“Because of others our faith is destroyed”
These are not my words, but the words of Shinran Shonin…the man who was given stewardship of the only teaching that can lead us to complete and final liberation from suffering in this Age of Dharma Decline.
Let’s listen to Shinran together:
As this kalpa draws to a close, the five defilements flourish. Since sentient beings possess wrong views, they find it hard to have faith.
We are taught to practice wholeheartedly the nembutsu alone, taking refuge in the path to the West. But because of others our faith is destroyed, and we remain as we originally were.
Since innumerable kalpas in the past we have always been thus. It is not that we realize this for the first time in this present life.
Because we have not encountered the excellent, decisive cause, we have been transmigrating, unable to reach the other shore. KGSS IV:51
This was Shinran’s singular focus: what would it take to bring us, at last, from the near shore of utter sleep to the far shore of full awakening?
What would it take to end our endless transmigration from one delusional, ignorant, endarkened life to another - and another - and another?
Because he had been given the final Dharma of Liberation from Shakyamuni Buddha, he wanted to make sure he transmitted that dharma accurately for his hearers, in his day, and in the years - and centuries - to come.
Because he saw the big picture - he warned people to hew to the dharma, and not to diverge from this simple and easy teaching that offered the only guaranteed path to liberation at last.
He knew that inquirers would be confused - terribly so - by the many and varied lamentable divergences that were cropping up from what he had received. He experienced people abandoning his dharma - the dharma of SHINJIN - the true entrusting that is the beginning, middle and end of the True Pure Land Way.
And so he labored for sixty years to explain, and re-explain - to teach, and re-teach.
I understand, in my guts, what he was concerned about. I understand what he meant when he said that “because of others our faith is destroyed”. I understand, because it almost happened to me, in my darkest hour.
It is an important part of my personal story - my experience of encountering a FALSE teacher of Shinran’s teaching - and then a TRUE teacher. I wrote about it, from the heart and with tears of both sorrow and gratitude, here:
http://www.shinuglyblog.com/blog/index.php?p=83
I can’t tell you how grateful I am that Amida’s grasp held me, despite my own frailty and foolishness, and despite the foolishness of the false teacher who - with the best of intentions - was giving me stones when I was so hungry for bread.
Amida Buddha - who began as a king, and became a monk, and took endless re-births as a great Bodhisattva, and finally completed his work and fulfilled his vows - is bigger than all that.
Shinran knew it - and warned his listeners anyway. Why? For the same reason you would pull a child out of a burning building. As long as we are subject to birth and death, to ignorance and delusion, to cravings and aversions - we burn in the building of this samsaric life.
It is the kindness of a TRUE teacher to pull us out, by offering us Amida’s True Teaching, if only we will listen deeply.
NamuAmidaButsu,
Paul R.