Orange County Buddhist Church
Orange County Buddhist Church
For Shin Buddhists, the truth of enlightenment is expressed as “Amida Buddha.” What do we mean when we say we take refuge in Amida Buddha? If we are not careful, Amida can become objectified and taken to mean a kind of deity or god. This is not what is meant by Amida Buddha in Shin Buddhism.
The word “Amida” is a combination of two sanskrit words, Amitayus and Amitabha. Amitayus means “immeasurable life.” Amitabha means “immeasurable light.” Therefore, the contents of enlightenment are immeasurable life and immeasurable light. What does this mean? Allow me to explain this by two examples. First I would like to explain immeasurable life by an example from Saichi the Myokonin.
Myokonin is a term used in Shin Buddhism to refer to the most devout and exemplary followers of the Nembutsu, Namuamidabutsu. These Myokonin in many cases wrote poems expressing their understanding of the Nembutsu, Amida Buddha, the Pure Land, and other aspects of Shin Buddhism. Saichi wrote one particular poem that I am especially fond of and that I think clearly illustrates what we mean by immeasurable life.
The poem goes as follows:
“How grateful!
While others die,
I do not die:
Not dying, I go
To Amida’s Pure Land.”
p. 167
Mysticism:
Christian and Buddhist
D.T. Suzuki
We must read this poem by Saichi carefully, because it is easy to misinterpret this subtle but most profound poem.
First, Saichi says, “How grateful! While others die, I do not die.”
Here, Saichi is not saying arrogantly, “I am strong and healthy! I outlived all of my friends. Others die, but I am still alive and kicking!”
I don’t think that is what Saichi is saying by those few lines. Through the Nembutsu, through the truth of enlightenment, Saichi has touched upon an essence of life, life beyond his ego self, life beyond his limited physical life as a human being. That essence, that truth, is immeasurable life.
The last two lines are also subtle and almost like a Zen koan. Saichi says, “Not dying, I go to Amida’s Pure Land.”
Normally we think that we die, and then go to the Pure Land. Here Saichi throws that logic and way of thinking upside down. Saichi says, “Not dying, I go to Amida’s Pure Land.” How can Saichi say this?
Saichi can make this statement because he has touched upon immeasurable life. In so doing, he touches the Pure Land here and now, not as a heaven or realm up there as a place to go when he dies, but as the world of truth or enlightenment. Physically, he knows he will die like all human beings, but religiously, spiritually, he has touched on a truth, an essence of life that transcends life and death. That is the meaning of “Not dying.” His life here and now is not just a life of a mere 70, 80, or 90 years. His life has touched the infinite. His life is immeasurable.
Amida is immeasurable life. Immeasurable life is all around us. It flows through our hearts and minds. It is one with us in life, and is one with us in death. We can sense it even as we stand in front of the great ocean, or at the foothills of a great mountain. Saichi touched on this great immeasurable life, and in so doing his life too becomes immeasurable.
I would now like to explain immeasurable light by quoting from our recently published book, “Coffinman.” This book, a true story about a man who became a mortician, clearly illustrates what is meant by immeasurable light.
The author, Shinmon Aoki, in working as a mortician, and preparing corpses for funerals by placing them in coffins, comes to be known as the “Coffinman.” Although he is first confronted by the unpleasant things that he must do as a mortician, he continues in earnest his work, and begins to sense a radiance, a light, in the faces of the deceased. He then begins to sense this light in insects, in trees, in life around him. This leads him to a study of religion, and eventually Shin Buddhism. In Shinran Shonin’s writings, he discovers what he has been seeing and sensing experientially, as “immeasur-able light.”
In his book, “Coffinman”, Shinmon Aoki quotes from a Dr. Kazukiyo Imura, who has also seen this light. Dr. Imura was terminally ill, but in facing death, his heart and mind were opened to great immeasurable light.
“On the evening of that
day, as I was parking the car at the apartment, I saw a mysterious aura.
Everything around me was extremely bright. The people going to the supermarket
to shop appeared to be shining. The kids who were running around appeared to be
shining. The dogs, the drooping heads of rice, the weeds, the telephone poles,
even down to the tiny pebbles, all appeared to be shining. When I got back to
the apartment, even my wife appeared to be shining, so much so that I wanted to
put my hands together in reverence.”
p. 58
Coffinman, by Shinmon Aoki.
Dr. Imura, as he faced his own death, had his heart and mind opened up to immeasurable light. He saw a radiance in all things around him. People, animals, plants, even inanimate objects like telephone poles and tiny pebbles, all radiated immeasurable light. This light is not the kind of light that you would see in a movie like, “Close Encounters of the Third Kind”, or “Star Trek.” It is a light that we see more with our heart than our eyes.
Shinran Shonin, the founder of Shin Buddhism, expresses this light throughout his writings. In one of his poems, or wasan he expresses how immeasurable light radiates and shines within flowers.
“Beams
of light, thirty-six hundred
Thousand billion in number,
Shine brilliantly from within each flower;
There is no place they do not reach.”
p. 335
Collected Works of Shinran
This great immeasurable light shines within each and every flower. As Shinran states, “There is no place they do not reach.” This means that immeasurable light reaches everywhere, even into the depths of my heart. It radiates within the hearts and minds of all beings. It radiates within the mountains and trees, and illuminates the oceans and rivers. Although the world might appear dark and dreary, there is a great immeasurable light that can brighten the darkest of days, the darkest of lives.
Amida Buddha means “immeasurable life and immeasurable light.” Namuamidabutsu, therefore, means, “I open my heart and mind to this great immeasurable life and light.” Although my life might be dark and dreary, although my life might be sunk in my limited ego self, Namuamidabutsu, as immeasurable life and immeasurable light, illuminates my heart and mind, and allows me to touch the timeless, the infinite.
Gassho, Rev. Marvin Harada
