The Way of Jodo Shinshu

Jodo Wasan 30

When one hears the Name of Amida Buddha
Adoring It with a joyful mind,
He, possessing the treasure of merit,
Attains the Unsurpassed Great Benefit in one.

The Ass and the Cicadas

Hearing some cicadas sing, an ass was charmed by their harmony and envied them their talent.

'What do you eat,' he asked them, 'that gives you such a beautiful song?'

'The dew,' they replied.

From then on, the ass waited for the dew and eventually starved to death.¹

The 'unsurpassed great benefit' is of course, nirvana. The Larger Sutra in the eighteenth Vow - and the passage on the fulfilment of this Vow - states clearly how this 'great benefit' is achieved:

If, when I attain Buddhahood, sentient beings in the lands of the ten quarters who sincerely and joyfully entrust themselves to me, desire to be born in my land, and call my Name even ten times, should not be born there, may I not attain perfect enlightenment. Excluded, however, are those who commit the five gravest transgressions and abuse the right Dharma².

'Sincere - joyful - trust - desire to be born'. These are the keywords which proclaim the spiritual content of the cause of our eventual attainment of nirvana. They summarize the Buddha-originating entrusting heart which - in a spilt second - causes us to jump from the path of arduous, endless striving to the sudden realization of the assurance of enlightenment. It is this verse of the Larger Sutra which is at the crux of the Jodo Shinshu teaching and it stands as the foundation of all Jodo Shinshu practice and thought. This verse is the verbal expression of the Primal Vow of Amida Buddha.

Shinran Shonin has a very specific and clear understanding of the eighteenth Vow, and this needs to be explained more carefully than we have time for in a single essay. As we progress through the Sanjo Wasan we will often return to this passage from the Larger Sutra, and will have a chance to examine all of its qualities in detail.

The Vow says that, first, we trust the Buddha, then we desire to be born in the Pure Land, and, finally, we say the Name of the Buddha. There is a causative relationship between both assurance and saying the Name (shomyo), which is based on the a priori awakening of Amida's entrusting heart. But it does not say how we awaken to it. Many exponents of Jodo Shinshu are in the habit of forgetting to address this question. Like the ass who wondered how the cicadas could sing so beautifully and then, when told, waited in the searing summer afternoon heat for the evanescent dew, many of us are left bereft of good advice - wondering how something as ineffable and indescribable as the entrusting heart can arise without any seeming vehicle.

The ambient condition that assists us to this end is 'hearing' (chomon) the dharma. This encourages us to engage intellectually, emotionally and energetically with the teaching by listening to dharma talks and reading.

We should not neglect reading as a way to hear the dharma. It is understood by this that we repeatedly read, recite and contemplate the writings of Shinran³, the letters and sayings of Rennyo Shonin, and the writings of our contemporaries who are women and men of shinjin. This does not necessarily imply erudition but, rather, devotion to the task of assimilating the dharma. We may not have access to a temple because of isolation or disability, but we can always read.

Chomon has a specific purpose: it is to 'hear the Name', for the Name in the Primal Vow is dharma.

'Hearing the Name' is not simply hearing it in the ordinary sense of the term. It should be remembered that, when you meet a good spiritual teacher and hear with deep understanding the six-character word, 'na-mo-a-mi-da-butsu,' this is the entrusting heart of Other Power, through which you attain birth in the fulfilled land.⁴

Ultimately, the context of hearing the dharma awakens an engagement, a 'holding fast' to the Name (namo-amida-butsu): adoring it, saying it, contemplating it, and living it.

'Holding fast to the Name' is not mere repetition but signifies the working of the Buddha's virtue, and the power of the Vow:

The Smaller Sutra states: 'Hold steadfast to [the Name].' 'Steadfast' means that the mind is firm and unchanging. 'Hold' means not being distracted and not letting go. Hence the sense of 'never becoming confused.' 'Hold steadfast' is thus the mind that is single. The mind that is single is shinjin.⁵

Having 'heard' the Name, we find ourselves saying it. Hearing - the entrusting heart - bursts from us in the form of namo-amida-butsu, which is the expression of the adoration and trust that fills our being.

- January 5, 2010.

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1: Æsop.

2: Hisao Inagaki: The Three Pure Land Sutras, A Study and Translation, p. 243. In the Kyo Gyo Shin Sho, Shinran lists a variety of interpretations of the five gravest transgressions (cf. CWS, pp. 149-50).

The Jodo Shinshu dharma masters T'an-luan (476-542) and Shan-tao (613-681) explain that the exclusions for committing the five transgressions and abuse of the right dharma constitute a warning about the gravity of these evils but does not ultimately limit the capacity of the Primal Vow to liberate the miscreants who commit them. Thus, the compassion of Amida Buddha is more powerful than the negative force of the transgressions. (cf. CWS pp. 143-149.)

3: For people who are new to Jodo Shinshu, some of Shinran's writings can often seem quite daunting. Luckily he provides succinct summaries not only in the Sanjo Wasan but also in The Hymn of the True Faith and the Nembutsu (KGSS, pp. 75-81), and Passages on the Pure Land Way (Collected Works of Shinran, Jodo Shinshu Hongwanji-ha, Kyoto, Shin Buddhism Translation Series, Vol I [CWS] pp. 295-317). The most popular of these is The Hymn of the True Faith and the Nembutsu, and there are commentaries in English by Professor Hisao Inagaki and Dr Alfred Bloom. Jodo Shinshu people love to learn this hymn by heart and recite it every day.

4: Letters of Rennyo. A Translation of Rennyo's Gobunsho, Shin Buddhism Translation Series, Hongwanji International Center, 2000 [Gobunsho], p. 51.

5: CWS, p. 315.

Ripe fruit of a prickly pear, which is being embraced, by stealth, by a grape vine in search of light.