Shinran Speaks: HOW He Teaches - and WHY
Shinran lived in a day when most people he encountered were “painfully and hopelessly ignorant”.
They were illiterate. They simply could not read.
They had little or no knowledge of the Dharma.
There was no one willing to take them in hand, and be a good teacher of the dharma for them.
They had been abandoned.
Listen with me to our Dharma Master Shinran, as he describes the WAY he teaches these people, and the REASON for it:
That people of the countryside, who do not know the meanings of written characters and who are painfully and hopelessly ignorant, may easily understand, I have repeated the same things over and over.
The educated will probably find this writing peculiar and may ridicule it.
But paying no heed to such criticisms, I write only that ignorant people may easily grasp the meaning.
(from Shinran’s “Notes On Essentials of Faith Alone”).
Listen deeply: Dharma Master Shinran repeats the same things, over and over again. Why does he engage in such repetition? So that people who are painfully and hopelessly ignorant may EASILY understand.
Listen deeply: Dharma Master Shinran writes for ONE reason - and one reason ONLY: Why does he write? So that ignorant people may EASILY grasp the meaning.
In our day, most people who encounter the Triple Gem of Buddha, Sangha, Dharma are not illiterate peasants. In fact, the demographic of people in the West who tend to listen to the Dharma is a “high end” demographic. People are educated - often HIGHLY educated…broadly and often DEEPLY literate.
The great difficulty in our day is not painful ignorance - but even MORE painful cleverness, knowledge and erudition. That is the GREATER barrier to listening deeply - which is the only practice in Shin Buddhism - and the only way we can become people of the same SHINJIN as Dharma Master Shinran.
Why is our knowledge such a great and terrible barrier? Because it DELUDES us into thinking we understand what we do not. Here’s what happens:
- We understand - intellectually - some Buddhist teaching or other. Maybe it’s Shin teaching - or Theravada - or Zen - or Tibetan Buddhism.
- We do some praxis, some ritual, some study or other - perhaps have some moments of relative clarity and sanity - and our understanding grows.
- We add to our intellectual arsenal the “power tools” of Western philosophical thinking - and our understanding grows.
And then - when we finally encounter the man who’s karma it is to be the Dharma Master for this Age of Dharma Decline - we simply can’t hear him CLEARLY - because of the rich stew of understanding that is bubbling in our heads.
That bubbling stew puts us at a terrible disadvantage compared to the painfully ignorant peasant who listened to the Dharma Master Shinran back in the day when he walked the earth.
And those at the worst disadvantage are the ones who study Shinran as Shin Buddhist clerics and scholars - while still grasping their own rich stew of ideas and opinions - not even RECOGNIZING it for the great and terrible barrier that it truly is.
Such is the nature of delusion and obscuration. It keeps ignorant people who think they’re not so ignorant from becoming people of the same SHINJIN as Shinran himself. It leaves people in the hands of the Maras - the deceivers that Shinran writes of so eloquently - and so pointedly - in the KyoGyoShinShu, which means “The True Teaching, Practice and Realization of the Pure Land Way”.
Dharma Master Shinran writes to us about this challenge of being so deeply deluded by the rich intellectual stew we are all so deeply immersed in:
Grounding myself in the right and true intent of the teaching and exploring the explanations made and transmitted by the venerable masters of the past, I will here set forth the true and provisional in relation to the Path of Sages and the Pure Land way, and caution people against non-buddhist teachings based on opinions that are wrong, false, and misleading.
In the same passage, Dharma Master Shinran goes on to quote the Nirvana Sutra, to make this point totally clear:
The Nirvana Sutra states:
Good people, true reality is called the great vehicle; that which is not the great vehicle cannot be called true reality.
Good people, true reality is what the Buddha teaches. It is not what is taught by maras.
What maras teach is not the Buddha’s teaching and hence cannot be called true reality.
Good people, true reality is the single way, pure and undefiled; there is no other way.
That is why we are at such a profound disadvantage compared to the painfully ignorant peasants Shinran so often spoke to in the flesh. We have spent our lifetimes being exposed to and absorbing all the many and various nonbuddhist teachings taught by Maras - or demonic beings in more modern terms. These teachings, absorbed indiscriminately and mostly below the level of our own awareness, imprison our minds - creating a matrix of perception through which we see and evaluate everything.
So when finally, because of our karma ripening, we are actually brought to a profound moment when we finally hear:
- about Dharma Master Shinran
- about his wonderful teaching
- about the Bodhisattava Dharmakara who became the great Buddha Amida after countless ages of perfect practice
- about the ineffable Pure Land he created for our final realization of Buddhahood
- and about his inconceivable Primal Vow
what do we NATURALLY do?
We filter Shinran’s plain talk for plain people through our dense and fancy matrix of nonbuddhist thought and buddhist teaching from The Path of the Sages.
And the people who do this the MOST are those Shin Buddhist clerics and scholars who have not become people of the same SHINJIN as Shinran - or have abandoned Shinran (as many did even in his day, including his own son Zenran) to pursue other teaching.
This is all deception - the work, Shinran tells us - of Maras - of deceiving demons that we cannot see, because we simply lack Buddha eyes.
When people pursue these non-buddhist teachings, or insist that Shinran’s and Shakyamuni’s plain talk for plain people has some sort of “secret meaning”, or assert that it is foolish to take Shinran’s words literally, they are being led by Maras into delusion and obscuration. And when they have positions of influence in the Shin Sangha - their delusions become the delusions of the plain people who follow them.
This is a terrible tragedy - with profound karmic consequences.
The matrix of delusion they embrace keeps them from listening deeply to Shinran and Shakyamuni - and keeps their listeners from listening deeply as well.
That is why Rennyo says that even if a person’s karma has ripened to the place where, after countless ages, they FINALLY hear something of Dharma Master Shinran’s teaching, rebirth will not take place without a good teacher.
This is not to elevate - even a little bit - the person who teaches. In this age of dharma decline, all of us are BONBUS - foolish beings of blind passion. Rather, it is to emphasize, and repeat, and repeat again the critical task of making the plain MEANING of the TRUE teaching absolutely and unequivocally CLEAR. It is to emphasize, and repeat, by explaining over and over again - exactly what the true teaching IS - and what it is NOT.
This is how people get to LISTEN DEEPLY - and finally entrust themselves ENTIRELY to Amida Buddha - abandoning AT LAST the rich stew of non-buddhist teachings, Path of the Sages teachings, and post-modernist mis-interpretations served up by countless Maras. All these further deceive people already lost in delusion and obscuration as we all are, convincing them to ever more firmly GRASP onto their own personal views.
That is why Yuien said, in the Tannisho (Lamenting Divergences), “Let there be NO divergences [in teaching] based on personal views”.
In my last post, How To Listen Like Shinran - And How NOT To, I went into great detail - showing by example the difference between the was Dharma Masters Honen, Shinran and Rennyo listened with the way so many modern Shin Buddhist clerics and scholars listen today.
I didn’t do so out of any sense of any moral superiority. The idea of moral superiority is absurd for anyone who has heard Shinran clearly. Not a one of us has a heart that is true and real this side of Buddhahood.
I did it only so that the difference is plain - so that YOU can make a clear choice about how YOU will listen - unimpeded by the delusions and obscurations that are obscuring those clerics and teachers whose ideas and opinions are so tragically divergent.
One day they too will abandon their own self-powered opinions, and find their way back to listening deeply, just as Honen did, just as Shinran did, just as Yuien did, just as Rennyo did. How do I know? Because Amida Buddha’s compassionate Vow embraces us ALL. He bears with us through countless births, until we are ready to come with open hearts, open minds and empty hands…and listen simply with all of our being.
But in THIS day, as YOU listen and as I listen - it is critical for US to leave behind teaching that is false, divergent, and given to men and woman by Maras - deceiving spirits who we cannot even see - and to cleave to the teaching that is True and Real - and will lead us in THIS life to the same SHINJIN as our True Teacher SHINRAN.
And that is what ANY good teacher of Shinran’s dharma will teach - whether cleric, scholar or layperson - because he or she is first of all a good student of Shinran’s dharma - and not someone else’s dharma.
In Shinran’s time and place, the great divergent teachings which Mara had laid into many minds came from Taoism and Confucianism. And so that became Shinran’s focus as he talked about Mara’s work in spreading false teaching that could not bring people to the end of suffering.
In our day, the great divergent teachings which Mara had laid into many minds come from our best universities.
For both the Taoist sage, and the Western scholar - the challenge is the same. It is the challenge of ABANDONING the egoic self-image sustained by wisdom acquired over a lifetime.
This long, slow journey to simple ignorance that let’s us listen deeply is so very difficult. That’s why Dharma Master Shinran calls accepting his teaching as a simple ignorant person “the most difficult of all difficulties”.
And so - to repeat myself even as Shinran repeats himself, and Yuien repeats himself and Rennyo repeats himself and Eiken Kobai repeats himself and George Gatenby repeats himself too - I will give yet ANOTHER example to illustrate the TRUE teaching, and compare and contrast it with FALSE and DIVERGENT teaching.
In his Notes on Essentials of Faith Alone, Shinran writes:
That Buddha, in the causal stage, made the universal Vow:
When beings hear my Name and think on me, I will come to welcome each of them,
Not discriminating at all between the poor and the rich and wellborn,
Not discriminating between the inferior and the highly gifted,
Not choosing the learned and those upholding pure precepts,
Nor rejecting those who break precepts and whose evil karma is profound.
Solely making beings turn about and abundantly say the nembutsu,
I can make bits of rubble change into gold.
And then the Dharma Master - NOT some deluded modernist Buddhist teacher - however sincere - explains what it all means. He BEGINS his explanation by declaring that Shakyamuni’s teaching about Dharmakara is both TRUE and REAL. And he goes line by line, as if talking to children. Why? Because (as he says in the end of his NOTES), he wants plain people to grasp the plain meaning EASILY.
Let’s listen DEEPLY together - understanding Shinran’s INTENTION - so we too may grasp the meaning with those plain people - as true students of Shinran, our True Teacher:
“That Buddha, in the causal stage, made the universal Vow”. That Buddha refers to Amida Buddha.
“In the causal stage” indicates the time when Amida Buddha was Bodhisattva Dharmakara.
“Universal” means wide, to spread. Bhiksu Dharmakara established the supreme, unexcelled Vow and spread it widely.
Dharmakara, the king who became a monk, who took birth over and over again as a great Bodhisattva - is NOT a myth, NOT a symbol, NOT fictive in ANY sense. He was a PERSON who made a universal Vow at some point in space and time. He established it, and he spread it widely.
If you think otherwise, you are in the grip of Mara’s delusion.
Amida Buddha, who was once the Bodhisattva Dharmakara - is NOT a myth, NOT a symbol, NOT fictive in ANY sense. He is a Buddha of reward body…one of countless Buddhas, even as Shakyamuni is one of countless Buddhas.
If you think otherwise, you are in the grip of Mara’s delusion.
If you yearn for birth…if you yearn for Buddhahood…if you yearn to end your suffering at last - then you must abandon at last the stronghold of your egotism - your rich stew of self-powered personal opinions - and listen as a simple peasant would listen.
This is what it means to listen deeply. It means listening with ALL of your being - with your head and your heart - with your left-brain and your right-brain - to both the PLAIN MEANING of the words and the deep feeling which arises as you understand them - understanding that EVERYTHING that Dharmakara did, and everything that Amida Buddha does - was and is done for YOU, for ME, for US.
To listen deeply - in just this way - is to listen like Shinran once listened to HIS dharma master Honen.
To listen deeply - in just this way - is to take the same long, slow journey to simple ignorance that the brilliant and educated Honen took - and that Shinran took as well.
All the maras will do everything they can - including sending you over to amazon.com - to keep you from taking that long, slow journey to simple ignorance. They will offer you the most beautiful concepts, and lofty words, and sublime discussions - if only you will choose NOT to listen as our Dharma Master Shinran instructs us to.
I’m writing this to YOU - repeating myself again and again - only to pull back the curtain like little Toto did in the Wizard of Oz - so you can see Mara’s game CLEARLY for what it is. When you do, you will abandon, at last, anything and everything else:
- all other teaching and ALL other teachers
- all of the 84,000 Paths of the Sages within self-powered Buddhism
- all of the 95 non-Buddhist paths
- all other Buddhas and Bodhisattvas
- all spirits
- all angels
- all gurus
- all inner and outer guides
- and all Shin Buddhist teachers who teach something DIFFERENT than Shinran teaches.
Amida Buddha - full of infinite compassion, infinite pity - is waiting. He is waiting for you to let go of everything after endless ages - and accept entirely and uncritically his path for YOU. It is the path - the ONLY path as Dharma Master Shinran says - to full and final freedom, to the end of suffering, to Buddhahood at last.
- Let go…and let Amida carry you.
- Let go…and let Amida embrace you.
- Let go…and let Amida instruct you.
Just let go…after endless births, endless lives, endless delusions, endless suffering, endless deaths.
Just let go…and NamAmidaButsu will carry you home at last.
NamuAmidaButsu
NamuAmidaButsu
NamuAmidaButsu
I take refuge - with gratitude - with joy - in the true salvation of Amida Buddha.
What else can I do? What else can ANY of us do, when everything else - especially our hyper-educated feverish brains - fails us in this, the Age of Dharma Decline?