Unit 9 Amida Buddha is Waiting for You

9 Amida Buddha is waiting for you

Let’s recap the subjects we have discussed this morning - plus the one we are just done with - and so end this session.

To imagine that we were at the point of death is the best thing to do. If you were to breathe your last breath you would be totally deprived of power. Not even the power to trust in the Buddha and the power to say the nembutsu. At deathbed, the usual thought of ‘doing something to attain birth’ has disappeared. What remains with you is the ‘real utter-darkness’ and absolute powerlessness. You cannot avoid thinking on this matter. Humans when being healthy may think of ‘listening to dharma sermons and trust in the Buddha for birth’. At the real point of death, there will be no time for ‘listening to dharma sermons, saying the nembutsu’. Indeed, no time even to say the nembutsu.

In Ogaki, I was told that there was someone visiting a patient on his deathbed. The visitor taught the dying man to ‘not forget to say the nembutsu’. Because the dying man was unable to make any effort to utter the nembutsu any more, the visitor told him to ‘not forget to say the nembutsu’ and ‘always remember to say the nembutsu’. How useful do you think such remarks would be? It is better if you say the nembutsu  yourself. When we are visiting a sick man the best thing to do is to ask about his health. As I have no time to talk to the sick people about ‘accepting shinjin reverently’, ‘saying the nembutsu’, I have always been requested by the dying patients to ‘pay me a visit’ and so I went through many such pending moments.

At the point of death, to give remarks like that would just confuse people and unable to make a person born into the Pure Land. Instead of insisting people ‘to say the nembutsu’ we would rather say the nembutsu ourselves while making our way into the patient’s room.

'Namu Amida Butsu...Namu Amida Butsu...Namu Amida Butsu...Namu Amida Butsu’ ‘Amida Buddha is waiting for you!’

It is good enough with that and don’t talk so much nonsense.

'Pure Land is a good abode, we should rejoice at being able to meet again in the Pure Land.’

'Dharma friend, don’t be sad at our parting, imagine that we will meet again in the Pure Land’.

Or you may say:

'Whenever I see the flowers blossom, I naturally miss the other shore of the west’.

'The body is likened to the fast vanishing morning dew, the mind is likened to the seed case of lotus flower (lotus throne) in the lotus pond.’

(A very similar phrase from Honen Shonin: 'Although our dew-like bodies vanish at different places, our hearts and minds are on the palm of the same lotus flower.')

'Pure Land is truly a good place; Amida Buddha is waiting for me.’

Therefore the patients will naturally say ‘Namu Amida Butsu, Namu Amida Butsu’ and pass away without being taught by you. He would be born into the Pure Land just like that. Shinjin determination is nothing other than that.

However, while being healthy one listens to the dharma sermons for 30 and 50 over years but still can carry on with ‘I can’t be possibly born into the Pure Land for what I am now?’ ‘Can I?’ What is the point of making account like that? It is so lamentable.

If we die now we don’t have any power. Therefore it is more practical to think of such matter. Why don’t you think that:

'I don’t have any power.’

'Even the power to entrust.’

'Even the power to listen.’

What comes after is,

'Amida Buddha is waiting for me’.

It is ‘satisfying’ with such an utterance. To request them to ‘say the nembutsu’, if you do so it is still a self-centred effort of nembutsu. Self-centred effort kind of nembutsu will not make one to be born into the Pure Land.

Suppose that you are born into the Pure Land by saying the nembutsu, however you must be aware that even a person who passed away during his nembutsu-samadhi  would only be born into the Botherland. In fact, to fall into the hell or born into the Borderland is not something bonbu like us can make out.

Faith that is not intermingled with self-power is the ‘faith of the same taste’. Either the faith of Honen Shonin or that of Shinran Shonin, or even the faith of all the fellow travelers, they are all the same. Why do we say that they are all the same? It is because everyone one of us is: ‘I myself don’t have any power’, 'This bonbu of me is the clump of craving, the clump of obsession, the clump of self-power who has the only karma that leads to the hell.’

Whichever phrases are telling us that ‘we are totally powerless.’ What makes us to be saved is:

'I don’t have even a little power.’

'They are people saying that because they heard the dharma’, 'I am not fit to use the word because’. 'Because I have heard the dharma’, 'because I am being joyful’, 'because I have obtained Shinjin’, 'because I say the nembutsu’ and many more.

'I am not entitled to use because in all cases, how am I eligible for using because?'

Since you know that you are not entitled to use because, you should drop it off. By doing so, you will discover the fact that you are actually sinking (into the hell).

'Your character here is only to fall into the hell.’

When the thought of ‘Amida Buddha is here to save sentient beings just like that’ arises in you,

This is the moment what we called the ‘faith of the same taste’.

Such a faith is acceptable wherever you go, accepted worldwide. If you know only Japanese, it is not easily accessible to all. However, if you know English, it is accepted in everywhere, the same goes to pure faith (Shinjin).

When talking about ‘faith of the same taste’ it is because we have ‘nothing’ with us. The fact is that: ‘To be born into the Pure Land it relies solely on the Power of Amida Buddha’.

In this case, the faith of Shinran Shonin, of Zuiken Sama and of everyone is the same. I have long been thinking from the depths of my mind and stomach that ‘I don’t have any power’. This was what I have mentioned earlier. So the dharma-pada that came in mind this morning amounting to 13 phrases now has grown up to 59 phrases. Next will be the 60th. Dharma-pada keeps emerging, in a hundred and a thousand. Therefore, to write them down is something 'inconceivable’! Thus you must be able to feel how 'inconceivable' this is.

There are two kinds of 'inconceivability'. To regard ourselves being 'inconceivable' on the one hand and the Buddha being 'inconceivable' too, on the other.

We see ourselves being 'inconceivable' because: ‘Knowing about nothing, hearing  nothing. Such a being unexpectedly can become a Buddha, - so inconceivable!’ On the other hand, we see Amida Buddha being 'inconceivable' because: ‘Amida Buddha has the power to make the being who knows nothing, capable of only creating evil karma, likened to the clump of desire as such to become a Buddha. You are truly amazing, truly inconceivable!’

Zuiken Sensei