Freedom In SHINJIN - Part I
My dharma friend Jason writes:
I believe that what I’m about to say is from Shinran, but please correct me if I’m wrong.
Is it right to say that, after the one thought-moment of shinjin has been given, Amida has transformed all our past, present and future karma from the karma of samsaric rebirth into the karma for birth in the Pure Land?
===
That, dharma friend, is the very heart of the True Teaching of Shinran Shonin, as I have been made to understand by Amida Buddha.
This is what Professor Eiken Kobai points to continually, as Buddha’s salvation in the present.
This is what is unique and final about Shinran’s dharma - the only dharma that provides plain people - people with no ability to self-cultivate to the point of non-retrogression - with a GUARANTEE of Buddhahood.
Let’s listen as Shinran speaks, in his “Hymns of the Pure Land Masters”.
The ocean of birth-and-death, of painful existence, has no bound;
Only by the ship of Amida’s universal Vow
Can we, who have long been drowning,
UNFAILINGLY be brought across it…The unhindered light filling the ten quarters
Shines on the beings in the darkness of ignorance
And UNFAILINGLY brings to attainment of nirvana
The person who realizes the one thought-moment of joy….
And look HERE, to hear Rennyo the Restorer articulate the same thing: Buddhahood Without FAIL.
===
Dharma friend: If this is indeed the case, doesn’t this mean that, for the first time in our karmic histories, we are free? (Not free in the sense of having no more karmic debts to pay–we remain foolish beings–but free in the sense of…
And this is where I need you to finish this sentence.
===
Shinran teaches, over and over, that the freedom of SHINJIN is freedom from the CONSEQUENCES of our karmic action.
Our karmic actions - fueled by the blind passions of our cravings and aversions - have led us, each and all, to life after life of suffering.
You can listen to Shakyamuni Buddha talk about that directly and powerfully HERE.
All that any of us could do, prior to the revelation of Amida’s primal vow, was attempt to perform acts of virtue to add to our karmic bank account - and do various meditative and non-meditative practices in order to quiet our mind. That was “Plan A” for ending our suffering - the 84,000 paths of the sages, and the 95 non-Buddhist paths as well.
In this age of dharma decline, “Plan A” fails us entirely. Because of that, we are doomed to experience both the creation of karmic debt because of our blind passions - and the consequences of that debt: re-birth into yet ANOTHER life as suffering beings plagued with delusions and ignorance.
Amida Buddha - and ALL the Buddhas - see our hopeless plight. Out of boundless compassion and infinite wisdom, Amida Buddha has provided an intervention - a “Plan B”.
In “Plan B”, the consequences of our karmic debt are overridden by the intention and intervention of Amida Buddha, as we listen to his dharma and respond to his call. This is the power of Amida’s Primal Vow, the freedom of SHINJIN - freedom from the consequences that would otherwise be inevitable.
===
If this is so, then there is an OBVIOUS question that smacks me (at least) like a pie in the face:
How come countless Buddhists simply don’t come RUSHING into Amida Buddha’s arms?
Of course I can’t answer the question definitively. But I can give a tentative answer or two, based on reflection of my own life, and the lives of others as well.
The first answer I can give is this: it can take a long time - a time measured in years, decades or even lifetimes - for a transmigrating being to come to the point of EXHAUSTION.
By exhaustion I mean the unique kind of metaphysical experience where one has tried and tried and tried - and after all that trying finds he or she has simply FAILED to make genuine progress.
I was speaking last night to one of my dearest friends. She is very serious about her path work. But now she finds herself in an unbearable situation involving that which is more precious to her than her own life. The physical and psychological safety of her daughter is being compromised by a horrific beaurucracy - a truly Kafka-esque nightmare
This experience has exhausted her spiritually. All her path work, over many years, seems like a joke. Her own blind passions - her fear and anger - are BOILING within her.
My heart aches for my friend and for her daughter. It aches both for her situation, and for her total exhaustion - her inability to deal with her terrible troubles in any kind of “spiritual” way.
What triggers that sense of spiritual exhaustion varies from person to person, from life to life. Regardless of the particular circumstance, it is the profound moment of crisis that is the necessary pre-requisite to giving up ALL control of the process and outcome of our enlightenment to Amida Buddha.
Only then will we entrust Amida Buddha entirely BOTH with the work of spiritual progress and AND the ultimate attainment of our highest spiritual goal - the goal that Shakyamuni Buddha calls NIRVANA - or Buddhahood - the end of suffering at last.
If you talk to people who “practice” Buddhism of one sort or another, this is the one thing you will NEVER hear. Whether directed by a teacher or not, they are each and all putting their faith in their own praxis, their own self-power, their own effort.
Why do they do that?
- Because they still BELIEVE that some kind of praxis (whether directed by a teacher or not) will work for them. In other words, they haven’t YET reached the point of spiritual exhaustion…
- And, they DON’T YET BELIEVE that any Buddha would do for them what Amida Buddha has plainly said he will do for ALL.
Why don’t they believe that Amida Buddha will save them completely and entirely yet?
- Because they’ve never been exposed to the final teaching of Shakyamuni in the Larger Pure Land Sutra.
- Or, if they have been exposed to Shakyamuni’s final teaching, they have a deficient understanding of it.
Why do they have a deficient understanding? Because they never engaged in listening deeply to a True Teacher of the True Pure Land Path.
Who is a True Teacher of the True Pure Land Path?
- Either Shinran himself,
- Or someone who can explain what Shinran says accurately because he or she is a person of the same SHINJIN - the same True Entrusting.
That’s why Rennyo - a True Teacher - declares that listening to the dharma from a True Teacher is one of the CRITICAL factors to attaining the birth OF Shinjin - and the freedom IN Shinjin.
You can read what Rennyo says HERE.
This is why the accurate transmission of Shinran’s teaching is SO critical. As Rennyo says in that letter to which I just linked,
If conditions materialize where there is a culmination of related past conditions and circumstances without the meeting of a “Good Teacher of the Dharma,” rebirth will not be realized.
Can you UNDERSTAND why Shinran and Rennyo are so passionate about accurate transmission of their content? Can you FEEL the weight of their concern?
“Rebirth will not be realized”.
In other words, karmic destinies of countless beings are at stake here.
I’ll write more about Freedom In Shinjin in the another blog post. (The link is HERE).
Thanks to my dharma friend for provoking the dialogue.
NamuAmidaButsu.
Paul R.