Study Group March 2025 session

On March 16 we gathered on Zoom for the third session of “Warera: Shinran and Solidarity.” We came to the part in “Notes on ‘Essentials of Faith Alone’” (CWS p. 453) where Shinran explains the fourth line of the Fa-chao verse: “Avalokiteśvara and Mahāsthāmaprāpta come of themselves to welcome them.”

Rather than say “Avalokiteśvara and Mahāsthāmaprāpta,” it’s easier for me to say (and type) the Japanese names Kannon and Seishi. The two bodhisattvas’ names indicate compassion (perceiving cries 観音) and wisdom (strength arriving勢至). In Buddhist art, the two flank Amida to form a triad. I think the reason for representing Amida that way is to express the dual-names of “Amida”: Amitayus, unlimited life and Amitabha, unbounded light. (Most of you know that’s how Shoshinge starts out – calling both names “Muryō-jū” and “Fukashigi-kō”). “Life” representing compassion through the dimension of time and “Light” representing wisdom through the dimension of space.

Shinran goes further to give the alternate names of the bodhisattvas as mentioned in a sutra quoted by Daochuo in his Anraku-shu. The translations in the CWS don’t fully capture these names – Kannon is the Treasure of the Responding Voice and Seishi is the Treasure of Good Fortune. The translation having “Happiness” is misleading. I said at any given time, it would be hard for me to claim that I’m happy but I’m aware that overall, I am very fortunate in many ways such as not having to struggle for food, shelter and clothing. It is wisdom touching us to remind us of how fortunate we are (we hardly did anything to deserve it) and to know many, many other people are not as fortunate (through no fault of their own).

Next Shinran tackles explaining ji 自 – first it means “by one’s self,” that is, the bodhisattvas come “in person.” We are not meant to literally see two entities like caped super-heroes protecting us from disasters, but we experience lives and events that bring us the wisdom and compassion to support our spiritual awareness, our shinjin.

The second meaning of ji is “of itself” and here Shinran goes into the concept of jinen 自然 (often translated as “naturalness”) which he discusses in other works. “To be made to become so” is to have all our karma - no matter how destructive our thoughts, words and deeds were, are and will be - be transformed into a great ocean of virtue, that is, constructive, healing, nurturing consequences. I said it is hard for us to comprehend this because we are so conditioned to be moralistic – what’s bad is bad and what’s good can’t come out of bad. Shinran is shaking us out of that calculative thinking to open us up to the larger perspective of reality itself – to pour our rivers of guilt, shame and fear out into the vast ocean of hongan, the innermost aspiration that embraces all.

As we’ve heard many ministers say, going to the Pure Land is actually returning to our true state, so Shinran says the “come” in the verse, means our “return to the city of dharma-nature.” This word miyako which is translated as “city,” I like to translate it as “community” as in the Honen verses in Shoshinge – for us to get out of the stifling little hut of self-centeredness and enter into community. Awakening to reality is what is called “enlightenment” and “Pure Land” is more of a metaphor for the skillful means to bring us to enlightenment. The end goal of Buddhism is not to plop down on a comfy couch in some nirvana living room, but to be in the world of suffering, participating in the path to liberate all beings.

In our discussion, we talked about how hard it is for many Jodo Shinshu temple members to see their interconnection with people outside of the temple. There’s so much in Buddhism but especially in Shinran’s teachings guiding us to get past our “in-group” thinking so we can have concern for and respond to other people. I commented that ministers focus too much on inward looking concepts like personal gratitude and fail to bring out the real gems of Shinran’s teachings.

  

[graphic from “Visualizing Palestine” on Instagram]

I would hope by the time you are reading this that Mahmoud Khalil has been released from the ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) detention center in Louisiana. On March 8 he was handcuffed and taken away by car even though his wife showed the agents that her husband had a green card (proof of being a documented U.S. resident). He was targeted for deportation by critics of his pro-Palestinian activism at Columbia University. For us, it’s the Martin Niemöller poem brought to life, “First they came for the…” Too many people were unconcerned about the detention of undocumented immigrants (which started years ago, especially ramped up during the Obama administration) and I’ve heard it said that those who come into our country “the wrong way” deserve to be captured and sent away. But with Khalil’s detention, immigration status doesn’t matter if you’re perceived to be a “terrorist” threat. All the people who knew him at Columbia say he was a kind and thoughtful person and even the administrators that he negotiated with on behalf of the protestors spoke of his respectful demeanor. It has been reported that while in detention, he has been helping the other detainees with their paperwork and sharing food with them.

That part reminded me of Francisco, someone who started attending the temple and helped out when he could. It shocked me when I received a letter from him, sent from an ICE detention center in Wisconsin, saying that the acceptance of his asylum request was reversed and he was taken into custody. He spoke English fluently so I would not have guessed he was a recent immigrant. While in detention because of his language skills, he helped with translation and interpretation for Spanish-speaking detainees. After several months working with the Organized Communities Against Deportations that the activists in Nikkei Uprising connected me to, Francisco was released and returned to Chicago. He wanted to return to the temple to help out but unfortunately it was during the Covid lockdown. I’ve tried to contact him since then but have not heard from him. I’m grateful that his situation made me aware of the horrors of our system detaining and deporting people who come to our country as refugees. As I learned at the Tsuru For Solidarity action in Tacoma last year: Chinga La Migra!

 

Study Group February 2025 Session

 On February 16 I had a bad cold and thought I could power through the second session of our series “Warera: Shinran and Solidarity” but I could barely get through a half hour. My apologies to everyone who attended on Zoom.

 

The following is what I intended to talk about and probably only touched on. Starting at the top of CWS p. 452, “sacred” is the word I wanted to quibble about. It’s the translation for son, tootoi 尊. In the history of English translations of Shinshu texts, words like “sacred,” “holy,” “divine” etc. come from Christian vocabulary and the Japanese-speakers who used them felt they perfectly fit the religious value they wanted to convey. But I think those words create a sense of “high in the sky” holiness like rays of blessed sunlight coming down through the high windows of a medieval cathedral. Rather than “sacred,” the Name, namu amida butsu, comes into our lives as a great noble power, bringing dignity and respect rather than demanding them to be given. It is too bad the CWS translation doesn’t echo the sound of fukashō, fukasetsu, fukashigi, by repeating “not-possibly” before each verb: “described, explained, conceptualized,” instead of the bland “surpasses measure …” The Japanese readers could appreciate the zingyness of Shinran’s wording that the CWS denies to us.

 

“[I]t is the Name of the Vow” of great love and great compassion – why does CWS have to insert “embodying”? Causing all beings to enter supreme nirvana doesn’t need any “embodying.” Again CWS adds in extra wording – it is enough to say what the text already said about the vow making all beings enter the highest awakening. But somehow CWS wants to remind us that the Vow is “to save all beings.”

 

In the next section, mid-page, there’s more extraneous wording. Shinran elucidates the passage “exceedingly distinct and clear” to show how each being is uniquely distinguished from each other, yet are all included in the heart of compassion. Shinran does not have to spell out whose heart is directed towards us. But CWS has to insert that he must be talking about Amida Buddha who has a mission that “guides each to salvation.” In both cases of the wording inserted by the translators, the tricky terms “save” and “salvation” are used, while Shinran feels being made to enter the highest level of awakening does not need to dressed up as “salvation.”

 

I didn’t have the capacity to get into the jinen “come of themselves” section but I appreciate in the brief discussion we had, that it is something for us to contemplate on whether “only those who say the Name” can be born in the Pure Land (top of page 453). I would like to think it means we are not really in the Pure Land as long as we think we have to do something to make us deserving of it and saying the Name is an expression of completely letting go of our self-power effort (I referred to the scene in “Put Your Lips to the Dust” in Dr. Haneda’s book Dharma Breeze). How do we see others being born in the Pure Land when they are doing very different things than the single-hearted nembutsu?

 

 

Translating between languages and cultures is full of pitfalls as we are seeing in this study – the CWS translators not having the same level of trust for their audience as Shinran had for his. For this month, I’d like to highlight the book Gaza Writes Back: Short Stories from Young Writers in Gaza, Palestine edited by Refaat Alareer . The book was originally published in 2014 but last year a memorial edition was published to honor the murdered teacher Dr. Alareer. He felt it was important for his students to become fluent in writing English so their people’s stories can be heard by the world. It is unfortunate that in the U.S. we understand so little about life in other countries because a lot of literature is not skillfully translated and it must be especially hard to depend on English-speakers to translate from Arabic, when many Arabic learners are current and future U.S. government agents.

 

Besides bringing us inside the minds of the people suffering in Gaza, the young writers are also showing us the spirit of resistance that we will need to foster in ourselves and each other as authoritarian forces try to take over aspects of our lives. In these past days of February, the Japanese American community has been focused on the Day of Remembrance, commemorating Executive Order 9066 which took people out of the West Coast and into camps in the interior. This year because of the ramped up ICE raids, there are cries to stop detaining and deporting the refugees – “Never again!” Yet I’ve been bothered by the lack of intersectionality in these protests – Japanese Americans are concerned for people immigrating to the U.S. but not for those who like the Latin American refugees are also victims of global imperialist policies. I’m moved by the social media accounts of Palestinian commentators showing concern not only for their own people but also for Blacks and Native Americans in the U.S. Yet it seems difficult for the wartime camp survivors and their descendants to see any rationale for tearing down all prisons, not just the ICE centers, and for calling out all oppressors including those who are funding Day of Remembrance activities.

 

Study Group January 2025 Session

 On January 12, seven people met with me on Zoom to start our series “Warera: Shinran and Solidarity.”

Before going into the reading of Yuishinshō mon’i (“Notes on ‘Essentials of Faith Alone’”), I spoke about the use of language as class barrier in Japan. The Buddhist scriptures came from China and Korea written in Chinese characters which only the aristocrats in Japan had the resources to learn. But in Shinran’s time there was a push to bring Buddhism to the masses by works written in vernacular Japanese, such as Dogen’s Genjōkōan. Shinran wrote his wasan verses to explain the sutras and commentaries to the common people, then in his 80s, he wrote the three commentaries, to carefully explain key passages in the Pure Land tradition in simple Japanese. However, sometimes in the English translations, not-so-simple words are used to make the text sound more dignified.

We are starting with Yuishinshō mon’i, Shinran’s commentary (mon’i) on the work by Honen’s disciple Seikaku. We covered CWS page 451 and the first part of page 452. Shinran starts out explaining the title of Seikaku’s text. For yui 唯 he says it means “this one thing only.” Then the translation says “a rejection of two things standing together” which sounds somewhat intellectual compared to what Shinran writes: Futatsu narabu koto o kirau koto ba nari. “It means to hate lining up things side-by-side in pairs [to compare them].” Maybe it was just me sounding emotional but kirau, meaning “I hate, despise, can’t stand etc.” somehow has more punch than “rejection.”

Next is the tricky word shin 信. A lot has been written about the inadequacy of the translation “faith” since it carries the connotation of blindly believing something unprovable. When I studied with Dr. Haneda, I thought “entrusting” sounded better than “faith,” but current scholars such as Kenneth Tanaka are leaning towards “awakening” and “awareness.” Shinran points out that this awareness means being open-minded in our encounter with what is true (principle) and real (actuality) and not be awash in unfulfilling notions or fixed judgments. Yui-shin then means to be free of basing our life on self-attachment and instead, we can rely on the whole cloth of life that is moving (aspiring) to support and carry us forward together with all lives.

The last part shō 鈔 refers to a collection of excerpts so I wonder how they got the translation “essentials.” The translation says “significant passages” but in the Japanese Shinran uses sugure-taru which sounds like he is saying, “Gathering the far surpassing ones – not the vague, confusing, complicated ones.” In this commentary Shinran does not refer much to what Seikaku wrote, maybe because it’s in vernacular Japanese which his audience can read for themselves. Shinran mainly wants to explain the passages in Chinese that Seikaku quotes.

The first passage Seikaku quotes is from the Go-e hōjisan by Fa-chao and we only began covering Shinran’s explanation of the first line by reading the top couple lines on page 452. I commented that for us English speakers, we don’t feel a meaning coming from a word like “Tathagata.” But the Chinese readers can see nyorai, a description of someone who comes (rai) as suchness, just-as-it-is (nyo). For Shinran’s Japanese readers, he explains this nyorai is the unhindered Light, literally giving the translation of the Sanskrit Amitabha (no-boundary-light). I concluded the lecture saying that the one who truly comes just as they are have a brightness that isn’t dimmed by the worries we often have (“is my hair in place?” “is there spinach stuck in my teeth?” “do these pants make my butt look big?” etc.) in social situations. But for all of us, as Akegarasu Haya says in his explanation of Kōgen gigi, our faces brighten when we feel relaxed facing people that make us feel totally comfortable. He says that is why Shakyamuni’s face is shining in the Larger Sutra – he looks out and sees everyone is his enlightened BFF.

After my talk, people shared their thoughts. The two people from the Nishi Honganji denomination commented that so much of what they’ve heard is, “Shinran says we’re all bonbu so we are incapable of doing any good.” So I said we need to look at what Shinran did – active all through his life in wanting to make the Dharma accessible to people so they experienced a freedom and equality that the authoritarian society denied them. We could all use more of Shinran’s humility but we should be inspired to be active with helping people like he was.

Keeping with the theme of solidarity, I’d like to feature some contemporary people who exemplify the support for marginalized peoples. This month we note the passing of José “Cha Cha” Jiménez. His family came from Puerto Rico and settled in Chicago where he got involved in a street gang called the Young Lords. While in jail for a drug crime, he was inspired by reading Thomas Merton and decided to dedicate his life to social justice. He changed the Young Lords into a community organization modeled after the Black Panthers – providing food, health services and political power building. With Fred Hampton, he joined with the working class white members of the Young Patriots and formed the Rainbow Coalition. Unfortunately as many of you know, that solidarity of diverse groups was broken up by forces such as police violence, drug warfare and gentrification. Although health issues plagued him later in his life, Jiménez was recognized by the US Palestinian Community Network for his continuing support for the human rights of Palestinians and other oppressed peoples.