Plain Talking With Will
Paul, I wanted to encourage you about this blog. The way you have put the teaching into “plain talk” is amazing.
I wholeheartedly agree with you. It is sometimes very hard for westerners (such as me) to understand the Teachings of Buddha, given our standard “westernized” upbringing.
I find this “Shin Ugly” blog a priceless resourse. Thank you.
Will - newbie Buddhist
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Thanks Will, for your kind words.
I’m doing this blog exactly for the reasons you mention. I know how difficult it was for me to come to a clear understanding of Shinran’s simple teaching for plain people - an understanding that could lead me to SHINJIN - TRUE ENTRUSTING.
My thought is this: if such “plain talk” leads even one person to embrace Amida and His Primal vow - that one life is changed forever - that one person will not endure endless lifetimes of suffering any more - that one person will attain True Buddhahood at the end of this life.
Like the Mastercard commercial says - only for real in this case: PRICELESS.
That’s what happened for my beloved Jessie - for which I am grateful beyond any words I could say. Blind passion could not, in the end, hold her down nor determine her fate - because she was truly grasped, never to be abandoned by Amida - greatest of all the Buddhas. You can read her story here.
Why was she so grasped? Because, in accordance with SHIN UGLY - Shinran’s plain teaching - she had one thought-moment of taking refuge in Amida and His Primal Vow to save all beings who would listen deeply - and simply entrust themselves.
That thought-moment put her in the “rightly established group”, just as Shinran explained.
Since we have been given this Vow by the Tathagata (the Buddha), we can take any occasion in daily life for saying the Name (Namu Amida Butsu) and need not wait to recite it at the very end of life.
We should simply give ourselves up totally to the entrusting with sincere mind of the Tathagata.
When persons realize this true and real shinjin, they enter completely into the compassionate light that grasps, never to abandon, and hence become established in the stage of the truly settled. (link here)
And so I join you, Will, along with countless others, in laying aside everything else - and simply entrusting myself to Amida’s work. Along with you, I say with simple gratitude: “Namu Amida Butsu” - “I take refuge in Amida Buddha”.
My best to you. We’ll meet soon enough in Amida’s Pure Land, if not before.
Paul