The main point of this
topic is to emphasize that the teachers recognized in this Buddhist lineage
don’t think of themselves as “teaching” but as sharing with others their
experiences that led them to the Path and continue to deepen their
awakening. This goes all the way back to
the historical Buddha. His first “sermon” was actually his answer to the
question “What happened to you?” when the five ascetics saw he had visibly
changed from the man they were together with practicing austerities.
What happened to me?
Let’s see – I was feeling miserable with the way the world is (first noble
truth) so I wanted to find the cause of my distress. It wasn’t from outside of
me but from deep within – the darkness (avidya),
the ego-centered greed (tanha) that I
cannot rationally account for (second noble truth). But somehow I received an
awakening to the interconnected unity of Life that transcends the inherent
ego-attachment of each of us (third noble truth). And now I can go forward on a
path taking me through a process of living my life in a wholesome way, starting
with seeing the Right View is not “my” view but the universal perspective that
is beyond my limited ego-attached view; Right Thoughts are not “my” thoughts
but the mental karmic causes and conditions belonging to and affecting all of
us; Right Speech is not “my” speech etc. etc. (fourth noble truth).
If we don’t receive
Shakyamuni’s words as his first-person singular talk-stories, then he will come
off as “preachy,” telling the unwashed masses what his superior judgment sees
as what they should and shouldn’t do. And much of the Buddhist scriptures
written down long after his death want to paint him that way so that the
monastics and scholars can step into the preachy role themselves.
But I am calling the
Buddha’s words his “confessions” because he is telling us about the actions in
his ongoing life that turned out to be helpful or unhelpful to others and
himself. In our online Zoom session in April 2020 we read the first chapter of
the Dhammapada, which in the original language of Pali is called “the twin
verses,” but somehow the early English translators titled it “choices.” The
translators of that Victorian age were very moralistic (as are many Western
Buddhists today) and they believed morally superior people were those who could
rationally choose to do the right thing and reap the rewards.
What helped me to hear
the Buddha’s words as his confessions was reading the Japanese originals of the
writings of Kiyozawa Manshi (1863-1903) and hearing him sound like a
finger-wagging nag in the various English translations. Kiyozawa, like Shinran
the teacher he looked up to, wrote about how the awareness of his moral
failings deepened his appreciation of the Power Beyond Self that embraced the
reality of all his actions whether they were mere mistakes or crimes against
humanity. So at the April 2020 session I showed that the first chapter of the
Dhammapada was much like Kiyozawa’s “Liberation by the Power Beyond Self.”
[My translation used
in the 1988 Los Angeles Higashi Honganji service book]
Shakyamuni is saying I
am the one who has brooded on my hurt feelings after being insulted and that
has led me down the rabbit hole of paralyzing resentment. So I had to learn to
recover from insults and even physical assaults because harboring resentment
towards others only clouds up my mind. There is no sense of freely choosing,
“To brood or not to brood?” because emotions – even for an Awakened One – erupt
from our irrational subconscious. As we should all know, the last thing you
want to say to a person mourning the loss of a loved one is “Suffering is
inevitable but misery is optional.”
I had heard from some temple
members that while I was absent (on one of my frequent out of town trips which
I sorely miss now), the lay talk at the Sunday service was given by a person presenting
Kiyozawa’s piece as being about choices. “No, no, no!” is what I wanted to
scream but actually I made the case quite calmly to that person who did attend
the Zoom session on this topic. I don’t think I convinced her and some of the
others in attendance who are too entrenched in the prevalent Western Buddhist
narrative of making moral judgments of others. But I hoped to offset the effect
her lay talk might have had on the other members. Kiyozawa is being realistic
in saying I more often than not tend to forget about transcending my
self-interests and I end up spiraling down into self-pity and paralysis. But
there must be something deep, deep within and all around me which leads me to
remember the awakening to Oneness (nembutsu). That something is the voice calling,
“Namu Amida Butsu.”
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