“If Amida’s Primal Vow is
true, Shakyamuni’s teaching cannot be false. If the Buddha’s teaching is true,
Shan-tao’s commentaries cannot be false. If Shan-tao’s commentaries are true
can Honen’s words be lies? If Honen’s words are true, then surely what I say
cannot be empty.”
The Primal Vow is true. This is
the basis of our faith and of the entire Amida Dharma which was taught by
Shakyamuni and the succeeding Masters. Everything starts with this – the Primal
Vow is true. If we accept that the Primal Vow is true and we rely on it without
any doubt, then we are saved;
if not, this life in human form is wasted:
“if in this lifetime
still you are entangled in a net of doubt, then unavoidably you must pass once
more in the stream of birth-and-death through myriads of kalpas”.
In the Primal Vow we find
everything we need, and what Amida and Shakyamuni want us to do. We can say
that the whole Buddhism is reduced for us, to the Primal Vow. Of course,
Shakyamuni taught many things during His lifetime, but nothing is more
important to us than those precious moments when He told the story of Amida Buddha and His Primal Vow. As Shinran said:
“Among all teachings
the Great Sage preached in His lifetime, none surpasses this ocean
of virtues [the Primal
Vow].”
For
Shinran and for us “the universal Vow
difficult to fathom is indeed a great vessel bearing us across the ocean
difficult to cross”. It is “the true
teaching easy to practice for small, foolish beings; the straight way easy to
traverse for the dull and ignorant”.
In the Primal Vow Amida Buddha
made the following promise:
“If, when I attain
Buddhahood, sentient beings in the lands of the ten quarters who sincerely and
joyfully entrust themselves to me, desire to be born in my land, and call my
Name, even ten times, should not be born there, may I not attain perfect
Enlightenment.”
Those who have faith in Him, say
His Name and wish to be born in His Pure Land, will go there. It is as simple
as that. Clearly, as Shinran said above, it is something that even the “dull
and ignorant” can follow. No special practice, no high virtues or spiritual
capacities, no this or that meditation technique, no retire into a monastery,
no nothing but a simple faith, saying of His Name (faith and saying of the Name
are the same) and wish to be reborn in His Pure Land after death.
The masters of
our school always insisted that we must be in accord with the Primal Vow. To be
in accord with the Primal Vow means that we accept it as being true and
effective in saving us, that we say the Name in faith and wish to be born in
Amida’s Land. To accept that the Primal Vow is true and effective also means
that the elements of this Vow are true and real. Which are these elements? They
are Amida Buddha and His Pure Land. Only in relation with this Buddha and His
Pure Land there is a faith, a saying of the Name and a wish to be born. Faith
in whom? It is faith in Amida. Saying the Name of whom? Saying the Name of
Amida. Wishing to be born in whose land? Wishing to be born in Amida’s Land.
If we have faith in someone, then
it means we are sure beyond any doubt that he is reliable and that he will keep
his promise. Now I will say something which might sound too simple and obvious
to be mentioned, but to believe in someone’s promise means that we accept his
existence, too. Promises can be made by living persons, in our case by a
living, existing Amida Buddha, not by material objects or fictional characters.
If you read Harry Potter or a book about Santa Claus, or even Hamlet by
Shakespeare, you cannot actually believe that these characters are real. You
know they are part of a fiction and whatever they say in their specific novel,
you will never think they are actually promising something to you personally.
Why am I saying this and make this silly comparison? It is because some
nowadays deluded scholars and false teachers in our international sangha are
trying very hard to convince people that Amida Buddha is just another fictional character like Hamlet[1],
and not a real Enlightened Person. They also try to present the other element
of the Primal Vow – the Pure
Land – as being
non-existent or something to be attained here and now, in this very existence,
and not a place where we should desire to be reborn after death, as the Primal
Vow urges us to do.
So, only if we accept the actual existence of Amida Buddha in Form and Name and of His Pure Land, we can have a
genuine faith in Him, say His Name and wish to be born there. Because Amida
Buddha and His Pure Land are true and real, His Primal Vow, in which he urges
us to entrust to Him, say His Name and wish to go there, is itself true and
real. We are not speaking here about an empty promise made by an unenlightened
person, or by a fictional character in a fantasy book, but about the promise of
a real Buddha, the fully Enlightened One called Amida. Because He exists and He
is a Buddha, then it means He is reliable and we can let him carry us to His
Pure Land.
Next,
where do we hear about Amida Buddha, His Land and his Primal Vow? We hear about
them in the teaching of Shakyamuni, the historical Buddha who appeared in our
world more than 2500 years ago. This is another reason to entrust our karmic
destiny to Amida – because Shakyamuni is the witness and the one who told
Amida’s story to us:
“If Amida’s Primal Vow is true, Shakyamuni’s teaching cannot be
false”.
Master Seikaku made a very simple statement about accepting the Primal Vow in faith on the basis that Shakyamuni himself told us about it and the One who made this Vow:
"Suppose that a man whom one deeply trusts and of whom one has no
cause for suspicion whatever, tells you about a place which he knows well at
firsthand, saying that there is a mountain here, a river there. You believe
deeply what he says, and after you have accepted these words, you meet other
people who say it is all false. There is no mountain and no river.
Nevertheless, since what you heard was said by a person whom you cannot think would speak a mere fabrication, a hundred thousand people might tell you differently but you would not accept it. Rather, you deeply trust what you heard first. This is called trust.
Now, believing in what Sakyamuni taught, entrusting yourself to Amida's Vow, and being without any doubt should be like this.”[2]
Nevertheless, since what you heard was said by a person whom you cannot think would speak a mere fabrication, a hundred thousand people might tell you differently but you would not accept it. Rather, you deeply trust what you heard first. This is called trust.
Now, believing in what Sakyamuni taught, entrusting yourself to Amida's Vow, and being without any doubt should be like this.”[2]
Also the Masters of our tradition who followed Shakyamuni, including Shan-tao, Honen and Shinran[3] accepted and transmitted to us the truth of the Primal Vow:
“If the Buddha’s teaching is
true, Shan-tao’s commentaries cannot be false. If Shan-tao’s commentaries are
true, can Honen’s words be lies? If Honen’s words are true, then surely what I
say cannot be empty”.
Even if they sometimes used different methods, they
all taught that Amida and His Pure Land exist and that we should have faith and
desire to go there.
[1] Rev Nobuo Haneda actually said “Amida is ‘a fictional character’ like Hamlet or Faust” in his
article What Is Amida Buddha?,
published on http://www.livingdharma.org/Living.Dharma.Articles/WhatIsAmida-Haneda.html
[2] Essentials of Faith Alone by Master
Seikaku.
[3] Also
Nagarjuna, Vasubandhu, T’an-luan, Tao-ch’o, Genshin, Rennyo Shonin.
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