WHERE IS THE BUDDHA?

In the preceding chapter, we saw that true nembutsu comes from the direction of the Buddha. When a small child asks, "where is the Buddha?", either we point to the statue on the altar, or we pick up a flower, and say that this flower expresses the life of the Buddha. Neither of these answers is wrong, but neither makes clear the deeper implication that; even the Name, Amida Buddha, is but a symbol pointing to the True and Real Life flowing through our existence. In terms of karma and Shinran's view of life, we create our own hell. In each of our hearts is all of hell itself. But, at the very point where hell resides, this is where the Buddha resides. Yet, to say only "The Buddha is in my heart" can mislead one in terms of the reality of his existence.

Dogen says we are already Buddhas and this is the reason we practice. In Shin Buddhism, especially with children, we speak of the Buddha as being in the temple because in doing so we avoid misleading the young who do not as yet practice bringing out the Buddha from within. As we mature, and begin to perceive the reality of our existence, to see into the depths of our hell-bent hearts, in this inner world through the activity of prajna, the negative and positive polarities of our life become one-It is only then that the reality of "where the Buddha is" becomes our existential reality. In Japanese, this is referred to as the area of shinjitsu-truth, the truth which is the foundation of shinjin.

In his writings, Shinran uses shinshin-"True Mind" interchangeably with shinjin . Shin (meaning belief) and jin (mind and heart) is the same as, or equivalent to the two characters that each express a different shin, that meaning "truth" and that meaning"mind and heart." To reiterate, Shinran's "faith," the shinjin of Shin Buddhism, the point where the Buddha becomes my Buddha, is not a matter of relationship between the believer and what is believed in but has a deeper dimension of the truth itself.

In the Smaller Sukhavati sutra there is the expression "coming together to meet in one place," referring to the Pure Land. People who live in shinjin are always able to meet, truly able to meet each other in this here and now. To be able to say "let's meet again" with this meaning is made possible by the power of truth, for the essence of the life of the person of shinjin is rooted in this True and Real Life. I would like to live within this world where such expressions are made possible to say to our loved ones, to say even to ourselves.

"Let's meet again," were the dying words of my father. Isn't this the kind of expression, at my own dying moment, that I'd like to leave with those who love me? I thought of this again recently, at Berkeley, when I met an elderly lady who was devout in the nembutsu. She was an invalid, a stroke patient, eighty years old, living alone. She brought a paper and brush and asked me to write something. I wrote, "Namu Amida Butsu. Let's meet again." She then said, "I'll be waiting for you!"

I was deeply affected by these words coming out so innocently from her words that came straight out of the dimension of reality itself. I feel it is Truth sustaining her, making these words come out of her in a totally natural, non contriving way. Such a woman does not need to ask, "Where is the Buddha?" She knows.

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