The Mark of a True Teacher

Anyone who follows this blog - and there are readers from around the globe - knows that I have only one purpose in writing it: to present the teaching (Dharma) of Shakyamuni Buddha and Shinran Shonin in clear and simple language that anyone can understand.

For any readers who have little or no Buddhist understanding, the Dharma is one leg of the three legged stool that Buddhists call “The Three Jewels”…or “the Triple Gem”: Buddha, Sangha, Dharma:

  • BUDDHA - The state of full enlightenment, being completely awakened. In our recorded history there is one and only one person who has been the Buddha of this World: the man born as the Prince Gotama, who became the one we know as THE Buddha - THE Awakened One.

    There are other Buddhas - literally millions of them - outside of our view; just as there are many sounds outside of our range of hearing, and many wavelengths of light outside of our range of seeing. But in the realm of recorded history, Shakyamuni Buddha is the one who has lived among us, sheathed for some 45 years in human flesh.

  • SANGHA - The community of those who seek to listen to the teachings of the Buddha in order to obtain full and final release from suffering. No one can make you (or me) a member of the sangha - and no one can take our membership away.
  • DHARMA - The sum of all the teachings given by the Buddha, preserved in over 100,000 primary documents, or Sutras. The teachings were all given to help people of different types, with different karmic backgrounds take SOME steps towards full awakening - Buddhahood.

Ultimately, the Triple Gem all boils down to one utterly simple idea - which I heard expressed by Professor Eiken Kobai with precision and clarity:

The purpose of the SANGHA is to teach the DHARMA that can enable each one of us to become a BUDDHA.

In this age - where the Dharma has declined in power - and the historical Shakyamuni is a figure who has receded into the distant past - NONE of the Dharma teachings of the various Buddhist schools can take us all the way to Buddhahood.

Except for one.

That one is the Dharma that has been given to a man of Medieval Japan - who we know as Shinran Shonin…Shonin being an honorific title.

Shinran never started his own Dharma school, but did his best to transmit the teaching of his immediate teacher, Honen.

Two hundred years later, after Shinran’s teaching had gotten buried in the rubble of other people’s personal ideas and opinions, a man named Rennyo returned to Shinran’s teaching - and revived the Sangha.

That is the basis for what I call “The Shinran Manifesto”, which says - simply enough: RETURN TO THE TRUE TEACHING OF SHINRAN - OUR TRUE TEACHER.

Why is this the most CRITICAL thing in the world? Because ONLY Shinran’s True Teaching can help you, or me or ANYONE to complete his or her journey of endless lives - and endless suffering in endless ignorance and delusion - and become a Buddha at last.

NOTHING is more important.

NOTHING.

That is why I write, over and over again, that Shin Buddhists and sincere inquirers need to examine carefully what the Shin Buddhist scholars and clerics are teaching.

Shin Buddhists and sincere inquires need to ask ALWAYS whether or not these teachings line up truly with the Plumbline of Shinran’s True Teaching - Shakyamuni’s final Teaching for this Age of Dharma Decline.

If you have nowhere else to ask, you can ask here, on the Shin Ugly blog. At this point, I’m in touch with some of the best Shin Buddhist teachers in the world. I’ll make sure you get an honest and accurate answer.

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I want to share a brief note I got from a True Teacher of Shinran’s True Teaching.

How do I know he is a True Teacher? In two ways:

  • First, when I read his teaching, it all lines up with what Shinran teaches. I don’t walk away confused, wondering why Shinran says ABC, but this teacher seems to be saying XYZ.
  • Second…because of his fundamental attitude, which you will hear in his email.

Check it out:

Dear Paul,

I’m really glad to know that you find much of what I write to be helpful.

I also hope you will tell me if I am wrong, should you ever feel you need to because I am obviously bombu (a non-Buddha, subject to delusions) and make mistakes.

I need to listen to the Dharma, as much as anyone else.

However, since Shinran’s teaching is everything to me, it is always wonderful when other people find ‘the way out of samsara’ through his wonderful teaching, which I try my hardest to present as it is.

Kind regards

In gassho

George

That’s Rev. George Gatenby, owner of Notes on the Nembutsu.

I’m calling him “reverend” here - not for his sake, nor for mine. He doesn’t need the title, and he knows the title means less than nothing. There are - I am sad to say - lots of “reverends” out there who went to school to become Shin ministers, but teach gobbledygook in Shinran’s name, and think they are wiser Buddhists for doing so.

They are not.

But in this brief note, my Australian dharma friend George - a man I’ve never met, and wouldn’t know if I passed him in the street - SHOWS plainly and powerfully how a True Teacher of Shinran’s True Teaching thinks and feels inside:

  • He is grateful and glad to help another person hear the True Teaching clearly.
  • He is conscious of being a bombu - a foolish and deluded being who could inadvertantly distort Shinran’s teaching - and bring harm to the Sangha by doing so.
  • He humbly asks me, a much less experienced student of the True Teaching, to “watch his back”. Why? Because he doesn’t want to tinker with with the ONLY dharma that can end our suffering at last by “improving it” with his own personal opinions.
  • Shinran’s teaching is EVERYTHING to him - precisedly because he has been made to know by Amida Buddha that THIS is the only dharma gate available to end suffering at last for BONBU in this Age of Dharma Decline.

    Said another way, he frankly and joyfully admits that when it comes to the topic of liberation from suffering, he is only a custodian of what has been given to our common teacher Shinran. He knows that his ideas are worth NOTHING, and Shinran’s ideas are worth EVERYTHING.

  • As a true steward of this teaching, he tries his HARDEST to present Shinran’s Teaching AS IT IS.

THAT is what I look for personally: someone, who by word and deed - lives out the Shinran Manifesto in his own contribution to the life of the Sangha.

THAT is the spirit of a True Teacher.

THAT is the thought and feeling, the mind and heart, of an honest steward of Shinran’s dharma.

THAT is the spirit of Rennyo the Restorer.

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How about YOU? What is YOUR purpose for gathering under the banner of Shin Buddhism?

How about your teachers, in your temple, or your university, or in any other Shin Buddhist gatherings - online or offline?

  • Are they primarily concerned with numbers? With doing whatever it takes to to be popular?
  • Are they caught up in attempts to propagate the “thought of the day” - whether it be “panentheism”, “process theology”, “mythos”, or whatever?
  • Are they willing to feel the sangha watered-down gruel, diluting and adulterating Shinran’s True Teaching to the point where it is nothing more than a tepid bowl of metaphysical mush?

What’s YOUR purpose? And if you attend a gathering where someone else serves as the teacher, what’s HIS?

Is he the sweetest, wisest and most mature Buddhist you’ve ever met? That’s nice, but it won’t end his suffering, nor yours.

Is he entirely committed to saving the whales, the glaciers, the ozone layer or the entire planet? That noble, but it won’t end his suffering, nor yours.

Is he an 18th generation Shin cleric - or even the head of one of the ten branches of the Shin Sangha? That quite impressive, but it won’t end his suffering, nor yours.

But - if he has come to entrust his salvation entirely to Amida Buddha, he will find NIRVANA - an end to his suffering at last after this life is over.

So Shiran teaches.

And if he is willing to share that teaching with you, AND you are willing to listen deeply, you will find an end to your suffering, too.

So - that is the one piercing question: Is your teacher’s purpose the same as George’s? Is his purpose to teach Shinran’s True Teaching, the one and only DHARMA that can lead a SANGHA full of deluded and suffering beings to each and all become BUDDHA?

Please don’t try to tell me he “lives the Nembutsu”…but doesn’t like to teach it, or say it for himself (as one Shin Buddhist teacher actually says).

Shinran never said he LIVED the teaching. He said, over and over, that he couldn’t live ANY dharma teaching - that he was full of blind passion - that hell was his only home. THAT is why he simply trusted his salvation to Amida Buddha and TAUGHT the teaching - for 60 years.

And he expressed his entrusting with the SAYING of Nembutsu…the True Nembutsu of simple gratitude.

True NamuAmidaButsu emanating from Amida’s work, not from mine: I take refuge, completely simply, and sincerely - in the Person and Work of Amida Buddha.

And so has Eiken Kobai done - for decades. Not Kobai’s ideas - but SHINRAN’S.

And so has George Gatenby done as well. Not Gatenby’s ideas, but SHINRAN’S.

Because I’m no Japanese scholar, I can’t tell you a lot of neat Japanese language factoids.

Because I’m no Ph.D. in Buddhism, I can’t give you scholarly explanation of many Buddhist ideas - even simple ones.

Because I’m not a Ph.D. in Oriental History, I can’t tell you all that much about the Shin Sangha over the last 800 years - or the entire Sangha over the last 2500.

But I can tell you the SIMPLE dharma that Shinran taught SIMPLE people. I can do my best, just like George Gatenby does, and Eiken Kobai does - to make it clear, and to distinguish it from other teaching that is not Shinran’s dharma.

And if you are ready for liberation - to make this your life life of suffering, of sorrow, of delusion - then all you need to do is listen.

Just listen.

Listen deeply to the Dharma.

Not my dharma…but Shinran’s dharma.

Like George, this is my ONLY purpose in writing to any who want to read.

Like George, I admit that I am frail and faillible, and therefore susceptible to screwing up Shinran’s True Teaching.

Like George, I want others who are committed to Shinran’s True Teaching to “watch my back”, so I don’t adulterate it with my own foolish ideas.

Like George, I am more than willing to be wrong - and admit it - so that Shakyamuni and Shinran can be RIGHT.

Why? So that my daughter, and her friends, and mine, and 8 billion people I can never know in this world can hear the same dharma I have been allowed to hear, by Amida Buddha himself.

Why? So that each and every one can have a full opportunity, in this life, to become a person of SHINJIN - True Entrusting.

Why? So that people can finally find a way of escape from the terrible wheel of birth and death to which we each and all have been strapped for endless ages.

Like George Gatenby, like Eiken Kobai, like all people of the same SHINJIN as Shinran himself, this is all I want - for you, me and all of us:

This is all I want, for all of us: salvation in the present life by being placed by Amida Buddha in his group of those who are rightly established in this life - leading to guaranteed Buddhahood in the next life to come.

NamuAmidaButsu - I bow in my heart, in gratitude, to the great Buddha Amida, who will carry me across the dark river of certain death…to the Pure Land of Infinite Light and Infinite Life.

Paul R.

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