On September 19, 2023 for our last class of this series we had a summary of the material we covered in the Larger Sutra and discussed Akegarasu’s story “The Pigeons” (pp.171-174 in Shout of Buddha).
Over some twenty years ago, the weekly study group was reading articles from Shout of Buddha and I was glad to have someone who read Japanese - Michael Conway - in the class to help me find places where the English translation was off. By “off” I mean “misleading” rather than “wrong” – at the time Rev. Saito and Joan Sweany made choices to make the material appealing to Westerners who had no knowledge of Jodo Shinshu. As I mentioned in this class, throughout Shout of Buddha are references to the Larger Sutra, as Akegarasu was praising the text that brought him back to life after he mentally hit bottom from the scandal. But in the English translation it is hard to see this – Rev. Saito and Joan Sweany knew it was no use sending people to read a text that wasn’t available in a full translation at the time.
The first time I read “The Pigeons” in Japanese after my study in Japan, the thing that immediately struck me was Akegarasu was writing about his teacher Kiyozawa. When the pigeons deride the black pigeon’s teachings of liberation, the phrases they use are exactly what was thrown at Kiyozawa by the established Jodo Shinshu spokespeople. Akegarasu admits in his writings that after Kiyozawa died, he and the other students presented a softened version of Kiyozawa’s teachings that were more in line with the Edo-period Jodo Shinshu they were raised in as sons of temple priests. From his discovering the true essence of the Larger Sutra, Akegarasu finally could appreciate the full flavor of Kiyozawa’s words guiding us to spiritual liberation.
Like the black pigeon in Akegarasu’s story, the whole Larger Sutra is the Buddha guiding us to freedom – freedom from the life-sapping, murderous trap of ego-attachment. In his story, the main character encounters a man of freedom, Lokesvararaja, the one freely moving in this world like a king. This encounter awakens his desire for his own freedom but Lokesvararaja points out that Dharmakara must wrestle with the ego-based judgment that gives him the delusion that he is separate and superior to other beings.
It is that ego-based judgment and attachment that is the net trapping us in unfulfilling lives. What “The Pigeons” is warning us against isn’t just the seductive delights of the material world, but the more dangerous bait of religious righteousness. The way I see it now and as I did when I returned to the Buddhist Temple of Chicago in the mid-1990s, people are quick to call themselves Buddhists and indulge in the pleasure of being told and telling others that they are already full of wisdom and compassion, that they are already bodhisattvas who don’t need to do more than encourage others to identify as Buddhists and think the same way. It’s using Buddhism for self- and mutual flattery. And like the pigeons being fed beans by the butchers, people’s egos only get fatter and it becomes harder to escape the net.
Teachers such as Kiyozawa saw that Jodo Shinshu coming out of the feudal period was just leading people to slaughter as fodder for the continuing dark forces in this world by making them pin their hopes on an afterlife Pure Land. He heard the shout for liberation in Shinran’s words and wanted others to hear it – “Don't keep feeding your ego-self. Let go of the judgments and attachments that prevent you from awakening to the oneness of all life. Encounter the brightness in the world which encompasses all beings and let that Light lead you to freely live as one who enhances life rather than destroys it.”
It is not that the Pure Land teachings are for making you feel bad about yourself – it is for seeing the limitations you have by insisting on yourself as the prime judge and beneficiary of the world. There’s a big difference between the joy of spiritual liberation that Shinran says the Larger Sutra describes as his experience and the cheap “feel-good” sound bites that people would rather hear. I am grateful that all of you who followed these sessions were willing to hear the words of the Buddha that liberated Shinran and Akegarasu.
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