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BOSTON SHINSHU
NEWS
Inaugural Issue Volume I, Number 1 Spring 1998
Welcome to the Inaugural Issue of Boston Shinshu News! Boston Shinshu
is the name of the new Jodo Shinshu lay movement in the Boston Area. The
only known 'resident' is myself, but through email and internet contacts
Boston Shinshu reaches out over the lands and the oceans, and, hopefully,
to people nearby. This new venture reminds me of the first human landing
on the moon and the planting of a flag there. Boston Shinshu News is a "flag"
planted for future settlement of Boston by the Jodo Shinshu faith. The vision
of the newsletter is to combine Shin Buddhist news and information, and study
of traditional texts, to show the public that Shin is a vital faith for today.
To keep costs minimal the format will be 11x17 foldover. Articles will have
to be brief, but submissions are solicited. Donations to support this venture
are not solicited but will be gratefully accepted and acknowledged (please
make checks payable to Richard St. Clair), and people wishing to be on the
mailing list are now actively encouraged to put in their requests. Please
see the back page for mailing directions.
-- Richard St. Clair, Editor.
Hear ye! Hear ye! New Books on Shin Buddhism!
Jodo Shinshu Buddhism is spreading in the Western World! Two newly released
books are featured here.
RIVER OF FIRE, RIVER OF WATER, by Taitetsu Unno (Doubleday, 1998).
Taitetsu Unno's new book, just out this year and in a beautiful paperback
edition, movingly discusses Shin Buddhism from his own life experience in
a down-to-earth way, yet manages to introduce the basic as well as many of
the finer doctrinal points of Jodo Shinshu faith without sounding bookish
or preachy. Richly annotated with glossary and index, it is published by
Doubleday, a major U.S. publisher, and is readily affordable. 244 pp., $12
paperback, ISBN 0-385-48511-5.
BUDDHA OF INFINITE LIGHT: The Teachings of Shin Buddhism, the Japanese Way
of Wisdom and Compassion, by D.T. Suzuki. (Shambala Publications, 1997).
This book evolved out of a talk given by the late Dr. Suzuki, the world-famous
authority on Zen Buddhism and proponent of Shin Buddhism, back in 1958. It
first took form as a book in 1977. This edition by Taitetsu Unno has the
advantage of modern editorial methods and is greatly enhanced from the first
version. Dr. Suzuki approaches Shin Buddhism in a non-sectarian yet fresh
and insightful way. Contains notes and suggested reading list. 95 pp., $17
hardcover, ISBN 1-57062--301-5.
"It will all be by the will of the Buddha that the Nembutsu prospers
in your area." --Shinran, Letter 7, Shinran Shonin Gosho Sukushu.
The Private Letters of Shinran Shonin
This column will feature nuggets from out-of-print Shin writings down through
the years. Kosho Yamamoto's book, The Private Letters of Shinran Shonin,
published in Tokyo in 1956 first made these wonderful letters available to
the English-reading public. In it are the two collections of Shinran's letters,
the Matto-Sho and the Shinran Shonin Gosho Sokushu. Below is Letter 8 from
the latter collection on forgiving and praying for one's persecutors. In
an effort to make Mr. Yamamoto's translation more readable, I have made small
non-substantive corrections and elucidatory bracketed inserts in the text.
My dear Shoshimbo,
How have you been faring since you returned home? By a happy coincidence
I met Mr. Gentoshiro. I mention this, as I am now happy to find him to be
the means by which I can communicate with you.
What can have happened anew [after all that has gone on]? Reports from several
quarters tell me that the lawsuit connected with the Nembutsu has now
subsided—a fact which pleases me! I entertain the fond hope that the
Nembutsu now prospers widely.
In connection with this, you now have the security you need. [So] please
always say the Nembutsu with the sincerest heart, and pray, to the end of
this life and to the extent of the life to come, for the good of all those
who speak ill of the Nembutsu. What [more] should there now be remaining
of you in your life [for you] to do with the Nembutsu? If you but pray for
the good of all those wrongly-led persons, advising them to enter the way
of the Vow of Amida Buddha, then you will be repaying what you owe the Buddha.
Please say the Nembutsu from the depths of your heart. After all, the Nembutsu
you say on the 25th [of every month]—the day on which the venerable
Master Honen passed away—is [for] none other [purpose] but to save such
sin-ridden persons. So please say the Nembutsu, praying that those who slander
the Nembutsu may also be saved. I have already said all this as occasions
have come my way.
I am happy to have the opportunity to communicate with you through Mr.
Gentoshiro, and I say so [with] much [appreciation].
With reverence I remain,
Shinran
I would like to write to Brother Nyusaibo as well, but as matters [I would
take up with him] refer to the same [as in this letter], please relate to
him the contents herein.
The following message was found on the America-Online Jodo Shinshu message
board:
"It is with great sadness that I report that one of the ministers who went
to Japan for Rennyo Shonin's celebration has died. It was the minister from
the Mountain View, CA Temple. He died on the plane on the return trip." If
any of the readers would like to mail me a remembrance of this minister I
will be happy to print it in the next issue.
We have friends in life and when they die we feel sadness. When our friends
share our faith in Jodo Shinshu, we feel sadness but in addition we have
the warm assurance that they have gone to Amida's Paradise, and we will meet
them again. Honen wrote a poem as follows:
First in the Blessed Pure Land
When I attain my birth,
Shall be the precious memory
of friends I left on earth.
from Ishizuka and Coates,
Honen the Buddhist Saint
A project has recently been launched to make Shin Buddhist books available
in the form of 'talking books.' This project is in the planning stages and
some legal technicalities need to be resolved. It is hoped that within the
next few months a small number of talking books will be available as free
matter for the blind and sight-impaired, to be dispersed through the Honpa
Hongwanji Mission of Hawaii. Please address interested queries to the Boston
Shinshu News editor, Richard St. Clair (For address seeInformation).
The first thing that we learn in Shin Buddhism is that Amida Buddha saves
us unconditionally, however far down the ladder we have gone in our many
vices and erroneous ways. Human beings are experts at inventing vices and
evils. We are all corrupt to the core, Shinran says. We should all consider
ourselves Òbeyond the paleÓ in terms of being able to attain
enlightenment by our efforts. We take refuge in Amida Buddha because we are
so immersed in our own evils and delusions of self-hood that we couldn't
enlighten ourselves if we tried and tried and tried. This, in Shin Buddhism,
is called the "Easy Path" or Other-Power (Jp. tariki) as distinguished
from the "Path of Sages" or Self-Power (Jp. jiriki)—Theravada
Buddhism's 'Eightfold Path' and the Mahayana's Bodhisattva path with its
the 'six perfections.'
In Shinran's own time, there was a "heresy" which held that, since Amida
accepts all who have sincere faith in him, they could do all the mayhem and
sinning they felt like doing, because Amida would turn no one away. Shinran's
answer to this was "Just because you have a cure, do not continue taking
poison" (from the letters, and from the Tannisho). Shinran's attitude towards
morality seems to be that of gratitude for Amida's great bestowal on us.
When we turn to Amida, we at first may feel nothing, even disappointed that
our 'conversion' didn't set off any'bells and whistles', no fireworks, no
great sensational insights or spaced-out revelations. That's Shin Buddhism.
It's plain, undecorated truth. The truth is plain. But after a while, the
truth starts to work on us and in us - this is what our Faith in Amida Buddha
is about. We have a provisional step into the Pure Land while we are still
alive. Our enlightenment seeds are planted as we practice the Nembutsu and
put our faith in Amida Buddha's great Vow.
But what about morality? We are told to be moral beings, but why? Is it so
important? My feeling is this. Morality in Shin Buddhism is strictly a free-will
act. It is not a prerequisite for our enlightenment, and thinking that it
is a prerequisite for enlightenment sends us down the dead-end path of
self-power. In the Tannisho, Shinran says that Amida's vow works on us, causes
us to become mild and gentle creatures. Our trust opens our hearts to Amida's
transforming power in us. We are already benefiting from the Vow, even though
our full enlightenment is yet to take place after we leave our present bodies
(that is, when we die).
More and more I experience morality as a free-will offering of gratitude
to Amida Buddha for showing me the meaning of real life, true life, eternal
life, through His infinite wisdom—only a small part of which I can grasp
as a sin-ridden human being. But I feel as though I want to live morally,
and so I do so. I can see all sorts of things I do that are not really moral.
I experience on a daily basis countless impulses which, if I acted on them,
would imperil my life and happiness. So, some of my 'morality' is what is
called 'enlightened self-interest.' But it is also feels like compassion
for my wife, myself, and others I meet and deal with. I know that there are
certain immoral things that will cause suffering to myself and to others,
and gradually I become more mindful of the consequences of my thoughts, words,
and actions. Thus, I find myself more and more following the so-called 8-fold
path or the bodhisattva path, almost in spite of myself. This I attribute
to Amida's power, not to my own calculating 'self.'
To conclude, I see morality not as something I strive to do but as something
that happens in me—the awakening in me, through Amida's working, of
a conscience on a higher order than my own limited self-interest. It is,
in a manner of speaking, Amida's way of 'initiating' me into what will be
my full enlightenment and buddhahood in his Pure Land. This is my belief.
Namu Amida Butsu.
my opinions, respectfully submitted
--Richard St. Clair, Editor
A little bit of a nuisance,
These flowers blooming,—
The sleeping Buddha.
--Issa
(from R.H. Blyth, Haiku,
Vol. 2: Spring, p. 455
The Nembutsu is like
vastness of space,
The vastness of space is
illumined by Oya-sama's
Nembutsu.
My heart is illumined by
Oya-sama.
"Namu-amida-butsu!"
--Saichi
(from Mysticism: Christian and Buddhist, by D.T. Suzuki, p. 184
After I leave this world,
If someone should ask for me,
Tell them I have gone to
The Pure Land,
The Pure Land
Of my Dear Amida Buddha.
--O-Karu Myokonin
(from Myokonin O-Karu and Her Poems of Shinjin, by Hoyu Ishida, Kyoto,
1991, p. 33.
Buddha-wisdom
is beyond human thought,
It makes me go
to the Pure Land.
Namu-amida-butsu!"
--Saichi
(from Mysticism: Christian and Buddhist, by D.T. Suzuki, p. 196
Boston Shinshu News will hopefully be published on a regular basis. We have
no planned timetable as yet. This is a 'test balloon' issue. If the response
is positive, further issues and frequency of publication will be taken up
at that time.
Please address inquiries, submissions, and requests to be put on the mailing
list to:
Richard St. Clair
Editor, Boston Shinshu News
781 Somerville Ave., no. 2
Somerville, MA 02143 USA
(email: stclair@mit.edu)