Your Deepest Wish – Sutra Study Class Session 10

At the March 7, 2023 session, we went over the third paragraph of Section 6 of the Larger Sutra and read the poem “In Praise of the Original Vow” from Shout of Buddha.

 

I’m very late (3 weeks) writing this review of the class but a lot is going on that makes me wonder why I’m not trying to fulfill my deepest wish with the determination of the person emptying the ocean using a “pail” (the sutra has the character 升 which in the graphic the current Chinese measurement sheng is under two pints).

 

It is this metaphor that inspires Akegarasu to write his poem. In the session I said he’s really on fire here. Although for the longest time translators used “vow,” with Rev. Saito, it made more sense to talk of “wish.” (In the session I mentioned D.T. Suzuki used “prayer” because he wanted to indicate the fervent feeling.) I was always put off by the use of “vow” – it sounds too much like someone else’s promise not like something coming from me (don’t get me started on my experience with wedding vows). But to use “wish” makes sense in seeing how Akegarasu identifies with the Dharmakara story in the Larger Sutra. From seeing his teacher’s earnest seeking, he knew hongan has to indicate one’s own innermost desire, a desire that the Buddha found in himself and wants to awaken in each person by telling this story.

 

In the poem Akegarasu says not to let the wish get covered up by what is going on around you and don’t even let the pleas of family and friends deter you. In the ultimate sense, the wish is for the liberation of all of us and not simply a selfish pursuit.

 

Rev. Saito and Joan Sweany did not translate a couple terms – hodo and gwando. “Gwan” is the old romanization for “gan” but you still see that spelling, particularly on the temples in Hawaii (“Hongwanji”).  The “do” in both terms is “land” like in Pure Land, but I like to think of it more as “soil, earth, ground.” The term “hodo” is defined as “recompense land,” whatever that is supposed to mean. It was pointed out in the session that in Native American beliefs, the land rewards us for taking good care of it – so maybe that is what “recompense” could mean. The wish as the ground we stand on will be fulfilled if we take care of it with the determination of one who empties the ocean.

 

I will attest that Rev. Saito had that kind of determination despite all the circumstances in Chicago, Los Angeles and Honolulu that hampered his quest. I would like to believe his wish is continuing to be fulfilled as his work touches each of us. For him in order to bring that deepest wish for the liberation of all beings to fulfillment, he had to do all he could to bring Akegarasu’s teachings to the English-speaking world, so that through his teacher we can find access to the deep meaning of the Larger Sutra and Shinran’s commentaries. It would be his wish that I be a part of that fulfillment, but these days I feel too mentally sick and physically weak and just want to put the pail down.

Heart/Mind of Darkness – Sutra Study Class Session 9

In a short article I wrote for Tricycle magazine some years ago, I characterized Ananda’s questioning of the Buddha as “bitching” but it wasn’t so much complaining but a kind of impatient badgering: “Come on, World-Honored One, for the sake for all present and future beings, don’t leave me hanging about what is going on in your mind when your face is shining so brightly. What’s this ‘buddhas contemplating each other’ stuff really mean?”

 

I think perhaps the Buddha was at a loss for words – human language seemed so inadequate to describe a state that he experienced so deeply. So he needed to go back and retrace his footsteps to see what led him to that experience. It’s strictly my opinion but I think the Buddha is telling Ananda the story of Dharmakara as a way to look back on his own journey.

 

At the February 21, 2023 session, I wanted to explore more about how the phrase Nyo ji tō chi “You – self – must – know” must have struck Akegarasu when it jumped out at him in the Larger Sutra. First of all, I want to clarify that the self-examination we are talking about in Buddhism is not the “who am I?” identity search of our teenage years. That time was about discovering the unique combinations of traits that gave us a sense of “myself”- someone related to but still very different from my parents, siblings, schoolmates etc.

 

The “what is the self?” question in Buddhism is to look at that part of our mentality that Shinran called “snakes and scorpions.” In the session I referred to it as the reptilian brain as I’ve heard some teachers say, but that early evolved part of our grey matter might be more about very primitive reflexes and functions. So here I’ll refer to it as the “dark heart/mind” since the Buddha called his self “Avidya” (not-clear) when he confronted it in his meditation under the Bodhi Tree. I have a feeling real reptiles are a lot nicer than us humans are to each other.

 

[Some reptiles from Wikipedia]

 

That dark heart/mind is our desire to protect and promote ourselves and to see other beings as threats or doormats. That is the heart/mind Kiyozawa saw so disturbingly in himself. Even though on the outside he seemed like a gentle prude, solving math problems as his entertainment, in his writings he sees his lechery and aggressiveness. He recognized that clinging to one’s idea of self was a big problem because that idea has to be constantly defended and pumped up. The way to keep cracking open that clenched fist is to be reminded that our real life is nothing but the flow of causes and conditions, the coming together and coming apart of various elements. To be reminded of that is to let go and let oneself fall down (raku-zai) into the flow of the Power Beyond Self.

 

In his poem “Who Am I?” (pp.  196-7 in Shout of Buddha) uses the same Japanese phrase “Jiko to wa nanzo ya?” that Kiyozawa used in his diary entry of October 1898. In the verses, he says he thought his self was those elements we usually identify as our own – thoughts, experiences, feelings, deeds etc. But in each verse he says it’s a mistake to see one’s self as those elements because “I am not such a limited self” – he is those things but also not limited to those things. The mistake is made when we cling to those aspects as being our identity, when those aspects can change, disappear and reappear in the flow of our lives. Akegarasu echoes the Buddha’s birth cry of “I alone am most noble” – the recognition that my life, as well as each and every life, is to be respected in its uniqueness, different in each moment. So what Akegarasu calls “this indescribable self” is the real life he is connected to and flowing with – in other words, A-mita-yus “un-bounded-Life” (aka Amitabha “immeasurable Light).

 

As I’ve pointed out in other occasions, the last line of the English translation is a bit off. “Truth is here” sounds okay but the actual phrase Shinjitsu no seikatsu o shite yuku no de arimasu, can be literally translated as “Going with the life-activity of reality.” There’s yuku (iku) 行くthat indicates going forth, like the last part of the Heart Sutra, “ga-te ga-te.” Somehow “truth is here” sounds too static to me and I want people to know how dynamic the last line of the poem is.

 

So here we see the Dharmakara story through several lenses – Shakyamuni communicating to Ananda, Honen conveying the Pure Land teachings to Shinran, and Kiyozawa waking Akegarasu up to what each of our lives really is. All the teachers are telling us to be aware of the flow of reality (“Amida”) and not get stuck thinking we are the “gotta get mine while the getting’s good” individual driven solely by the dark heart/mind. In other Buddhist presentations, there’s an overcoming of that dark heart/mind by our own efforts (e.g. “removing dust from the mirror”) but in Jodo Shinshu, we don’t get rid of that mind but we are shown that the Power Beyond Self is the true driving force of our life.