On May 17 we had our fifth session of discussing “Notes on the Inscriptions on Sacred Scrolls” (Songō shinzō meimon). We looked at the section CWS 500-502 where Shinran comments on an inscription of verses by Vasubandhu.
At the beginning of May I was in Los Angeles to attend the Higashi Honganji ministers’ study seminar followed the next day by a retreat for the lay members of the North America District temples. The guest speaker for both events was Rev. Takami Inoue, currently bishop of the Hawaii District, an assignment he took after retiring from Otani University. For the ministers’ seminar, he spoke about Shinran’s interpretation of Vasubandhu and Tanluan and on the handout he shared a picture of the scroll Shinran writes about in our text. It is the ten-character Name: ki-myo (Namu) jin-jip-po mu-ge ko (Amida) nyo-rai (Butsu), an alternative expression of the nembutsu that Shinran favored because it gave the literal translation of “Amida” as “unhindered light filling the ten directions.” At the top of the scroll is a passage from the Larger Sutra and on the bottom are the verses he comments on in our text. He also had those same verses inscribed on a scroll with his portrait.
The framing I wanted to present is that Shinran wanted the followers in the eastern Japan region to know that the Pure Land sutras are interpreted as metaphors for living our lives in the present, not a literal description of a magical world one enters after death. Vasubandhu represents this tradition of interpreting the sutras in this way and Tanluan further developed his presentation. So I mentioned that at the International Association of Shin Buddhist Studies, I heard that the monks from Taiwan agreed with a lot of what Shinran said because they, too, studied Vasubandhu and Tanluan. But they said they couldn’t present that interpretation to their members because those people expect to only hear about the heavenly Pure Land of the afterlife.
Shinran probably saw that within Honen’s growing following, there were some people fixating on the literal descriptions of the Pure Land rather than listening to Honen speaking of the metaphorical meaning. Shinran definitely did not want the growing sanghas in eastern Japan to get stuck there, so he wanted them to learn from Vasubandhu and Tanluan. But even now in Jodo Shinshu temples, people only know about the Pure Land descriptions in the sutras and not about how Vasubandhu and Tanluan pointed to their symbolism.
As Bishop Inoue emphasized in reading Vasubandhu, the metaphors are pointing to the heart of great compassion, the compassion that embraces all beings and works through us. So as in the last verse, Vasubandhu says it is Amida’s deep aspiration that “quickly brings to fullness and perfection the great treasure ocean of virtues.” I said that in Buddhism, “virtues” doesn’t refer to Puritan living but to those thoughts, words and actions that eases the suffering of others and brings them to fulfillment. For those of us at temples, we see these virtues enacted by many of the older members – those who help and encourage others and make the Dharma accessible by keeping the temple a comfortable and welcoming place.
So by showing us the vision of what a free and equal society looks like, Jodo Shinshu can be an inspiration to those of us working for social justice. Our group member, Prof. Jeff Wilson, writes about this in this book Living Nembutsu and in this recent lecture he gave: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3pF1nHqDvQI
[from X/Twitter]
Although many of us are physically limited in what we can do to help others, one thing we can do to show support is make donations to those who are actively doing life enhancing work. As I mentioned in my turn leading the Refuge Circle for the Buddhist Peace Fellowship on March 25, the Sameer Project is a group worth following on social media. We see so many tragic images from Palestine, but the Sameer Project almost daily has videos of children enjoying art, crafts, games, singing, dancing and even what they consider the privilege of schoolwork. If you can like and share their posts and donate whatever you can from time to time, it shows your support and encouragement to them.
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