MURYOKO
'Infinite Light'
Journal of Shin Buddhism
Harold Stewart
Saying the Name
As promised in Amida's Eighteenth Vow, pure Faith is the primary cause of Rebirth in Jodo; but it is assisted by two accessory aspects of the single Other Power. The maternal Light of Amida's Wisdom grants Insight into one's ignorance and can transform one's desire and aversion into means leading to Enlightenment. The paternal Name of Amida's Method, as an expedient medium for the transference of Faith, provides the devotee with his daily and lifelong practice. For according to Honen Shonin, calling the Nembutsu with Faith is the sole practice needful for salvation. So I have begun with a determination to call the Nembutsu as many times a day and night as possible, while counting off the number of recitations on my string of invocatory beads, as recommended by the Jodo school of Pure Land Buddhism.
But I soon find that such self-willed repetitions of the Sacred Name are to me as monotonous and meaningless as the batrachian cacophony from the little rice-field outside my window. The yapping frogs become the spokesmen of my own reptilian level of existence. I am reminded of the Choju Giga, a satirical emakimono, or long horizontal picture-scroll, attributed to the Buddhist dignitary Toba Sojo Kakuyu (1053-1140), who portrayed sanctimonious priests as monkeys, hypocritical worshippers as foxes, and even the Buddha-image as a frog. As Dogen Zenji, founder of Sota Zen, says in the 'Bendowa' chapter on Buddhist practice in his Shobogenzo: 'Endlessly repeating the Name of the Buddha is like the frogs in the rice-fields croaking day and night - it means absolutely nothing.'
At first how tedious, insipid, and stultifying seems this interminable repetition of the Nembutsu! Surely such numbered reiterations of the Name without any depth of Faith must prove ineffectual and futile? Self-conscious invocations of the Name lacking any warm participation of the heart are so weak and wearisome that I feel discouraged from their continuance. How could the mere sound-vibrations of these six syllables dispersing into the air bring about the liberation of a mind weighed down with heavy karmic encumbrances and with a predisposition to accumulate more? No matter how many times the Nembutsu is repeated by individual or communal effort of will, it must remain inoperative and powerless to rescue mankind from its self-created hell or to prevail against Mara's hordes in this Final Age, when we are witnessing daily the triumph of evil over evil. I am convinced that all my ego-motivated repetitions of the Nembutsu without Faith, if they have produced any effect at all, have only served to exacerbate the troubles and obstacles that I encounter, calling forth, both from within and from without, difficulties and ordeals caused by the evil karma of myself and mankind.
These should have tested the strength of my sincerity and resolution, but unfortunately in such qualities my faith has been found wanting. To the dispersed and doubtful mind that is lacking in attentive devotion to Amida, the reiteration of his Name by rote must seem to be of no avail. For there are, in fact, two qualitatively different kinds of Nembutsu practice: that with the Heart of Faith and that without. If only the caller will persist through this initial period of dullness and merely quantitative repetition, continual re-calling of the Nembutsu can become more emotionally meaningful and qualitatively enriched. It will lead to respites of selfless absorption, at first short-lived but increasingly frequent, that appear quite unprompted by any intention or endeavour on the part of the caller. These rare moments grow longer and deeper, until the Name ends by moving the heart to joyful tears of gratitude. Then the Name at last seems to arise not merely from one's individual depths but from the very profundity of Conscious Being itself. Such Nembutsu alone are the true invocation of Amida, the only ones that really count. For into a mind thus concentred, or withdrawn into its own centre of conscious being, the Divine Influence can most easily descend to bestow its gift of Faith.
Until the ego's superficial layers have been removed by sincere and unreserved self-abandonment, the underlying foundation of one's being, its firm bedrock of Faith, cannot be reached. Yet even mechanically monotonous and self-motivated repetitions of the Nembutsu are not necessarily all in vain, as the following anecdote reveals.
There was once a filially pious son who felt grave anxiety about the posthumous fate of his aged but incorrigibly irreligious father. So he approached the Shinshu priest of his village, asking for advice as to how his sceptical parent might best be rescued from his worldliness. 'What is his main interest in life?' inquired the Shin priest. 'Money' answered the son. 'He thinks of little else'. 'Good !' the priest replied. 'Greed is the easiest of all the passions to convert into Buddhahood. Ask your father to come up to the temple to visit me.' When the old man promptly arrived next day, the priest offered him a small sum of money for each time he repeated one thousand Nembutsu.
'This priest must be a fool to give away his money for nothing' thought the father as he hurried off home, reciting the Name as he went. Every week after that he arrived at the temple with the record of his Nembutsu repetitions, which were duly paid for. But one day, after many months of this mercenary calling of the Name, the father failed to appear. Chancing to meet his son, the Shin priest enquired what had happened: 'Is your father ill that he has not come up to the temple as usual for his payment?' As the son could offer no explanation, the two called at the family house, fearing some mishap had befallen him. He was discovered seated before the Butsudan, or family Buddhist altar, still reciting the Name; but his face was now illumined with radiant joy and tears of gratitude were running down his cheeks. 'Why did you not come up for your money this week?' asked the priest. 'You need never pay me again,' replied the old man. And it is said that he handed back all the money that he had hoarded as a donation to the temple to help in the spreading of the invocation of the Name.