If we wish to understand a certain object we look to its
qualities, to the elements that make it up. What are the elements and
fundamental qualities of life? A body and mind which are subject to an
inexorable cycle of birth, growing, maturity, decay and death.
Decay and death …. Especially these two must attract our attention in the same way we analyze a certain object: some qualities distinguish themselves from others and lead to the definition of the object.
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.
[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.
As foolish beings, our Saha world minds are prone to delusion and ‘doubt’. That is part of our hopeless condition as bonbu. Perhaps those who have doubt after receiving shinjin are loved all the more by Amida Nyorai, because Amida recognizes the great need to embrace these hopeless, helpless beings in their delusional state of doubt. A Chinese Pure Land Master once said, “You may not ever doubt Buddha Amitabha (Amida), but, you will doubt yourself.” (I realize that those who have shinjin have Amida’s own faith through His merit transference to us, and that Amida Buddha cannot doubt himself).
At some level, most Westerners, who are converts from some form of Christianity, know they are ‘risking their very eternal lives’ (souls?) to receive, and possibly transmit, the Dharma of our school of Buddhism.
