Of Impasses and Tea
I’ve noticed, over several years, how easily other Buddhists dismiss out of hand this most simple, most precious teaching of Shakyamuni Buddha, with it’s promise of an EASY, guaranteed path to Buddhahood - the end of suffering at last.
Such easy dismissal is an easy mistake to make.
Regardless of other particularities of their journeys, those who make it (the one’s I’ve talked to) have this in common: invariably, their easy dismissal is based on ignorance - to talk plainly.
Why do I say that? Because, I find (when I ask them) that they haven’t actually read the Sutras of Shakyamuni Buddha that are foundational to SHIN UGLY. If they have (which is rare enough) they haven’t actually pondered over the writing of the three primary teachers (Honen, Shinran and Rennyo) who unpack the full and final meaning of those Sutras for plain people in an age of Dharma Decline.
That’s why - talking plainly - I have to say honestly that whatever critique I’ve heard offered as reason for their dismissal is based on superficial misunderstanding, hearsay and (even worse) innuendo heard from others speaking from the bottom of the same well of ignorance.
Once all that is unconsciously absorbed into their world view - both Shakyamuni and Shinran can be EASILY dismissed as they return to their various and sundry practices on the path of the Sages - all the while shaking their head at this path of the Foolish - this foolish false kind of Buddhism which promises Buddhahood, while it has no Buddhist practices at all!
It’s a textbook example, actually of what Shakyamuni Buddha taught: that it is our reflexive and mostly unconscious conditioning - our cravings and aversions - our blind passion - which sets up and sustains this of endarkenment, over and over again.
It is precisely this blind passion that makes people both grasp at easy dismissal and loathe to pursue an honest intellectual inquiry - to discover exactly what Shinran taught - and context in which he taught in.
Of course, if we can avoid an honest intellectual encounter with Shakyamui and Shinran, we can avoid completely the challenge to connect the dots back to our own lives, and discover whether we in fact are in the same existential predicament he found himself in.
Like I say, it’s an easy, though presumptuous mistake to make - especially when we consider that the foundational understanding of SHIN UGLY is that we’re all ruled, in one way or another by blind passion, in this age of Dharma Decline.
I would have made the same mistake myself - for the same reasons others have done - as I have observed them.
What saved me (literally) from the same mistake was the particulars of my circumstance at that time: I found Shinran - and Shin Ugly, his plain talk for plain people about the end of suffering at last - at a time when I had already discovered my aspiration to Buddhahood, but had reached a crisis which had brought me to an impasse.
In that difficult place I just couldn’t “do” anything to quiet my unquiet mind. No amount of sitting, breathing, chanting (or whatever) “worked”. I couldn’t recapture the numinous “view” I had experienced so many times.
By that time in my life I wasn’t burdened (any more) with the baggage of self-loathing or low self-esteem. I knew that my fundamental nature was Buddha.
But in the midst of that knowledge, my honest self-appraisal was that I simply lacked capacity - that I simply couldn’t reach the goal of ANY and ALL of the many Buddhist paths - to deconstruct my delusions and obscurations - to cut away my cravings and aversions - or to rise above my own blind passion at last.
That goal (I keep repeating, because that’s what Shakyamuni Buddha repeated and asserted always and ever) - is the END of suffering - NIRVANA (which means cessation) - a state of total equanimity - of total wisdom - of total compassion - where cravings and aversions no longer arise - where blind passion no longer rules.
Enlightenment - rather than endarkenment.
I realized I couldn’t reach that goal - I couldn’t even come close - by my own efforts.
That realization led me open my ears - and my heart - to this fellow Shinran - another man who had reached an impasse - who couldn’t attain to the enlightment he also aspired to - who called himself - finally - “the bald headed fool who is (nonetheless) a disciple of Shakyamuni”.
And thus one fool began listening - and listening deeply - to another, across many years and many miles and - most of all - across the great divide of two very different cultures.
For whatever reason, Shinran’s voice came across all that distance -in space, time and culture - ,loud and clear. I heard it - and his message of SHIN UGLY - as clear as if I was sitting right beside him.
My impasse had made me ready to listen - to drop my quick reflexive critique - my prior understanding of what Buddhism is and is not - my cravings about doing it myself and my aversions about allowing some Buddha I had never even heard of named Amida to do it ALL for me, instead.
In short, my impasse led me ( finally) to listen deeply.
It led me to empty my cup, so foolish bald-headed Shinran could sit with me, and pour me some tea, and teach me what he had learned.
A man went to a teacher to inquire about his way. Smiling, the teacher offered the man some tea as they sat together.
As the water heated up in the pot, the man too became more heated as he talked and talked about his own understanding of the teacher’s domain of expertise.
He talked some more while the teacher prepared the tea.
Finally the teacher set two cups on the table, and began to pour his visitor some tea.
When the cup was full the teacher kept on pouring, so that the cup overflowed.
“Stop!”, said the man, with some alarm. “The cup cannot hold any more. It’s already full.”
Putting the pot down, the teacher replied, “And so is your head. Already all filled up with opinions born of ignorance, how can I teach you anything of what I have come to learn? “