Orange County Buddhist Church
Orange County Buddhist Church
I love listening to all types of music, --pop, jazz, oldies, classical, all kinds. I even like to listen to my kids’ cds, which are usually R& B. Depending on the type of music you listen to, music can make you tap your feet, sing in the shower, dance with joy, or bring tears to your eyes. Music can move our hearts and minds, and resonate deep within our being. Sometimes we don’t even have to know the words or the language to be moved by music. I have absolutely no idea what he is saying, but Andrea Bocelli’s voice and singing is absolutely amazing. Others have commented on the power they have felt from hearing ministers chant during a funeral or a service.
Like music, the Dharma has the power to move our entire being, to resonate within our hearts and minds.
In the Sanbutsuge, there is a beautiful passage that states,
SHO GAKU DAI ON, KO RU JIP-PO.
SHO GAKU means “true enlightenment.” DAI ON means “great sound.” In other words, the great sound of enlightenment. DAI ON is the name of our OCBC Taiko group, “Daion Taiko”, which is taken from this line in the Sanbutsuge.
KO RU means “to echo, reverberate, and to flow.” JIP-PO means in the “ten directions.” It is the Buddhist expression for “everywhere.”
The entire passage then means, “The great sound of enlightenment, echoes and reverberates throughout the universe.”
This is really interesting when we stop and think about it. Enlightenment has a sound. Normally, you would think that when the Buddha awakened to enlightenment under the Bodhi tree, that it was totally silent. But here the sutra states that enlightenment has a sound. Not only does it have a sound, but the sound of enlightenment echoes and reverberates everywhere.
Shakyamuni Buddha awakened to enlightenment over 2500 years ago, but yet the great sound of his enlightenment has been echoing and reverberating in the hearts and minds of Buddhists for centuries. How has this great sound of enlightenment reached us? How have we been able to hear this profound sound of enlightenment? It is through the Nembutsu, Namuamidabutsu, that we have heard the great sound of enlightenment. Namuamidabutsu is the resonating sound of enlightenment, that echoes deep within our hearts and minds. To meet the Dharma, is to meet this echoing sound of Namuamidabutsu.
Dr. Nobuo Haneda has a beautiful way of explaining this with an example. Haneda-Sensei says that to meet the Dharma is like the musical instrument, the xylophone. The xylophone is a keyboard of metal keys that are struck by a baton or stick. When one key is struck, it vibrates or reverberates a sound. But this vibrating from one key begins to cause the key next to it to vibrate, thus giving the xylophone such a wonderful sound.
When we meet with the Dharma, our hearts and minds are struck like a xylophone key. Through our own life, this sound begins to vibrate and reverberate to others around us. Without any effort, without even trying to do so, this great sound of enlightenment spreads throughout the ten directions to others because it resonates within our own hearts and minds.
If we open our hearts and minds, we can begin to hear the beautiful music of the Dharma that is all around us. It is expressed in the call of the bird, in the sound of the rain, in the roar of the wind. It can be heard in a child’s laughter, or in the cry of deep sorrow.
The late Rev. Kenryu Tsuji, in his book, “The Heart of the Buddha-Dharma,” expresses this most beautifully as follows:
Listen
Listen. Listen to the voice of the Dharma.
Listen to the birds, singing in the morning,
the wind sighing in the boughs overhead,
and the roar of the waves on the beach.
Listen to the rain on the roof
and the snow falling in the fields.
The Dharma speaks to us
through the sounds of the world –
forcefully and eloquently and beautifully.
It speaks of the unending change around us,
the immutable truth of interdependence,
and the peace in nature.
Do we have the ears to hear and listen…..?
Listen to the Nembutsu in the Hondo.
Listen to the noble silence of the Buddha.
From “The Heart of the Buddha-Dharma”
By, Rev. Kenryu T. Tsuji
May we hear the echoing, great sound of enlightenment as the Nembutsu, Namuamidabutsu, and may it begin to reverberate in the hearts and minds of those around us as well.
Namuamidabutsu,
Rev. Marvin Harada
