How do I see myself as a Buddhist?

You don’t need to do anything in order to attain Buddhahood in the Pure Land of Amida. In Jodo Shinshu, Buddhahood is not to be gained or deserved. Unlike other paths outside or inside Buddhism, here the final liberation from birth and death is not to be acquired by you. 

You don’t go by yourself to Nirvana, but Amida Buddha takes you by the hand, like a child, and brings you there. He is the One who makes you see the ultimate nature of all things, who melts the many layers of illusions that cover your innate Buddha nature.

Once born through the gate of faith in the Pure Land of Amida or His sphere of influence, all these transformations occur instantly and naturally. Your journey in this life as a prisoner in samsara is over once you receive faith, and your journey as a Buddha begins when you are born in the Pure Land of Amida[1] at the moment of death.

Faith (shinjin) and the saying of the Name (which is the expression of faith) means that you simply let Amida Buddha bring you to Buddhahood. You trust that He can do this for you and that you can’t do it by yourself.

There is no other path like this one. No matter how much you study all the religions of the world and even all other Buddhist methods, you will never find such a teaching that truly requires nothing from you. 

This teaching of Shakyamuni about Amida Buddha’s salvation is the best expression of the infinite Love and Compassion a Buddha can have for sentient beings. It is the medicine to be applied when all other medicines (methods) have proven ineffective. 

Once I was asked:

“How do you see yourself as a Buddhist?”

I answered:

I am loved and accepted.

I feel as though I am surrounded by warm and huge gentle hands.

I am secure. Nothing can harm me spiritually, not even my own blind passions and evil karma.

I see the smiling face of Amida Buddha everywhere.

I know Amida never judges me, nor abandons me.

I know that the essence of the entire universe is great love and great Compassion.

I know I walk in the Light although I am impure.

No matter how I live or die my destination is certain. All problems have been solved for me.

This is how I see myself as a Buddhist.

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[1] In the moment one receives faith, he immediately enters the stage of non-retrogression or assured of Nirvana and is born in the Pure Land of Amida at the end of his life.

 

 

You don't need to change the Buddhist morality when you are saved as you are

Whenever there is something my ego does not like in the Buddhist morality (I can honestly say that I am an animal possessed of myriads of blind passions and attachments) I don't try to change the teaching to make it more agreeable, but humbly recognize that I am incapable to follow it, ask for apology and bow down gratefully to Amida Buddha for saving me as I am.

The Nembutsu of faith and gratitude is the only answer when comparing my limited capacities with the Buddhist precepts and the example of virtuous Masters of the past.

It is extremely important to never change anything from the Dharma, not even as small as a  particle of dust. The Dharma is perfect even if our ego doesn’t find it agreeable and there is already a way out of samsara especially made for such wretched people like us – the Primal Vow of Amida Buddha, so we don’t need to change anything to be accepted. 

Change the focus on Amida

Many people try to "escape" suffering through drugs, alcohol or other addictions. However, there is a better way. Think to whatever happens to you as events in a dream and to Amida Buddha and His Name as the only reality. Then change the focus from those dreamlike experiences to the true and real.

Do not empower your feelings and various thoughts that appear in your mind, do not bother about them, do not pay attention to them, but change the focus to Amida and the saying of His Name (Nembutsu).

Your experiences, feelings, wandering thoughts and obsessions will naturally dissolve into the space of your mind if you do not focus on them. It is in their nature to appear and disappear like mist or clouds in the sky, however we prolong them indefinitely because of our clinging and identifying with them.

Please do not run from a dreamlike experience (your suffering and obsessions) to another dreamlike experience (drugs, alcohol, etc). If you do that you will only multiply your suffering.

Better recognize the difference between real and unreal, then chose the real. Change the focus on Amida and His Name.

Namo Amida Bu 

Amida Buddha is our strength

Amida Buddha is our strength.

No matter the outer or inner obstacles that appear in our lives, we should not fall prey to desperation because Amida Buddha is on our side.

Dear friends, please follow this heart advice! Whatever disturbing emotions and fears appear in your mind-stream due to your ignorance, attachments and past karma, just ignore them, let them come and dissolve by themselves, and you focus on Amida. Change the focus to Amida every time your inner or outer world is overcome with problems and difficulties.

Remember this truth - all that appears in the outer or inner samsaric universe is illusory and ultimately not real. Only Amida, His Pure Land and His Name are truly real, so focus on that. Don't allow your lives to be ruled by illusion. Chose the real, chose Amida and make Him the foundation of your life.

Namo Amida Bu

Incapable to save myself

Every day life is a realization that I am indeed incapable to save myself from samsara and that only Amida Buddha can do that for me.

Nothing truly reliable, nothing stable can be found within myself. I have never been capable to obtain what the Buddhist magazines or people usually describe as "the Buddhist calmness" or "Buddhist serenity". As for virtues or wisdom? I know about them only from the books!

The best way to describe myself on the Buddhist path is that of a demon or evil spirit subjugated by Amida. You probably know the stories of evil spirits and demons subjugated by the Power of various Buddhas, like those related with Padmasambhava of Tibet. I realize that I am indeed like this - an evil spirit who submitted himself to Amida Buddha and has been subjugated by His Power.

How grateful I am for the undiscriminating Compassion of Amida! If I was to be abandoned to the power of my stupidity, savage impulses and blind passions, I could never escape the karmic fate of falling into the lower realms of samsaric existence.

Everyday I see my limitations and evil tendencies, and every day I give thanks to Amida Buddha for saving me just as I am.

Namo Amida Bu 

The miracle of Jodo Shinshu

“Hokyo-bo said to Rennyo Shonin, ‘The Myogo (six character NA MO A MI DA BUTSU) you have painted has been destroyed by fire but it has become six Buddhas. How extraordinary!’ 

The Shonin remarked, ‘It is nothing extraordinary. Since the Buddha (that the Name represents) has become a Buddha, it is nothing extraordinary. What is extraordinary is that an evil bombu[1] becomes a Buddha through a single thought of entrusting to Amida[2]’.”[3]

If you hear that a Buddha or a saint performed miracles, you might become happy and want to see that miracle for yourself, but you will always feel it is quite natural for such superior beings to perform miracles.

However, to hear that you, an ordinary person with strong attachments and blind passions, some of them known only to yourself and kept hidden with shame in the depths of your heart where no one can see them.... you the reader of this book and internet addict who likes to read a lot about Buddhism, Nirvana, Buddha-nature, ultimate reality, and virtuous Masters of the past, but always finding yourself incapable to be like them….. imagine that you will become a Buddha!

You are sitting in front of your computer for many hours, surfing the internet, reading a lot of good teachings and wise Buddhist quotes, but never really being able to put them into practice for even 24 hours a day. From time to time, you practice a little bit of this, a little bit of that, some zazen[4], some vipassana[5], etc., and then you come back to internet or books to read about the spiritual realizations of others. You read all those pages and try to practice this or that, but in the end you return to your true reality – the everyday misery of living with your own ego and fighting with the ego of others.
You, who recognize yourself in my description, imagine that you will become a Buddha! And to become a Buddha at the end of your life, you need nothing else than to entrust yourself completely to Amida!

When I heard for the first time about the promise of Amida, that ordinary people will become Buddhas through simple faith in Him, I was struck with wonder and couldn’t believe my eyes and ears, as if I had seen or heard someone from another planet. Soon, after realizing this is true and not just a parable with esoteric and hidden meaning, I found myself saying: “What am I waiting for?” For the first time I felt that Buddhism was speaking to me, and not only to supermen. Since then, every time I recall to my mind the promise of Amida’s Primal Vow that everybody who entrusts in him and recite his Name will become Buddha, and realize that I myself will become a Buddha, I feel there is no greater miracle.

 

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[1] A bombu is a being full of illusions and blind passions and who cannot attain Nirvana by his own power. 

[2] According to the Jodo Shinshu teaching of Shinran and Rennyo, a person who entrusts in Amida enters in the same moment in the stage of non-retrogression or the stage of being assured of Nirvana, and becomes a Buddha in the moment of death, when he is born in the Pure Land.

[3] Rennyo Shonin Goichidaiki Kikigaki (Thus I Have Heard from Rennyo Shonin)

[4] Zen Buddhist meditation.

[5] Meditation in Theravada Buddhism.