On November 23 we gathered on Zoom for the eleventh session of “Warera: Shinran and Solidarity.” We covered “Notes on ‘Essentials of Faith Alone’” from the middle of CWS page 467 to page 468.
We started with the passage “Neither accommodated…” which Shinran says is a technical concept of Tendai Buddhism so he won’t waste his and his readers’ time explaining it. I feel it is a reminder that our Dharma talks should focus on the teachings to guide people to liberation on the Pure Land path and anything else, however intriguing, is irrelevant.
Next is the passage telling us there may be times when we cannot really nen-butsu (contemplate the Buddha-Dharma) because we’re to wracked with guilt over the crimes of our actions, words and thoughts or because we’re just too ill to think at all (the way I’ve been feeling most of the time). Here Shinran specifically suggests the saying of Namu Amida Butsu “with your mouth” rather than in other passages where shō-myō称名 encompasses a variety of meanings such as discernment and analysis of the Name.
On page 468 Shinran comments on the Contemplation Sutra passage that says when you shō (think on and/or utter) the Name of Amitayus (immeasurable Life), you eliminate eight billion kalpas of your evil karma. As Shinran points out, this passage is to make us realize we just don’t have the evil karma of our teenage years to now, but we carry the results of many eons of bad thoughts, words and actions. When we have accumulated such a heavy load, one calling of the Name isn’t taking that load seriously, so we should do at least ten. At the end of the comment, Shinran does his usual emphasis on nembutsu is not just lip service but should have a meaning that reverberates in our heart/mind.
In our discussion, we talked about the Path of Sages which describes most of what people in the West feel is Buddhism. There are teachers who seem like sages to me, such as the late Larry Ward, but hearing them guide their students sounds like they expect their followers to do a lot of disciplined mental and emotional practice that I am not capable of, although in my 20s I thought I could when I did Zen meditation. We noted that networks based on meditation practice such as Plum Village seem to have a growing support of avid followers while our Shin temples are experiencing declines in membership and financial support. I feel we have to be grateful for Jodo Shinshu while we can still access it and keep hoping the up and coming ministers will keep it alive for others who realize the Path of Sages doesn’t work for them.
This month I want to highlight the American author Herman Melville (1819-1891). I think reading fiction is important for understanding Buddhism because it shows us the inner mind of people, much like the story in the Larger Sutra expresses the interior of Shakyamuni’s mind. The concrete manifestation of “immeasurable Life” is the uncountable lives around, before and after us. Fiction gives us a way to not only meet those many lives outside of our little circle but it shows us what motivates people to act in certain ways.
It probably took me over a year to read Moby Dick but it was well worth it for the philosophical and psychological gems within the adventure. Then I learned that Marxist thinker C.L.R. James wrote a book praising the book for illustrating the state of the industrial, capitalist world Melville was seeing develop. Captain Ahab represents the men at the top who in pursuit of a great prize, maximum profits, they exploit the laborers and the earth’s resources, leading to the destruction of everyone. James felt Melville was especially keen in seeing that the people in charge like the technocrat manager Starbuck were too beholden to Ahab but the ship’s safety was actually in the hands of the black and brown workers.
Recently in Great Short Works of Herman Melville (HarperCollins 1969, paperback 2004) I read the story of “Bartleby, the Scrivener,” a wry depiction challenging the history-old notion that some people are authorities who tell others what to do, making the underclass dependent on doing work for their basic necessities of food and shelter. That and the other stories are full of sharp observations of humans and their foibles that bring them into conflict with each other. Maybe Melville wasn’t a Buddhist but he was closer to Shinran’s assessment of humanity than the philosophers of his time and place.
