MURYOKO
'Infinite Light'
Journal of Shin Buddhism
Harold Stewart
The Crosswise Leap
There was a tradition that the founder of each new school of the Mahayana should make a critical reclassification of the doctrines and texts of all other schools from the viewpoint of his own teachings and of the sutras and shastras, or scriptural commentaries, on which they were based. Shinran Shonin followed this precedent in his Gutokusho (Notes of a Bald-Headed Ignoramus). In Book One of this work Shinran offers his classification of the whole field of Buddhist doctrines and methods up to his time, set forth in two pairs of antitheses. The first is that between the shutsu, or journey, and the cho, or leap; and the second between the two directions: ju, or vertical, and o, or crosswise. By the combination of the two pairs of terms, a fourfold classification is produced, as follows: Jushutsu, or Vertical Journey, as in the Hinayana and proto-Mahayana; Jucho, or Vertical Leap, as in the Mahayana proper, for example in the abrupt method of Zen; Oshutsu, or Crosswise Journey, as in Jodoshu and the minor Pure Land schools isuch as Ji and Yuztunembutsu; and Ocho, or Crosswise Leap, as in Shinshu.
It should at once be clear that of these four categories, the vertical refers to the Difficult Path of the Sages and the crosswise to the Easy Way of Nembutsu with Faith; whilst the journey describes gradual Deliverance and the leap signifies sudden Enlightenment.
The two ways of following these two paths that lead one out of the suffering of this world are sometimes illustrated by the homely parable of an insect imprisoned in a stalk of bamboo. Four possible courses of action are presented to the insect; first, it can gnaw slowly and laboriously through the entire length of the wood, as in the Hinayana and the early Mahayana methods of attainment of freedom by one's own efforts; secondly, it can take the quicker but more strenuous course of chewing lengthwise through the tougher nodes at the joints to reach liberation, like the Zen method in the later Mahayana; thirdly, it can patiently but monotonously eat its way out crosswise through the wall of the stalk, as in the easier but more prolonged self-effort of calling the Nembutsu as in the Jodo sect; but with all of these methods there remains the possibility that it may die before completing its task. Finally, the insect can discover a hole already bored in the lateral wall of the bamboo and make its escape without loss of time or effort by this short cut, as in the Way of Faith Alone advocated by Shinshu.