Orange County Buddhist Church

A WAY OF SEEING (New Year, 2008)

    あけましておめでとうございます。今年も又宜しくおねがいいたします。 Happy New Year, everyone!  Thank you for all you’ve done for us this past year.  Please continue your support this year as well.

    春立つや愚の上にまた愚にかへる             一茶
    Spring begins again;
     Upon folly,
     Folly returns.             Issa (tr. by R..H. Blyth)

    Have I used this haiku before?  It does not matter, because the true reality that is expressed in these words is still the same.  Nothing has changed.  The word gu 愚 can be translated “foolish(ness),” “stupid(ity),” or “ignorant,”  among other things, as well as “folly.”  Because “folly” is not a word we often use anymore, one of the other three above might be better.  Perhaps a more useful translation for us would be, “Spring begins (again);/ Foolish as I am, / I continue to be foolish.”

    You might recall that Shinran Shonin, founder of our way of seeing, called himself “Gutoku Shinran,” which translates literally as “foolish, bald-headed Shinran.”  For the record, Shinran was neither foolish nor bald-headed, at least not in the eyes of others.  He might have considered himself foolish, because he was unable through his own power to be a good person, let alone to realize enlightenment.  As for being bald, calling himself so was his way of describing the fact that he did not shave his head, as a monk would, nor let his hair grow long, as a lay-person would.  He was neither priest (because he had been exiled and “defrocked” by the civil authority), nor lay (because he had been a priest).  His hair was simply cut very short.  Calling himself “foolish, bald-headed Shinran” was, in other words, an expression of his realization of who and what he was in his own eyes.

    The haiku poet, Issa, expressed the same realization in the above haiku.  Spring is very often used in Japanese poetry to refer to the New Year, even, as here, to refer to New Year’s Day.  Issa is saying that no matter how many New Year’s Days he lives through, his foolishness does not abate, does not get any less.  But, like Shinran, he was not an ignorant person.  Far from it, if we judge by his many wonderful poems.

On the other hand, unlike Shinran, the quest for enlightenment does not seem to have played a great role in Issa’s life, although it must be said that many of his poems reflect a very deep Buddhist understanding of the human condition.  Possibly most illustrative of that is the poem I quote from time to time:  The world of dew is the world of dew.  And yet, and yet.  This was written by Issa when he lost his two-year old daughter to small pox.  My interpretation of this is that everything in the world is impermanent.  I know that, and yet the knowledge does not make it any easier to reconcile my daughter’s death.  In Issa’s case, it must have been doubly difficult, because he had lost his other children prior to his daughter’s death.

    For Shinran, enlightenment was perhaps the most important matter in his life.  In one of his writings, he spoke of his teacher Honen as being wise and compassionate on the inside, while seemingly austere and claiming ignorance on the outside.  However, he felt that he himself might appear wise and humble on the outside, but in reality was ignorant and arrogant on the inside.  Obviously, though, in our eyes, Shinran was neither ignorant nor arrogant.  It might better be said that those feelings were the results of his absolute humility, which itself was born of his absolute reliance on Amida’s Primal Vow, which would enable him to become one with Amida.

    Being humble is not easy; how often do you think you have been humble in your lifetime?  My answer might be, “I don’t really know.  Maybe only once; maybe up to ten times.  Surely not many more.  Unfortunately, maybe never.   I say “unfortunately,” because in Shinran’s view, humility, in one or another of its forms, (perhaps in the realization that I am unable to awaken to true reality without totally depending on Amida), is a necessary condition of true and real entrusting.  It needs only the one instance to ensure our becoming one with Amida.

    If you have not yet met with that single instance, perhaps this will be the year.

    (Thanks again to Kei Shimizu for teaching me how to use the Japanese characters in Word a couple years back.)

Take care.

合掌  Gasshō,
Donkon Jaan
Rev. John Doami

January 2008

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