Okabe Itsuko (1923-2008)

Rare is it to obtain human life,
And difficult to encounter a Buddha’s appearance in the world;
Hard is it to attain the wisdom of entrusting:
Should you meet with and hear this teaching, pursue it with diligence.
(The Sutra of the Immeasurable Pure Enlightenment of Equality, KGSS)

Backtracking a link to this blog I found an article about a lady called Okabe Itsuko (1923-2008); a Japanese essayist and anti-war activist. The article is remarkable in many ways, and please read it in its entirety, but what particularly caught my eye (and the reason that the reporter Greg Vanderbilt linked here) is that in 2003 Okabe Itsuko gave an address at the Higashi Hongani in 2003 in which she mentioned Rennyo’s famous letter Hakkotsu no Ofumi (’On White Ashes / Bones’).

The essay is emotional, and the translation not always clear, but Itsuko talks of how she grew up in a time when “it was Japan’s way not to care about life.” Although she does not mention it explicitly it was in this context that many Buddhist teachings came to be perverted. Itsuko, brought up hearing Rennyo’s letter ‘On White Bones’ in that poisonous era, embraced the death-worshipping spirit of the time and pushed her peaceful and sensitive fiancé on his way to war. She saw life as cheap:

I don’t know if it will make sense to you, but the education received by boys and girls of my generation taught us that “it is better to die than to live … It was Japan’s way not to care about life.

Later though when she visited Okinawa where her fiancé died, when she heard of the sufferings and deaths of Koreans during the war and of many other people, she came to see Rennyo’s letter in a new light. Contrary to the education of her childhood Rennyo’s words are not telling us that life is cheap but that it is so very precious. They are intended not to make us resigned to a kind of individual victimhood in the face of death, but rather to see our shared commonality with all things in the activity of eternal life:

I am deeply grateful to my mother. Morning and evening, she chanted that “Letter on White Ashes” that tells us to be prepared for our deaths, as if to warn the child who snuggled against her wondering if she too was soon to die to “be aware of yourself.”

[Later] I was able to call myself “a woman aggressor” … because I had been to Okinawa … to the place where my fiancé died in the war. [I said to my mother] “I thought if I were to die, Father would take care of you, but that’s wrong, isn’t it?” Mother cried when I said that. I set death aside and sought a long life …

Life is fushigi. It is a mystery for us all. No one knows who will die first. That is why I believe that every living person must protect and treasure the entire human family, not just their circle of friends, but all circles of friends throughout the world … Humankind, humanity is necessarily headed for death. It is for this reason that I ask us all to respect each other, to treasure each other, to protect each other’s freedom and each other’s life as it is. This is not only for those like us; it is for everyone.

(Higashi Honganji: Kagai no Onna kara (Shinshū Ōtaniha Shūmusho Shuppanbu, 2004))

 

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

 

Awakening to Immeasurable Original Life

The essence of Shin Buddhist faith lies in awakening, “to know the self as an ignorant being, burdened with karmic evil, subject to birth-and-death, ever sinking, ever transmigrating from time immemorial, and with no possibilities that could lead to emancipation.” This in Shin Buddhism is the “place of awareness” in which we come to realise the true essentials of “Emptiness”. However far back into our past selves we may seek to delve, we will never find anything within us to make us feel perfectly satisfied with what we are. Or if we try and grasp the present, it will slip eel-like away into the past. Thus we tend to lay all our expectations on the future. The landscape of the future is thickly etched with the shadows of the attachments of our past. It is extremely difficult for us to expunge them completely.

Ignorant beings that we are, we become aware of the reality of these shadows when we meet the negative aspects of life such as disease, the cessation of friendship, loss of confidence or loss of our love for life. When we face serious problems such as these, Shin Buddhist teaching tells us how important it is for us to leave everything to Amida Buddha. The precise moment when we leave everything to Amida Buddha is called the “one thought-moment of entrusting.” “Entrusting” means entrusting ourselves whole-heartedly to Amida Buddha with no lingering doubts whatsoever.

The moment we thus entrust ourselves, we are awakened to our innermost prayer, our original love of life, and it is through this awakening that we are freed from the anxiety of losing our ego or self, freed also from the bondage of our selfish attachments. This is the quintessence of Shin Buddhism as paraphrased by the words “to die [depart this selfish life] through faith (entrusting oneself to the Buddha) and revive by [meeting] the Vow (Original Vow of the Buddha).”

Namu, taking refuge in Amida Buddha, and Amida-butsu, receiving the working of the Buddha, are simultaneous. The original Sanskrit of Amida Buddha means “one who has been awakened to the immeasurable original life” and refers to the discovery of the innermost prayer or vow of the original life.”

- Reverend Chimyo Takehara, Head of Priest Shogyoji Temple

Extract from a Speech given at Three Wheels, London, to Mark the Inaugural Ceremony of the Stupa of Namu-Amida-butsu Erected at Brookwood Cemetery & the Otorikoshi Ceremony to Commemorate the Death of Shinran Shonin.