“But I don’t want to become a Buddha!”
That’s what a Buddhist friend said to me, once - as we were dialoguing about Shinran’s teaching, and why I believe it is so important.
I thought about his comment often, for several weeks. I’m sure there are a lot of other people, Buddhists and non-Buddhists, who might say the same thing.
Why would a Buddhist make such a statement, anyway?
My guess is that my friend is VERY conscious of his egotism and his secret pride. Because of that painful self-awareness, it might seems very self-aggrandizing to say (or think), “The reason I’m a Buddhist is because I want to become a Buddha”.
Secret pride. Anyone who begins to seek awakening honestly encounters it. It’s ugly…and it’s the human condition - for all of us. It is our constant shadow.
Perhaps my friend is hoping, that by letting go of the goal of Buddhahood - or not embracing it at all - he will somehow starve his secret pride, or at least not feed its voracious appetite for ME, MY, MINE.
I’m presuming his conscious motives are good and honorable. Nonetheless, such a vision is deficient, and such a method unworkable.
As to why any method that attempts to diminish egotism - in any form - is unworkable, I will cover that in another post.
In this post, I will talk about why such a vision is deficient, for any Buddhist, of any school: The goal for Buddhists is to become a buddha (fully awakened being) - and nothing less will do.
Here’s why:
- Because only buddhas have perfect understanding. The rest of us are lost in the blindness of more delusions and ignorance than we can possibly comprehend.
- Because only buddhas are completely free of attachments. The rest of us are filled with countless cravings and aversions. Those cravings and aversions leave us eternally vulnerable to suffering - and (this is the really ugly part) liable to causing suffering for others.
- Because only buddhas always act in ways that really help others. The rest of us act in ways that are mixed at best - unable to avoid mixing our selfish agendas with any selfless agenda that we might want to support.
In short: because only buddhas remain unafflicted by delusions and ignorance, by all kinds of anguish, by lust and rage and fear - only buddhas can think and act with unstained wisdom and compassion.
That’s why the TRUTH is: becoming a buddha is the highest aspiration of the human heart.
That’s the TRUTH, even if a person doesn’t know it…yet.
That’s the TRUTH, even if a person conciously rejects “becoming a buddha” as his or her highest aspiration, for whatever reason.
It can take many years for a person to uncover the TRUTH within - to actually scrape away the barnacles that hide the beating heart of aspiration for Buddhahood that beats inside each and every one of us.
Many years…indeed, many lifetimes. So Shakyamuni Buddha and Shinran Shonin teach. So I have come to believe.
But at some point, in some lifetime, that beating heart of aspiration is heard at last.
Thump…
Thump…
Thump…
I yearn to become a Buddha…
I yearn…
I yearn…
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You don’t need to be afraid of such yearning. It doesn’t come from you. It’s not a manifestion of your cursed selfishness…nor mine.
Rather, that yearning is the gift of Amida Buddha himself. Accept it, with open arms, and the heart of a child.
It really is ok…and MORE than ok…to say “Thank you, Amida Buddha” for the gift of yearning…the gift of aspiration.
It really is ok to awaken your aspiration for buddhahood, at last.
NamuAmidaButsu -
Paul R.