Orange County Buddhist Church
Orange County Buddhist Church
In one of
our fall Buddhist Education Center classes, I am presently conducting lectures
on the Shoshinge, one of the fundamental texts of Jodo Shinshu. The
Shoshinge was written by Shinran Shonin, as a portion of his much larger
work, the Kyogyoshinsho. The Shoshinge appears at the end of the
second chapter of the quite voluminous six chapter work, the Kyogyo-shinsho.
The Shoshinge is written in the form of a song or
poem, and consists of exactly 120 lines. The Shoshinge is also one of
our most fundamental of sutra chants that we recite in Jodo Shinshu. At our
mother temple in Kyoto, the Nishi Hongwanji, the Shoshinge is chanted
every morning at the 6:00 a.m morning service. When I lived in Japan I
used to love going to that service, and I hate to get up early. It is a most
beautiful service that I hope some of you can experience someday. Of course it
was painful to sit seiza style, but despite the pain, the beautiful sound of
ministers and lay people chanting this centuries old chant, is something almost
indescribable.
In our meditation service on Sundays at 8:30 a.m., we have
been chanting the entire Shoshinge and wasans, or Shinran’s
poems. It is amazing how fast people have been picking up the intonations and
melody of the Shoshinge. I thoroughly enjoy chanting it on Sundays in
our meditation service with the participants in the meditation service.
The Shoshinge has been translated as “The Gatha of
True Faith.” While this is not inaccurate, it is also not the best translation
because in this country, the word faith has all kinds of connotations. To begin
with, the faith described in the Shoshinge is not a blind faith in a
divine being like in the Judeo Christian tradition. Entering the path of
Buddhism must begin with some kind of “faith” in the sense that we have to have
faith in our teachers, masters, and teachings. We begin with a feeling that,
“There is something to this Buddhism stuff. I don’t know what it is, but
somehow I want to find out more about it.” And so we begin to take our first
steps on the path of Buddhism. We begin with “faith”, or “belief”, that there
is something of value, meaning, in the teachings, but we don’t know exactly what
that is yet.
However, as we learn, study, reflect, and begin to digest the
teachings with our own life experiences, what started out as faith begins to
turn into something much more. In time, what began as simple faith, is better
described as conviction, understanding, or realization.
Eventually we might have very profound insights, profound
experiences in the Nembutsu, such that the distinction between ourself as
“seeker” and the Dharma as “truth” merge as one. Instead of saying
Namuamidabutsu, we become Namuamidabutsu. In-stead of practicing
compassion, we find ourselves immersed in it. That is the depth of religious
faith that Shinran refers to by using the character for shin, which has
been translated as “faith”, but really has much more meaning than what we
normally think of by the term.
In the Shoshinge, Shinran expresses his own religious
“faith”, but he also expresses his deep conviction, his insight, his
realization, his humility, and his profound gratitude, which are all his
shinjin, or his true heart and mind.
In the first two lines of the Shoshinge¸ Shinran
expresses perhaps the essence of Jodo Shinshu.
KI MYO MU RYO
JU NYO RAI
NA MO FU KA SHI GI KO
I take refuge in the
Tathagata of Immeasurable Life.
I entrust myself to the Buddha of Inconceivable Light.
When we say,
“Namuamidabutsu”, we are saying, “I take refuge in Amida Buddha.” What is Amida
Buddha? Amida Buddha is immeasurable life and inconceivable light. What do we
mean by this?
Immeasurable life does not mean to find the fountain of
youth, so that one never dies. Throughout history, there are those who have
sought after the secret to eternal life. I once read where people in China
drank tiny flakes of gold, to try to live longer, thinking that gold is a
precious metal that never fades away. Immeasurable life is not talking about
living some kind of eternal life. Immeasurable life is pointing to an essence,
a truth of life that enables us to transcend, even life and death.
I have quoted before a wonderful poem by Saichi, the Myokonin,
that goes as follows:
While others die,
I do not die.
Not dying, I go to Amida’s Pure
Land.
We must read
this poem by Saichi carefully. Saichi is not boasting that he is strong and
healthy and has outlived many of his friends. Saichi is pointing to the truth
of Namuamidabutsu he has received in his heart, that enables him to never die in
the spiritual sense. Yes, physically his life will come to an end someday, but
the truth of Namuamidabutsu is a timeless, eternal truth that he has become one
with, body, heart, and mind. In that sense, Saichi will never die. He will
always live on in Namuamidabutsu. That is why he says, “Not dying, I go
to Amida’s Pure Land.” Usually we think we die and go to the Pure Land. But
Saichi says, “Not dying, I go to Amida’s Pure Land.” How wonderful and
profound is this simple poem by Saichi.
In the first line of the Shoshinge, Shinran expresses
the essence, the truth of life that has touched his heart and mind. This truth
of life enables Shinran to transcend the duality of life and death. It enables
him to touch the heart of eternity within this one, single life that he has been
given.
In the second line of the Shoshinge, Shinran Shonin
points to the other aspect of Amida Buddha, the other aspect of Namuamidabutsu,
which is light.
NA MO FU KA SHI GI KO.
I entrust myself to the Buddha of Inconceivable Light.
What kind of
light is inconceivable? The light of the sun, the light of the stars, the light
of a laser beam, these are all lights that we can see and easily comprehend or
conceive of in our minds. But yet Shinran calls the light of Amida as
inconceivable. Why is that?
The light of the sun might be bright and warm, and the light
of a laser might be sharp and piercing, but there is one place that the light of
the sun or the light of a laser cannot penetrate, or illuminate. That place is
the darkness of my own heart and mind.
When Shinran was at the age of 29, he was totally lost and
confused. He had practiced and given the life of a monk his all, but to no
avail. His heart and mind, the whole world was nothing but darkness to him.
But amidst that darkness, he met a wonderful teacher, a wonderful person named
Honen, who brought light into his world of darkness. It was this light that
Shinran called, “inconceivable.” It was beyond his compre-hension, how his life
could be pitch black, in total darkness, and yet this radiant light penetrated
into his heart and mind, illuminating his life. It was a joy beyond
description.
The essence of Namuamidabutsu can be expressed in these two
simple lines of the Shoshinge. May we discover in our own lives,
immeasurable life and inconceivable light.
Namuamidabutsu, Rev. Marvin Harada
