Study Group October 2026 Session

On October 18 we had our eighth session of discussing “Notes on the Inscriptions on Sacred Scrolls” (Songō shinzō meimon) from the bottom section of CWS 504 to 505 where Shinran explains the Shandao quote.

 

Before we got into the material, I said that at the luncheon for the Berkeley Higashi temple’s 100^th anniversary, I talked with a Nishi Honganji minister and told him about our study group, saying we spend a lot of time critiquing the CWS translation. He was rather appalled that we would challenge the official translation when none of us who regularly attend are native speakers of Japanese. “Your interpretation is just what you think,” he said, implying that only the official translators are knowledgeable enough to convey what Shinran is saying.

 

But I have to say I would never have been interested in Jodo Shinshu based on the translations put out by Nishi Honganji. Hearing Shinran’s teachings through Rev. Saito and Dr. Haneda brought out meanings that reverberated deeply with me, and then when I studied at Otani University, I had teachers and fellow students to help me read the texts in Japanese and classical Chinese and hear insights that I wouldn’t have received from the Nishi translations alone. I believe we each have to trust our hearts in considering which English translations capture what we hear Shinran saying directly to us.

 

In this section where Shinran explains the short quote of Shandao’s, there is lot there which we had to help each other unpack, since the English translation was misleading.

 

Here we are reminded as Dr. Haneda and other teachers say, “Namu” is a command from Life itself saying, “Come to the truth!” It’s not “I take refuge” as is commonly translated, as a statement of one’s agency, one’s own decision to put their faith in Amida. Kimyō is Life (-myō) saying “return (ki-) to me!”

 

We discussed the metaphorical meaning of “birth in the Pure Land.” I referenced how Rev. Ron Kobata would quote theologian Howard Thurman in “coming alive” which I used in my translation of the ekō-mon at the Buddhist Catholic Dialogue in Rome in 2015. As Shinran explains at the end of this section, that “birth” is the beginning of our new life liberated from the grinding cogs of our calculating mind.

 

Here we hear Shinran explaining Namu Amida Butsu as an expression of awakening to truth, to life as it really is, free of our constricting delusions. There is no sense of saying “thank you for reserving a spot for me in the afterlife Good Place.”

 

[Brandon Shimoda in the October 12 Zoom meeting]

This month I want to highlight poet Brandon Shimoda. I started reading his Substack “Vanishing Clarity” and his posts had me reeling in how he relates Japanese American history to the current genocide in Palestine. Although I heard some leaders in Tsuru For Solidarity want to avoid the issue as “divisive” and some people in the Japanese American Citizens League and other organizations say, “Why should we alienate Jewish people when they helped us with redress?” Shimoda makes the case that we as the descendants of our incarcerated ancestors should feel solidarity with the Palestinians and see Israel as part of the imperialist powers that continue to dehumanize people with non-European heritages. He organized a Zoom meeting to promote the book A Chronicle of Our Land (available from communitiesofmemory.com) and raise funds for people struggling in Palestine. He along with Christian ministers Rev. Michael Yoshii in the Bay Area and Rev. Kenji Kuramitsu in Chicago are great examples of those who are living the life of “coming alive” (ō-jō), connecting to Life and responding to the suffering of others.

 

Study Group September 2026 Session

 

On September 13 we had our seventh session of discussing “Notes on the Inscriptions on Sacred Scrolls” (Songō shinzō meimon). We looked at the top section of CWS 504 where Shinran quotes Chinese monk Chih-yung praising Shandao. This is how Shinran shows the importance of Shandao by showing he was praised in his country.

 

Chih-yung comes out and says, “Shandao is an incarnation of Amida Buddha.” It is common to see great teachers described as being an incarnation of this or that bodhisattva, but Chih-yung goes to the ultimate. I said to imagine that you’re Amida Buddha looking at the development of Buddhism in China and seeing things were getting too elitist with teachers claiming you had to be advanced in meditation like them. You would want to go down and fix that situation by becoming Shandao and setting things straight – to remind people that Buddhism shows the path of enlightenment is open to all, regardless of abilities and skills (and who your father is). In chanting Shoshinge, the break comes with Zendo dokumyo bussho-i “Shandao alone clarified the Buddha’s intention,” meaning he had to be the one to burst through the gatekeeping that distorted the true teachings of Buddhism.

 

As Shinran comments on each phrase of the quote, he is making the point that Namu Amida Butsu is richly conveying a variety of deep expressions. It’s not just thanking the Buddha for things although throughout the propagation of Jodo Shinshu in the West, the nembutsu is said to be an expression of gratitude. Shandao points out that the nembutsu is also “to repent all the karmic evil one has committed since the beginningless past.” We confront the harmful things we did not only in our lifetime but how before we were born there were systems of oppression that we continue to benefit from and participate in.

 

But in addition to gratitude and repentance, there is awakening to the innermost aspiration and passing on virtues to all beings. Namu Amida Butsu is not a magic mantra but an expression so full of guidance and inspiration that we need to keep learning the Dharma to appreciate what is all contained in it.

 

In our discussions I have to give a lot of credit to Jim who reads the Japanese text and sees how the English translations in CWS are misleading. He pointed out that CWS in this passage and many others gives the reader the impression that “aspiration for birth in the Pure Land” means “I’m the one with the aspiration for my birth in the Pure Land.” But we should keep in mind Shinran’s reliance on the Larger Sutra – that the story of Dharmakara is showing us the true aspiration is for all beings to come alive in the realm of liberation and equality. In CWS the use of “our” going and coming to the Pure Land makes it look like we each are on our separate journeys but in true reality, we are included in the whole mass that Amida aspires to take to enlightenment. To me, it’s a shift that makes more clear the Ohigan message of going from this shore to the other shore. Shinran (and Shandao et al) are telling us to get out of our self-enhancing thinking and wake up to our actual interconnection with all lives.

 

 

Photo and caption from Ryan Lee Wong’s Substack

 

This month I’d like to highlight B.R. Ambedkar (1891-1956) because lately Buddhist activists are uplifting him as an inspiration.  I didn’t know much about Dr. Ambedkar until years ago when I was invited to speak at a gathering of the Ambedkar Association of North America. I learned a lot of history from the people there as I heard their moving stories of coming to the U.S. to escape from the discrimination against Dalits in India. I was disappointed with the movie “Origin” (based on the book “Caste”) because it portrayed Dr. Ambedkar’s fight against the caste system without mentioning his Buddhist faith.

 

On Substack, Ryan Lee Wong discusses Dr. Ambedkar’s piece “Buddha or Karl Marx” where he argues that the Buddha would agree with much of what Marx said, particularly the sharing of resources instead of having power and wealth concentrated in one class. Although many Jodo Shinshu temple members would support the status quo, I think more and more serious followers of Shinran see that our country needs to move towards socialism and away from the rampant rule of oligarchs making material conditions worse for everyone who isn’t a millionaire. But also in the way Buddhism is practiced in the West, we need to listen to teachers such as Shandao and know that the teachings are meant to be accessible to all, not just to the people who can afford to attend long retreats or show up dressed nicely for Sunday services. Each of you have to find your own way of battling inequality but at least in Namu Amida Butsu we are made to see all beings as our fellow travelers on the path, not to be discarded or dismissed.

Summer Break Thoughts: The Nature of Work

Our study group is on break for July and August 2026 but I thought I’d write a post loosely related to our studies. Although many Buddhists condemn people for doing jobs that go against Right Livelihood, it is not a position we take in Jodo Shinshu. For example, on X/Twitter a researcher I knew disagreed with my saying, “all work is defiled,” because he believed some jobs, like working for a weapons manufacturer are directly related to killing people (this was during a discussion when a widely followed transgender rights commentator was exposed as a Lockheed Martin employee). Although we may think we have a lot of free will in choosing how we make money to support ourselves, I think causes and conditions still steer us into work that we or others would think we shouldn’t be doing because of the harm it causes to some living beings. As Yuien-bo quotes Shinran in Chapter 13 of Tannisho:

 

There is no difference between people who make their living by casting nets and fishing in the seas and rivers, or who hunt birds and wild animals in the plains and mountains; and people who engage in commerce or cultivate the fields and rice paddies.

-- Translation by Nobuo Haneda, p. 14 in Strategies for Modern Living by Alfred Bloom (Berkeley: Numata Center, 1992)

 

Shinran is telling Yuien-bo this after making the point that the only thing not making Yuien-bo a murderer is his karma (cumulative causes and conditions) and not his self-powered good conscience. Shinran saw that it was nonsense to condemn working people as precept-breakers when for most of them, whether they were thieves, prostitutes, farmers or merchants, their work was not something they freely chose, but what they ended up having to do due to the circumstances of their lives.

 

Already in the time of Shakyamuni Buddha, peoples’ lives were controlled by the market economy. Way before capitalism, the elites used markets to profit from the products made by the labor of the non-elites. There have been societies where people did not have to work all day, every day in order to sustain the community – the kingdom of Hawai’i was a recent example, where before the plantations, people spent most of their time enjoying cultural activities. In societies where the great majority of people worked themselves to death were organized with a ruling class that did not have to do much labor except the occasional battle with other kingdoms. I think of those lords and ladies of ancient Japan wearing several layers of heavy robes because they seldom had to be on their feet and use their arms except for writing poetry.

 

It pains me every time I hear people lauding their parents and immigrant grandparents for being hard workers. Our ancestors’ “hard work” was not something they did to be virtuous but it was what they had to do, like everyone else who is not an elite. Getting “ahead” by hard work is a delusion – those who become rich and powerful are not that hard working, but they had connections, privilege, and training in being immoral (i.e., not caring about harming others).

 

I’ve been watching movies and thinking about how they show the nature of work in our present day. Korean movies are especially keen at pointing out the increasing economic hardships for generations now and in the near future. “Parasite” (2019) shows how the people who are struggling to survive, have to do work that supports the elites who hardly do any labor. A movie like “Burning” (2018) shows young people burdened with intergenerational debt (I suspect Japan impoverished much of Korea during its occupation), the men having to take on gig labor jobs and the women trying to stay young looking to get jobs as sexy attractions. The villain played by Steven Yeun represents the elites who live luxuriously without laboring and treat everyone, particularly women, as disposable. The recent “No Other Choice” (2025) shows how very skilled and knowledgeable people become ruthless competitors for the dwindling available jobs as artificial intelligence and technology take over the labor that humans used to do. Even the lightweight stories such as “Champion” (2018) and “Sweet and Sour” (2021) show the toll taken on ordinary people, compelled to work hard for very little compensation.

 

                                                            [from "Parasite"]

On the other hand, American movies ignore the problem of structural inequality with so many rags-to-riches stories, holding up the myth of meritocracy. We Americans only have to look at who is in charge in our government and the business world to see that these men did not get on top by any merits (such as intelligence, skills, education). One example in the movies we see of this is “Nine to Five” (1980) where the three women get enough clout to make conditions a little more tolerable for their fellow workers but the profits still go to the nincompoop who owns the company.

 

Maybe as Buddhists we should contemplate “seizing the means of production” as a way to ease the suffering of those forced to work harder and harder so a handful of billionaires can become richer. Maybe we should advocate for policies that treat food, housing and healthcare as benefits given to everyone and not just to those who “deserve” it according to the current administration’s criteria of race, gender identity, able-bodiedness, and religious affiliation. For us to talk about Great Compassion but have no vision of what it is makes the calling of Namu Amida Butsu rather empty. If we are based in hongan no butchi, the Buddha-ground of the innermost aspiration, it does not matter what the authoritarians label us.

 

Study Group June 2026 Session

 

On June 21 we had our sixth session of discussing “Notes on the Inscriptions on Sacred Scrolls” (Songō shinzō meimon). We looked at the section CWS 502-3 where Shinran comments on the inscription accompanying a portrait of Tanluan.

 

It seems all Shinran is doing is explaining what the Chinese biographer wrote about Tanluan. Those details of Tanluan’s life are familiar to those of you who regularly read and study Shoshinge. But I wondered why Shinran doesn’t go into the teachings of Tanluan in this passage but only shows Tanluan was brilliant, learned and highly respected.

 

My feeling is he has already spoken much to his audience about Tanluan. Maybe it was practically all the time that Shinran says what he’s telling them is what he learned from Tanluan’s explanation of Vasubandhu’s commentary on the Larger Sutra.

 

As I mentioned last month, at the Higashi Honganji ministers study retreat in Los Angeles, Prof. Takami Inoue spoke about Vasubandhu and Tanluan. Vasubandhu brought out the metaphorical meanings of the Larger Sutra and Tanluan continued that discussion of the Pure Land symbolizing the world of equality and liberation. Inoue-sensei defined “shinjin” as the awareness of not just being embraced by Great Compassion but experiencing our participation in bringing that compassion to the world. He showed that the message Shinran took away from Tanluan’s analysis is that all are included in the Pure Land – that there is no condition you have to meet to qualify for liberation. It was this reassurance of total inclusiveness that probably took Tanluan out of the physical and mental illness he had hoped Taoism would cure.

 

The “adornments of the Pure Land” are commonly evoked for explaining the fancy gold ornaments around the temple altar and even includes the ministers in their shiny robes. But as I learned from the minister study retreats, the Pure Land adornments described in the sutras are symbols for virtues - “wonderful spiritual qualities” as in Michael Conway’s translation. The “transference of merit” is actually our witnessing and being guided by the virtues of those before and around us. I mentioned that I’ve experienced this in temple sanghas but also in reading accounts such as the Thomas Merton book I’m reading now where he describes the various people who helped him in his somewhat wayward youth.

 

 

[Great Compassion at the Northwest Detention Center]

In these blog posts I try to highlight people with wonderful spiritual qualities, those who are doing the shinjin actions of compassion. Due to the repressive law enforcement system going after so-called “terrorists,” I decided not to name her because she’s not a public figure. I’ll call her “Daihi” for now. I first became acquainted with her online as she was working to get Japanese Americans to support the Black reparations campaign. Then I met her in person at the Liberation Obon in September 2024 at the Northwest Detention Center in Tacoma. As part of the group La Resistencia, she is constantly calling attention to the abusive conditions at that GEO Group facility. She is often part of the daily vigil there. Her activism reminds us that all these struggles are interrelated. The descendants of the enslaved and those severely discriminated against should get reparations for the loss of generational wealth and how those historical factors still put many at a disadvantage now. Those in the detention centers are going through a painful disruption in their lives caused by the same racism and hate that drove the system of slavery. Besides the many incarcerated people of Latin American heritage, there are many abducted by ICE and CBP for being outspoken about the genocide in Gaza. All of these injustices and more are what Shinran sees coming from our calculating minds of discrimination. What Shinran received from the Pure Land sutras and the analysis of Vasubandhu and Tanluan is that spiritual awakening is not only for those who meet certain criteria but it is embracing all of us. Great Compassion “Daihi” reminds us that all of us are together in the Pure Land and we must confront and try to heal any suffering caused to one another.

Study Group May 2026 Session

 

On May 17 we had our fifth session of discussing “Notes on the Inscriptions on Sacred Scrolls” (Songō shinzō meimon). We looked at the section CWS 500-502 where Shinran comments on an inscription of verses by Vasubandhu.

 

At the beginning of May I was in Los Angeles to attend the Higashi Honganji ministers’ study seminar followed the next day by a retreat for the lay members of the North America District temples. The guest speaker for both events was Rev. Takami Inoue, currently bishop of the Hawaii District, an assignment he took after retiring from Otani University. For the ministers’ seminar, he spoke about Shinran’s interpretation of Vasubandhu and Tanluan and on the handout he shared a picture of the scroll Shinran writes about in our text. It is the ten-character Name: ki-myo (Namu) jin-jip-po mu-ge ko (Amida) nyo-rai (Butsu), an alternative expression of the nembutsu that Shinran favored because it gave the literal translation of “Amida” as “unhindered light filling the ten directions.” At the top of the scroll is a passage from the Larger Sutra and on the bottom are the verses he comments on in our text. He also had those same verses inscribed on a scroll with his portrait.

 

The framing I wanted to present is that Shinran wanted the followers in the eastern Japan region to know that the Pure Land sutras are interpreted as metaphors for living our lives in the present, not a literal description of a magical world one enters after death. Vasubandhu represents this tradition of interpreting the sutras in this way and Tanluan further developed his presentation. So I mentioned that at the International Association of Shin Buddhist Studies, I heard that the monks from Taiwan agreed with a lot of what Shinran said because they, too, studied Vasubandhu and Tanluan. But they said they couldn’t present that interpretation to their members because those people expect to only hear about the heavenly Pure Land of the afterlife.

 

Shinran probably saw that within Honen’s growing following, there were some people fixating on the literal descriptions of the Pure Land rather than listening to Honen speaking of the metaphorical meaning. Shinran definitely did not want the growing sanghas in eastern Japan to get stuck there, so he wanted them to learn from Vasubandhu and Tanluan. But even now in Jodo Shinshu temples, people only know about the Pure Land descriptions in the sutras and not about how Vasubandhu and Tanluan pointed to their symbolism.

 

As Bishop Inoue emphasized in reading Vasubandhu, the metaphors are pointing to the heart of great compassion, the compassion that embraces all beings and works through us. So as in the last verse, Vasubandhu says it is Amida’s deep aspiration that “quickly brings to fullness and perfection the great treasure ocean of virtues.” I said that in Buddhism, “virtues” doesn’t refer to Puritan living but to those thoughts, words and actions that eases the suffering of others and brings them to fulfillment. For those of us at temples, we see these virtues enacted by many of the older members – those who help and encourage others and make the Dharma accessible by keeping the temple a comfortable and welcoming place.

 

So by showing us the vision of what a free and equal society looks like, Jodo Shinshu can be an inspiration to those of us working for social justice. Our group member, Prof. Jeff Wilson, writes about this in this book Living Nembutsu and in this recent lecture he gave: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3pF1nHqDvQI

 

 

[from X/Twitter]

Although many of us are physically limited in what we can do to help others, one thing we can do to show support is make donations to those who are actively doing life enhancing work. As I mentioned in my turn leading the Refuge Circle for the Buddhist Peace Fellowship on March 25, the Sameer Project is a group worth following on social media. We see so many tragic images from Palestine, but the Sameer Project almost daily has videos of children enjoying art, crafts, games, singing, dancing and even what they consider the privilege of schoolwork. If you can like and share their posts and donate whatever you can from time to time, it shows your support and encouragement to them.

 

Study Group April 2026 Session

 

On April 19 we had our fourth session of discussing “Notes on the Inscriptions on Sacred Scrolls” (Songō shinzō meimon). We looked at the section CWS 499-500 where Shinran comments on an inscription on a scroll which depicted Nagarjuna, the Dharma teacher which all Mahayana sects consider as their first “high-monk” (literal for kōsō since I want to avoid the term “patriarch”).

 

By highlighting this particular quote, Shinran is letting his audience know that the eminent teacher is advocating what they are already doing – being mindful of the support and virtues coming to them through the nembutsu. We and they don’t have to get into the complex philosophical concepts Nagarjuna is known for among Buddhist scholars and teachers in other sects. It is enough for us to enter the stage of definitely settled by entrusting ourselves to the power beyond our ego-selves.

 

And it is not Nagarjuna on a high perch looking down on poor incompetent people saying, “Your only hope is to do nembutsu because you don’t have the smarts and physical strength for elite practices.” Nagarjuna uses the first person singular “I” in his verse “I take refuge” just as in his Junirai, he repeatedly says “Therefore I bow down in respect to Amida.” Shinran wants us to know we are in the same definitely settled crowd as the great teachers.

 

I quibbled about CWS saying “the Buddha will appear” when it is tathagata, nyorai, “thusness coming.” We have the appearance of this thusness coming at us in our teachers, the texts, events and various living beings (such as the cats who appear on our Zoom call).

 

In our discussion about “entrusting,” a question was raised about how Shinran uses the term “doubt” in contrast to “trust.” I feel the English term is misleading because we use “doubt” in the sense of questioning the truth of something and this continual examination is what we do as Buddhists, especially questioning our own judgments. Shinran used the term gi, utagai, in the sense of being full of reliance on our own self-serving view as opposed to being aware of reality. One example is this gi Shinran says is when we believe in reward and punishment – “I should be rewarded and those other guys should be punished” – when the reality of unbounded compassion is that all beings are embraced, no matter how much we or they messed up.

 

 

[Screenshot of singing protesters in Japan]

 

I know I’m not the only one trying to keep my hopes up during this time of awful stuff going on in the world and all around us. I feel some inspiration from the social media reports of the huge crowds of protesters in the cities of Japan. They are spurred to protest their own government trying to be more militaristic, but in the protests there are also calls for “Free Palestine” and ‘”Stop the War with Iran.” The young folks have their chants and pop/rock music but at various locations I saw the middle aged and older people are singing the song “Do You Hear the People Singing?” from the musical Les Miserables. The Japanese version is based mainly on the English lyrics rather than the original French, but to me the lyrics sound more universal and relevant than the English version. I know after the “no kings” marches and other demonstrations, some critics say nothing changes from people singing and dancing, yet I think we need songs to remind us to fight for freedom and equality. Isn’t that what the nembutsu is calling us to do?

 

Study Group March 2026 Session

On March 29 we had our third session of discussing “Notes on the Inscriptions on Sacred Scrolls” (Songō shinzō meimon). We looked at the section CWS 497-499 on Bodhisattva Mahāsthāmaprāta (which after pronouncing the Sanskrit once, I only used the Japanese version Dai-seishi which is also easier to type). In many pictures and sculptures, Amida Buddha is depicted flanked by the two bodhisattvas, Avalokiteśvara (Jpn. Kannon) and Dai-seishi. And while Kannon is mentioned a ton of times in many sutras and commentaries, Dai-seishi is hardly referenced outside the inscription from the Suramgama Sutra on the scroll Shinran cites.

 

My theory for why Shinran wants to highlight Dai-seishi for his audience is to show Buddhism is about the powerful strength of wisdom and not just the warm fuzzy embrace of compassion.  For his fellow travelers on the Pure Land path, he wanted to let them know that there’s something strong and dynamic in their spiritual liberation despite how society demeans them as weak and passive. The Other Power symbolized by Amida expresses itself as both Kannon (unbounded Life) and Dai-seishi (infinite Light).

 

Shinran in his commentary brings the text from its general sense of extolling meditation (samadhi) to a specific exhortation for the vocal nembutsu. Where the text says awakening (satori) will naturally occur without depending on expedient means, Shinran says that with jinen (inevitability) other practices are not needed at all.

 

We discussed how many Jodo Shinshu ministers (especially the ones from Japan) talk of shinjin as something everyone can just jump into from square one and anyone who indulges in practices besides reciting nembutsu is suspected of being a self-power addict. In the section we read, it is clear that Shinran is not dismissing other practices as bad, but only pointing out that awakening can happen without depending on them. I can speak for the converts by saying I needed to do a lot of other practices in order to realize the efficacy of the nembutsu and my overestimation of my abilities.

 

We talked about how the phrase “Come as you are” can be misleading as a motto for Jodo Shinshu temples. It is meant to be welcoming, telling people there are no pre-requisites for becoming a member. But often it is interpreted as “I don’t need to do anything because Amida accepts me like I am, sitting on my hands and saying nothing.” But the motto comes from the White Path Parable when the traveler is told to “come immediately,” that is, get your rear in gear without overthinking about how to make yourself look good. It signifies a forward movement towards life itself, propelled by the wisdom that breaks through your preconceived notions. The nembutsu is a call to be engaged with reality, to participate in the working of hongan, the most basic aspiration to recognize all lives in one’s existence.

[photo from The Australian]

I wanted to highlight someone who is like Dai-seishi (“great arriving at strength”) and I thought of Susan Abulhawa, who I saw interviewed on the Bad Faith podcast of March 19 on YouTube. She was in the news because people were criticizing the New York City mayor’s wife for providing illustrations for a book to which Abulhawa contributed. The critics were concerned with Abulhawa’s statements criticizing Israel (calling its people “parasites” and various beasts) so the mayor spoke to distance himself and his wife from Abulhawa. On the Bad Faith podcast, Abulhawa spoke eloquently of why she uses those terms for people who do cruel things such as (what she witnessed as a child) making two little boys spit in each other’s mouths like a soccer match in order for a group of children to pass through a checkpoint. Her novel Mornings in Jenin describes the decades of violence and humiliations that the Palestinians have been subjected to.

 

Buddhism teaches us to respect all beings equally but that teaching also tells us to catch ourselves and others thinking, saying and doing things that do not recognize the dignity of all beings. Right now is not the time to only sit silently while children and adults throughout the world are being murdered and maimed by weapons and by deprivation. As individuals there is not much we can do alone but the nembutsu calls us into community and into the actions of wisdom and compassion.