Those of you who are Jodo Shu may be interested to read this very indepth analysis of Ichimai Kishomon by Clark Strand (he never got round to publishing this which is a shame) Preface The following short book contains thoughts on Honen’s Ichimai-kishomon, or “One-Page Testament,” a document composed on January 23, 1212, by the founder of Pure Land Buddhism in Japan. “The One-Page Testament” was written by Honen at the request of a disciple who wanted a final clarification of his master’s teaching. Honen’s reply, written just two days before his death at the age of 80, was not simply a clarification of his lifetime teachings—or even a summary of Pure Land Buddhism. It was the whole teaching of the Buddhadharma expressed in language so simple that it was impossible to veer aside from it. In the Ichimai-kishomon Honen set his disciples face to face with the fundamental truth of life itself, in a way that has rarely been equaled before or since. I discovered the “One-Page Testament” at a time when I was restlessly searching for spiritual answers. Specifically, I was looking for a religion that recognized the fundamental unity of all planetary life—a religion of ecology, a religion that left nothing and no one out. When I found Honen, I realized that at last I had hit paydirt. Subsequently, I discovered the writings of Genshin, Ippen, Shinran, and other great Japanese Pure Land masters. From there I backtracked through ancient Chinese Buddhism, then turned the clock forward to explore modern teachers and traditions throughout Asia to take in the whole of Pure Land tradition past and present, but these ultimately all led back to Honen. Thus, my study ended right where it began. The book which follows is meant to accomplish two goals. The first is to put Buddhism on the same page with the modern environmental movement, making it clear that Buddhism is, and has always offered, an ecological model of salvation which includes all beings, forsaking none. The second is to offer a spiritual foundation for the modern environmental movement so that it can remain stable, grounded, and joyous in facing the challenges that lie ahead. This is work that Honen would have appreciated, given foreknowledge of modern ecological principles. Actually, he intuited these well enough, even 800 years ago, and in the end articulated a Buddhist teaching wholy consistent with them, using language and symbols that were familiar to the people of his time. The One-Page Document My Buddhism is not a religious practice like those taught by the sages of China and Japan. Nor does it come from study. It is just saying namu-amida-butsu, knowing that if you do, you are certain to be born in the Land of Bliss. That is all. The Three Minds and Four Modes of Practice are all included in this. If you think there is some special wisdom apart from saying the nembutsu and being born in the Pure Land, you will be lost to the compassion of the two buddhas and slip through the embrace of Amida’s Original Vow. Though you master all the teachings of Shakyamuni gave during his lifetime, it will not matter in the least. Better to entrust yourself to the nembutsu, becoming like those ignorant devotees who, unable to read even a single word of scripture, without any pretension whatsoever devote themselves wholeheartedly to reciting Amida Buddha’s name. I hereby seal this document with the imprint of my hands. The faith and practice of the Pure Land School are fully imparted here. I, Honen, have no teaching but this. To prevent misunderstandings after my death, I make this final testament. My Buddhism (lit., my nembutsu or the nembutsu I have taught) is not a religious practice like those taught by the sages of China and Japan. The term nembutsu originally meant to think of Buddha or to meditate on Buddha, but for many centuries now the term has meant to recite the Buddha Name--specifically, the name of Amida, the Buddha of Infinite Light and Life. As a type of practice specific to Mahayana Buddhism, the nembutsu is, at most, a couple of thousand years old. We know this because the sutras that mention that practice date from around this time. If, however, we think of the nembutsu as merely one example of a practice so universal that it appears in one form or another in virtually every religious tradition past and present--what we might call The Way of the Name--then it is very old indeed, older than anyone can know. The reason is simple: It is as old as the self. Very broadly and inclusively defined, the Divine Name represents a Power Greater than the Self. But to name such a Power and begin to evoke it, one first has to have a self and know its limits. We dont know exactly when this happened in human history, but we can make a good guess. It must have begun about the same time we began to bury our dead. The earliest uncontested human grave sites appear around 130,000 years ago, about the same time Homo sapiens sapiens, the subspecies to which all humans currently belong, began to appear. But whenever it occurred--and Im not certain that for our purposes it matters that we have a definitive date--it marks a shift in human consciousness so dramatic that we really have nothing else even to compare it to. Why did a species which had never before in its extremely long history buried its dead suddenly begin to do so? Wasnt it because they had a new conception of themselves? Wasnt it because, in fact, for the first time they had a conception of themselves--the awareness of a self distinct and separate from Nature, and therefore capable of acts of self-determination? Wasnt it because for the first time they had become beings worthy of a name? In the story of Eden, before God has created woman, he notices that the man is lonely. To remedy this, he brings the animals one by one before Adam to see if one of them can become a mate for him. But Adam can find no creature like himself among them, and so he offers names to each creature instead, And whatsoever Adam called every living creature, that was the name thereof (Gen. 2:19). God doesnt seem to understand what kind of being he has created in making Adam, who can find no niche for himself in Nature, and so he finally makes two broad accomodations for this new creature, creating a mate for him out of himself (lit., from one of his ribs), and giving him dominion over the whole Earth. The first accomodation means that Homo sapiens have no niche in Nature (all of Nature is their niche, and therefore there is no limit to their culture--how far it can spread or what it can do). The second means that Homo sapiens are wedded primarily to their own consciousness (rather than to Nature, as other creatures are). Henceforth, they will live in a homocentric universe, where all things are defined in terms of their utility for human welfare and their benefit or detriment to human experience. Effectively, this means that human beings now live in a closed loop they cannot think or act their way out of. They have a self (or center) which defines their every thought and every experience, and with that self comes self-importance and the knowledge that they will die. Both are born of the same impulse (really, they are identical). Their lives become unmanageable from an ecological point of view--their knowledge of death makes life seem valuable to them in a way that encourages certain feelings of ownership over it. It is no longer the price of admission to the world and the joys thereof, but something they wish to hold onto. They wish to eat and not be eaten, which places them outside the redemptive cycles of Nature for the first time--or, at least in their own minds. In fact, they will eat, and they will be eaten, just as before. Nothing has changed but their minds. They have jumped the groove of evolution and can find no place of joy or peace or rest. They have left the garden. I think it is significant that with the first death in chapter 4 of Genesis (Cains slaying of Abel) human beings first began to call upon the name of the Lord (v. 26). With the conscious experience of death (evidenced in the first human burials) comes the awareness that they have thought their way out of the redemptive, inclusive processes that once gave unity, coherence, and beauty to human life, and cant think their way back into it again. They are vaguely aware that it is the self that is the problem, not Nature, not the world. And so they begin to yearn for a way to make contact once again. From this yearning is born the multiplicity of Divine Names. Each Divine Name is a Power Greater Than (or Beyond) the Self, and each Name is originally Nature. Only, having now made the world over in their own image, defining everything in terms of what is good or bad for them, human beings must inevitably remake Nature in their own image as well. And so God is born. The wonderful thing about the Divine Name is that it works. It works because Nature works. It works because Nature has always worked. And it works because Nature is working still. Human beings have never been excluded. They come to realize this when they call upon the Divine Name in simple faith, entrusting themselves to processes from which, in truth, they have never been excluded. They are grasped never to be abandoned, as one scripture puts it, precisely because they are grasped from within, by the life within answering the call from the life without. The experience is overwhelming and impossible to define precisely because it predates human consciousness as we know it today. It is the oldest memory we have. All of this is contained in Honens statement, My Buddhism is not a religious practice like those taught by the sages of China and Japan. He may not have known the principles of modern ecology, but he had called Amida and heard an answer that embraced every cell of his being. He knew that his nembutsu was incomparably older than any sage, older even than China or Japan. This, by the way, is the ecological significance of the story of Dharmakara Bodhisattva, who became Amida Buddha in remote kalpas past. Pure Land is Buddhism before Buddha. Pure Land is the Buddhism the Buddha realized, not the religion we have in our own day, or the one Honen had in his. Nor does it come from study. Honen was a great scholar who was said to have read the entire canon of Buddhist teachings several times. When such a person claims that his nembutsu does not come from study, what is he really saying? It is easy to interpret Honens statement in a critical light. After all, he once told a disciple, When a scholar is born, he forgets the Buddhas name. But I do not believe that here, when he knew he was dying, there is any such thought in Honens mind. Rather, he seems to be saying that what saves us in not the quality of content of our minds. How could it be? Birth in the Pure Land cannot take place within such limited confines. The Pure Land is a real land. It does not occur in the mind. In Green Meditation we sometimes use the phrase biology, not ideology to refer to the fact that what saves us are real processes, not imagined ones. We are saved in exactly the same way that a stone released from the hand immediately falls to Earth. It is the nature of the human mind to seek transcendence, to exceed the limits established for us by the planetary ecology, but that impulse never leads to salvation. The Buddha gets enlightened when he sees the morning star, but when asked to communicate that enlightenment he touches the Earth instead. It is just saying namu-amida-butsu, knowing that if you do, you are certain to be born in the Land of Bliss. This one sentence contains the full import of Honen’s “One-Page Document.” The sentences which precede it are introductory. Those which follow are commentary. Since we will be with this one sentence for awhile, let’s begin by looking at a chapter from the Tannisho that is almost certain to have been composed as a commentary on it. There is every reason to believe that the episode it records is a real one, and that the words attributed in it to Shinran are, in fact, his own. The translation is by Taitetsu Unno, whose work some of you may know. I believe that the reason you have come here, crossing over more than ten provinces at the risk of your lives, is solely to ascertain the path that leads to birth in the Pure Land. But if you suspect that I know ways other than the nembutsu to attain birth, or that I am versed in the scriptures connected with them, you are greatly mistaken. If that be the case, there are many eminent scholars in the monasteries of Nara and Mt. Hiei, so you should go see them and ask them in detail about the way to attain birth in the Pure Land. As for myself, Shinran, I simply take to heart the words of my dear teacher, Honen, Just say the nembutsu and be saved by Amida, and entrust myself to the Primal Vow. Besides this, there is nothing else. I really do not know whether the nembutsu may be the cause for my birth in the Pure Land, or the act that shall condemn me to hell. But I have nothing to regret, even if I should have been deceived by my teacher, and, saying the nembutsu, fall into hell. The reason is that if I were capable of realizing buddhahood by other religious practices and yet fell into hell for saying the nembutsu I might have dire regrets for having been deceived. But since I am absolutely incapable of any religious practice, hell is my only home. If Amidas Primal Vow is true, Sakyamunis teaching cannot be false. If the Buddhas teaching is true, Shantaos commentaries cannot be false. If Shantaos commentaries are true, how can Honens words be empty of meaning? If Honens words are true, what I, Shinran, say cannot be meaningless. In brief, such is the true entrusting of this foolish one. Now, whether you accept the nembutsu, entrusting yourself to it, or reject it, that is your own decision. While he was living in exile in the Kanto region, Shinran shared Honen’s nembutsu teaching with the local people there. Some years after he left, however, rumors of a “secret teaching” surfaced and they began to have doubts. Had Shinran really given them the full teaching he had received from Honen? Or had he held something back, imparting it only to a few select souls who were spiritually advanced enough to received it? (Note that this is exactly the kind of thing that Honen foresaw on his deathbed as he composed the Ichimai-kishomon.) Shinran insisted that he had no special religious or scholarly approach to pass on (see the first two sentences of Ichimai-kishomon). He’d simply taken the words of his teacher Honen to heart and entrusted himself to Amida’s vow. Up until now Shinran might as well have repeated the words of the Ichimai-kishomon to his Kanto friends, the teaching is so similar. Shinran’s version differs only in that he adds faith in Honen to the mix. What follows summaries Shinran’s personal thoughts on the core teaching he received from Honen. I really do not know whether the nembutsu may be the cause for my birth in the Pure Land, or the act that shall condemn me to hell. Shinran’s entrusting has no ideological or theological content. He isn’t privileged to any special knowledge about what happens after death. He doesn’t even know whether he is “saved” or not. Were he to feign some certainty in these matters about which, as an ordinary deluded being, he can have no real knowledge, he would be making Other Power into Self Power. This sentence is Shinran’s true entrusting. No calculation and no knowledge are involved. But I have nothing to regret, even if I should have been deceived by my teacher, and, saying the nembutsu, fall into hell. Regret would be a sign that Shinran had retained faith in his power to save himself. The reason is that if I were capable of realizing buddhahood by other religious practices and yet fell into hell for saying the nembutsu I might have dire regrets for having been deceived. The meaning is the same. Shinran knows that he cannot effect birth in the Pure Land by manipulating the quality of his behavior or content of his mind. But since I am absolutely incapable of any religious practice, hell is my only home. The planet is where we come from, where we live, and where we are going. There is no escape. Nor does there need to be. Of our own power, we can do nothing to cause our own salvation. The planet does it all. We experience hell so long as we flee from this one great reality, our various acts of self power being our way of doing that. We experience ourselves as “saved” the moment we turn and accept it, relying henceforth on a Power greater than ourselves. In that moment, nothing has really happened. And yet, we feel as though everything had changed. If Amidas Primal Vow is true, Sakyamunis teaching cannot be false. If the Buddhas teaching is true, Shantaos commentaries cannot be false. If Shantaos commentaries are true, how can Honens words be empty of meaning? If Honens words are true, what I, Shinran, say cannot be meaningless. Here, Shiran offers a kind of anti-lineage, being just the opposite of the “because-I-said-so” authoritarian approach of most religious institutions. In essence. Shinran is saying, “I believe because Honen believed. Honen believed because Shantao believed. Shantao believed because Shakyamuni believed. And Shakyamuni believed because of Amida’s Primal Vow. We have here a history of powerlessness that is in every way the antidote to the self-important, deluded quality of most religious lineages. We are born into this world knowing nothing but what we have learned from others…who, in turn, were born into this world knowing nothing. This lineage of ignorance goes all the way back to the beginning, where it bottoms out in Nature. We are born from the planet, sustained by the planet, and welcomed back to the planet (which, in reality, we have never strayed from for one instant in all of our transmigrations) at death. This is all we know of “ultimate matters” and all we need to know. Because we know this in our bodies (I am reminded here of what Robert wrote above about the pineal bio-chemical DMT), the experience is universal and rooted in our biology (i.e., in the Earth). Because we are individuals, however, each with a unique personal and cultural history, we tend to experience this “knowledge” in a way particularly suited to us—often, though not always, in terms of a Jesus or an Amida, a Mary or Kuan-yin, or some other “Figure of Light.” In brief, such is the true entrusting of this foolish one. This line is nearly always misinterpreted. It is not a statement of humility or modesty, but a statement of fact. It is Shinran’s way of claiming his own faith as his own, and taking direct responsibility for the same. This line is the equivalent of that portion of the Ichimai-kishomon, where Honen affixes the imprint of his hands to the document as a testament to its authenticity. This is Shinran’s “seal.” Now, whether you accept the nembutsu, entrusting yourself to it, or reject it, that is your own decision. Each one of us decides whether he/she will keep running from the one great reality, or turn to face it. Lets return to Honens core teaching again. He says that his Buddhism (his nembutsu or, alternatively, Pure Land Buddhism itself) consists of just saying namu-amida-butsu in the knowledge that this alone is sufficient to ensure ones birth in the Land of Bliss. There are three elements worth considering here, The first is something most people today take for granted, and that is that Honen advocates vocal, rather than meditative, nembutsu. Honens practice is a so-called easy practice in that it can be performed by virtually anyone. It doesnt require any special learning or technique. There really isnt any right or wrong way to do it. Nobody can come between you and your nembutsu if it is vocal. And, unlike meditative nembutsu, you can verify when you are doing it and when you arent. Its auditory. You know it because you hear it. The revolutionary aspect of this teaching, as simple as it is, cannot be underestimated. It does not originate with Honen, but Honen gives it a very special emphasis by relying upon it exclusively in his teaching. Other teachers who stressed vocal nembutsu tended to hold some other practice (usually some form of meditative visualization) in reserve as a kind of backup. We know that Honen, too, performed such practices, but he was explicit in stating that they were not a requirement for birth in the Pure Land. Only calling Amidas name was required. This is as pure a practice as anyone could have devised. It is as simple as a birdcall. In fact, in many ways, that is exactly what it is. More about this later. The second is that the Land of Bliss is a real land, not a land of the human mind. Here is the crux of the matter. The essence of the Ichimai-kishomon and the rest of Honen and Shinrans other teachings is to be found here in the reality of the Pure Land itself. I once spoke with a devotee who assured me that the Pure Land must be a very perfect, spotless realm indeed. I told him that, on the contrary, the Lotus Land of Bliss must have an inordinant amount of mud and muck in it--otherwise there could not be so many lotuses. Otherwise, no one could possibly be reborn there. A lotus that wasnt rooted in the muck of a pond was a dead lotus, I explained. In the same way, the Pure Land wasnt a lotus in a vase. The analogy is apt. The human prefrontal cortex, in creating its own conceptual counterpart to reality, is extremely adept at plucking lotuses from the mud and keeping them in vases. So good, in fact, that it is likely to prefer its own creations to those of Nature. forgetting all the while that the former have no reality of their own. Even the Pure Land becomes an object of the mind and therefore unreal and incapable of saving even one being. What saves us is not the quality or content of our own minds. What saves us does nor originate in our minds. Nor does it even reside there. It calls to us from beyond--though in reality that beyond is itself a kind of illusion. We have never departed from Nature, and thus the call we hear from Amida, uttered on our own lips, does not come from someplace else. It arrises from within our own True Mind, which is not separate from Nature, just as a lotus is never separate from the mud from which it blooms. The third is that we know all of this with a knowledge that comes to us from below, not from above. When we say Namu-amida-butsu, we are connecting to the Earth below our feet, not to the sky above. The Pure Land does not exist someplace else. As Nichiren puts it in one of his most famous letters, On Attaining Buddhahood in This Lifetime: The Vimalakirti Sutra states that, when one seeks the Buddhas’ emancipation in the minds of ordinary beings, one finds that ordinary beings are the entities of enlightenment, and that the sufferings of birth and death are nirvana. It also states that, if the minds of living beings are impure, their land is also impure, but if their minds are pure, so is their land. There are not two lands, pure or impure in themselves. The difference lies solely in the good or evil of our minds. Here, a pure mind means a mind to follow Nature, and return to Nature. In a certain sense, of course, Nature is all around us--not only below our feet, but all around us and above us as well. But gravity is our greatest teacher after all. The driving power of sun, combined with gravity, fuels all biological processes on Earth. This is how we attain the knowledge that we are certain to be born in the Land of Bliss. We are certain because we have been born in this land. When you really think about it, what other kind of certainty can we have? Thanks for your patience everyone. Im back from my holiday hiatus and ready to go on if you are. Mat, thanks for posting on the Trike site, Great discussion there. Earlier I wrote that the nembutsu is as simple as a birdcall. In fact, in many ways, that is exactly what it is. I would like to explain that comment as a way of wrapping up our discussion of the third sentence of Honens Ichimai-kishomon, because this is really the main thing I wanted to say about it from an ecological point of view. Allow me to offer a brief story in lieu of an explanation. A year or so ago I was sitting on the back deck early one morning before beginning to write. I love this time of day and spend it outdoors whenever possible. In fact, I write outdoors most of the year, moving inside only when it becomes rainy or too cold. That morning I was chanting a Divine Name. Which one doesnt matter, and in truth I cannot remember which one it was, though by consulting my journal I have narrowed it down to one of two six-syllable mantras--either Namu-Amida-Bu or Om-Mani-Padme-Hum. The birds had begun to sing and I closed my eyes while I chanted. This went on for a long time--maybe forty minutes or so--before I opened my eyes. When I did, I saw several deer in the yard not twenty feet from the house and no fewer than two dozen birds on the deck railing and in the tree right in front of me. All were silent. In fact, they seemed to be listening. It was one of those moments Derrick Jensen talks about in his books. A language older than words, he calls it. I heard them respond as one to my unspoke question, Why are you listening to me?, not through my ears as you would ordinarily hear a sound, but as if it were spoken directly into the hearing part of my brain (Jensen describes this beautifully). Their answer was: We thought your kind did not have a sound, but now we see that you do. Of course, the very idea seems preposterous from a purely quantitative point of view. Not only do human beings have a sound, they have a range of sounds so vast and varied that nowadays we can scarcely hear anything else. In fact, human begins create so much noise it has become a serious environmental concern, damaging species of plant and animal life and introducing levels of stress into the ecosystem that can scarcely be reckoned. So what were the animals saying to me? I think they were saying they hadnt known that human beings had a real sound--a sound that expressed our union with all things, just as a birdcall does. These animals knew we made noise, but they didnt know we had a sound. They seemed genuinely curious about this fact. They might as well have said to me, We didnt know you knew what Nature was. That is all. These words arent usually interpreted as an instruction on how to say the nembutsu, but I have come to believe that they are exactly that. Honen tells us that we only have to say the nembutsu to attain birth in the Pure Land, then follows this with words various translated as Nothing further is required or, more simply, That is all. How is this an instruction on how to say the nembutsu? Normally, when we take up a practice as modern people, we feel that there is much to learn about it. This is expecially true when we are converts to another religion, as most non-Asian Buddhists are. To find our footing in this new religious world-view and begin mastering its practices, attitudes, and beliefs, we attend lectures and retreats, read books, and ask questions. In the beginning at least, Buddhism seems to be an arrow pointing away from the self--into knowledge, into technique, into spiritual mysteries of various shapes and sizes. A Buddhist teacher will sometimes oblige us in our efforts to grasp externally what can only be grasped from within, if only because his or her efforts to get us to do otherwise meet with so much resistance. We ask for explanations, and then for explanations of explanations, never finding ourselves quite ready to settle down and really look within. Is this a problem with modernity specifically, or with human beings in general? It is hard to know. We can be certain, however, that it was already a problem in Honens day. That is why Honen states the matter so baldly. The main point of the Ichimai-kishomon is that vocal nembutsu (just reciting the words Namu-amida-butsu) is enough. When he adds That is all, his intention is to bring the mind and body to a halt. Rest in this simple practice and the knowledge of our birth in the Pure Land that flows out of it, he seems to be saying. Dont delay. Dont become lost in speculation. Dont become lost in doubt. Just see for yourself. The words are like a giant STOP sign. Stay with the simple words of the nembutsu, reciting them in serenity and faith. That is what the sign says. Without these words, the rest of the Ichimai-kishomon would be a sham. If, after giving his core teaching, Honen went on with the rest of his explanation without saying That is all, we would know that what he secretly loved most was the sound of his own voice and not the voice of Amida. As it is, Honen invites us to listen to Amidas voice--then, for those of us who cannot do so immediately, he offers the additional sentences of the Ichimai-kishomon, in the hope that we will get the main point by the end. The Three Minds and Four Modes of Practice are all included in this. (Part 1: The Three Minds) Immediately after saying that vocal nembutsu alone is enough to ensure birth in the Pure Land, Honen anticipates an objection. Since Honen himself has based his teachings on the Chinese Pure Land master Shan-tao, and since that master said that birth in the Pure Land was contingent upon the cultivation of the Three Minds and Four Modes of Practice, Honen wished to assure his disciples that these were all included in the simple act of saying the nembutsu in faith. According to Shan-tao, the Three Minds are as follows: (1) A Mind of Sincerity (2) A Mind of Trust (3) A Mind Set of Birth in the Pure Land (i.e., A Mind Fully Resolved to Be Born There) Without going into these terms as Shan-tao developed them, I will simply offer here an ecological reading of the three. Sincere Mind is our Green Mind--a mind that faces Nature rather than turning away from it into a purely human realm of value. Our Sincere Mind is the mind that is filled with wonder and appreciation while watching the ocean from a shoreline or while looking at the setting sun. In fact, the latter has long been associated with Pure Land practice. Sincere Mind allows its own thoughts to be displaced and simplified by Nature. Once this has happened, it become unified and calm--the kind of feeling that comes from walking for many hours on a quiet mountain trail (which, coincidentally, is another excellent practice with a long history in Pure Land tradition). Without this kind of sincerity it is difficult to recite the nembutsu. Then again, reciting nembutsu is our primary way of cultivating Sincere Mind, and so Honen insists that it is included in that practice. Dont worry about cultivating a Mind of Sincerity, Honen seems to be saying. Just say the nembutsu in faith and Sincere Mind will come on its own. Trusting Mind is the mind that believes, as simply as a child believes, that in Nature all shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well. Trusting Mind entrusts itself to Nature in the knowledge that only in this way, by rejoining its rhythms and cycles, can we be saved. As physical beings, how else could we be saved? Trusting Mind embraces the nembutsu as the expression of that great reality which gives rise to all, includes all, and from which therefore nothing (and no one) can ever be lost or left out. Settled Mind is a mind that is resolved on Nature/the Pure Land and determined to be born there. Settled Mind has decided to accept Nature/Amidas universal plan of salvation (which is real and true) over those selective forms of salvation associated with human values and human self-importance (which are not). Looking at the traditional view of the Pure Land, we can see that it has been subverted by human self-importance and human self-reference. It is an anthropocentric world to an extreme degree in which the birds arent even real birds and even the temperature of the water is callibrated to human desires and human needs. An ecological reading remedies this deficit by finding in the Pure Land our origin and eternal home, and not our destination. Pure Land Buddhism is not a form of escapism and does not refer to a heavenly realm separate from (and therefore in infinite and subtle ways at war with) the natural world. Settled Mind makes us healthier as a species, not worse. By way of summary, then: The Three Minds are (1) The Mind That Faces Nature, (2) The Mind That Trusts in Nature, and (3) The Mind That Returns to Nature. All is based on the understanding that human beings are one with Nature and cannot be otherwise. We are, already, where we belong. This is the whole of Pure Land practice. As Honen puts it, Nothing else is involved. The Four Modes of Practice are as follows (Ill summarize a bit more here to carry us through this sentence so we can get on to the more comforting and inspiring parts of the Ichimai-kishomon): (1) Exclusive Worship of Amida Traditional Reading: Worship Amida rather than one of the Buddhas associated with other sutras or other pure lands Green Reading: Facing the ground of Nature itself, rather than allowing ourselves to become fixated by (and therefore deceived by) some foreground figure with only anthropocentric significance in the cosmos. Think of this as letting Nature do the thinking, as we do for instance, when we do breath meditation or chant Amidas name like a birdcall. (2) Exclusive Practice of Nembutsu Traditional Reading: Focus on nembutsu rather than on various sundry practices associated with other schools of Buddhism Green Reading: To focus on life rather than on religion. Not to become so distracted by religious goals, attitudes, teachings, or lore that we lose track of our impulse to follow Nature and return to Nature. (3) Wholehearted and Uninterrupted Practice of Nembutsu Traditional Reading: This is self-explanatory--continuous, faith-filled repetition of the Buddhaname. Green Reading: To embrace Nature without a backwards glance at religion or other aspects of anthropocentric culture. We are at our most human in Nature, least ourselves when immitating/conforming to one another through the observance of cultural norms. (4) Practice of Nembutsu Throughout Ones Life Traditional Reading: Lifelong commitment to the practice without backsliding or stopping and starting again Green Reading: To see the whole of ones life in terms of Nature. To understand that the Earth is where we come from, where we live, and where we are headed. In summary, then: the Four Modes of Practice are: (1) To focus on the ground of Nature, rather than the figure of human thought. (2) To practice Nature, rather than religion. (3) To practice Nature without reservation, and without looking back. (4) To embrace Nature as our origin and destination, and as our home. Summarizing Honens assertion that The Three Minds and Four Modes of Practice are all included in this: Nembutsu is all-inclusive mind and all-inclusive practice. Its completeness is that of Nature. Though you master all the teachings Shakyamuni gave during his lifetime, it will not matter in the least. “The teachings Shakyamuni gave during his lifetime are the complete canon of sutras. In Honen’s time these would have included both the Theravada and the Mahayana sutras, the latter of which were not actually delivered by the historical Buddha. A contemporary of Honen’s speaks of the desire to master such scriptures in the following terms: Although you may clarify one doubtful issue through study, in the process you will stumble on other questions and so spend a lifetime resolving doubts, without a chance to utter the nembutsu in the peace of your heart. Learning, rather than being an aid to nembutsu, is a formidable obstruction. (Ichigon-hodan, 68) Honen himself once said, “When a scholar is born, he forgets Amida’s name.” The complete canon of Buddhist teachings is a burden. It is, however, a burden willingly carried by the religious person (particularly the specialist) for whom such scriptures are a kind of treasure. Such a person, fleeing from the burning house of this world, will stop to grab them on the way out, perishing in the process, as the wandering medieval Pure Land monks known as hijiri knew all too well. There is the story of a myokonin (you know the term, but for anyone reading this later, it refers to a saintly, usually unlettered Pure Land devotee whose relationship to Amida is immediate, spontaneous, and free) who actually did perish in a temple fire when he slit open his belly so that, by placing a sutra there, he could protect it from the flames. The story is surely apocryphal, however, because myokonin don’t behave this way. More likely, it is the creation of a Pure Land priest who wished to convey the message that the scriptures are more important than the life they are supposed to inform, which is a completely diseased way of thinking, as understandable as it might be from an institutional point of view. A story from the life of my Ch’an teacher Deh Chun offers an illustration of the same point. As a young orphan growing up in China, he found himself wandering in search of food during a great famine where many died. Deh Chun somehow came into possession of a large potato which he would eat, one small slice at a time, to keep himself alive. Traveling with him was an old man who had been a wealthy merchant before the famine. Inside the lining of his coat he had sewn many gold coins. These weighed him down, and of course were relatively worthless during a famine when no wealth could substitute for food, but he couldn’t part with them. Nevertheless, at one point he finally offered all of them to the boy, who refused to exchange them for his potato. The man eventually died. The nembutsu devotee uses the nembutsu as a way of coming unbound from all values which get between human beings and Nature. Such values simply don’t matter. Honen isn’t disparaging the sutras. But he is questioning their value in and of themselves. Religion must serve life, not life religion. This is the essence of his approach. Better to entrust yourself to the nembutsu, becoming like those ignorant devotees who, unable to read even a single word of scripture, without any pretension whatsoever devote themselves wholeheartedly to reciting Amida Buddha’s name. Honens statement is not what it seems. Or rather, it means what it says, but we must be careful when judging Honens motive in writing it. Because he seems to be saying that EVEN the ignorant can be saved, when, in fact, he means just the opposite: even the scholar can be saved. Please stop for a moment, strip Honen of all saintly status, and consider the simple fact that, as an ignorant, essentially powerless human being striving for his own salvation in whatever ways he could--through practice, through scholarship, and finally through simple, wholehearted recitation of Amida Buddhas name--he was, like the rest of us, originally concerned primarily with his own salvation. The real question at the heart of his spiritual life, then, was not whether the ignorant person could be saved, but whether he, Honen, could be saved. (Shinran, his disciple, is a lot more up front about this question in his own writing, but then he was not the founder of the school and could afford to humble himself in his writing before the memory of his teacher Honen.) So the real meaning of the passage goes something like this: Of course the ignorant person can be saved--that goes entirely without saying. But remember, my learned erudite disciples, you can be saved, too. Just embrace your own ignorance and say the nembutsu alongside my other, less-heady disciples and by following their example recover the simplicity you lost in studying the scriptures so thoroughly, eroneously believing that you could be saved in that way. A note on the Green Reading of this sentence: It is doubtful that Honens grasp of ecology and deep history were more than purely intuitive. However, he has correctly diagnosed the problem afflicting the religious mind. What he highlights here is the seemingly unbridgeable gulf that opens between two very different ways of experiencing the world—one “with writing” and one “without writing.” The anthropologist Claude Levi-Strauss disliked the term “primitive cultures,” preferring to think of cultures “without writing” instead. His reasoning was simple: there was nothing primitive at all about such societies, which were primarily concerned with Nature and now to live in harmony with it, rather than with the kinds of property, intellectual and real, that made writing necessary. It was this “without writing” mind, buried deeply within the scriptures almost like an archaeological relic, that Honen had recovered in his own practice, liberating him from the confusion and psychic dissonance inherent in a mind obsessed with parsing and/or defending doctrine. Doubtless, most people living during Honen’s day who could not study, or even read, the scriptures (the vast majority) felt deeply grateful that Honen had shown them a way to attain birth in the Pure Land, a possibility that, prior to the advent of his Pure Land School, was open only to those who had the disposable time for complex visualization practices, or the disposable income to pay for stupas and intercessory religious services. But I feel quite certain that, although he was deeply concerned for the fate of such people, he never doubted the possibility of their birth in the Land of Bliss. His concern in the Ichimai-kishomon is for the person whose path to the Pure Land is blocked by the written word and the culture of entrapment it has wrought. I hereby seal this document with the imprint of my hands. The final portion of the Ichimai-kishomon is all of one piece and its message is once more This is all. Honen is not holding anything back. This is the meaning of the handprints. After completing the Ichimai-kishomon, Honen placed his palms against the ink stone and affixed his handprints to the paper. As a way of authenticating a document, the gesture was not uncommon in Honens day, but I cannot help feeling moved by the gesture nevertheless. I often look at the facsimile of Honens final testament where it hangs on the wall of my study and ask myself what I would write at the end of my life to sum up what I believe. Would it fit on one sheet of paper? Would it be all of one piece as what Honen wrote was? Or would subtle contradiction creep in? Would I be able to state the truth this openly and without reservation, or would I end up holding one hand behind my back? These are questions I ask myself whenever I look at Honens handprints. They make the Ichimai-kishomon a spiritual and ecological touchstone for me. I imagine placing my hands over Honens handprints and joining with everything that is. The faith and practice of the Pure Land School are fully imparted here. In Pure Land Buddhism faith and practice are one. The nembutsu is itself the experience of faith, and to recite the nembutsu (to express faith verbally) is the practice. They are one and the same act. A potential confusion could arise when we think of faith as separate from practice. For instance, we might think that in order to practice the nembutsu faith in it was first required. According to this logic, merely parroting the nembutsu will not result in birth in the Pure Land. But this is not Honens intention, nor is it the teaching of the Pure Land School. In the Chinese Buddhist tradition there is a genre of sacred literature called birth tales that tells how various persons attained birth in the Pure Land at death. One of the more colorful birth tales concerns a parrot, and its inclusion in the corpus of human birth tales is almost certain to be a didactic attempt to illustrate the point at hand. According to the story, a merchant once kept a very ill-tempered parrot who refused to obey him and caused endless trouble for his house. One day, however, the parrot became ill and it was soon clear that he would die within the week. Then something unexpected happened. The bird began to chant the nien-fo: (Chinese for nembutsu). Nomo-omito-fo, Nomo-omito-fo, Nomo-omito-fo, he repeated ceaselessly, until on the seventh day he died, just as the sun was setting and purple clouds appeared in the sky (traditionally regarded as a sign that someone had attained birth in the Pure Land). This somewhat tongue-in-cheek account of a birth in the Pure Land is surely meant to confirm just what Honen taught in the Ichimai-kishomon--that simple recitation of Namu-amida-butsu is enough to ensure our birth in the Land of Bliss. Nothing else is required. But why should this be so, we might naturally ask, especially when other kinds of religious people go to such trouble to ensure their place in the hereafter? The answer couldnt be more simple: Because birth in the Pure Land is a premodern way of understanding salvation by Nature. Reciting the nembutsu is not a religious practice in the way that most other religious practices are. It does not replace Natures salvation with its own. Calling the name of Amida is a return to Nature and Natures salvation, a practice that inevitably emtails returning to our own True Nature. Recting Namu-amida-butsu is the same as crying Caw! Chirrup! or Cock-a-doodle-do! This is what it means to say that faith and practice are one and that both are included in simple recitation of the nembutsu. Nothing else is involved. I, Honen, have no teaching but this. To prevent misunderstandings after my death, I make this final testament. In Japan Honens Jodo-shu, or Pure Land School, accounts for a significant portion of all Buddhists. Together with Jodo-Shinshu (True Pure Land School) founded by his disciple Shinran, it accounts for the major portion of those who claim Buddhist affiliation in Japan--or at least nominally so, since Buddhism there has now entered a period of precipitous decline. Consequently, there are many temples associated with the two sects, and many schools and universities as well. At each of these, Pure Land Buddhism has been greatly elaborated upon and explained, and there are many, many books devoted to its teachings and ideas. Given this, can Honens One-Page Testament really be an exhaustive treatment of all that? The answer, I think, is that these endless elaborations on Pure Land Buddhist thought and practice are not what Pure Land Buddhism is about. What do they have to do with birth in the Pure Land? The answer is, nothing whatsoever. It is the nature of religious cultures the world over to forget what is direct and simple and replace it with what is not. It is their nature to turn away from the salvation offered by Nature to that offered by itself. Honen seemed to realize this with perfect clarity. His Ichimai-kishomon is both a warning against it and an antidote, for here at least, preserved in Honens own hand, right at the beginning of the tradition, is a teaching on birth in the Pure Land that is simple, comprehensive, and crystal clear. To prevent misunderstandings from arising after my death, he wrote. Honen understood the dangers of religion, right from the very start.
Posted on: Tue, 19 Aug 2014 21:51:37 +0000
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