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.

Again on the idea that faith in Amida comes from Amida - very simple explanations

There are many who get stuck at the idea of shinjin (faith) coming from Amida Buddha, or being Amida's gift. However, this is a very simple thing, and you should understand it in a simple way, so that it may not become an obstacle.

First of all, shinjin or simple faith in Amida is like when you do not know how to fix your car and you trust John who is a mechanic to fix it for you. In our case, you cannot attain Buddhahood by yourself and you trust Amida Buddha to help you attain it by taking you to His Pure Land.Your trust in John arises because you heard he is a very skilled mechanic and you saw him doing other repairs. So, in truth, John is the one who makes you trust him.

Also, let’s say you have a best friend. To have faith in your best friend is, in fact, answering to his love and to the fact that he is constantly there for you so, in fact, your trust in him is his gift. You trust him because of him.

False (mundane) merits vs True (supramundane) merits

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

My 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.

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.

On those who are not satisfied with Nembutsu only

 

Shinran Shonin said:

"Those who, it appears, will never attain Enlightenment

All attack the practice of solely saying the Name.

The mark of destroying the teaching of sudden attainment[1]

Is that for them, the vast sea of birth-and-death will have no end".[2]

We must pay attention here as the passage refers not to attacking the saying of the Name, but the solely saying of the Name. This means they attack the true teaching of exclusively saying the Name of Amida Buddha (Nembutsu). Those are the false teachers who, while wearing the kesa of Nembutsu faith (Jodo Shinshu), mix the saying of the Name with various meditative practices and make great efforts in convincing others that there is no problem with this combination. In the same time, they call those who follow faithfully the requirements of Amida's Primal Vow in which only the saying of the Name, faith and wish to be born in the Pure Land are mentioned, to be fundamentalists.

My advice is to please stay away from those who are not satisfied with "solely saying the Name".

Honen Shonin said:

"Abandoning the miscellaneous practices and performing the exclusive practice of the recitation of Nembutsu are in accordance with the heart of Amida Buddha."[3]

To feel that the Name of Amida Buddha is somehow not enough for your religious life is a sign that faith (shinjin) is not yet firmly established in your heart. A true Amida devotee never thinks that something is lacking and is completely satisfied to say Amida's Name alone. He will never feel the need to add this or that meditation practice or this or that sacred mantra to his daily Nembutsu, and he will not pray to various gods and spirits. In the Primal Vow, Amida Buddha presented the guidelines for our religious life, "entrust yourself to me, say my Name, and wish to be born in my land".

So, we should do nothing else, but entrust to Amida Buddha, say His Name in faith and wish to be born in His Land after death.

 

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[1] This is the teaching of sudden attainment of Nirvana upon birth in the Pure Land after death.

[2] Shinran Shonin, Hymns of the Dharma Ages (Shozomatsu Wasan)

[3] Honen Shonin, An Outline of the Doctrine for Birth in the Pure Land

 

On a teacher abandoning the Primal Vow

A few hours ago a friend showed me the message of Richard St Clair (Shaku Egen) posted on True Shin Buddhism Group from which I quote the most important sentence:

“My spiritual path has taken a very different direction, away from True Shin Buddhism and away from Buddhism in general”.

Here is my comment:

When you hear about a teacher leaving Jodo Shinshu and Buddhism after many years of writing, teaching and judging what is right and wrong, you should realize that person has never had shinjin (faith) but only knowledge and enthusiasm for the Dharma. As any enthusiasm is impermanent, it is inevitable that one day he will get tired and search for something else.

Members of Amidaji - Shaku Hojun (Russia)

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 Greetings. My Dharma name is Hōjun 法 遵 (One who follows the Way of the Dharma).

I was born on the 9th of February in 1997 in Krasnoyarsk, Russia. I had gone a long way to the Dharma Path before I became a member of Amidaji International Temple. This is the short story of my life towards the Dharma Path.

My story started when I was 4 years old. I realized myself as a human being who was born once and going to die at last. I asked myself about the life and its meaning, but didn’t know where to find from. Many Russians traditionally are baptized in Russian Orthodox Church so was I.