The Way of Jodo Shinshu

Koso Wasan 84

Those who would destroy the Original Vow
Are called 'the blind by nature' - icchantikas.
Passing through kalpas measured by the atoms of
    the earth,
They will sink in the three lower realms.

Icchantikas

Shinran Shonin made several very important marginal notes that explain many implicit questions that are raised by this verse. On its own it can leave us very perplexed. How, for example, is it possible to speak of 'destroying the Primal Vow'? What are icchantikas ('persons lacking the seed of becoming a Buddha')? In fact, if these questions do spring to mind, it is worth knowing that the icchantika-problem has a very long - and controversial - background.

Shinran says in a marginal note that icchantikas are 'those for whom it is hard to attain the status of a Buddha; those wholly without trust in the Buddhist teaching'. As one might expect, of course, Shinran had certain assumptions about the content of the Buddhist teaching. In the Mahayana tradition that he had received, for example, the Three Pure Land Sutras were assumed to be the precise and direct words of Shakyamuni Buddha. In our time, however, there are even sincere followers of the Pure Land teaching who question the truth of this assumption. Are they icchantikas; people for whom there is not even a glimmer of trust in the Buddha Dharma? I certainly do not think so.

Many of us come from backgrounds in acculturation and thought over which we have absolutely no control. Especially, is this the case when our western educational system is brought into the equation. Western education, since about the time of Aristotle, has assumed that human beings are predominantly rational and, in keeping with this, we are taught to see developments in understanding and intelligence as making a linear and ascending 'progress' towards some kind of ultimate state of improvement. It is a nonsense, of course, but it is certainly well-entrenched in our European world-view. Even people who claim to 'think outside the square' continue to espouse it.

There is, however, no compulsion about any idea that we ought to honour our educational patterns by actually embracing them. It is possible to enter Shinran's world freely, happily, confidently and with ease. Not to do so, in fact, is rather like insisting that because we have not walked through a rain-forest until now, since we grew up in a city, that it is something that we ought not do - ever. A modern city is rational but the rainforest is where we really belong. Once we understand this, we will find ourselves sitting quite comfortably alongside Shinran - and we will discover that the Nembutsu is circulating in our veins, after all. We do not need to become 'Japanese' either, because Shinran might have lived in what is now, geographically known as 'Japan', but modern Japan is the child of thinkers like Shinran. Shinran is a parent, not an artifact.

There is, of course, a paradox in this. The rationality that belongs to our humanitarian world view - that with which we, who live after the 'age of Enlightenment', are imbued - permits us to explore realities that lie beyond our received tradition.

It seems to me that life is very irrational and potentially most ominous and threatenning. I think that an icchantika is someone who wants to deny this reality. I also think that the way to deal with the reality of life is not to evade it but to sink inside it - to the Primal Vow. The Primal Vow is one degree deeper than, perhaps, our reptilian cortex (manas). It is wordlessly wise and inveterately compassionate; it is ineffable in its essence and spontaneous in its action. These things are literally terrifying for someone, who wants to try to live altogether within a world of reason. Such people will never know that spontaneity is inherently compassionate, and that hostility is an artifact of reason.

If we need to find words to describe this, then, as we might imagine, Shinran has found them. In his Kyo Gyo Shin Sho, we read this:

Deep mind, ... is true and real shinjin. One truly knows oneself to be a foolish being full of blind passions, with scant roots of good, transmigrating in the three realms and unable to emerge from this burning house. And further, one truly knows now, without so much as a single thought of doubt, that Amida's universal Primal Vow decisively enables all to attain birth, including those who say the Name even down to ten times, or even but hear it.

CWS p.92.

We will miss the point, of course, if we forget that the phrase 'to attain birth' is a synonym for 'attain Nirvana'. In any case, Buddhist tradition tended to have a less subtle concept of an icchantika than the one that Shinran developed. An icchantika was simply a man or a woman for whom every single element of the Buddhist teaching was irrelevant and meaningless; the kind of person with whom one decides not to waste one's time discussing the Dharma. And, of these, there are many.

The question that caused endless anxiety within the Buddhist community was whether or not an icchantika could be anything other than an anti-Buddhist boor. Was a person who had spent his or her life frankly abusing the Dharma, capable of changing? This question was more profound within the Mahayana because, within our tradition, Buddha-nature is a given quality implicit in all constituents of existence (Sk. dharma). It is a synonym of shunyata (emptiness) and tathata (suchness) - the 'wisdom that fills all things'.

With the propagation of the Nirvana Sutra this problem was resolved. It made it clear that, yes, even icchantikas were endowed with Buddha-nature. Of course, for anyone who has even a nodding acquaintance with the basic Buddhist philosophy of the Abhidharma it seems obvious that this is so; but it is also easy to understand the tendency of the human mind to be discriminating. However, the wisdom of Buddhas goes beyond that kind of limitation. Even the boorish blindness of those who reject the Dharma has the underlying reality of Buddha Nature (Sk. buddha ta) as its source!

Leaving the most difficult passage in the verse 'till last, let us think, finally, about the phrase 'those who would destroy the Primal Vow'. Who are these people? What is it that they do, which could be spoken of in such strong terms: 'to destroy the Primal Vow'? Shinran's marginal note clears this up for us easily. 'Those who would destroy the Primal Vow' are those who (in Shinran's words) 'say that the teaching one follows is superior and that the teaching others follow is inferior'. These people are the inherently blind; but not in any arbitrary way.

The very tendency to see one's own teaching as 'superior' and that of others as 'inferior' suggests a rigidity in outlook, which is incapable of being persuaded by anything other than one's own prejudices. Perhaps a conviction that one's choices are 'superior' to the choices of others may betray a person whose standards of judgement are based on an unrealistic sense of self-importance, which is inimical to the free consideration of new ideas. In any case, Shinran's words offer us a salutary lesson. For example, in the light of this it cannot be possible to regard the sanskrit term hinayana (small vehicle)as a pejorative. Indeed, hinayana alludes to the focus of the practice, which is the individual. It does not imply inferiority.

- January 19, 2004.

Southern coast of NSW. January, 2004. This and previous photographs by Graham Ranft.