Awakened Conscious

You have learned a thing called guilt, and it will ever fall as a shadow across your meat and your drink. This is why your pleasure has been broken. This is why you seek now to flee. But it will do you no good. It will follow you across the world. It will rise with you into the realms of cold, clean winds. It will pursue you wherever you go. This is the curse of the Buddha.
–Roger Zelazny’s “Lord of Light”

Recently I picked up the Jodo Shinshu Handbook for Laymen, which is published by the Hongwanji Temple in Japan, but an English copy is available at the BCA Bookstore.* The Handbook was a little different than what I expected. It’s strictly a question and answer book, but covers a surprising number of topics that I wouldn’t have thought of.

Question #193 goes like so, with answer edited for brevity:

Q: What is meant by being enabled to live in the Truth of the Buddha?

A: …A life of faith awakens me to the Truth and shows me my stark, ego-ridden self and gives me the determination to live with hope and courage in response to the Buddha. This is living in humbleness, in joy, and in thanks-giving; this is being enabled to live with a firm spiritual inspiration and to advance step by step along the path to eternity.

I think this is a very important point, and often forgotten in our quest to find the perfect practice, or to reach Enlightenment. In my previous post, I made the point that the eye cannot see itself without help from an external source (mirror, water reflected, etc). In the same way, trying to unravel the illusion of the self through self-directed efforts only is kind of counter-intuitive.

The truth kind of blindsides us at some point, and that’s when real awakening begins. In Jodo Shinshu terminology, this is Amida Buddha calling us, shedding light on our own ignorance, and this is why we put our hands together and say “thank you”, or “namu amida butsu”. We can’t speed up or slow this down. It will happen of its own accord, but if we’re not sensitive to this, then we may miss the teaching. That’s why Jodo Shinshu focuses on “deep hearing” as a practice, if it can be called as such. Attending Dharma Talks (any dharma talks, not just Jodo Shinshu) may not change much at first, but years later in hindsight, you’ll see the difference. Such has been my experience in the last 3 years. I can’t quantify what changed, but something did change since I first got into this stuff three years ago. I’d like to think that something awakened, and has kept me going even when I get discouraged and want to quit Buddhism.

Another question from the Handbook, #160:

Q: Will the nembutsu change me in any way?

A: …Even though I am a changeless foolish being, others may say that I have changed. Is this not because now I am embraced by the compassionate Buddha and so am able to cope with anxieties and sufferings and walk courageously through life towards the true realm?

Namuamidabu

P.S. The quotation above comes from the sci-fi novel Lord of Light. In this chapter, the character Siddhartha, possessed by the demon Taraka, teaches the demon the notion of “shame” for the first time. Once experienced, the demon cannot shake loose this sense of shame, and later gives up his hedonistic use of Siddhartha’s body to help him instead.

* – The BCA Bookstore is nice, and has a good selection of books, rosaries, shrines and such. The selection is not limited to Jodo Shinshu stuff either. I also found their customer service very helpful when I had a recent shipping problem.