The Way of Jodo Shinshu

Koso Wasan 66

The practice of both the subsidiary and the right
Is called the Mixed Practice.
Because practitioners do not have Single-Mindedness,
There is no mind of gratitude for the Compassion of the
    Buddha.

On Communication

Shinran Shonin is unable to let go of those unforgettable words of Vasubadhu, which were written a few short centuries after the dawn of the human love of written words. Remember that Shakyamuni's words were not put into writing until five hundred years after his parinirvana. The first record of his teaching to appear was the Sthaviravadin canon in the Pali language; and, in Sanskrit, the Prajnaparamita and some Pure Land texts. As a devotee of the Yogacara practice, Vasubandhu walked a path that had its deepest origins in both the Hinayana Sanskrit Abhidharma, the Prajnaparamita and the Pure Land texts. From this literary nutrition, and the practice that his teachers had derived from it, Vasubandhu eventually put writing-stick to paper and recorded his relationship (Sk. samadhi) with the deepest, ineffable reality.

Single-heartedly I, take refuge in Tathagata of Light - Permeating Unhindered the Ten Quarters.

Yes. We have met this sublime phrase often in the Wasan; and we will meet it yet more frequently, because the darker the age, the brighter the light: the stronger its contrast. Even when we are celebrating the Dharma propounded by Shan-tao, Shinran is reminded of Vasubandhu and his immortal act of awakening, awe and gratitude. Shinran sees darkness deepening as the events that he is recounting draw nearer in time to his own. Shan-tao is a little closer, the darkness a little deeper and the radiance of the teacher is a flame that burns a little brighter than his predecessor: until we come to Honen Shonin. For, in Shinran's eyes, this phrase from Vasubandhu, which describes the deepest reality, describes Shan-tao - and Honen, too.

There are many ways that we human beings communicate with each other, some are useful, some are false and some are the best we have. Shinran clearly depended to a great extent on writing, but he undertook the task of collating passages from the ancient texts and committing them to posterity only after his time with Honen, for it was from Honen that he heard the truth, which he later sought to ratify in the sutras and commentaries.

Writing is one of the true forms of communication. For most people, I am sure that it is impossible to tell lies in writing; and there is something most malevolent about the person who sets out to mislead others by means of the written word. Such action requires a deliberate, pre-meditated intention to deceive and to distort. I am not talking about the wonderful art of story-telling, for allegory is a time-honoured way of conveying truths and insights that are difficult to tell in other forms. When we enjoy fiction or stories handed down through time, we know that the author is not lying, even though he or she is using an artform that is often only loosely connected with fact.

Writing has the advantage of intimacy. The reader gives their undivided attention to the author, and we can pause in our reading and ponder the events and ideas that are presented to us. Without doubt, writing is the finest medium by which we can transmit tradition from one generation to another. As I have previously suggested, Jodo Shinshu is a highly literary religion, even though for centuries most of its adherents were illiterate, still, the tradition was literary. Sermons were read from the collection in five fascicles of Rennyo Shonin's letters (go bunsho).

Some writers convey a much greater closeness than others. For some reason, Shinran is a truly intimate writer and the Hongwanji translation of his writings - The Collected Works of Shinran - is truly skilled, in that this fine work manages to convey this intimacy to those who can read English. I know Shinran's Wasan well enough to have learnt to savour the original Japanese and, like a child learning to read a picture-book, I can sense the person behind them in the words. It is, of course, Amida Buddha. Needless to say, even in his compendium, the Kyo Gyo Shin Sho, this intimacy stands out as one of its great characteristics, making reading of it tantamount to a private conversation with the man himself. At least, that is how it seems to me.

In any case, writing has one flaw, and that is immediacy; we cannot ask the authors to clarify their intentions. So we are left searching for other forms of communication.

I love art - painting, sculpture, photography (not mine!) and sometimes ('tho', rarely) poetry. In my case, however, music is the unsurpassed artform. I find it quite wonderful that the author, artist and listener can converse with each other - often without words - in a way that I find more intimate than most other forms of communication - even when it is performed for a crowd.

Yet, the most dangerous and fearsome form of communion may also be mass-communication. Our public media use it to create thirsts and hungers that we did not know we had - and invite us into arguments we do not want to share. The most terrible form of mass-communication is in a crowd. There is a dynamic in demagoguery and crowd hysteria that sends normally sceptical and balanced people to the brink of madness. Reason is suspended and the crowd, like a huge slime-mould, becomes a many-celled, blind and putrid beast. From the time that crazed swarms of armies descended on sleepy villages, or Dionysian orgies, or the modern phenomena of mass-rallies and evangelism, individuals become entirely lost - and their integrity compromised - in such environments. To my mind, there is almost no virtue in much mass-communication. Except in music or in writing, where some measure of intimacy is retained.

There is no more satisying - perhaps, even, perfect - communion, though, than that between two people. Sitting, walking or sharing a meal - or a drink - together, there is an unmatched safety in their talk. Fears, loves, joys and discoveries can be shared in such a way as to leave little room for misunderstanding. To each participant in this communion, only the other is the focus of attention and there is no one else to create the sense of tension that comes into play as soon as there are more than two.

That is why the 'three minds' of shinjin that - based on the Larger Sutra - were delineated by Shan-tao and Honen were so deftly seen by Shinran to have been only one, single mind (or heart). It is not just because there is, in fact, only one mind but also because the gift of true communication comes only when two participants each have the other's undivided attention. 'Only the Nembutsu' (senju nembutsu) surely intends, not just the selected practice that excludes others but, for Shinran, there is the sense of undivided attention - of unhindered communion between two apparently seperate entities.

namu-amida-butsu, of course, is the conversation that the two have in common, in their undivided communion. It is the conversation, in which the two become one.

- October 23, 2003.

Evening light.