The Way of Jodo Shinshu

Jodo Wasan 5

Boundless is the Light-wheel of Deliverance,
All those illuminated by the Light
Are freed from being and non-being, says the Buddha.
Take refuge in the Equal Bodhi.

Attachments

The inconceivable light is beginning to dawn. We cannot learn about the inconceivable light, we must come to know it. The nembutsu is the Buddha and a Buddha is an enlightened teacher. The life of nembutsu is a relationship: a relationship between we disciples and namo-amida-butsu. Namo-amida-butsu is always with us as the sound, the form - the way we touch and taste the inconceivable light. We are not required to believe anything, do anything, hold anything - we can think, breathe, live namo-amida-butsu. However, our nembutsu is no mantra. It is not a magic formula - our mind must be engaged, too. As Shinran says in the first wasan, shomyo nembutsu is

'Uttering the Buddha's Name with thought of Buddha ever mindful.'

Our thought is of the inconceivable light buddha.

'Suffering, and the release from suffering,' is the core message of the Buddha Dharma. Early followers of Shakyamuni (Gautama Buddha) held fast to the idea that those who had 'seen the Buddha had seen the Dharma,' and that those who has 'seen the dharma had seen the Buddha.' The light-wheel of deliverance is the dharma body, which 'teaches suffering and release from suffering.' The nembutsu, which is the dharma body in tangible form, 'teaches suffering and the release from suffering.'

The source of our suffering is our attachments, especially to the beliefs which govern our inner reality. These beliefs inevitably concern survival, and from them we construct a picture of ourselves and the way the world works - a 'world-view'.

Nargarjuna bodhisattva tells us that in people's world-view we discover two general tendencies. One is the tendency to assume that our existence is unending - eternal. The other tendency is that life ends with death. The first is the belief in being; the other is belief in non-being. Neither is true, both are mere opinions, there is nothing empirical about either view. Shinran, here, is telling us that our relationship with the dharma body in the nembutsu needs to dismantle our views, our beliefs, because these things obstruct our movement to liberation.

The Enlightened One has no views; enlightenment is free from opinions. That is why, to move towards liberation, we need namo-amida-butsu.

- November 26, 2009.

A view from the garden at Padthaway Homestead Estate