Buddhist Thoughts is the SLC Buddhist Temple newsletter which is mailed to Temple members each month. Here we provide excerpts from archival Buddhist Thoughts.

2005 February

Traditional Jodo Shinshu Meditation?  
by J.K. Hirano

Reverently contemplating Amida's directing of virtue for our going forth to the Pure Land, I find that there is great practice, there is great shinjin.

The great practice is to say the Name of the Tathagatha of unhindered light. This practice, embodying all good acts and possessing all roots of virtue, is perfect and most rapid in bringing them to fullness. It is the treasure ocean of virtues that is suchness or true reality. For this reason, it is called great practice.

-- Chapter on Practice, CWS vol. 1 pg. 13

These passages reveal that saing the Name breaks through all the ignorance of sentient beings and fulfills all their aspirations. Saying the Name is the right act, supreme, true, and excellent. The right act is the nembutsu. The nembutsu is Namu-amida-butsu. Namu-amida-butsu is right-mindedness. Let this be known.

-- Chapter on Practice, CWS vol. 1 pg. 17-18

Traditionally in Jodo Shinshu Buddhism, when we refer to practice, we look to this portion of Shinran Shonin's Kyogyoshinsho's Chapter on Practice. In essence, Shinran is establishing that the great practice is the practice accomplished and fulfilled by the Bodhisattvha Dharmkara in becoming Amida Buddha. We are thus the recipients of the merits from this great practice.

Amida Buddha has completed these vows and the subsequent merits resultant from their completion has provided us, the foolish beings, with a path to enlightenment. This path to enlightenment is the saying of the name, namu-amida-butsu. Therefore all other forms of practice are unnecessary for our goal of enlightenment. Only the saying of the name is necessary.

Since we have been given this Vow by the Tathagatha, we can take any occasion in daily life for saying the name and need not wait to recite it at the very end of life; we should simply give ourselves up totally to the entrusting with sincere mind of the Tathagata. When persons realize this true and real shinjin, they enter completely into the compassionate light that grasps, never to abandon, and hence become established in the stage of the truly settled.

-- CWS Notes of the Inscriptions of Sacred Scrolls vol.1 pg. 494.

To be established in the stage of the truly settled, is the stage where a person will without doubt attain Buddhahood.

Therefore in a traditional sense, the practice of sitting meditation that is found in almost all other sects of Buddhism, is not included as part of a traditional Jodo Shinshu service. Our services, as most of you know, consist of burning incense, to purify and remind us of our interdependence. With bowing and reciting the nembutsu included as part of the burning of the incense. The chanting of the sutras, to praise the virtues of Buddha, beginning and ending with the recitation of the nembutsu. The Dharma Talk, also preceded and ended with recitation of the nembutsu. These are all pretty standard features of the Jodo Shinshu service. Whether you are in a Jodo Shinshu temple in the United States or Japan, most of these elements are a part of the service.

Although our practice is often defined as listening to the Dharma (Monpo). Each of these elements of our standard service are more than just listening with our ears. I remember when I was in Japan, I struggled with the Japanese language. During one lecture, just as I was feeling somewhat confident in my abilities. The teacher said that we should listen to the Dharma with our feet. I thought to myself, "Here we go again, back to step one, he couldn't have said ears." I raised my hand to ask the teacher to clarify what he had said. Once again the teacher said, "Listen to the Dharma with your feet." I had to ask him, ";Did you say feet?" He laughed and said, "Yes, feet. To listen to the Dharma means to listen with your entire being, from your head to your feet." He then gave an example of how Rennyo Shonin had worn out many, many pairs of sandals going from place to place listening to the Dharma.

If listening to the Dharma is an experience of our entire being. It is not something that we do by merely hearing the words from someone else. I believe that just as we may taste and sometimes even smell with senses other than our tongue and nose. We can listen as we sit. An example of this is with a lemon. If you imagine a lemon in your mind. Picturing the shiny peel with the citrus oil glinting from the peel. A bright firm lemon, the essence of which comes off on your hand, just by touching it. If you imagine in your mind, cutting this lemon, feeling the juices splash a little onto your fingers, stinging the small scratches on your hand. From this image, take one half of the cut lemon and bite into it. As I write this description, I can feel the saliva ooze in my mouth and a small ache in my jaw from the tart taste of the lemon, which I tasted with my mind.

Yet what do we mean by listening to the Dharma? Within the Kyogyoshinsho, there is also a portion that seems to say that sitting meditation is not necessary.

Hymns according to the Sutra of The Life of Buddha by Fa-chao

What is called the right dharma?
What accords with truth is the true essence of the teaching.
Now is the time to determine and select right from wrong;
Test each particular one by one and allow no indistinctness.
The right dharma surpasses all things of the world!
Observance of precepts and seated meditation are called the right dharma,
But attainment of Buddhahood through the nembutsu is the true essence of the teachings.
Doctrines that do not accept the Buddha’s words are non buddhist ways;
Views that reject the law of cause and effect are nihilistic.
The right dharma surpasses all things of the world!
How can precepts and meditation be the right dharma?
Nembutsu-samadhi is the true essence of the teaching.
To see reality and awaken to mind, this is Buddha;
How would nembutsu-samadhi not accord with the truth?

-- CWS vol. 1 pg. 40

Yet the first lines of this hymn says, "What accords with truth is the true essence of the teaching. Now is the time to determine and select right from wrong, test each particular one by one and allow no indistinctness." I believe that if we are to find and decide the true essence, we must each test each particular one by one.

Sitting meditation is a wonderful way to calm our very busy minds. Within our present society, many things happen in short sound bites. We rush to learn faster, play faster, read faster. The faster the computer the better, etc. etc. Many of us never take the time to slow done and observe our actions. We take things in without any reflection. In this manner, many things we think we hear, is just merely noise. How can we listen to the dharma with this type of mind set.

In another passage in the Kyogyoshinsho, Shinran states, "There are two kinds of shinjin (faith mind): one arises from hearing and the other from thought (reflection) This person's shinjin has arisen from hearing, but not from thought. Therefore it is called "imperfect realization of shinjin." Hearing the dharma requires reflection upon our part. From Shakymuni's talk to the Kalama clan.

The Kalamas who were inhabitants of Kesaputta sitting on one side said to the Blessed One: "There are some monks and brahmins, venerable sir, who visit Kesaputta. They expound and explain only their own doctrines; the doctrines of others they despise, revile, and pull to pieces. Some other monks and brahmins too, venerable sir, come to Kesaputta. They also expound and explain only their own doctrines; the doctrines of others they despise, revile, and pull to pieces. Venerable sir, there is doubt, there is uncertainty in us concerning them. Which of these reverend monks and brahmins spoke the truth and which falsehood?"

It is proper for you, Kalamas, to doubt, to be uncertain; uncertainty has arisen in you about what is doubtful. Come, Kalamas. Do not go upon what has been acquired by repeated hearing; nor upon tradition; nor upon rumor; nor upon what is in a scripture; nor upon surmise; nor upon an axiom; nor upon specious reasoning; nor upon a bias towards a notion that has been pondered over; nor upon another's seeming ability; nor upon the consideration, 'The monk is our teacher.' Kalamas, when you yourselves know: 'These things are bad; these things are blameable; these things are censured by the wise; undertaken and observed, these things lead to harm and ill,' abandon them.

We are in a time of transition within our Jodo Shinshu temples in the United States. If Jodo Shinshu is to become a vital part of the spiritual life of we 21 st century citizens, we must be willing to evolve. Although sitting meditation may not have been a part of our traditional service. Tradition is defined as "handing down beliefs and customs by word of mouth or by example without written instruction." Maybe this will become a new tradition of our Salt Lake Buddhist Temple. We will be starting a meditation service in February. They will be held on Sundays at 9:00 am followed by taichi. This will be done before the 10:00 am Dharma School service. I hope that some of you will be interested in taking part in beginning this possible new tradition at our temple. I will close with Shakyamuni Buddha's advice on when one should accept a teaching.

Kalamas, when you yourselves know: 'These things are good; these things are not blameable; these things are praised by the wise; undertaken and observed, these things lead to benefit and happiness,' enter on and abide in them.