MURYOKO
'Infinite Light'
Journal of Shin Buddhism
Harold Stewart
The Call of Amida
I am awakened from the dark depths of my existential sleep of Ignorance by a mysterious Voice heard within the Heart or inmost core of my being. Inwardly I hear Amida Buddha's Call of Command announcing his Name: 'Amida Butsu ' to which my voice immediately makes its involuntary Call in Response: 'Namu Amida Butsu!' By this double but nondual calling of the whole Name: 'Amida Butsu Namu Amida Butsu', Faith is instantly transferred to the devotee, for in this moment the voiced Nembutsu is identical with the unvoiced Name. By acting as a channel for Amida's gracious transference of Faith, the Nembutsu, or spoken Name, thus brings the caller into communication with the unspoken Name of names.
Since it is Amida's Divine Will, expressed in his Forty-eight Vows, to rescue all sentient beings, he is forever calling to every sufferer throughout the Six States of Existence, offering Rebirth in his Western Paradise to all who are willing to hear and answer his call. The Buddha-nature dwelling in each being waits dormant in the Heart till his Will manifests itself as this inner Voice silently pronouncing his Name, which in turn awakes the response of the being called and issues naturally and involuntarily from the vocal organs as the voiced Nembutsu. All that is needful for any being in distress is to pay heed to Amida's First Call and to respond by re-calling the Nembutsu. Then the free gift of Faith that eliminates all doubts and distractions will flood one's being with the infinite and immortal Light and Peace of Pure Consciousness.
Amida's Call-in-Command is known technically in Shinshu doctri ne as hotsugan eko, indicating that his limitless merits are transmitted sokutoku, in the utmost thinkable minimum of time, to all who depend on him alone for their salvation and enlightenment. So, like Zen, Shin Buddhism is a way of instantaneous Awakening. During that unique moment when Amida pronounces his Name in the Heart, the self-conscious ego is excluded and all its mental activities suspended. No one can hold two thoughts simultaneously in consciousness but only in immediate succession. It is the imperceptibly rapid alternation of two thoughts, or nen, in consecutive instants, or setsuna (Sanskrit: kshana) that gives them the appearance of simultaneity and so produces the illusion of self-consciousness. But if consciousness is exclusively of Amida during the invocation of his Name, one cannot at the same time be thinking of oneself. Since the present moment, occupied by the calling of the Nembutsu, karmically determines the immediate state of rebirth in the very next thought-instant in the future, that can be freed from the conditioning of the samskaras, or latent habit-patterns, by the Other Power of Amida operating through his Name, for nomen est numen.
This is why the foundation of the Pure Land doctrines is said to rest on Perfect Mindfulness, the seventh step on the Eightfold Noble Path. When Amida's Name wholly occupies attention, the mind is concentrated on Amida Nyorai himself. And so finally, to be conscious of the Nyorai, or Tathagata, is to be aware of Tathata, that Ultimate Suchness or Unmanifest Reality from which Amida Nyorai comes, into which he returns, and with which he is always nondually related. His title Tathagata, or 'He who comes from and goes to Tathata', clearly reveals this.