Community of Lions – Sutra Study Class Session 6

In our Dec. 6, 2022 session, we read the first half of the Tan Butsu Ge (aka San Butsu Ge) in Section 5 of the Larger Sutra along with “Re-Enter the Lion” (Shout of Buddha pp. 193-195).

 

I chose the lion piece to reinforce our reading of the earlier lion piece – to show that the awakened person is dynamic, not mostly passive as the stereotype “sage” is depicted. It’s been a couple weeks since that session and after watching Rod Serling’s 1964 television special “Carol for Another Christmas,” I’m reminded that we need to emphasize community more in our study of Buddhist texts. The symbol of the ferocious lion may appeal to rugged individuals, but Akegarasu portrays his lion character as interacting with others and in the last paragraph says, “His eyes shine in all directions, and include all beings, and all are in him.” For Akegarasu encountering Kiyozawa, for Shinran encountering Honen, for Ananda seeing the shining majestic face ko gen gi gi of Shakyamuni, the awakened person is one who respects all beings and is friendly to all. The sage isolated on the mountaintop is not the true lion actively concerned with the liberation of all.

 

 

 [Lion by Chicago needle felting artist Kiyoshi Mino]

 

I’m noticing in the Shin Buddhism Translation Series a trend to use English words that denote “the great man” – the alpha male who is way ahead of the pack, separated far from the rubble of us ordinary folks. At the last session I complained about the use of “superior” and “surpassed” in describing Dharmakara’s character. I would rather use terms that denote someone who has transcended the usual mundane concerns – that they have widened their focus from self-centeredness to acknowledging the lives around them, not that they possess some special god-given talent denied to almost everyone else (who is not male, rich, able-bodied etc.).

 

In this session I pointed out the phrase that I feel Rev. Gyomay Kubose properly translated in his book on Tan Butsu Ge: Mu myō yoku nu, se son yō mu “Stupidity, greed, anger, in the Honored One is eternal – NOT.” Maybe the proper Chinese reading of “eternally not” means “never,” but our temple uses the translation of “Ignorance, greed and anger do not linger in your mind.” This is not only what Rev. Kubose learned from Akegarasu – it’s what he witnessed continuously when he spent time with his teacher who made mistakes like the rest of us out of stupidity, greediness and fury. Rev. Gyoko Saito said one time a man accidentally knocked over an antique vase at Akegarasu’s residence and Akegarasu screamed bloody murder at him. But then in the next moment his rage dissipated and he apologized to the man, realizing a broken vase was trivial compared to being with a fellow seeker on the path. The Larger Sutra would really be a fairy tale if Dharmakara encountered a human being who never made any selfish, short-sighted moves. But just as Rev. Saito described his teacher, the truly awakened one quickly sees his own stupidity, greed and anger and doesn’t hang on to them with justifications.

Session 5 of Sutra Study Class

 In the November 22 class we went over Section 4 and began Section 5 of the Larger Sutra and the Akegarasu selection was "I and Thou." Here are some notes:

In Section 4 the 53 buddhas leading up to Lokesvararaja are listed. A common part of the buddhas' names is "Light" - such as the first buddha is Dipankara, "the torch light." Light is a common symbol for "wisdom" but in the path of awakening, the wisdom we need is the insight and guidance that leads to liberation from self-attachment.

                                          One of the sun babies from the new Teletubbies show

It is freedom that is the main characteristic of awakening and freedom includes equality because the recognition of all lives as equal signifies freedom from the self imposing judgment on others. So we come to Lokesvararaja - world-freedom-king, that is, "the king who moves freely in the world."

If the laundry list of the 53 buddhas didn't already take you out of our usual linear concept of history, the story Shakyamuni begins in Section 5 lets us know this is "once upon a time" fiction, not a literal description of an actual occurrence. Besides the teacher's made-up name, the student gets one to indicate his journey: Dharmakara, the Dharma storehouse (i.e. potential). I mostly feel it is Shakyamuni giving us his autobiography in disguise, not wanting us to get fixated on his particular life. Most of us grow up feeling like we should be the king of the world - expecting things to be for our benefit in the same way our parents often catered to our wants as children. The story has Dharmakara starting off with a crown on his head looking down on all his subjects but we will see that in his journey, the looking down on others will give way to looking up at all lives with respect from being in a totally bowed down position.

At the end of the "I and Thou" Akegarasu says some people receive the light of the sun and claim it is their light - a metaphor for how wisdom comes to us from a long ago, far away source (through the 53 buddhas et al) but some people like to think it came originally from their own personal teacher. As Prof. Melissa Curley pointed out in Masako Keta's work - in Jodo Shinshu the real teacher works as a window, opening up to let us see the light coming from the long lineage of tradition. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PFHuHulJ4Xg&t=4s

 

Sutra Study class notes: September - Nov. 3

 Below are the screenshots from the first four sessions of the Sutra Study class. The full versions are still on Twitter (@NakaiPatti) but these photos show the main points.

Tearing Down the Wall of Elitism – Summary of Topic #6 in the Treasured Teachings monthly series

 

There was no August 2020 session and for this month September I’m announcing the end of the Treasured Teachings series. We are ending with this discussion of the sixth and seventh teachers of the lineage outlined in Shinran’s Shoshinge.

 

One of the important characteristics of Jodo Shinshu we should emphasize is the repudiation of elitism that is entrenched in much of Western Buddhism. One-upmanship has been a part of human history in almost all cultures and has frequently crept into Buddhist institutions despite movements to return to the Buddha’s teachings of equality. When Buddhism became established in Japan it was the domain of the aristocrats, those who could read and write Chinese texts.

 

It took a while for the Pure Land teachings of China to make a dent in the Japanese Buddhist consciousness since it was easy to interpret the sutras and commentaries as handbooks to gain spiritual superiority through difficult practices. It was in a Buddhist Churches of America book that I read that the Tendai priest Genshin (942-1017) became interested in the Pure Land teachings because even though he was confident of attaining enlightenment as a learned and disciplined monk, he wondered what chance his non-ordained mother would have. That concern for his mother widened to see the Pure Land teachings as a way for laypeople (of course, for him, it meant aristocrats) to be on a sure path to buddhahood.

 

Genshin’s importance for us is being an influential enough priest to bring the Pure Land teachings to the attention of serious Japanese Buddhists and eventually to Honen (1133-1212). Genshin appreciated the theory of universal liberation and could see its relevance to his circle of well-to-do folks, but it was Honen who left the Mt. Hiei monastery to put those teachings into practice by bringing them to the residents of Kyoto, rich and poor, upstanding and criminal, authorities and outcasts, and of course, women as well as men. I heard in one of Dr. Mark Blum’s presentations that one of the first groups of people Honen approached were the funeral workers, those considered defiled for their work of handling dead bodies. If Honen could bring them the teachings of universal liberation, there is no one to be excluded, no matter what their work was, what their assigned station in society was.

 

[Honen sharing the Dharma with the townspeople]

What Shinran observed in Honen and Honen’s community was the “rightly settled” – maybe not perfectly awakened but people who exhibited the Buddha’s open-heartedness of embracing all as fellow seekers. Everyone in hearing the nembutsu was being equally liberated from their ego-shells and into the flow of true life – no one had a leg up on anyone else because they had a special talent or won an award for outstanding achievement. Even those who seem to be so caught up in promoting themselves are only temporarily residing in the “womb-palace of doubt” and will eventually find themselves with everyone else in the Pure Land.

 

At this time in the United States with people so divided politically, it’s hard to imagine such a view of Oneness. Americans seem so entrenched in the idea of individual achievement that we easily disparage those we think are lacking in initiative and morality. It may seem that the Jodo Shinshu teachings will never have any effect in the society we live in but the nembutsu keeps calling to each of us to see what the Buddha saw, the way Honen lived, the truly liberated view of Shinran respecting the buddhas and bodhisattvas all around him.

 

The Seemingly Narrow Path – Summary of Topic #5 in the Treasured Teachings monthly series

In our July 2020 session we discussed how Daochuo (aka Tao-ch’o, Doshaku 562-645) contrasted the Pure Land path with the “path of sages” and how Shandao (aka Shan-tao, Zendo 613-681) spoke of this route as a narrow white path in his two-rivers parable. (BTW, of all the Magnificent Seven teachers, Daochuo and Shandao were the only ones who were teacher and student in real life.)

 

[photo of Patagonia from Facebook page “Mother Earth”]

I said what most people in the West think of as Buddhism is the “path of sages” and I think many got into Buddhism like me because we wanted to be sages, free of the dirt of messy worldly life.  We want to climb up to the high mountain peaks to be far above the masses of ordinary beings.

 

I heard Dr. Nobuo Haneda recently say the Pure Land path is described as “narrow” but it’s actually so subtle that it’s hard to see. We would rather look away from our raging waters of anger and greed and escape to an icy mountaintop. But as in my own experience, the narrow white path appears only when you’re looking right at the towering waves of your own hates and desires.

 

Such a long time ago and far away in China, Daochuo and Shandao pointed out the Pure Land path when so many of the scholar-priests and their lay followers were convinced Buddha only taught about the path of sages and that’s how they interpreted the sutras. Zendo dokumyo bussho-i is Shinran reminding us in Shoshinge that throughout history teachers like the Magnificent Seven had to come along to point out that Shakyamuni spoke of ALL beings sharing in Awakening, not just those whose hard work and smarts qualified them as sages.

 

The Pure Land path starts out looking narrow but as one walks it, it becomes wider as we notice all the Dharma friends and teachers walking along with us. I might rail about how “the West” doesn’t give much attention or respect to the nembutsu teachings, but to have a handful of folks from other states and Canada joining these Zoom sessions shows me that the path is truly a wide one.

 

I highly recommend reading Taitetsu Unno’s book River of Fire, River of Water (including the poignant chapter “The Spirit of the Valley”) but for a quick read on the White Path Two Rivers parable, here’s a link to Rev. Marvin Harada’s article.

https://www.ocbuddhist.org/ministers-messages/2015/5/25/th1rvr1ye2z3dyvv4hzacjmeqogyhi

Discovering Your True Life – Summary of Topic #4 in the Treasured Teachings monthly series

On June 27, 2020 on Zoom we watched the lecture “The Role of the Teacher in Zen and Jodo Shinshu,” a presentation by Prof. Melissa Curley of the analysis of Kyoto School philosopher Keta Masako. Prof. Curley said in Keta’s view, the difference between Zen and Shinshu is in Zen the teacher acts as a wall – challenging the student to go over him, while in Shin the teacher serves as a window – the person becoming transparent so the student sees the rich transmission behind him.

For Shinran, all the teachers in his Magnificent Seven scheme are windows, allowing him to see through to the essence of the Buddha’s teachings. In Topic #3, I talked of the Mahayana rebellion, that Nagarjuna had to wrestle the true message of universal awakening away from the clutches of those who wanted to make Buddhist institutions for elites only. Now in this topic, we looked at Tanluan (476-572) who was attracted intellectually to Buddhist philosophy but encountered the living truth of Buddhism only after he was faced with a life-threatening illness.

He abandoned the useless metaphysics of Buddhism and sought the magic formulas for regaining health in Taoism (not the Western idea of Taoism as a purely philosophical path). He happened to encounter Bodhiruci, a monk from Central Asia, bringing Buddhist texts to the Chinese. Bodhiruci showed him the Pure Land teachings of Vasubandhu who focused on the Larger Sukhavativyuha Sutra. In Vasubandhu’s commentary, Tanluan received the awakening to the truth of each life is a part of the Unbounded Life (Amitayus) and Light (Amitabha). He no longer felt anxious about whether and when his illness would terminate his individual life and in his zeal to spread the Pure Land teachings he recovered and went on to live several more years. I said it was like Mr. Noboru Sanwo of Kingsburg, California who was told his cancer would kill him within six months but he lived another ten years once he found the clear presentation of Shinran’s teachings in the works of Shuichi Maida. He became friends with Rev. Gyoko Saito who was a brother-disciple with Maida in Akegarasu’s group. I was fortunate to sit in on one of the study sessions Mr. Sanwo held for people in the Fresno area to discuss Maida’s works and the urgent concerns they each had about hearing the Buddha’s teachings of transcending ego-attachment.

Right now in isolation due to the coronavirus lockdown, it’s hard for me to relate to Tanluan’s joy of giving up the idea of an individual self for the experience of being interconnected to all lives. There’s much to learn from Tanluan so I wait to see him through the window provided by Shinran in the Kyogyoshinsho which I can only look through when given the chance by translators such as Nobuo Haneda (weekly Maida Center class) and Michael Conway (monthly ministers seminar) on the internet these days.

The Mahayana Rebellion – Summary of Topic #3 in the Treasured Teachings monthly series

There are two main points of this topic:

1. The Mahayana (“large vehicle”) movement was a rebellion against elitism – the monastic institution was excluding people who weren’t morally “worthy” (didn’t strictly uphold the rules). And it was also a rebellion for the true essence of the Buddha’s teachings which was that all beings participate in awakening – that there is no requirement that leaves anyone out. This is the fundamental teaching symbolized by the jewel that was hidden in the “dragons’ lair,” the entrenched hierarchy of institutional Buddhism that Nagarjuna had to fight his way through in order to bring that jewel into the open air.

[Tibetan depiction of Nagarjuna receiving sutras from the water-dragon]

Unfortunately throughout Buddhist history the elites wanted to keep burying that jewel and characterize awakening as their own private prize and so Mahayana rebels (such as Shinran) arose to reclaim the Buddha’s teachings for the people, all people. Today there are still Buddhist groups in the West who call themselves “Mahayana” but are very elitist, clinging to the narrative that only morally pure, intellectually superior people can be enlightened.

2. Shinran saw Nagarjuna as a prime example of someone from that erroneous narrative who came to embrace the Pure Land teachings. One evidence of this is he started writing a commentary on the ten Bodhisattva stages but gave up during his study of the second one because the first one, the Stage of Joy, struck him so powerfully. Shinran quotes passages of Nagarjuna where he hears Nagarjuna speaking from his heart to Shinran’s heart.

If you want to study the “morally pure, intellectually superior” figure of Nagarjuna worshipped by elitists, that’s okay as a side project. But if you are a Shin Buddhist follower your time and effort is better spent hearing Nagarjuna’s words of passionate joy as received by Shinran. From Shinran’s view, Nagarjuna, like all the other koso (“high monks”), started out trekking the difficult path but realized there was no way of transcending the ego if you’re continually thinking, “I’m doing this to win my prize.” The so-called “easy path” is the true “everybody on board” vehicle of Mahayana.