Simple Nembutsu service at Amidaji temple

                                                     (please click on the highlighted words in the text 
                                                                       as they lead you to very important teachings!) 

(update: scroll down to the last video to see Nembutsu service with drum!)
This is a simple religious service based entirely on Nembutsu recitation. The rhytm of recitation is held by hitting a wooden mokugyo in a normal or faster speed. This service is useful to anybody, especially to newcomers who don't know to recite the various hymns included in other services. Thus, they can join immediately in the temple chanting without any difficult introductions. As you see in the video, the recitation can sometimes be accompanied by bowing three times. The priest bows three times from standing, while the rest of the sangha from sitting. Also, when the priest enters the Hondo (Dharma Hall) and approaches the altar he bows three times from standing while saying Nembutsu. The sangha also accompanies him from sitting. Here Nembutsu is recited as:
NA MO A MI DA BU, NA MO A MI DA BU, NA MO A MI DA BU.....

Second visit of Shaku Shinkai from Brasil at Amidaji temple

Josho and Shinkai in the Hondo (Dharma Hall) of Amidaji

Shaku Shinkai (Thais Campos) from Brasil visited Amidaji for the second time and stayed for a three days retreat.

First time she came in August 2016. Since then she works at the translation of my books and articles into Portughese. The Portughese section of this website is maintained through her dedicated work.

As you already know, visitors are welcomed at Amidaji if they do not mind the simple conditions and sincerely wish to learn the orthodox Jodo Shinshu teaching promoted at our temple.

Samsara is suffering - description and contemplation of the suffering of the six realms of samsaric existence

last update 2nd November 2017
This article is the 4th part of the teaching series
The Four Profound Thoughts that Turn the Mind Toward the Dharma

The Wheel of Life representing all
the Six Realms of Samsaric Existence

 As Shinran said in Tannisho, "it is hard for us to abandon this old home of pain, where we have been transmigrating for innumerable kalpas down to the present". Our minds are conditioned by our habitual karma from beginingless time to think that we can find hapiness and fulfilement in the samsaric states of existence, and so we continue to project false images of beauty to various objects of desire and make ourselves dependent on them. However, if we look more deeply at samsaric existence with eyes influenced by the Buddha Dharma we come to realize that everything, from the worlds of the gods, to the hell realms, is nothing but an ocean of suffering and insatisfaction. This awareness, as well as the previous three profound thoughts, will naturaly lead us to the only wish that worths something - to go out, to escape samsara and to attain the state of Buddhahood for us and all beings, including our dear ones.

In order to help us become aware of the painful reality of the samsaric existence and to make us desire to escape from it, Shakyamuni Buddha and all the Masters of our lineage and other lineages put great efforts in describing the six planes of existence:

Concluding thoughts on the suffering of samsaric existence

photo by Catalin Halmageanu

Article connected to this collection of teachings:

Samsara is suffering - description and contemplation 

of the suffering of the six realms of samsaric existence 

As we have seen in the description of the six realms, there is absolutely no place in samsara without suffering. Everything is a cause for suffering, everything is multyplying suffering, and everything, even the intoxicating pleasures of the gods, contain the seed of suffering.

"Beings in hell suffer from hell-fire,

Pretas suffer from hunger and thirst,

Animals suffer from being eaten by each other,

Humans suffer from having a short life,

Asuras suffer from wars and quarrels,

And the gods suffer from their own mindlessness.

In samsara there is never a pinpoint of happiness."[1]

Concluding thoughts on the suffering of the lower realms

Article connected to first three parts of this collection of teachings:

Samsara is suffering - description and contemplation 

of the suffering of the six realms of samsaric existence 

The hells, preta and animal realms are called the three lower realms, where suffering is more intense than in the rest of the six planes of existence. We must not only read about the various pain and suffering in the lower realms, but deeply contemplate on them until we become fully aware of their reality and that we too have a great chance to be reborn there. A master of the past once said:

 "At present it is difficult to endure sitting for merely a single day with my hand stuck in burning coals, or to remain naked for that long in a cave of ice during the winter winds, or to go for a few days without food and drink, or for my body to be stung by a bee and the like. If even these are difficult to endure, how will I bear the sufferings of the hot hells, the cold hells, the hungry ghosts, or the animals devouring each other alive?"[1]

Contemplating the suffering of the gods

   

Six heavens of the World of Desire from the Wheel of Life

The gods (devas) experience the most pleasure, health and comfort among all the beings of samsara. Also, the higher their plane of existence, the longer is their lifespan and the happiness they enjoy. However, they also meet with some specific types of suffering which I will explain after I describe in short, each deva realm.

In the World of Desire (Kamadhatu), there are six classes of gods with their specific realms.

The first realm is the Heaven of the Four Kings (Caturmaharaja), which are located on four cardinal points of the Mount Sumeru: 1) East: Dhrtarastra, 2) South: Virudhaka, 3) West: Virūpāksa, 4) North: Vaisravana. Each of these divine rulers has their own following of  Caturmaharajakayika gods.

As Master Genshin explained, “one day and night in the realm of the Four Kings is as long as fifty years of human life, and life in the realm of the Four Kings lasts five hundred years”.

Contemplating the suffering of human beings

           

the Human Realm from the Wheel of Life

As I previously explained in the first section, life in human form is most desirable and does not contain the extreme pain of hells, pretas and animal realms. However, humans have their own difficulties and specific sufferings. Generaly speaking, these are called the Eight Sufferings, namely, birth, old age, disease, death, encountering what is unpleasant, separation from what is pleasant, not getting what one wants and the suffering associated with the five aggregates (skandas). Some of these appear in other realms of existence too, but here I will explain them in relation with the human realm.

Contemplating the suffering of asuras (demi-gods)

           

Realm of Asuras from the Wheel of Life

As Master Genshin explained, the realm of Asuras is divided into two parts: 1. “the creatures of this realm which are fundamentally superior live at the bottom of the great sea north of Mount Sumeru”, and 2. “the inferior creatures of this realm dwell among the rocks of the high mountains which lie between the four great continents”.      

Although they experience various pleasures and abundance which are far superior to those of humans, and even rival those of the gods, they are constantly tormented by anger, jealousy, quarreling and fighting. Beings in the human realm who are more spiritually advanced than others, but who strongly manifest these characteristics will be born among the Asuras.

In their own realm, Asuras divide themselves in various groups and territories and fight never ending wars, while also, because they envy the pleasures of the lower realms of the gods, start useless conflicts with them, which they eventually lose.

Bodhisattva Nagarjuna said:

"Also, the demigods, by their very nature, experience great

mental suffering

Because of their hatred of the splendor of the deities.

Though they are intelligent, they do not see the truth

Because of the mental obscurations characteristic of this realm

of rebirth."[1]

In some texts, the realm of Asuras is counted among the lower gods, because of the pleasures found there, or among the lower realms, together with hells, animals, and pretas, because of the pain they inflict to themselves.

In conclusion, life as an Asura is a pitiful one – filled as it is with joys and pleasures more than a human can imagine, but not being capable to enjoy it due to envy and conflicts.

---

[1] Letter to a Friend, as quoted in The Great Treatise on the Stages of the Path to Enlightenment, volume I, by Tsong-kha-pa, Snow Lion Publications, Ithaca, New York, p. 292-293

Contemplating the suffering of animals

Animal realm from the Wheel of Life

     

updated and revised on 25th August 2020

click here to return to the main description of Samsara

Bodhisattva Vasubandhu states:

“As for the animals, they have three places, the land, the water, and the air. Their principal place is the Great Ocean; the animals that are elsewhere are the surplus of the animals”[1].

Master Genshin also explains:

“The realm of animals is divided into two parts. The chief place is in the great sea, and branches are interspersed in the realms of humans and heavenly beings” .

Contemplating the suffering of hungry ghosts (pretas)

the preta realm from the
Wheel of Life

updated and revised on 24th August 2020

click here to return to the main description of Samsara

The realms of the pretas are to be found in two places: one is bellow Jambudvipa (our realm of human beings[1]), which is their main place of existence and is ruled by King Yama, and the other is between the realm of humans and the realms of the gods. Master Vasubandhu explains:

“The king of the pretas is called Yama; his residence, which is the principal dwelling of the pretas, is located under Jambudvipa. The pretas that are found elsewhere are the surplus of the pretas. The pretas differ much one from another; certain of them possess supernatural powers and enjoy a glory similar to that of the gods”.[2] 

Beside those with supernatural powers and a better situation or the various differences between them, there are some general characteristics which often appear in the description of pretas. They are ugly, naked or dressed in rags or covered by their own hair which sometimes is just hair or hair in the form of needles, swords or spears[3]. Preta spirits have a foul smell, are weakened by hunger, dried by thirst, with visible ribs and veins, always unhappy and living on the offerings done by others.

Contemplating the suffering of hell beings

  click here to return 

to the main description of Samsara

There are eight hot hells and eight cold hells. According to Shakyamuni, and various Buddhist masters who explained them, these eight hells have their own adjacent or neighboring hells (utsadas[1]): 

“There are eight hells there that I have revealed, difficult to get out of, full of cruel beings, each having sixteen utsadas; they have four walls and four gates; they are as high as they are wide; they are encircled by walls of fire; their ceiling is fire; their sun is burning, sparkling fire; and they are filled with flames hundreds of yojanas  high.”[2]