Orange County Buddhist Church
Orange County Buddhist Church
Last month, April, we celebrated the birthday of the man who started it all, Buddhism that is. This month we are celebrating the birth of the man who made sense of Buddhism, the teachings of the Buddha, enabling us to awaken to the true reality of ourselves, which is the objective of those teachings. The Buddha is Shakyamuni, of course, and the man who enabled us to awaken to the true reality of ourselves is Shinran Shonin.
At the end of the 12th Century CE when Shinran was born, there were eight major sects of Buddhism in Japan, all of which required practices of one sort or another, primarily, but not only, meditation, in order to realize enlightenment, what we might call awakening to the true reality of ourselves in order to free ourselves from suffering. Shinran found it impossible after 20 years of trying to do so and, hearing of a new way of seeing being taught by Honen Shonin, considered the founder of the Jodo, or Pure Land, Sect in Japan, went to listen to him. He soon became one of Honen’s top disciples to the point where he was challenged by other disciples for saying that, although in matters of learning and practice he was much inferior to Honen, his Shinjin and Honen’s were one and the same. When Honen was asked to comment on this, he answered that because his own Shinjin and Shinran’s Shinjin were both from Amida, they were one and the same.
There is an apparent difference between the Jodo Sect and our Jodo Shinshu sect. (Translated, the name of our sect, or way of seeing, is The True Purport/Intent [shu] of the Pure Land Teachings, which is very cumbersome, especially compared with the four syllables of Jodo Shinshu.) A couple of major distinctions between the two are whether Amida is completely responsible for our enlightenment (Shinshu) or we must accomplish some form of practice, such as the repetition of Namo Amida Butsu, for it (Jodo); and whether Shinjin makes us one with Amida (Shinshu) or asserts a duality between Amida and us (Jodo). Honen’s answer above to the question of whether his and Shinran’s Shinjin were one and the same would seem to have ended this latter speculation, but apparently his disciples continued to maintain otherwise.
In any case, Shinran’s understanding, or way of seeing, is the only means possible for me to realize Amida’s intent, namely, to enable me to awaken to what I am – a person incapable of realizing enlightenment – and at the same time enable me to know I will realize enlightenment. If that sounds like bragging, what would you have the Buddha’s intent be?
Wow! This is a lot more technical than I had intended or would have liked, but it is apropos of Shinran’s birthday, so I hope it helps rather than hinders.
Gassho, Dull-rooted Jaan Rev. John Doami
