Japan Days (3)

Mr I had died the previous week and today was the occasion of his seventh day memorial service. Following behind Reverend K I left my shoes in the front entrance of his family home and entered the living area through a sliding door. We were greeted by Mr I’s widow, son, daughter and two sisters. In the main alcove of the living room the butsudan was open. On a table before it was a large photograph of Mr I showing his smiling face, around it flowers and candles were carefully arranged. After exchanging greetings we began the service kneeling before the butsudan. The Shoshinge was chanted together with the nembutsu and six wasan hymns by Shinran Shonin. During the chanting we each sprinkled powdered incense into the censor. After the service was completed we bowed to the Buddha and then to each other before sitting on cushions around the low Japanese dining table to share tea and conversation.

Mr I had been a very important person for the temple. Forty years ago during its construction he had built the large wooden structure that houses the temple bell, the sound of which had resounded around the surrounding town twice each day at 7 AM and 6 PM ever since, spreading the sound of the nembutsu inscribed on its front. He had also through his carpentary skills been of invaluable help to the temple in all the intervening years, keeping its structure sound and helping with difficult expansion works.

In Jodo Shinshu it is traditional to give the deceased a Dharma-name (homyo). The name chosen for Mr I was Konryu. You can find it in the seventh line of the Shoshinge. It has the meaning of ‘establishing’, ‘building up’ or ‘bringing forth’, in the sense that Dharmakara Bodhisattva spent five kalpas of great effort in order to bring forth his Vows to establish the Pure Land or that the Pure Land was brought forth from the Buddha’s Great Compassion.

Mr I’s daughter impressed upon me how proud her father had been of the construction and pointed me to set of photos pinned to the wall showing memorable events from Mr I’s life, one of which was of him standing casually next to one of the tall wooden supports with broad smile on his face. ‘He was so proud of that bell’ his daughter told me, ‘And he loved meeting people from different cultures across the world. I live now in Switzerland. He came to visit me there and we also went on holiday to Paris together. Look there is a picture of him handgliding! He would have been so happy you visited today, he so much loved meeting people from different countries”

The day before we wondered back at the temple whether my attending today would be intrusive in the families grief and place too much emphasis on Mr I’s relationship with the temple at the expense of his family life. Reverend K had a strong feeling however that Mr I’s family would welcome my visit which to our joy they did. On my part I am glad that I could express my gratitude to them for the life of Mr I, which, through the inconceivable working of Amida Buddha, was now of such profound importance to my own. I could now begin to understand how his great effort in the building of the temple was one of the many factors which have helped bring forth and establish the gift of faith from Amida Buddha in my life.

Namuamidabutsu.

 

Off Sick

Sorry about the silence and delay in authorising comments; I’m recovering from a very bad bout of flu at the moment and haven’t really got the energy to do much at all. Hopefully I’ll be back to posting again properly in a few days. In the meantime here’s an interesting and frank post by Rev. Toshikazu Arai: What will happen after I die?

I’m going to go and sit under a blanket with my cat and watch the morning sun raising steam off the garden fences and the birds flitting back and forth. That’s one thing about being ill; it strips away the heart’s superfluities and helps one enjoy and be grateful for the things that really matter. Namuamidabutsu

 

Shinran’s Last Words

A discussion that ‘Gerald Ford’ at Level 8th Buddhist and I recently got into about Shinran Shonin’s last words led me to try and track down the source of a verse popularly attributed to the latter. The verse, quoted in part at a Hoonko ceremony Gerald attended, runs as follows:

Though I return to the Pure Land of Eternal Peace after my life is at an end,
Yet shall I return to this world, again and again,
Just as the waves of Wakanoura Bay return to the beach….
When you rejoice in the Nembutsu, consider that two actually rejoice
When you rejoice with another, consider that there are three,
And that other is Shinran…Thank You, Namo Amida Butsu.”

(quoted in “Thank You Namo Amida Butsu” by Chijun Yakumo, Nembutsu Press, p.50)

According to Norihiko Kikumura’s Shinran: His Life and Thought however the verse was composed in a deliberately archaic meter by an unknown author and published in 1916. It then quickly became a popular teaching device amongst Honganji priests due to its piety and poetic summation of the oso / genso eko doctrine.

The year 1916 fell within a turbulent period during which some scholars were pushing hard various, now discredited, theories that Shinran Shonin never existed and that he was merely an invention of Kakunyo Shonin. As such it is not altogether surprising that someone might have felt the need to try and bring Shinran to life through such a literary device. If Kikimura’s claim is true though, and hasn’t been superseded by new evidence, it is perhaps a little surprising that contemporary priests are still quoting these words as Shinran’s today.

Kikimura argues that it doesn’t really matter as the sentiment in the verse is so close to Shinran’s thought that he might as well have said them. For myself I find that it is possible to relate to Shinran in a kind of double exposure. Sometimes I feel the need for Shinran the historical man and then his real last words; most likely just the nembutsu if we go by more reliable sources, speak to me the most. At other times such as Hoonko I am happy to express my joy and gratitude by participating to some extent in celebrating the mythic Shinran. At the same time though we must always be on guard that we avoid the excessive piety in which Shinran is allowed to eclipse Amida Buddha; one of the less positive legacies of Kakunyo Shonin.

Update

In a comment on Gerald’s blog Josho Adrian kindly informs us: “That death bed saying was recorded in Hanazono Bunko (Anthology of Flowery Passages), a work published for the first time in 1847.”