MURYOKO
'Infinite Light'
Journal of Shin Buddhism
Harold Stewart
Nama-Japa
The dispensing with the need for a formal rite of initiation in Shinshu clearly illustrates the difference between mantra-japa and nama-japa. In its original practice by the earlier Jiriki, or self-power sects, such as Tendai and Shingon, the Nembutsu undoubtedly functioned as a mantra. For mantra-japa several essential conditions are required: the mantra must be communicated to the disciple by word of mouth from the Ajari (Sanskrit: Acarya), or initiator, along with oral instruction as to its correct pronunciation, intonation, and rhythm in chanting. This may only be done when the master considers the disciple ready to receive the mantra, and he must supervise its repetition to correct inaccuracies and ensure the safety of the disciple. Such a mantra is usually chanted not in isolation but conjoined with asana, or seated posture, mudra, or symbolic gestures of the hands, along with the manipulation of ritual implements, at the same time as the mind is concentrated on the iconographic form of a particular Buddha, B6dhisattya, or tutelary divinity, visualized in imagination according to the sadhana, or canonic prescriptions.
In nama-japa, on the contrary, all these conditions are dispensed with except the Divine Name alone, which is repeatedly invoked with faith. The Nembutsu may be called either silently or aloud, in any rhythm or tone of voice and in any posture, while walking, standing, sitting, or lying down. Nor is it limited to the familiar six-syllable form, for there are in use other Myogo, or variants of the Name, such as that in nine characters, Namufukashigiko Nyorai, or that in ten, Kimyojinjippomugeko Nyorai. In actual daily recitation it is often given colloquial abbreviations such as Namu Amida Bu', Nam' Am'da Buts', and Nam'Am'da B'.
For the ordinary man (and Shinshu provides expressly for his need), great learning, indeed any learning, is not necessary. Anyone, no matter how modest his intellectual endowments, can learn to repeat the Nembutsu anywhere and at any time. The Nembutsu is so perfectly simple that a child can memorize it in a few moments, and according to the Japanese, a baby's first words are: 'Dabu, Dab', or Amida's Name ! The Nembutsu should occasion no scholastic hair-splitting or logic-chopping argumentation such as often arises in religious circles about the orthodox interpretation of lengthier scriptural texts, because the Name is not of human choice or composition but originates with the Buddha Amida himself.
At first, the Nembutsu was considered as an accessory aid to concentration of the mind; which was the view of Genshin, the Japanese Sixth Patriarch, who as an orthodox Tendai monk still regarded the Nembutsu as a mantra. The great innovation of Honen Shonin, the Seventh Patriarch, was to insist that the invocation of the Name with Faith was alone sufficient to ensure Rebirth in Jodo, even though the Name were only called once. He thus exoterized this previously esoteric formula and so transformed mantra-japa into nama-japa, making the Name freely available to all followers. Even mindfulness was no longer necessary, since the Name could work its total transformation of the being on other than ego-conscious levels. It was Honen's revolutionary change that aroused the hostility of the older die-hard sects of Mount Hiei and Nara and necessitated his foundation of a separate Pure Land sect, the Jodoshu.
Yet the Jodo sect represents a transitional stage between mantra-japa and nama-japa, for it still holds that the Nembutsu is inoperative unless received from an authorized member of the Jodo ministry during a special ceremony of induction into the sect. But this is to make Amida's Great Compassion contingent on a human intermediary and on the ritual of a religious institution; and so it is not in true accord with the spirit of Amida's Vow that offers unconditional redemption to all of pure Faith.