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“If you keep your eyes open, you will see the teaching everywhere.” This is a pretty big Buddhist statement to take on face value, an implication of a truism. Then we back it up with the Buddha’s words to rely on the teaching and not on the people who teach it… In other words, check it out before accepting it.
And not so surprisingly, I came across the teachings in a book written by two British authors, for fun, Good Omens. Some of the dialogue, like the quote at the beginning, echoes our Shin Buddhist Bonbu take on what it is to be a human. The authors not only posit good with bad but explore the free will that enables us to bear the responsibility of our decisions and the consequences, intended or not. Even the angels, fallen or not, are capable of actions they’d rather not acknowledge.
In Tannishō, we find a dialogue between Shinran Shonin his follower, Yuien-bō
Shinran asks Yuien-bō, if he will do what he is told. Yuien-bō humbly affirms he will. Shinran tells Yuien-bō “To begin with, would you kill one thousand people for me? If this is done, your birth (in the Pure Land) will be settled.” Yuien-bō responds “Although these are your words, I do not think I can kill even one person…”
Shinran replies: “By this you should realize that if we could always act as wished, then when I told you to kill a thousand people in order to attain birth, you should have immediately done so. But since you lack the karmic cause inducing you to kill even a single person, you do not kill. It is not that you do not kill because your heart is good. In the same way, a person may wish not to harm anyone and yet end up killing a hundred or thousand people.”
Shinran continues: “Those who make their way in this world drawing nets in the seas and rivers..., and companions who carry on their lives, hunting beasts in the moors and mountains and taking fowl, and people who pass their lives conducting trade or cultivating field and paddies, are all the same. If the karmic cause that it be so prompts us, we will commit any kind of act.” 2
And we’ve circled back to the opening quote from Good Omens - using different words for the same message. If we keep our eyes open, we see the teachings everywhere: in this case, a British fantasy book echoing Shinran Shonin and the teaching of how causes and conditions contribute to the choices we make. Are we all capable of good? Are we all capable of bad?
Does understanding this teaching, in any way, help us to understand actions of others we label good or bad? Does understanding this teaching, in any way, guide us to more wisdom and compassion, for not only others, but ourselves?
In gassho
Rev. Anita
Namo Amida Butsu
Namo Amida Butsu
Namo Amida Butsu
1 Neil Gaiman, Terry Pratchett Good Omens: (New York: Harper Collins, 1991) p33
2 Dennis Hirota, trans., Tannishō A Prime (Kyoto, Ryukoku University Press, 1982)
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