Self-Doubt as the Gate to Awakening

From “Taste of Chicago Buddhism” July 2018

Although I have taken refuge in Shin Buddhism,

There is no truthful mind in me at all.

Since my being is false, vain, and insincere,

I have not even a fragment of pure mind.

As for my appearance to everyone,

I show the façade of a wise, good, and serious man.

Because I have abundant greed, anger, perversion, and lies,

My being is filled with evil schemes.

My evil nature is difficult to stop.

My mind is just like snakes and lizards.

My religious practice, being mixed with the poison of self-love,

Is called the practice of falseness and vanity.

            --Shinran Shonin, Gutoku Hitan Jikkai (translated by

            Nobuo Haneda in The Evil Person: Essays on Shin Buddhism

            By Shuichi Maida)

A few years ago I was reading an article about Frank McCourt, author of Angela’s Ashes, where he said during the time he taught school in New York he felt like such a fake speaking at the front of the classroom. But he found that students he encountered years later would tell him he was one of their best teachers, sincerely helping them in their learning. It made me think of Shinran – continually calling himself a fake (as in the passages above), yet he was and still is able to compassionately convey to people the truth they need to hear.

I was reminded of the Frank McCourt article recently because of the recent suicide of celebrity chef Anthony Bourdain and the PBS Newshour story on Robin Williams. Both men confided to friends and family that they felt full of self-doubt, feeling that their public image as a good guy was fake. I know how crushing that feeling can be, yet the saving grace is always hearing the voice of Shinran, “Yeah, I’m a fake but it makes me awaken to the nembutsu as true. The delusion of thinking I’m purely good and wise is a barrier to realizing how much goodness and wisdom I receive from others.”

The paradox of the true teacher being the one who says “I’m a fake” is conversely true – the false teacher is the one who keeps insisting on his authenticity. One sign of a group based on a false idea of their teacher is that they don’t recognize the teacher had teachers and those teachers had teachers. In the Pure Land tradition of Honen and Shinran, even the historical Buddha had to have teachers. To them it was obvious from reading the Mahayana sutras that the Buddha was frequently expressing his appreciation of the Buddhas of the past – and in the Larger Sukhavativyuha Sutra, these past guides are represented in the archetype of Dharmakara/Amida.

[Five-kalpas contemplation]

It’s sad to think of great people such as Bourdain and Williams who felt so weighed down by self-doubt that they were driven to end their lives. It makes me grateful to teachers such as Rev. Gyoko Saito who showed me that no matter how awful one’s personal life can get, “the nembutsu is here,” as Rev. Saito quoted Akegarasu when he was forced into retiring. The nembutsu reminds us that self-doubt doesn’t have to be a life-destroying thing. By seeing how fake our surface personality is, the grip of self-attachment is loosened and we can awaken to the dynamic truth that is all around and deep within us.

What’s Wrong With Saying “Namo Amida Butsu”

from "Taste of Chicago Buddhism" October 2017

[Note: Since the 1990s, Nishi Honganji prefers to use the spelling “Namo Amida Butsu” while Higashi Honganji continues using “Namu.”]

I need to explain what I was trying to say for my Dharmathon talk titled “STFU” recorded this past week (Sept. 27, 2017). I don’t think I am the first or will be the last person to complain about those individuals who have to burst out with frequent shouts of “Namo Amida Butsu!” causing a disturbance for those of us trying to listen to what is going on at the time, such as a minister giving a Dharma talk.

Actually it’s not just the rudeness of old men loudly demonstrating their piety that I’m questioning, but whether there are any reasons for saying that string of syllables aloud. I can think of two – cultural and ritual. For centuries “Namo Amida Butsu” has been a part of Japanese Buddhist culture (and in the cultures of other East Asian countries with the phrase spelled out differently). Way before Honen and Shinran, it was heard in the cities and countryside of Japan, in and outside of Buddhist sites – spread by hijiri, wandering monks, such as Kuya. So despite the wide range of how to interpret the phrase (magic mantra, plea for the afterlife, expression of inner peace, etc.), it is a familiar sound that Japanese people can voice comfortably.

As in any religious tradition, it helps to have some stock phrases that everyone can chime in on at the start and finish of certain sections of the service (readings, meditation, chanting). So saying “Namo Amida Butsu” together and in response to the leader during a weekly Sunday service, memorial/funeral, wedding etc. serves as punctuation in the flow of ritual routines.

But outside of those two contexts, is there a need to say “Namo Amida Butsu” out loud? I used to think Shinran specified oral recitation when he used the verb sho-suru but then Dr. Haneda pointed out that the original meaning of sho (tonaeru) was to “carefully consider.” As is described in Japanese dictionary sources, the Chinese character is a stylized picture of the scales of balance. Maybe when the person doing the weighing announced when the object was in balance, the verb came to have the meaning of “vocalizing.”

The great Higashi lineage teachers such as Kiyozawa and Maida don’t write about “Namu Amida Butsu” very much and for all the times I’ve heard Rev. Gyoko Saito speak in services and lectures, he seldom inserted “Namu Amida Butsu.” But what all the great teachers do talk about is the nembutsu. For certain persons at particular times, the nembutsu could take the form of saying “Namo Amida Butsu.” But the nembutsu that the great teachers describe is too profound and universal to be restricted to a specific kind of action.

The title of this post is a statement, not a question. Here are three general categories of why I refer to the saying “Namo Amida Butsu” as the seven-syllable barrier.

It perpetuates the impression that Jodo Shinshu is an exclusive group that identifies as Japanese.

The saying of “Namo Amida Butsu” seems like a special phrase that the insiders say to each other like members of some old men’s lodge. And in Jodo Shinshu no matter what country you are in and what language you speak, you are required to say the phrase in Japanese pronunciation – an indication of the primacy of Japan and its culture.

It makes Buddhism into hocus-pocus incantation rather than teachings of self-examination and awakening to reality.

Just as Zen in the West played into the American cultural streak of anti-intellectualism (“You don’t have to know what Buddha or anyone else said, just sit on this here cushion until I hit the gong”), too many Jodo Shinshu ministers get to play the part of the Wise Master, “Just keep saying Namo Amida Butsu and don’t worry about what it means,” instead of making the effort to explain anything that smacks of scholarship (sutras, history etc.). What’s lost is the opportunity to hear the essence of the Buddha-Dharma which is what Shinran dedicated his life to bringing to us through his many written works.

It becomes a “required practice” which contradicts the ultimate Mahayana principle of unconditional access to awakening for all beings.

To hear the strained speech of the current Otani-ha abbot, a deaf-mute, should be a reminder to us all that saying “Namo Amida Butsu” is not an “easy practice” for anyone with physical or mental disabilities. Recitation becomes a forced custom divorced from what “Namo Amida Butsu” was meant to express. Suppose Shinran had a laugh that was a high-pitched “Tee hee hee” and everyone thought they had to copy it exactly in order to attain his level of bliss. That recitation ignores what made Shinran laugh in the first place and the fact that laughter is a spontaneous expression of enjoyment with each person having their own unique way of laughing. Instead of enjoying a good laugh, the imitators are stuck joylessly repeating “Tee hee hee, tee hee hee.”

What “Namo Amida Butsu” expresses is the voice of hongan, the deepest aspiration, the universal wish to awaken to the interconnected oneness of all life, liberated from the delusion of self. At the recent Dharmathon, I would say the story that Rev. Fred Brenion told was an example of the nembutsu. In his job working at a prison for the criminally insane, he encountered a woman who had murdered her children. He couldn’t help feeling a sense of revulsion about her crime, yet he felt enabled to say to her, “There is no pit too deep for God’s hand to reach into.” Knowing she was a Christian, Rev. Fred felt it was better to tell her that instead of trying to convert her with talk of Amida’s Light. To me, hearing that story was to hear the nembutsu, the voice of hongan, the universal wish – the voice that makes us contemplate and remember (nem-) what awakening (-butsu) is.

Ten Thousand Nien-fo

From "Taste of Chicago Buddhism" November 2017

Though I was living in Los Angeles when the Hsi Lai Temple opened in 1988, I hadn’t had an opportunity to visit there until this past weekend. I happened to be in the LA area for my aunt’s funeral and on Facebook I heard about the service for Aaron Lee at Hsi Lai.

The service was held at the Memorial Pagoda, a building out of sight for tourists since it is behind the majestic Main Hall. Inside the pagoda there is a round room with seating for about 100 people (during the service the doors were kept open for the seated and standing overflow crowd). At the start of the service, a nun who looked and sounded like a teenager, explained the program. Each person was handed a pamphlet with the chanting in Chinese characters and romanized pronunciation (they used the Wade-Giles spelling, so this post uses nien-fo rather than the Pinyin spelling nianfo). The nun asked us all to chant with the handful of monks and nuns leading the service. She said the chanting was for Aaron to hear, “and he is more familiar with your voices than ours.” I was prepared to fold my legs under me to sit seiza on the cushioned row-bench but she asked us all to stand.

[behind the Main Hall, no photos were allowed at the Memorial Pagoda]

The crowd which consisted overwhelmingly of Chinese Americans of Aaron’s age (late 20s to early 30s) seemed to have no trouble following the shifting melodies and pronunciation of the chants. During the Heart Sutra, I fell into chanting in Japanese since it was easier than reading the romanized syllables for the Chinese. Then during the chanting of Namo Omito Fo (which the pamphlet said to do a hundred times), the nuns distributed cut flower blooms and directed us to go row by row to offer up the flowers to a tray on the altar.

During this chanting, I let my tears flow with the tears of those around me. The calling of the name of Namo Amita(-abha/ayus) Buddha was the music of mourning, seemingly endless but not feeling tiredly repetitious. I started out singing loudly but then had to do it sporadically as I felt weak and light-headed from the hecticness of the weekend and anemia (side effect from chemotherapy). It took bouts of concentration to keep myself from losing consciousness.

When the nuns and monks saw the lines for the flower offering coming to an end, they switched to the shorter “Omito fo” and a swifter melody. The chanting was brought to a close, then the service continued with the Dharma talk (the young priest gave one of those “I didn’t know the guy, but here’s what you better know about Buddhism” sermons), some moving personal tributes and a slide show. Although reference was made to Aaron’s “be the refuge” essay, it would’ve been nice in that setting if someone could have riffed on that.

It is difficult for me to even think of being a refuge for anyone or anything at this time. For me to follow Aaron’s example of helping and encouraging others, I’ll need quite a few more hyakumanben (100 x 10,000) of nien-fo (remembrance of what awakening is). Yet if I contemplate the “ultimate refuge” that Shinran sings about in his verses (Jodo Wasan), I see Aaron Lee has been a part of that refuge, or rather, he has become that refuge. As I keep pointing out – the working of Namu Amida Butsu comes to us in very concrete ways, not as giant magic fingers from the sky. Aaron Lee – his life activities and his words – are the manifestation of Amita(-ayus/-abha) for me and hundreds of others, showing us the path of ego-transcendence.

The young nun at Hsi Lai told us to chant so Aaron would hear our voices, but in the hundred-fold repetitions of nien-fo it was Aaron calling to us by the names of our true selves.