Tucson shinshu sangha
Shift in focus, change in basis
Nobuo Haneda, Director of the Maida Center in Berkeley California, says that when we meet a “power” that is outside, beyond ourselves—beyond, that is, our also-powerful, compelling, hypnotic self-love—we have a chance to hear something that would not have occurred to us if we only listened to the relentless dream-chatter of our personal minds.
We accidentally hear a sound or catch a glimpse of something unexpected. It surprises us: “What…?!” This surprise is outside the repetitive loop of ego-mind, dream-mind, survival-mind. This is like driving around a bend on a monotonous highway, in a daydream, and suddenly the vast ocean is there, and the clear blue sky. It shocks us out of our reverie. Isn’t that experience better than reverie? Isn’t that what we really wanted all along?
This kind of “wanting” is primordial. Haneda, tracking the ancient Shin view, calls it “primordial aspiration.” Something inside suddenly recognizes something outside. “What…?! Oh, that’s what I really want. That’s what I really am! Not all this chatter, this mental gibberish.”
Centuries ago the great revolutionary Buddhist thinker Shinran caught a glimpse of this view while in the presence of his teacher, Honen. In his book Dharma Breeze, Haneda writes that Honen’s spirit made a “crack” in Shinran’s “world of self-love.” Then “cool fresh air started to gush into his world.” Honen’s life, demeanor, spirit, “made Shinran realize that he had been living in a ‘garbage can’ and that the entirety of the self” had been nothing but this container of garbage. While he had, until then, believed that he could sweeten, improve, enlighten his life-inside-the-can, he now saw that this was a mistake. “He realized there was only stinkiness in the garbage can. Even what he considered purity in it was another form of stinkiness.”
Then Shinran “no longer considered the self, the garbage can, important. Now he considered the self worth forgetting.”
Being “overwhelmed and permeated” by this fresh air, "Shinran shifted his focus from the self to the spirit that Honen embodied, from the garbage can to the fresh air. In this way Shinran’s spiritual basis was totally changed.”
Haneda concludes, “When we are shaken and overwhelmed by this [primordial] power, we resonate with it and can forget our individual happiness or liberation. This self-forgetfulness is actually the realization of our true happiness or liberation.”
Waking up
Twoness is impossible but I presume its existence because the world presumes it. And really, it’s this dualistic mind’s only mode.
I wake up—but to what? To this presumption of duality. I wake up not to enlightenment but to my “endarkenment.” Through hearing the dharma, and self-examination, I wake up to delusion and—obliquely, accidentally, inconceivably, simultaneously—to its boundless context of light, our true self.
Namu-amida-butsu.
Nobuo Haneda, Director of the Maida Center in Berkeley California, says that when we meet a “power” that is outside, beyond ourselves—beyond, that is, our also-powerful, compelling, hypnotic self-love—we have a chance to hear something that would not have occurred to us if we only listened to the relentless dream-chatter of our personal minds.
We accidentally hear a sound or catch a glimpse of something unexpected. It surprises us: “What…?!” This surprise is outside the repetitive loop of ego-mind, dream-mind, survival-mind. This is like driving around a bend on a monotonous highway, in a daydream, and suddenly the vast ocean is there, and the clear blue sky. It shocks us out of our reverie. Isn’t that experience better than reverie? Isn’t that what we really wanted all along?
This kind of “wanting” is primordial. Haneda, tracking the ancient Shin view, calls it “primordial aspiration.” Something inside suddenly recognizes something outside. “What…?! Oh, that’s what I really want. That’s what I really am! Not all this chatter, this mental gibberish.”
Centuries ago the great revolutionary Buddhist thinker Shinran caught a glimpse of this view while in the presence of his teacher, Honen. In his book Dharma Breeze, Haneda writes that Honen’s spirit made a “crack” in Shinran’s “world of self-love.” Then “cool fresh air started to gush into his world.” Honen’s life, demeanor, spirit, “made Shinran realize that he had been living in a ‘garbage can’ and that the entirety of the self” had been nothing but this container of garbage. While he had, until then, believed that he could sweeten, improve, enlighten his life-inside-the-can, he now saw that this was a mistake. “He realized there was only stinkiness in the garbage can. Even what he considered purity in it was another form of stinkiness.”
Then Shinran “no longer considered the self, the garbage can, important. Now he considered the self worth forgetting.”
Being “overwhelmed and permeated” by this fresh air, "Shinran shifted his focus from the self to the spirit that Honen embodied, from the garbage can to the fresh air. In this way Shinran’s spiritual basis was totally changed.”
Haneda concludes, “When we are shaken and overwhelmed by this [primordial] power, we resonate with it and can forget our individual happiness or liberation. This self-forgetfulness is actually the realization of our true happiness or liberation.”
Waking up
Twoness is impossible but I presume its existence because the world presumes it. And really, it’s this dualistic mind’s only mode.
I wake up—but to what? To this presumption of duality. I wake up not to enlightenment but to my “endarkenment.” Through hearing the dharma, and self-examination, I wake up to delusion and—obliquely, accidentally, inconceivably, simultaneously—to its boundless context of light, our true self.
Namu-amida-butsu.
* * *
The Recognition of Impermanence
Excerpt by Shuichi Maida, translated by Nobuo Haneda
The recognition of impermanence liberates all. Liberation means becoming impermanence and working as impermanence itself. In that sense, all existing things are already liberated, just as they are, because they are already working as impermanence itself. Such things as plants, trees, fishes, and insects are already liberated. Only human beings experience (or awaken to) this liberation by recognizing impermanence. For an impermanent being to become aware of being an impermanent being is called recognition.
Thus the crucial question in life can be solved through recognition, not through actions or practice but simply through recognition. That is why it is said that liberation is not a matter of practice, but a matter of understanding. It is not in the future; it is in the present moment. Action, or what should be done, has something to do with the future. But liberation is in the eternal now. That is why I say that it is a matter of recognition. It is recognition, nothing else, that immediately enables us to cognize eternal life and thereby know that we are living in the eternal now.
When we go through the hundred-eighty degree turn in life because of recognition, a perfectly free life becomes possible. A perfectly free life is not a practice realized through our efforts; it is something that becomes possible because of recognition.
* * *
From the Dharma Breeze newsletter:
Buddhism talks about the two ways of transcending things such as dualistic human wisdom, deluded ideas, and blind passions: (1) transcending them by eliminating them and (2) transcending them by seeing them. Non-Shinshu teachers teach us the first way of transcending. Shinran teaches us the second way. Shinran tells us that when we receive the Buddha’s wisdom-perspective and are able to clearly see the self (i.e., human wisdom, deluded ideas, and blind passions) through that perspective, we are transcending it, although we have not eliminated it.
Here an example that shows the Shinshu way of transcending is in order. I can talk about the smallness of my house and the hugeness of the world outside it. If I only stay in my house, I cannot see its smallness; I think that my house is a huge world and all the things I do in it have great significance. For example, my occasional argument with my wife is a matter of great significance, and which one of us is right is a matter of great importance. But if I happen to see my house from an airplane in the sky, I can see the smallness of the house and all the things that take place there. Then I can simultaneously transcend my misguided view that my house is a huge world and all the things that take place in it have great significance. This transcendence, however, does not mean that I stop arguing with my wife. I still do, but there is a difference between before and after seeing the house from the sky. Before I thought everything about the house had great significance, but now I don’t think so. Although I still have my karma of arguing with my wife, I can now see it as a matter that does not have absolute importance. I can now laugh at myself and all the things that I do. This is the Shinshu way of transcending.
Shinjin awakening means the same thing. “Seeing it is transcending it.” It does not mean that we can eliminate things such as dualistic human wisdom [deluded ideas, blind passions]; it means that we clearly see their pettiness and smallness and become liberated from attachment to them.
Shinjin awakening is accompanied by a sense of both sadness and joy: the sadness of seeing the self that lives in the small world of human wisdom and the joy of seeing the self transcending the small world. This is the unique aspect of Shinran’s shinjin awakening.
Non-Shinshu teachers say that their liberation experience is accompanied by a sense of great joy at having eliminated dualistic human wisdom and becoming one with the Buddha’s wisdom or at having eliminated their blind passions. They seldom talk about the sadness of seeing the self that still lives in a small world of human wisdom or the self that still has deluded views and blind passions. But Shinran is different. He tells us that a shinjin person experiences both deep sadness at having dualistic human wisdom, deluded ideas, and blind passions and deep joy at receiving the Buddha’s wisdom that enables us to transcend them.
Shinran never places himself on the side of the Buddha’s wisdom or the Dharma. He never claims that he has become one with the Buddha’s wisdom. He always sees himself as a recipient of light; he keeps on recognizing the depth of his darkness, being illumined by the light… He experiences both the sadness of discovering the miserable reality of the self and the joy of being embraced by the Buddha’s light.
[On gratitude:]
…for Shinran, receiving the Buddha’s wisdom—the wisdom that transforms the negative into the positive—is everything in Buddhism. If a person receives the Buddha’s wisdom, all the negative things, such as sickness, poverty, an accident, a disaster, start to have positive meanings—they turn into “our teachers.” If all those negative things turn into something meaningful, they become the objects of our gratitude. Then our regular gratitude that is directed only toward positive things, such as health, wealth, and happiness, start to appear shallow. When we say, “I am so grateful,” we are usually talking about positive things, such as wonderful health, a nice family, and a nice job. We seldom feel grateful for the negative things we have in our lives.
Shinran knew that if we receive the Buddha’s wisdom alone, all things in our lives, not only the positive things but also the negative things, would become indispensable conditions for the fulfillment of our lives. That’s why he expressed his gratitude exclusively to those who guided him to the Buddha's wisdom, and did not talk about his gratitude for other things.
One of Shinran’s expressions of gratitude is as follows:
Such is the benevolence of Amida Buddha’s great compassion,
That we cannot help returning it, even to the breaking of our bodies;
Such is the benevolence of the master [i.e., Shakyamuni] and true teachers,
That we cannot help repaying it, even to our bones becoming dust.
(Nobuo Haneda, Dharma Breeze newsletter, December 2018)
*
Radical nonduality
“Subjective human life, and objective nature (the Tathagata), do not constitute a fixed opposition of ego-self and non-ego like straight lines on a plane. They form one rounded and perfect Dharma world where through this opposition they determine themselves mutually, and develop the meaning of individual ego and total ego, which are inwardly and infinitely continuous and one.”
Soga Ryojin, “Reader,” p. 396
*
The Recognition of Impermanence
Excerpt by Shuichi Maida, translated by Nobuo Haneda
The recognition of impermanence liberates all. Liberation means becoming impermanence and working as impermanence itself. In that sense, all existing things are already liberated, just as they are, because they are already working as impermanence itself. Such things as plants, trees, fishes, and insects are already liberated. Only human beings experience (or awaken to) this liberation by recognizing impermanence. For an impermanent being to become aware of being an impermanent being is called recognition.
Thus the crucial question in life can be solved through recognition, not through actions or practice but simply through recognition. That is why it is said that liberation is not a matter of practice, but a matter of understanding. It is not in the future; it is in the present moment. Action, or what should be done, has something to do with the future. But liberation is in the eternal now. That is why I say that it is a matter of recognition. It is recognition, nothing else, that immediately enables us to cognize eternal life and thereby know that we are living in the eternal now.
When we go through the hundred-eighty degree turn in life because of recognition, a perfectly free life becomes possible. A perfectly free life is not a practice realized through our efforts; it is something that becomes possible because of recognition.
* * *
From the Dharma Breeze newsletter:
Buddhism talks about the two ways of transcending things such as dualistic human wisdom, deluded ideas, and blind passions: (1) transcending them by eliminating them and (2) transcending them by seeing them. Non-Shinshu teachers teach us the first way of transcending. Shinran teaches us the second way. Shinran tells us that when we receive the Buddha’s wisdom-perspective and are able to clearly see the self (i.e., human wisdom, deluded ideas, and blind passions) through that perspective, we are transcending it, although we have not eliminated it.
Here an example that shows the Shinshu way of transcending is in order. I can talk about the smallness of my house and the hugeness of the world outside it. If I only stay in my house, I cannot see its smallness; I think that my house is a huge world and all the things I do in it have great significance. For example, my occasional argument with my wife is a matter of great significance, and which one of us is right is a matter of great importance. But if I happen to see my house from an airplane in the sky, I can see the smallness of the house and all the things that take place there. Then I can simultaneously transcend my misguided view that my house is a huge world and all the things that take place in it have great significance. This transcendence, however, does not mean that I stop arguing with my wife. I still do, but there is a difference between before and after seeing the house from the sky. Before I thought everything about the house had great significance, but now I don’t think so. Although I still have my karma of arguing with my wife, I can now see it as a matter that does not have absolute importance. I can now laugh at myself and all the things that I do. This is the Shinshu way of transcending.
Shinjin awakening means the same thing. “Seeing it is transcending it.” It does not mean that we can eliminate things such as dualistic human wisdom [deluded ideas, blind passions]; it means that we clearly see their pettiness and smallness and become liberated from attachment to them.
Shinjin awakening is accompanied by a sense of both sadness and joy: the sadness of seeing the self that lives in the small world of human wisdom and the joy of seeing the self transcending the small world. This is the unique aspect of Shinran’s shinjin awakening.
Non-Shinshu teachers say that their liberation experience is accompanied by a sense of great joy at having eliminated dualistic human wisdom and becoming one with the Buddha’s wisdom or at having eliminated their blind passions. They seldom talk about the sadness of seeing the self that still lives in a small world of human wisdom or the self that still has deluded views and blind passions. But Shinran is different. He tells us that a shinjin person experiences both deep sadness at having dualistic human wisdom, deluded ideas, and blind passions and deep joy at receiving the Buddha’s wisdom that enables us to transcend them.
Shinran never places himself on the side of the Buddha’s wisdom or the Dharma. He never claims that he has become one with the Buddha’s wisdom. He always sees himself as a recipient of light; he keeps on recognizing the depth of his darkness, being illumined by the light… He experiences both the sadness of discovering the miserable reality of the self and the joy of being embraced by the Buddha’s light.
[On gratitude:]
…for Shinran, receiving the Buddha’s wisdom—the wisdom that transforms the negative into the positive—is everything in Buddhism. If a person receives the Buddha’s wisdom, all the negative things, such as sickness, poverty, an accident, a disaster, start to have positive meanings—they turn into “our teachers.” If all those negative things turn into something meaningful, they become the objects of our gratitude. Then our regular gratitude that is directed only toward positive things, such as health, wealth, and happiness, start to appear shallow. When we say, “I am so grateful,” we are usually talking about positive things, such as wonderful health, a nice family, and a nice job. We seldom feel grateful for the negative things we have in our lives.
Shinran knew that if we receive the Buddha’s wisdom alone, all things in our lives, not only the positive things but also the negative things, would become indispensable conditions for the fulfillment of our lives. That’s why he expressed his gratitude exclusively to those who guided him to the Buddha's wisdom, and did not talk about his gratitude for other things.
One of Shinran’s expressions of gratitude is as follows:
Such is the benevolence of Amida Buddha’s great compassion,
That we cannot help returning it, even to the breaking of our bodies;
Such is the benevolence of the master [i.e., Shakyamuni] and true teachers,
That we cannot help repaying it, even to our bones becoming dust.
(Nobuo Haneda, Dharma Breeze newsletter, December 2018)
*
Radical nonduality
“Subjective human life, and objective nature (the Tathagata), do not constitute a fixed opposition of ego-self and non-ego like straight lines on a plane. They form one rounded and perfect Dharma world where through this opposition they determine themselves mutually, and develop the meaning of individual ego and total ego, which are inwardly and infinitely continuous and one.”
Soga Ryojin, “Reader,” p. 396
*
