’s Compassion.”
(Hymn on the Patriachs 18)

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[1] The two aspects of the Bodhi-Mind are to aspire to the attainment of Buddhahood for himself and others.

[3] “Discourse on the Pure Land”, a work which author is Master Vasubandhu.