River of Fire River of Water Page 3

  In Japan, traditional Buddhist monasticism—whether Tendai, Shingon, or Zen—aims at the transcendence of earthly passions. Its basic precepts consist of renouncing all family ties, maintaining celibacy, mastering rigorous disciplines, avoiding contact with the opposite sex, and engaging in elaborate rituals. In contrast, Pure Land is the trans-descendence into the opposite world, the self-awakening to the immersion in the swamp of anger, jealousy, insecurity, fear, addiction, arrogance, hypocrisy. It was only natural that Pure Land teaching was originally welcomed especially by those of the lower classes, seen as unredeemable in the eyes of the privileged. But among this worthless debris and discarded refuse, a rich spirituality is cultivated, endowing a person with endless energy and boundless vitality.

  Shin Buddhism comes alive for those who live in the valley and in the shadows. It challenges people to discover the ultimate meaning of life in the abyss of the darkness of ignorance. As we respond fully to the challenge, the Shin teaching helps us to negotiate our way through the labyrinth of samsaric life. The wonder of this teaching is that liberation is made available to us not because we are wise but because we are ignorant, limited, imperfect, and finite. In the language of Pure Land Buddhism, we who are foolish beings (bonbu) are transformed into the very opposite by the power of great compassion.

  Honen summed up the varied paths of Buddhism in his pronouncement: “In the Path of Sages one perfects wisdom and achieves enlightenment: in the Path of Pure Land one returns to the foolish self to be saved by Amida.” Religious awakening does not depend initially on who we are or what we do; rather, it is becoming attuned to the working of great compassion at the heart of existence. This attunement is realized through deep hearing (monpo) of the call from the depth. Nothing is required of us, other than the engagement with deep hearing. Since this is the only requirement—no precepts, no meditative practices, no doctrinal knowledge, it is known as the “easy path.”

  Easy path, however, only describes the simplicity of the path, not its level of difficulty to realize, for the easy path is by no means “easy.” Deep hearing is a real challenge and can be a hard struggle, especially for the arrogant, because the call must become embodied in a person. Embodying means living the nembutsu from which flows the spontaneous saying of namu-amida-butsu. The actual process thus may not be so simple, as we are reminded in the Pure Land saying: “Although the path is easy, few are there to take it.” The obstacles encountered are different from those pursuing monastic disciplines on the Path of Sages because one must struggle with oneself in the midst of all kinds of entanglements in society. As James Hillman points out, “The way through the world is more difficult to find than the way beyond it.”

  Pure Land Buddhism might suggest an otherworldly orientation, but its primary focus is on the here and now. Not the here and now grasped by the controlling ego-self, but the here and now cherished as a gift of life itself to be lived creatively and gratefully, granted us by boundless compassion. The bountifulness of great compassion makes possible our liberation from the iron cage of our own making.

  4

  HOME COMPOSTING

  As part of an effort to become more environmentally conscious, my hometown of Northampton, Massachusetts, has been encouraging home composting by all the residents. After all, every little bit helps solve the ecological problems of overflowing landfills, chemical poisoning, deforestation, soil erosion, and disappearing ozone layer. Each household was given manuals on composting with detailed instructions on the waste material to use. The mixture of decaying organic substances, such as food scraps, apple and banana peelings, leftover leafy vegetables, coffee grinds, cut lawn grass, and shredded leaves will not only reduce trash but produce rich, fertile soil. As I was reading the manual, I was reminded of a Shin poem by Chisho Yanagida:

  When the soil receives waste material,

  The waste material is turned into soil.

  It’s not necessary to change into soil

  To become part of the soil.

  The soil receives whatever is given

  Without making any demands.

  Namu-amida-butsu receives

  A person just as is.

  When the nembutsu receives a person,

  No matter who or what,

  The person is transformed into the nembutsu,

  Celebrating and blessing life.

  The nembutsu takes me as I am,

  Imperfect and incomplete,

  With worries and problems,

  And transforms everything

  Into the contents of highest virtue.

  The wonder of the nembutsu path is that it makes no demands upon a person to become wiser, better, or more perfect. But it does ask us to become authentically real as human beings by awakening to the boundless compassion that sustains us. In doing so we recognize our limitations and imperfections as karmic beings that are ultimately transformed into the contents of highest good. When “bits of rubble are transformed into gold,” the fullness of Buddha Dharma is manifested in a person’s life.

  Some years ago, my wife and I were living in an apartment complex in Los Angeles with our son who was then two years old. One day, I asked him what he wanted to become when he grew up. This may seem like a trick question for a two-year-old, but he immediately shouted back, “Garbage man!” Well, I wasn’t necessarily expecting him to say, “Buddhist scholar!” but his choice of profession was a bit surprising. But I remembered his fascination with the gleaming, white sanitation truck that would come rumbling by our apartment every Tuesday morning to pick up the trash cans placed on the sidewalk. As the rear of the huge truck opened up with a loud grinding sound, it swallowed up all the garbage the sanitation workers threw into it. I thought about how astounding this must be to a child—it was like a huge monster devouring food. I then said, “OK, but become the world’s best Buddhist garbage collector!”

  Up until that point, I hadn’t really ever stopped to consider garbage trucks and sanitation workers, but always on the lookout for a good metaphor, I began pondering their metaphysical implications. Since the garbage we carry around with us—our ignorance, mistakes, addictions, vanities, and neuroses—are completely accepted without any questions, Amida is like a garbage collector who willingly takes the refuse and dumps them into his Pure Landfill (aptly coined by an astute friend). Since everything is biodegradable in the compassionate hands of Amida, the landfill transforms itself into nutrients that can contribute to a rich and fertile life.

  A poem by Tz’u-min, the Chinese Pure Land master of the eighth century, sums up the working of true compassion:

  That Buddha, in his bodhisattva stage, made the universal vow:

  When beings hear my Name and think on me, I will come and welcome them.

  Not discriminating at all between the poor and the rich and well born,

  Not discriminating between the inferior and highly gifted;

  Not choosing the learned and those who uphold pure precepts.

  Not rejecting those who break precepts and whose evil karma is profound,

  Solely making beings turn about and abundantly say the Name,

  I can make bits of rubble change into gold.

  As discussed in the previous chapter, “bits of rubble” is a metaphor for imperfect, unenlightened human beings who are the primary concern of great compassion. By extension it refers to the difficulties, conflicts, and frustrations that we also experience in life. Everything negative is transmuted into gold. The nembutsu practicer Ichitaro experienced such a transformation whenever he encountered problems in life. He once said, “You don’t run away from your troubles and then find happiness. Rather, you no longer think of troubles as troubles. And troubles of themselves turn into happiness, namu-amida-butsu.”

  Some problems in life have no rational answers, but this does not mean the end of the world. In fact, in an unexpected moment of revelation a new chapter in one’s life may open. Brian Schulz, suffering from painful degenerative joint disease, states in Mark Ian Barasch’s A Healing Path: “When before my desire had been to rid myself of my illness as if it were a foreign object, an invader, I now began to treat it as part of me that was calling out to be touched.” A similar thought is echoed by Joseph Cardinal Bernardin of Chicago, who, just before he died on November 14, 1996, said: “Death is my friend.” These are precisely the sentiment expressed in the popular Shin saying: “Illness, too, is my good friend (kalyanamitra).”

  Before the recycling program in my hometown, I didn’t really stop to think about garbage having any value at all. But on the Pure Land path it is those aspects of ourselves that we want to get rid of that are priceless, for they are the primary concern of great compassion that transforms them into cherished, valuable possessions.

  5

  PRIMAL VOW

  The transformation of bits of rubble into gold is due solely to the working of the Primal Vow. Originating in the mythic past, the bodhisattva by the name of Dharmakara identified with the pains of all living beings and attempted to find solutions to human suffering. Expending countless eons of time in suprahuman resolve, reflection, and praxis, Dharmakara fulfilled the Primal Vow to save all beings. This resulted in the attainment of Buddhahood known as Amida, the Buddha of Immeasurable Light and Life. This drama of salvation is contained in the Name, namu-amida-butsu, which resounds throughout the universe.

  The Primal Vow of salvation is likened to a powerful magnet that draws all beings to itself. Even if one is unaware of it or resists it, its power of attraction will eventually prevail. It is also compared to mother earth. According to Shinran, “The vow of compassion is like the great earth, for all the Buddhas of past, present, and future throughout the ten quarters arise from it.”

  All people have their private dreams of success
and happiness, making vows to achieve them sooner or later. The goal, however, is elusive, and the vast majority of the people rarely attain it. Now, the Primal Vow works to salvage humankind’s heartbreaks and shattered dreams, transforming them into sources of a rich and full life. One then necessarily comes to realize that this unrepeatable life contains unexpected treasures and rewards. The ceaseless working of the Primal Vow continues as long as there is suffering in the world, for its primary task is performing spiritual alchemy, transforming “bits of rubble” into gold.

  This Vow is “primal” (Sanskrit purva) in the sense that it is prior to the beginningless beginning of time, taking in all beings unconditionally. It foresees all the wishes, desires, and aspirations, as well as the failures and dejections, experienced by humanity. As such, it has prepared answers and solutions for the needs of every human being. Although the depth and scope of the working of the Primal Vow is beyond our imagination, it reaches us through the Name, namu-amida-butsu. Thus, anyone, anywhere, and anytime can intone the Name and awaken to its countless benefits.

  Tradition says that it takes five hundred rebirths to be born into human life and one thousand rebirths to encounter the Buddha Dharma, but the Primal Vow precedes even these countless rebirths. Whenever I hear the astronomical numbers encountered in Buddhist literature, I think of the Japanese garden at Smith College built in 1986. Located on a gentle slope overlooking Paradise Pond at the center of the campus, the rock formations depict the life of Buddha. Symbolically represented are scenes of his birth, renunciation, enlightenment, first sermon, and parinirvana, as well as the Three Gems—Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha—and the Four Noble Truths. From the tea hut atop the garden one looks down on the waters of Paradise Pond and the Other Shore.

  What makes the garden unique are the seventy tons of boulders brought in from the surrounding hills of the Connecticut River valley. Since I was curious about the age of the rocks, I invited a geologist friend to come and look at them. He approached the rocks with loving care—silently caressing the rocks, gently tapping them here and there, softly blowing away the dust. After several minutes of concentrated observation, he informed me of the two ages of the rocks that we had collected for our garden.

  Some of the rocks were formed 350 to 450 million years ago—metamorphic rocks, originally ocean sediments, and plutonic igneous rocks that are magmas melted from ancient crusts. The other kind, called gneiss rocks, is at least one billion years old. By pure coincidence these billion-year-old rocks were selected for the meditative seat of Buddha’s enlightenment and the reclining Buddha in the death scene. Compared to the age of these rocks, the history of humankind is not even a speck of time. Even less is the miniscule span of each human life.

  One billion years is beyond our imagination, but the Primal Vow exceeds it in time and depth. Shinran speaks of its origination ten kalpas ago, or in some cases five kalpas ago. A kalpa is a unit of time, conceived by the mathematicians of ancient India who discovered the decimal system. According to one source, it is equal to a thousand cycles of Maha Yugas or 4,320,000,000 years. Another explains it by the following analogy. A warehouse, forty square miles, is full of mustard seeds. One seed is taken out once every one hundred years. The duration it takes to empty the warehouse is one kalpa. The ten kalpas required to fulfill the Primal Vow suggests the immensity of its profound undertaking—how to uproot the darkness of ignorance inherent in each human being from the beginningless beginning of time.

  This darkness of ignorance is expressed by Shan-tao as follows: “Truly know that this self is a foolish being of karmic evil, repeating birth-and-death since beginningless eons ago, forever drowning and wandering without ever knowing the path of liberation.” This ignorance is not the lack of factual knowledge but suggests that reality is beyond the pale of conventional thinking. Yui-en, the compiler of Tannisho, expresses this in the following reflection:

  How grateful I am that Shinran expressed this in his own person to make us deeply realize that we do not know the depth of karmic evil and that we do not know the height of Tathagata’s benevolence, all of which cause us to live in utter confusion. (Tannisho Epilogue)

  Just as we cannot know the depth of karmic evil, so also we fail to appreciate the full working of true compassion. This dual failing, due to the limitation of our rational capacity, is the source of unending suffering in our world.

  The essence of the Primal Vow is boundless compassion, articulated in the eighteenth of the forty-eight vows fulfilled by Bodhisattva Dharmakara as a condition of attaining Buddhahood. According to the Larger Sutra, used extensively in East Asia, this fundamental vow proclaims:

  If, when I attain Buddhahood, the sentient beings of the ten quarters with sincere mind, joyful trust, and aspiration for birth in my land and saying my Name perhaps even ten times, should not be born there, may I not attain the supreme enlightenment. Excluded are those who commit the five transgressions and those who slander the right dharma.

  The key terms in the vow—sincere mind, joyful trust, and aspiration for birth—are known as the Three Minds. Traditionally, the three were considered to be the proper attitudes necessary for religious faith. Shinran, however, reversed this and made clear that the three are qualities of Amida that infuse the life of each person. They form the content of true entrusting that enables a person to become true, real, and sincere.

  The sincere mind in the Primal Vow has nothing to do with the mind of a karma-bound being that is devoid of that which is true and real. Rather it denotes the mind of Amida, which enters the defiled mind of a sentient being. This results in true entrusting with joy and spontaneity. The sincere mind of Amida working in a person also awakens the aspiration for transcendence, or birth in the Pure Land. The goal of transcendence is to become a Buddha, endowed with wisdom and compassion, in order to work for the salvation of all beings.

  This radical reinterpretation of the Three Minds culminates in what is known as the fulfillment of the eighteenth vow:

  All sentient beings, having heard the Name, entrust themselves and rejoice in one thought-moment. This is the result of the sincere mind of the Buddha. If they aspire to be born in that Buddha land, they will attain new birth and reside in the stage of non-retrogression. Excluded are those who commit the five transgressions and slander the dharma.

  Both of the scriptural passages quoted above attest to the all-inclusive, boundless compassion of the Buddha Amida. The sincere mind of Amida working in sentient beings assures their attainment of nonretrogression, the state of being that prevents backsliding into samsara. But the exclusion of transgressors and slanderers seems to contradict the absolute nature of compassion. Those excluded are people guilty of the five great evils: doing violence to father, mother, and monks; spilling blood from the Buddha’s body; and creating dissension in the Sangha. Also excluded are those who slander the Buddha Dharma, an even greater offense because it negates any access to a salvific source. This so-called exclusion clause had posed a hermeneutical problem for Pure Land masters down through the ages. Various explanations were given to justify this exclusion.

  Shinran summed up the types of people mentioned in the exclusion clause and simplified it to the following: “People who look down on teachers and who speak ill of masters commit slander of the dharma. Those who speak ill of their parents are guilty of the five great offenses.” The existential question for him came down to the basic question: Who among us is not guilty of criticizing our teachers and talking back to our parents?

  Now, Shinran understood the exclusion clause in relation to his own predicament and understood its purpose to be twofold. First of all, it is an injunction against the unethical life. Since the offenses are grave, he warns that salvation may be impossible for those who commit them. Second, however, for those who are already guilty, like himself, the exclusion clause highlights the very object of the Primal Vow of compassion. In truth, the salvation of such an evil doer is an indispensable component of the Primal Vow; without it the Vow remains unfulfilled and Buddhahood unrealized. Shinran makes the point simply: “By revealing the gravity of these two transgressions, these words make us realize that the beings in all quarters of the universe will be born in the Pure Land without exception [emphasis added].”