Falling and Arising

For various reasons I ended last week carrying around a lot of anger and frustration, and feeling quite unhappy. I think that, as I have been engaged in a lot of Dharma study and discussion recently, I fell into yearning for a pure space to step into where I could construct some kind of illusory theoretical foundation for myself to wield as a talisman against life’s dukhka. Consequently I was going around getting riled up by people who impinged on that fragile, mentally-constructed mandala.

As it was, on Saturday morning, I stepped out of my house to go to the shops and promptly slipped on some black ice; falling flat on my back and wrenching my knee. Picking myself up off the road the thought, “Who are you going to blame for this?” popped into my head. Immediately it was like a bubble bursting. In the end the actions of all the people that annoyed me in the week had been just as impersonal as the patch of ice and just as outside of my control.

I was interested recently to read in Dzongar Jamyang Khyentse’s What makes you not a Buddhist that:

[In everyday language] Tibetans use the words rangwang and shenwang to represent “happiness” and “unhappiness” … rang means “self” and wang means “power”, “rights,” or entitlement,” while shen means “other”. (p.52)

Of course the Buddha taught us that everything changes and thus happiness of this kind is not only fleeting but turns to suffering. The Stoics solution to this problem was to try and see some kind of Providence in Other-power / shenwang and thus experience it, if not happily, at least with equanimity. There are various merits and problems inherent in such an approach but I think the main flaw from a Dharmic point of view is that it is too objective and eschatological. Substituting an objective belief in self-power for one in other-power is just switching from egotism to fatalism.

In Buddhism the corollary to all compounded things are impermanent is that all compounded things have no inherent existence. In other words entrusting or faith in Buddhism is to enter into a dynamic, liberating relationship in which self and other continuously illuminate one anothers’ contingent natures. Further more the fact that this takes place in real time, rather than an abstract or eschatological conception of time, means that it works against the encrustation and petrification of thought and feeling - and gives us faith in the Other that is beyond self and other; Nirvana.

Nature is what will destroy us, but nature is also what allows us the possibility of waking up. We have Buddha-nature and Mara-nature, at any moment we have the capacity to open up or close down. It’s the same with this world in which we’re embedded; it’s both good and bad, it’s not reducible to either good or bad. The habit of making the split, cutting off from nature, is part of our suffering.’
- Stephen Batchelor (Dharmalife, Issue 25)

To practice by pushing ahead, meeting the numberless experiences as a self and witnessing them thus, is delusion. When the vast expanse of experiences move forward and practice and realize the self, this is Awakening.
- Dogen Zenji (Genjokoan)

Grey clouds flow towards the horizon, running before a cold wind that rattles the branches of the pollarded trees like skeletal fingers. A new week approaches, and already, constantly, a new self, new other … new being-time.

 

When all is done by the Buddha

“Just set aside your body and mind, forget about them, and throw them into the house of Buddha; then all is done by Buddha.” - from Shoji, by Dōgen Zenji

I came across this essay by someone called Dylan who has just returned from Japan where he has been on an exchange programme to study Buddhism. Interestingly he says:

Before coming to Japan, since I had mainly engaged in Sōtō Zen practice in America, my attitude towards Jōdo Shin-shū was similar to that of other Western Buddhists. Having originally looked to Buddhism as an alternative to America’s Judeo-Christian religious orientation, Jōdo Shin-shū seemed like a “return” to the superstitious Christian model of being saved after death by a mythical God. Yet, this perception began to change when I went to visit Eiheiji, Sōtō-shū’s head training temple. A priest at the temple remarked that after reading Shinran’s writings, he felt better equipped to understand Dōgen’s ideas. Though initially skeptical, I read some of Shinran’s works, and was surprised to find deep resonance between the two religious thinkers’ ideas.”

As someone who came to Shin through Dōgen’s Zen it is refreshing for me to see another person recognizing the resonances between the traditions, and sharing with others a deeper perspective on the, usually superficially understood, self versus other power teaching.

 

Shinjin: A Basket Immersed in Water

The other day, in the morning meeting at Three Wheels, a fairly new member of the sangha raised the subject of how it is easy to hear the teachings in the context of the temple but much harder in one’s daily life. To this our teacher quoted an article from the Rennyo Shonin Goichidai kikigakai (88). Here are two translations of the passage:

“A person, once, expressed, exactly, what was on his mind in the following manner. “My heart is just like a basket into which you pour water. While I am there in the room where the Buddha-Dharma is taught, I feel the gratefulness and the sacredness of the Teachings. Once I leave, however, my heart reverts to what it had been with nothing retained”. Shonin Rennyo replied, “Immerse that basket in the water. We should leave ourselves immersed in the Dharma. All the wrongs that we do are based on the fact that we have not received Shinjin. What all Good Teachers of the Way teach as ‘bad’ is our habitual thinking that being without Shinjin is the constant and the normal thing”. Thus, spoke the Shonin. (trans. Seattle Betsuin)

“On another occasion, a listener to his dharma talk said, “When I listen to you speak on the dharma, my heart is filled with joy and gratitude. But, once I leave here, my mind becomes like a bamboo basket full of holes and I am unable retain the teachings. Rennyo Shonin replied, “Don’t fret. Simply place the basket full of holes and immerse it totally into the water! Place your ego self with all its imperfections and let the dharma fill and illuminate your total life!” (trans. Rev. William Masuda)

This is one of those great pieces of teaching where a Dharma friend takes our inverted misconceptions and, using the same imagery, turns them the right way up. Here Rennyo’s questioner has a sense of himself as an independent vessel, a self, that must be filled up with wisdom, knowledge, joy, and so forth. He quickly discovers, however, that the self is not like that at all. It is instead a rather ramshackle and unreliable structure which is inherently permeable. The divide between self and other is indistinct and vague. This discovery, though vital, is not in itself overly reassuring and the anxiety on the part of Rennyo’s disciple is very apparent.

Before looking at Rennyo’s response in detail a brief aside here is informative. Rennyo replies in part that the person should ‘immerse the basket (their self/mind/awareness/consciousness) in the water’. However this may be easily misunderstood, especially at this fearful point in someone’s religious journey. Many people, including myself in my own past, will not have really absorbed the implications of the permeability of their own being (not deeply realised the not-self teaching) at this stage and will thus take ‘immersing the basket’ as an exhortation to dwell always and constantly on the form of the teaching. As such we see people who constantly recite the nembutsu, display reminders of the teaching everywhere they can, and who begin to abhor their daily lay-person’s lifestyle as something distracting and hellish. This is of course the real meaning of what the Pure Land tradition terms as ’self-power’ (jiriki) ; not the activity of a human being per se - as we all must live - but activity driven by attachment to the notion of one’s self as an independent and completely self-fulfilling entity. It is also a common characteristic of religious fundamentalists.

Anyway to get back to Rennyo’s teaching … he asks us to take our intimation of the self/consciousness as being permeable like a basket but reconcieve of it as existing actually already immersed in the water, with water constantly flowing through, in and around it. The teachings which the disciple struggled to retain were just words and pointers with a provisional existence, but we are already actually immersed in the real Dharma itself, things-as-they-are. As Rennyo puts it; “What all Good Teachers of the Way teach as ‘bad’ is our habitual thinking that being without Shinjin is the constant and the normal thing”. And, in his own teachings Shinran says, “… diamondlike shinjin so difficult to accept is true reality that sweeps away doubt and brings us to attainment of enlightenment.”

What was intially frightening and disturbing, giving a sense of loss of control, is then transformed into a recognition of all that supports and underpins our existence … as well as a realisation that the very permeability and mutability of our being gives us the ability to be receptive and responsive to the activity of the Dharma. Indeed the sensations of the water of Dharma ebbing and flowing through the skeletal framework of ego consciousness actually allow us to get a better sense of our karmic reality and the nature of what lies ‘below the surface’.

I am so grateful to Rennyo-shonin, my teacher and both questioners for introducing me to such a beautiful and useful piece of imagery.

On a final note, Rennyo-shonin - like Shinran-shonin, was a realist in spiritual matters. He knew the tenacity of self-attachment and that even though shinjin itself, once settled, is unshakeable; one’s actual hearing of the Dharma may become impaired. To continue the analogy; though one may live in the trusting consciousness of Amida’s embrace little superstitions and self-oriented habits may creep in which clog the pores of awareness … the ‘holes in the basket’. As such, in one of his letters (Ofumi) Rennyo says that it is good to “Constantly dredge out the Channel of Faith and let the water of Amida’s Dharma flow freely.” Even this though, is not an act of self-power. To continue the imagery that we have been using … if we imagine a basket in the water in which all the holes have become clogged up, the booming and rushing sound of the water against the container would still be audible from within. This too is the call of Amida … the sound of the Dharma ocean … making us aware of the need to shed these blockages and attachments.

The sounds and signs of the Dharma alter their tone throughout our daily lives and if we listen faithfully and with trust they show us what we need to see and hear. Both the call (The Original Vow) and the response (the Nembutsu) are already given; as Rennyo puts it: ” … the heart to place Faith in Amida and the earnest wish to do so arise from the expedient accommodation of Amida Tathágata. In other words, those who understand this relationship between Amida Tathágata and human beings are those that have received the Faith of the Other-Power.” Namuamidabutsu.