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In the ordinary meaning, this would imply that the direction of the calling is from me to the Buddha, but in the world of awakening to shinjin , there is a complete reversal. The direction is from Amida to me ! My saying of the nembutsu is not merely my saying-it is at the same time Amidas Calling to me! Thus, Amida is not the object I am calling but the subject who thinks of and calls me.
This is an analysis still within the realm of objective rational explanation. It does not translate the personal experiencing of shinjin in one's life in which this other direction of the nembutsu becomes real. In order to experience this change of direction, to truly move into the world of shinjin , one must take the first step into the world of listening to the Dharma. When this happens, I and the Dharma become of one essence, "of one body."
In Japanese, "of one body" is ittai rather than the word gattai, which means "combining." "Of one body" (ittai) is not a unification where the identity of both are gone. It is the two coming together and still remaining what they are. Gattai expresses the coming together of a husband and wife, ittai that of a parent and child. In terms of the latter, a parent is not a parent without a child. There would be no children in this world without parents. Yet , these two , although they are interdependent, have separate karmas. Unlike the gattai of marriage which may end in divorce, there is no split possible in the ittai of parent and child. No condition can alter that the parent is a parent, nor that the child is a child.
The Larger Sukhavati sutra relates that kalpas ago Amida made his original vow not to become a Buddha until all beings everywhere are saved. Yet, in the same sutra, the statement is made that Amida has already become a Buddha. This infers that his attainment of Buddhahood was possible only because all beings are already saved. Amida is not yet a Buddha in the sense of his compassionate weeping for the salvation of all suffering beings. Yet, for many who have died and are born in the Pure Land, he is Amida Buddha per se. But my Buddha and your Buddha are not yet the Buddha, so the question is: what am I seeking in life? Is Amida Buddha my Buddha?
In the "of one body" sense expressed in the word ittai, Amida is increasingly, unceasingly working to make his life one with you, one with me. Thus, although he is originally a Buddha, he is at the same time not a Buddha because he is working for the salvation-the enlightenment-of each individual, for the deepest wish of each one of us. It is in this sense that he is not yet a Buddha for you, for me.
How do we come to understand this unceasing working of the Buddha to make his life one with yours, one with mine? This is an understanding that is a total apprehension of mind and body. It is for this very reason Amida is shedding great tears for the sorrow I am in. When I experience this, it is the realization that becomes the awakening to my human condition, to his compassion, to the world of what is True and Real, all of which are so difficult for me to realize that I am already a part.
It is in this way that my nembutsu is Amida's calling out to me, and that Amida and I are of one body, one essence, ittai Though Amida has become a Buddha in past time beyond our conception, as he works for my salvation he has not yet fulfilled his becoming a Buddha. The logic here is again that of `A equals not A,' the logic based on the wisdom of shinjin. This is the world of awakening in which the nembutsu is uttered, the world that opens to us as we tread the path of Shin Buddhism.
In my own life, my own process, I was past the age of forty before I could really utter nembutsu, before I myself could experience this world of Buddhist awakening. Yet, it was a process that went back to my childhood, and my experience of having lost my mother at the age of thirteen. It was February when she died, a cold time of the year. As she lay dying, she had said she wanted to see me. When I got home from school, my aunt took me to see her, but her eyes were already closed. I called to her, tugged at her, but she died before me, and from her lips the nembutsu flowed at the moment of death. Her dying, and the experience of her death, made me think of life, so after the war, one of the big motivating factors in my going to Kyoto to seek the meaning of Shinran was my mother's utterance of the nembutsu as she lay dying. In the dead end I reached at War's end, I was able to go to Kyoto because of this sad but powerful incident of my mother's death still remaining a strong motivation for me. I went to Kyoto to seek the meaning of Shinran in the nembutsu, impelled by the love for my mother-rather than being drawn by the nembutsu itself.
As she lay dying, I had called but she had not answered as I wanted desperately. I wanted her at death to call n?y name and not the Buddha's name. In so many ways I felt alone, abandoned by my mother. Since I'd entered elementary school she had been ill with tuberculosis and my recollections of her were of her illness. It was out of my deep need of love for her and my loneliness for her, I was drawn to study the nembutsu she had uttered as she died.
In Kyoto I entered Ryukoku University and began my studies of Shin Buddhism. Through good teachers and students, I was encouraged to pursue my studies. After twenty years of study, at age forty, the nembutsu that I'd heard from my dying mother's lips took root in my life as I realized the passage in Tannisho, "In this world of impermanence and burning house. . only the nembutsu is true and real."
The fact that I had called my mother and that she didn't reply , made me think that for the child what seems really true is the parent just as, for the parent, the child seems real. But the Tannisho , through this passage, struck me with the realization that even this relationship is unreliable, impermanent, and that transcending this vain and empty relationship is the nembutsu. Now, reflecting back, I can see that the nembutsu on my mother's lips as she died showed this. In the end, the ultimate is to return to the nembutsu. Thirty years after her death, twenty years after I started studying, I was able to truly touch and be open to the nembutsu.
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