Essay 103
I say ‘How great the
Primal Vow is,’ because other than this ‘me’ who is falling into hell no ‘me’
could be sought after. Rescuing me is this incomparable great Primal Vow-Power.
It is not easy at all
to establish such a Primal Vow, for me.
In the Senchaku
Hongan Nembutsushū (Passages on the
Selection of the Nembutsu in the Original Vow), it is recorded that ‘the person
to be saved’—who is ‘the most evil and inferior person’—is rescued by ‘the most virtuous and superior Dharma’. This is the purport of the Original Vow of
Namu Amida Butsu. These two sentences sum up the whole of Jodo Shinshu, at the
same time expounding the entirety of the Buddha Dharma. To be clear: In essence,
they simply speak of the ‘Two-fold Deep Mind‘.
Regardless of whether it is Gobunsho, Shinran Wasan, Shoshinge,
or Kyogyoshinsho, all speak of the Two-fold
Deep Mind. Shinjin is the Two-fold Deep Mind; the Two-fold Deep Mind is
shinjin.
Essay 72
When
the sun is coming up in the eastern quarter of the sky,
The darkness
of the ten quarters will be illuminated.
The
sun-wheel of Amida Butsu is obviously rising, so why worry?
Man has a strong mind-power in chasing after happiness
in the present life; therefore, very few people trust and rely on Amida Buddha single-heartedly
with a constant, enduring mind.
Without treating your own birth-and-death as a
matter of great concern and entrusting to the words of Buddha single-heartedly
and enduringly, you would not entrust in the inconceivable Buddha-wisdom as
‘inconceivable’!
Listening to the Buddha Dharma for several tens
of years, the suffering eventually ‘bores through to the bottom’ and what is
left shimmering is ‘the calling sound’ of the Primal Vow: Namu Amida Butsu.
Essay 67
Persons
of shinjin
Do not
have to wait until the time of death;
They have
already obtained the census registration in the Pure Land.
After reading books and listening to Buddha
Dharma, what stays in the brain is the idea of bombu, or memories that bombu
can remember. All these are the conduct of bombu. Taking
pride in such things, one will never reach the Great Nirvana.
It is only through the Primal Vow of the
Tathagata that bombu are born in the Pure Land.
During our lifetime, we escape delusion and attachment; we escape birth-and-death.
That is, ‘within the embracing light Amida Buddha’s embrace’.
That is, ‘within the embracing light Amida Buddha’s embrace’.
This is the meaning of ‘immediately be born
there and abide in the stage of non-retrogression’ in the passage concerning the
fulfillment of the Primal Vow (honganjøjumon)
from the Larger Sutra.
After death we enter the Great Nirvana, which occurs
once we are born in the Pure Land.
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