Boston
NAMU AMIDA BUTSU
Boston Shinshu Buddhist Sangha meets once a month.
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Contents
- Who are we?
Note:
Buddhist Music
Who are we?
Welcome to the Home Page of
Jodo Shinshu teaches salvation and enlightenment through the transferred merit of Amida Buddha's Great Vow. Transferred merit from Buddhas and Bodhisattvas means that, in the process of their enlightenment and service to living beings, Buddhas and Bodhisattvas acquire a kind of good karma that can be given to others as an act of compassion. It's sort of like saving money from doing good honest work and giving it to people in need, but in a less material and more spiritual sense. Anyone on the Budda Path who helps others to find that way and helps them along on it is a bodhisattva. There are great bodhisattvas of exceptional wisdom (almost-buddhas, called "mahasattvas" in Sanskrit), and there are "everyday" bodhisattvas, ordinary people who follow and promote Buddhism as a joyful act. People who isolate themselves from the world to practice Buddhism are not bodhisattvas.
Boston Shinshu is
small but has high hopes of growing. The sangha is
not formally affiliated with any particular branch of Jodo
Shinshu but has a sense of kinship to all practicers of Pure Land Buddhism in particular, and to all
Buddhists and beings everywhere. There are two closely similar branches of Shin
Buddhism in
History of Buddhism
What is "salvation" and "enlightenment" in Buddhist terms? Actually, they are one and the same. Buddhism does not preach a gospel of a savior or a judging deity. In Buddhism, each person, in the words of a great poet, is "the captain of my fate, the master of my soul." Soul, again, is a term that is defined in Buddhism in terms unlike that of many religions and philosophies. Soul, in Buddhism, is the sum total of who and what we are based upon the karma of millions and millions of years. We carry all sorts of different karmas, some are good and some are not good. The karmas that are not good make us suffer. The karmas that are good give us happiness for the time being but do not assure any permanent, lasting happiness or long-term release from suffering.
The historical Buddha ("enlightened one"), known as Buddha Shakyamuni (born Gotama Siddharta, a prince of the Shakya clan in northern India and lived c. 563-483 BCE), lived the life of a normal human being in the sense that he was born, was mortal, lived, and died. But his life was most unusual in that he addressed issues that no one in recorded human history ever had before. He tackled the seemingly impenetrable subject of - what is suffering?, what is the cause of suffering?, is there a way to end suffering?, and if so, what can be done to eliminate suffering? When he was in his mid-30s, after several years of struggling, searching and contemplating these problems, he finally experienced a great awakening, called "bodhi" or nirvana, and found the answer to these questions, which became known as the "Four Truths" (or "Four Noble Truths"). In this experience, he saw the whole meaning of life unraveled before him and what the purpose of living beings really is about, namely, to be free of suffering in order to evolve to the highest level of being possible.
The first phase of Buddha Shakyamuni's teachings was to demonstrate that his enlightenment, or "bodhi", was real, was not a 'fluke', and could be achieved by others in addition to himself. To accomplish this, he began teaching and exemplifying what he had gone through to attain bodhi. Thus informed by his own experience, he was able to prevent his followers from going down the blind alleys he had found and abandoned by trial and error in his own quest. For instance, through personal experience he discovered that self-denial to the point of starvation was useless as a path to enlightenment, because it only weakened the body and the mind.
So he devised a "middle path", a compromise that allowed people to find release from suffering while living essentially normal human lives. In his sangha, or those several hundred people closest to him, there were certain rules of behavior that later became encoded as the Vinayas, or the monastic disciplines. The theory and purpose behind these disciplines was encoded in the form of the Buddha's oral sermons or "sutras" (suttas), which were memorized over generations and finally written down some 500 years later. In subsequent centuries, others attempted to explain the "Dharma" (teachings of Shakyamuni) in terms more suited to the temper of their times. These later teachings and writings became known as the Abhidharma (or commentaries). These three categories - Vinayas, Sutras, and Abhidharma - represent the Theravada teachings, or the "teachings of/to the elders," i.e., those in the Buddha's circle. The body of writings is huge, and is also referred to as the Tipitaka (three 'baskets' - the Vinayas, the Sutras, and the Commentaries), or the "Pali Canon" (Pali being the language in which it is preserved).
Once Shakyamuni Buddha had formed a sangha that was actually bringing people closer and closer (if not actually all the way in all cases) to full enlightenment, he could start to expound the more ultimate purpose of attaining release from suffering. One might well ask, was it the sole purpose of people following the Buddha to simply extinguish their karma and drift off into neutral stagnant oblivion? The later teachings of Buddha Shakyamuni indicate otherwise. In them a grander purpose is revealed, to open the living beings to the wondrous realm of being enlightened -- or buddhahood. So he turned his teachings to deeper and more awe-inspiring levels as the decades rolled by.
Shakyamuni's last teachings, approximately the last decade of his
80 years, were encoded and later expanded into what are called the Mahayana
teachings. In addition, the Buddha foresaw a time when his followers and their
followers would die and the teachings would gradually diminish in vitality and
penetrating wisdom. So he made preparations for this
centuries ahead of that time by teaching the higher Mahayana sutras --
the Threefold Lotus Sutra, the
What is Jodo Shinshu Buddhism?
Jodo Shinshu Buddhism (also called Shin Buddhism) is based upon the Three Pure Land Sutras, which along with the other Mahayana and Theravada sutras were written down about 2,000 years ago, about five centuries after Shakyamuni Buddha died. There are over 200 Mahayana Canon works that support Pure Land Buddhism. In Pure Land Buddhism itself, three sutras are considered canonical:
- The Sutra on the Buddha of Eternal Life, or simply The Larger Sutra;
- The Sutra of Contemplation on Amida Buddha;
- The Shorter Sutra on Amida Buddha, or simply the Amida Sutra
These three sutras are on-line in English Translation at the Amida Net website.
Then who is Amida Buddha? There are thousands of Buddhas who are remembered and revered by name and who have stories attached to them, yet for whom we have no historical trace of ever having lived. This is true, of course, for many of the Buddha Shakyamuni's own followers. Historical verification is not a matter of ultimate significance in Buddhism. What matters is the essence and validity of the doctrine being taught. Amida Buddha is not known to us historically, but is recorded only through these three sutras which speak of him as living in the remotest past. This record is spiritual history as opposed to documentary history (birth certificates, for example).
Amida Buddha began as a king, a man who sought enlightenment under the then living-Buddha of his world, named Buddha Lokesvararaja, likewise known only through the sutras. This king took the Dharma name of Bodhisattva (bodhisattva=person on the brink of buddhahood who brings the Dharma to suffering beings), Dharmakara.
Bodhisattva Dharmakara asked Buddha Lokesvararaja one day to show him all the buddha-lands of the cosmos. When he was granted this request, Bodhisattva Dharmakara became moved to make a most unusual vow, which is detailed in the Larger Pure Land Sutra as Vow number 18. While other Buddhas all vowed to save all beings through various practices, Dharmakara wished to create a special buddha-land (the Pure Land) where any sincere petitioner could be reborn and attain enlightenment without the confusing and conflicting pains and distractions of mortal existence. According to the sutras, Dharmakara vowed that he would not allow himself to be enlightened until this Buddha field and all its powers were thus created. At the time his Buddha land was completed, he became the Buddha, Amida (also known as Amitabha or Amitayus). This is all said to have happened over billions upon billions of years in the past. Taken literally, the sutra suggests that, in theory, Amida Buddha has already saved everyone. The problem is, most people in suffering lives have yet to awaken to this inheritance and claim it. The sole purpose of Jodo Shinshu is to make this inheritance known to people and to aid them in coming to trust it and accept it as real.
Another great Buddhist teacher, who lived in
When Vasubandhu's
teachings were imported into
Buddhism had been introduced to
One of Honen's most gifted students, Shinran, organized the principles laid down by Honen into
what is called the Jodo-Shinshu, meaning the True
Pure Land Sect. With scholastic rigor, Shinran
clarified many points which Honen had left unsaid for one reason or another. Shinran lived a long life (90 years) and wrote voluminously
and forcefully about faith and refuge in Amida
Buddha. Shinran was gifted with a poetic creativity
and composed hundreds of short hymns, callad wasan,
on the
Those who felt Shinran was their teacher later organized a sect called Jodo-Shinshu (True Pure Land Sect), in contrast to those who felt closer to the teachings of Honen, who identified with the name Jodo-Shu (Pure Land Sect). There are those who insist that the differences between Shinran and Honen were significant. However, all of Shinran's writings and theories are based upon and explain the teachings of Honen, in the way the Abhidharma once did towards the original teachings of Shakyamuni Buddha. Jodo-Shinshu and Jodo-Shu both continue to thrive today.
In the 15th c. CE, a Japanese man named Rennyo felt that the teachings and following of Shinran had declined, so he reformed the Jodo-Shinshu sect by returning to many of Honen's original teachings and greatly revitalized the institution. Rennyo was musically inclined, and composed chanting music to go with the canonical works, mainly the poems of Shinran. Jodo-Shinshu has remained largely unchanged since the days of Rennyo for about 500 years.
In the late 19th century, Jodo-Shinshu
Buddhism was introduced to
Buddhist Music
Music has for centuries been
an integral part of Buddhist ceremonies and services. This site will over time
develop resources for Westerners to become more aware of the part which music
plays. This is a Jodo Shinshu
site, so the emphasis will be on music in Jodo Shinshu services. However, an attempt will be made to cover
music in other Buddhist traditions. The maintainer of this site, Dr. Richard
St. Clair, is a composer and has written several compositions upon Buddhist
themes from the sutras and literature. Over the past year two of these works
have been premiered in the
- "Songs
of the
- "The
Lamentations of Shinran" for Soprano,
Tenor, and String Quartet accompaniment (in Japanese). This set of 16 wasans (Japanese Buddhist poems) by Shinran Shonin uses the
portion of his Shozomatsu Wasan (or "Poems on the Age of Declining
Dharma") called the "Confession and Lamentation of Gutoku [Shinran]." The
music, about half-an-hour in length, was premiered by the Janus Ensemble
during its Summer Series at the Longy School of
Music in
An English edition of chants used in Jodoshinshu services is being prepared for the first time through the auspices of Boston Shinshu Buddhist Sangha. Please inquire via email as to the status of the project. The first publication will be the famous Shoshinge of Shinran Shonin together with the Nembutsu-Wasan, or the alternation of the Nembutsu with 6 wasans of Shinran, in particular the set called Sanbutsuge, nos. 3-9 of the Jodo Wasan (poems on the Pure Land) by Shinran.
The purpose of this chanting edition is to use the traditional Japanese style of chanting using English instead of Japanese. With this edition it will be possible for people to chant simultaneously in Japanese and English. It will be published in the form of "sheet music", the English version above and the Japanese version (complete with Romanji text) beneath. Publication is anticipated late in 1998 or 1999.
Shin Buddhism website, for further in-depth information, sutras, and links on Pure Land Buddhism.
Questions & comments to: Richard St. Clair. Last modified:20 May, 2009