I am very happy to “meet” you all, although I wish it was in person rather than via text.
I did not grow up with in the Jodo Shinshu faith structure, nor was I Buddhist. I first came across Buddhism in a meaningful way in 2005 on a trip to Japan, and didn’t really come across Jodo Shinshu until 2012 at the Tri-State/Denver Buddhist Temple.
Coming from a mix of Lutheran and Catholic upbringing, I was always taught that while there is universality in faith, there is often a qualitative nature to it, with a binary response. That is, you are either a good person or a bad person and based on that qualification, your very existence and nature through the rest of history is dictated.
Within our culture, this sort of dichotomy plays a central role, the idea of good or bad, right or wrong, righteous or foolish become the qualifier for a majority of action. In our calculation, it becomes a measuring stick for how we see people, how we should treat them and ultimately what their fates are.
With this understanding of the world being my baseline for seeing society and those who were around me growing up, I came into my experience and eventual conversion into Buddhism with the same understandings and qualifications. This is where I received my biggest shock, and in the end, was the thing that has drawn me to Jodo Shinshu so fully that I have become a priest, and will spend the rest of my life focused on this teaching.
The egalitarian nature of the Nembutsu. The Nembutsu, the Namo Amida Butsu, Amida Buddha’s great practice which is our guiding wind on the ocean of samsara, of birth and death, is given freely to all people, regardless of how we, humans, perceive them. This is a baseline difference between our qualifications as humans, and that of the Buddha’s, between our reality and that of suchness.
Shinran said in the Tannisho:
Amida made His Vow out of compassion for us who are full of evil passions, and who are unable to set ourselves free from samsara by any practice. Since the purpose of His Vow is to have the evil person attain Buddhahood, the evil person who trusts the Other-Power is especially the one who has the right cause for Birth in the Pure Land. Hence, the words “Even a good person is born in the Pure Land, how much more so is an evil person”.
On first reading, this passage is hard to understand, why would an evil person be the target of Amida’s compassionate vow? Isn’t an evil person, well, bad? Under our understanding, a good person seems like a much better target of Amida’s vow, right?
I think there are two key words here that we have to focus on when looking at this passage, and they come to the heart of what is Jodo Shinshu Buddhism. The first one is evil, and within our societal context, we often think of evil as something that is in opposition of what we are, against our values. Try this on though, maybe we are the evil people, but not in the let’s go burn down a forest full of cute bunnies’ way, but in the, I am human way. To be evil in this context means that I have the three poisons in me, greed, anger and ignorance, and that I am, as a human, incapable of making any choices that are not influenced by these three, greed, anger or ignorance.
If we make that assumption then I am the evil person Shinran is talking about. The second key word then is trust. Shinran says, the evil person who TRUSTS the Other-Power. For those of us who have the greed, anger and ignorance as part of our calculation of how we see the world, it becomes very hard to trust something that is not of ourselves, to step outside of our selfishness. However, when one answers the calling voice of Amida Buddha, given to us through the Nembutsu, and puts their trust in the Vow, despite the greed, anger and ignorance that colors us, then how much was that Vow made for us. When we say the Name, the Namo Amida Butsu, we are putting our trust in Amida Buddha’s work, to become part of this stream, and to eventually cross to the other side.
The calculus for us then is that, being the evil person does not mean we are a bad person, but rather seeing ourselves as we are, limited, foolish, and yet, human. The interconnection of events, forces, wants, desires, hopes, dreams, fears and love all drive us forward, but in the end, it is our deep trust in the Nembutsu, in Amida’s Vow which will set us free, outside of our calculative mind into the calculation of Amida Buddha.
The Nembutsu is given freely to everyone, no matter who you are, equally, without reservation. It us then up to us to open our eyes to it, knowing ourselves, recognizing that we are human, and its ok to not be perfect, but that we are enveloped in the vow none the less.
I hope that all of you stay safe as we work our way through the rest of this pandemic, and that we are all able to meet together and share the joy that the Nembutsu brings to us. And remember, you are good, just as you are, Sono Mama.
In Gassho,
Rev. Kaitlyn Kongo Mascher-Mace Tri-State/Denver Buddhist Temple Denver, Colorado
|