MURYOKO
'Infinite Light'
Journal of Shin Buddhism
Harold Stewart
Once-calling and Many-calling
This new all-embracing Nembutsu still remained quantitative in practice; for Honen, while admitting that one calling of the Name with perfect Faith might suffice for Rebirth, still maintained that the Nembutsu should be repeated as often as possible, many thousands of times a day and night throughout one's lifetime, until at death one was reborn in the Western Paradise. He stressed that the last call of one's lifetime in the moment immediately before death was particularly important in determining one's posthumous state of Rebirth in Jodo. But this method of many callings still left room for uncertainty or a residue of doubts, for what if illness or accident were to prevent the calling of the Name in one's final moments ? Were all the Nembutsu previously called throughout one's lifetime then of no avail ? Was one therefore predestined by still unresolved karma to Rebirth not in the Pure Land but in one of the Six States of Existence ?
It was left for Shinran Shonin, who should be counted as the Eighth Patriarch of Pure Land Buddhism, to turn this quantitative approach of Honen into the qualitative Nembutsu by advocating the principle of Once-Calling by Amida. Shinran held that no one could gain Faith by his own efforts, not even by self-motivated callings of the Name, for Faith is a free gift from Amida. So the Name called once and for all by Amida is worth more than countless Nembutsu repeated by the devotee. Many callings motivated by individual will power may, if they produce no response from Amida, lead to the arising of doubts; but Amida's Divine Will, not ours, is expressed in his Vows and motivates his one and definitive calling of his Name, which cannot fail.
Even during Honen's lifetime, various misunderstandings and deviant views had arisen among his disciples and their followers regarding the correct method of invocation of the Name. Should it be called many times or only once? Honen's disciple Kasai was accused of claiming that the devotee need Only call Amida once, and if he did teach this heterodox interpretation, then his master was justified in expelling him from his new Jodo sect. But Shinran's view was that it is Amida who only needs to call the devotee once to ensure his Rebirth, and this strictly orthodox view explains why he was not excommunicated like Kosai but came to be regarded in later times as Honen's foremost disciple. Shinran always claimed that he had invented no new doctrines of his own but was only expounding the true meaning of his master's teachings. Shinran held that Ojo, or Rebirth in the Pure land, depends entirely on who calls whom. Only when Amida takes the initiative is one call enough; after which the devotee may call Amida as many times as he wishes to express his gratitude for the assurance of posthumous Rebirth in Jodo.
It is not, then, a question of once calling versus many callings of the Name, since the Daimuryoju-kyo says that repetitions of the Name may be one or many. The Eighteenth, or Primal, Vow of Amida, as given in this sutra, the basic scriptural authority for Shinshu, clearly states that Rebirth can be gained by invoking the Name as few as ten times, or even less, down to only once - provided that it is called with perfectly pure Faith. As Shinran realized, the last is the critically operative phrase, not the number of repetitions. But who could actually comply with this condition, to accompany his invocation with perfectly pure Faith? Obviously no one, for no matter how saintly the devotee has become by his own ascetic practice or gyo, he is still inevitably involved in the nexus of accumulated karma, not only of his personal, familial, and racial past, but ultimately with that of the rest of humanity.
Even if the saintly aspirant should be able to obey all the precepts, whence comes his power to do so, if not from the Other Power of Amida himself ? To the Buddha's penetrating Insight, all righteousness is revealed as basically self-righteousness, since it requires individual moral effort. Such spiritual pretensions are enough to disqualify the pietistic claimant from Rebirth in the Pure Land. The Christian division of the sheep from the goats makes an invidious distinction, because it leaves the gate wide open to the self-deception that I am holier than thou, that there is particular election to Heaven (for us true believers) and general predestination to Hell (for you heathen outsiders). Such in-groups are merely communal egos; for in truth all of us, self-righteous and unrighteous alike, belong without a doubt among the goats.