On August 24 we gathered on Zoom for the eighth session of “Warera: Shinran and Solidarity.” We covered “Notes on ‘Essentials of Faith Alone’” from CWS page 462 “Hence…” to page 463 “… equal to the Buddhas.”
During this time when things are undeniably bleak in the world around us and in our personal lives, it feels invigorating to spend time listening to the words of Shinran. He shows us how to live boldly in this world, keeping our attention on nurturing life and doing what we can to lessen the suffering of other beings.
The “singleness, again singleness” phrase of Shandao’s that Shinran comments on is a reminder to me to not lose sight of the oneness of all life. Even though people of other religions and Buddhist sects say things that sound like self-power to me, and even though there are sociopaths out there hogging up the bandwidth of our media, all of them are part of this one wholeness that “Namu Amida Butsu” makes us aware of. I mentioned the “Blind Men and the Elephant” story to remind us that although reality is one, each person is touching a different part of it.
I quibbled about the translation “to make a decision” because sadamete 定めて is more of a feeling of settling down into what makes sense to us. As it says on page 462, the nembutsu was selected by the historical Buddha Shakyamuni as what would be effective for those of us who are screwed up, living in a screwed up world.
I also quibbled about all the exclamation marks in the “Again means furthermore” paragraph. I don’t see the imperative form in the Japanese sentences so I think it is the translator getting all excited, like I said how Dr. Haneda would often get in his lectures. I can hear Shinran making his point firmly as if he his reminding himself as he shares with others, “don’t be of two minds.”
We discussed how the “leaping crosswise” phrase would be better translated as “transcending sideways.” Becoming aware of the horizontal dimension of our existence – all the lives and things going on around us – gets us off that ladder of climbing up vertically, the spiritual striving for those going solo.
The kicker for me is Shinran’s comment, “This aspiration for Buddhahood is none other than the wish to save all beings.” Do-shūjō-shin means the heart/mind to bring all living beings across, to help everyone together get through those rough seas of being alive. If Buddhism is not for awakening this deep wish, then what are we doing all this (studying, gathering, sharing) for? When as a pampered prince, Shakyamuni ventured out of his palace, what he saw was not just examples of old age, sickness and death, but how people were struggling with those things and other adversities because society was not giving them much support. Much like today, the prince saw in his time that too much of his country’s resources and energies were going into warfare not welfare, so he made it his quest to overcome the ego-attachment that leads us to fight each other instead of caring.
The recent death of Rev. Sonam Wangdi Bhutia of the Nepal Honganji Temple made me think of how his 1998 encounter with paraplegic Mukaibo Hiromichi (d. 2006) turned him to Jodo Shinshu after he had been a Vajrayana monk. Mukaibo was not a priest but was known in Japan as an activist for disability rights. Rev. Gyoko Saito had met him and said Mukaibo was a dazzling presence, probably a ko-gen-gi-gi (face majestic shining) for Rev. Sonam, who previously thought one had to be able-bodied to be a bodhisattva.
That made me look to the disability activists in our present time and place. They may not be devout Buddhists as Mukaibo was, but they show us the way to actively do Do-shūjō-shin. One person I follow on social media is Alice Wong and I recommend her website disabilityvisibilityproject.com to read about the causes she champions. One notable cause is raising funds for eSims, a way for Palestinians in Gaza to connect to the internet since Israel destroyed most of their communication infrastructure. As easy as it is these days to fall into the mental paralysis of despair, the disability activists show us that even with limited resources we each can do something to help others.
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