Tag: Dharma

Mental Health and Fire Emblem

Since I started playing Fire Emblem: Three Houses, I have been continuously impressed with how well-written and relatable the cast of characters is. But there’s more to it.

Early in the story, when you first meet the other characters and students, many come off as quirky, annoying or just mean. However, as you progress in the game and get to know them through dialogues (e.g. “supports”), you learn more about why they are the way they are. Why is Dorothea such a good-digger? Why is Felix such a jerk? Why is Marianne so gloomy, Lysithea a workaholic, Sylvain a womanizer, and so on.

What you learn over time is that many of these characters, even the more stable ones, have some kind of personal trauma or persistent fear that’s driving their lives. Some characters have more crippling mental health issues, while some just hide their pain better than others.

After playing through a game like this, it’s not hard to see that many people around you are almost certainly suffering from some past traumas or persistent mental health problems. The degree or nature of that problem is different for each person, and some people hide it better than others, but I bet if you scratch the surface you will see it.

Of course, this applies to ourselves too. Past traumas, emotional pain and lingering, persistent mental habits color our behavior on a daily basis.

I grew up as the eldest son of a single mom in a conservative community in the 1980’s, and experienced plenty of bullying and ostracism as a result, while trying to grow up fast and help the family.1 I have no doubt this colors my behavior today. Seeing my grandmother dead from cancer at age 57 on the hospital bed two days after Thanksgiving in 1990 still comes back to me every November.

But there’s more to this.

As the game progresses, and through increased interaction, many of the characters open up about their pain and trauma to others and from this they find kindred spirits, or they gain new perspectives. It doesn’t erase the past, but oftentimes it helps them find closure, or get the support they needed.

In Buddhism, we revere the Sangha (the community) as one of the three treasures, along with the Buddha (teacher) and the Dharma (the teachings). The Sangha is essential in Buddhism because people can’t do it alone. The Buddha recognized from the beginning that people need one another, and can support one another.

I love how Edelgard may appear as a villain at first glance, but then there are moments like these…

Even when the Sangha has its fair share of dickheads and scallywags, the mutual support people offer one another is part of the therapy that Buddhism offers. This isn’t limited to Buddhism, by the way; one can find solace in any religious community. My other grandmother was a devout Lutheran and would go to her local church every Sunday for many years.

It’s just that Buddhism overtly recognizes that everyone suffers from mental health problems on some level, which are given fancy terms like kleshas in Sanskrit, or bonnō in Japanese, but also that there aren’t easy solutions. It’s a long slow process, and it requires a mutual support network.

It’s scary to share one’s pain with others, or even with yourself,2 but it can really take a heavy load off you, and help provide new perspectives. You don’t have to force it either. As you spend time with others, people naturally start to open up over time. There’s no magic here, it’s just simply that people need one another, and this is how we find peace and wellbeing.

Namu Amida Butsu

1 a little bit like Jonathan Byers in Stranger Things, minus all the weird extra-dimensional stuff. Maybe. 😋

2 sometimes a personal journal or an anonymous blog can really work wonders.

The Pious Prince Shotoku

This pagoda (Buddhist stupa) we saw in Kyoto near Kiyomizudera is among others attributed to Prince Shotoku.

The 6th century Prince Shotoku (Shōtoku Taishi, 聖徳太子) holds a revered place in Japanese culture not unlike Constantine the Great, Emperor Ashoka, or Good King Wenceslas. Even today, kids in Japan learn about Prince Shotoku through comic books, art and even the two-thousand yen bill. Even my son, who’s grown up in both Japanese and American culture has learned about the famous prince who was so smart that he could listen to ten conversations at once and recall each individually.

On a historical note, several famous Buddhist temples and pagoda (Buddhist stupa) are attributed to Prince Shotoku, including Horyuji. Further, he reorganized the Yamato court in a Confucian-style bureaucracy and is said to have composed an early Buddhist constitution.

But who was Prince Shotoku?

Prince Shotoku was part of a powerful triad at the time, consisting of Empress Suiko, a rare example of a powerful empress in Japanese history, Prince Shotoku as regent and advisor, and Soga no Umako, head of the powerful and reformist Soga Clan with strong connections to Korean and Chinese communities.

Japan at this time was emerging from geographic isolation and increasingly establishing cultural contacts with the Korean Peninsula, and with Tang-Dynasty China. This led to a power struggle between more conservative, nativist clans such as the Mononobé and Nakatomi, and reformist groups such as the Soga. The triad above were definitely reformist, and clashed with the conservative faction eventually leading to war.

According to the Nihon Shoki, on the eve of battle, Prince Shotoku prayed to the Four Heavenly Kings (a group of Buddhist guardian deities) for success. Upon crushing the Mononobe and their allies, Prince Shotoku built and dedicated the temple of Shitennnoji to the victory. The rest, as they say, is history.

Let’s talk about some of the things attributed to Prince Shotoku…

Buddhist Constitution

In 604, Prince Shotoku supposedly promulgated a seventeen article constitution based on Buddhist and Confucian principles: the jūshichijō kenpō (十七条憲法). Unlike a modern constitution, it was not legally binding, but more of a vague statement of governance, and was later replaced by the Ritsuryo System in the 8th century.

Translations of the 17 Article Constitution are hard to find, but you can see examples of it here and here.

Japan’s New Name

Names for Japan in early, early history varied and inconsistent. Chinese officials called it the land of Wa (倭), and Japan often called itself Wakoku (倭国) or Yamato (大和). However, the modern Japanese name for Japan, Nihon (日本) is attributed to a letter that Prince Shotoku wrote introducing his sovereign to the Sui Dynasty in China:

“From the sovereign of the land of the rising sun (hi izuru tokoro) to the sovereign of the land of the setting sun.”

The “land of the rising sun” evolved into Nihon (日本, lit. “where the sun comes from”).

Further, by putting the Emperor of Japan on equal footing as the Emperor of China, Prince Shotoku was not so subtly rejecting the Chinese-centric world view.

The Cap and Rank System

Prince Shotoku is also credited with establishing the first meritocracy in Japan in 603, inspired by Chinese Confucianism called the Kan’i Jūnikai (冠位十二階, “Twelve Cap and Rank System). The idea was to get out of hereditary government appointments, and promote ministers based on skill and talent, using a series of colored caps to correspond with rank (instead of lineage).

Promulgation of Buddhism

A copy of the Lotus Sutra said to be composed by Prince Shotoku. 日本語: 尾上八郎English: Hachiro Onoue, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Prince Shotoku was said to be a great promoter of the Buddhist faith in Japan. We talked about the conflict with the nativist Mononobé clan earlier, who held to the Shinto faith, but after Shotoku’s victory, he continued to build temples such as Horyu-ji and stupas (like the one shown above), copy sutras, and so on.

Further, later generations of Buddhist teachers in Japan revered Prince Shotoku almost as a cult figure, often conflated with Bodhisattva Kannon. Even today, if you go to many Jodo Shinshu Buddhist temples, you will often see a scroll of Prince Shotoku to the side of the central altar due to the founder Shinran’s devotion to Shotoku.

Historicity

The historicity of Prince Shotoku is interesting though. While a historical figure named Prince Umayado (厩戸皇子) is thought to have really existed, and is thought to be the origin of Prince Shotoku, many of the stories and accomplishments attributed to him may have come from other sources.

Early Japan at this time was importing much mainland culture through the Korean kingdoms of Baekje and Silla, as well as China, and this often meant that immigrant families migrated to serve the early Japanese court. The Hata clan, for example, came from Silla.

The book Shotoku shows how certain subtle aspects of the Shotoku myth stories reflect cultural sources from Silla, via immigrant groups such as the Hata clan. This is through specific imagery used, coupled with archeological evidence from known sites in early Japan where immigrant groups habited, and their influence on local Shinto shrine practices.

For example, a famous story in the Nihon Shoki about Prince Shotoku and the Beggar of Kataoka reads as follows, with [my additions] and (additions from original author):

21st year, 12th month, 1st day.

The crown prince [Shotoku] made a journey to Kataoka. At that time there was a starving man who was lying at the side of the road. He asked for (the beggar’s) name, but he said nothing. The crown prince seeing this, gave him food and drink. He then took off his cloak, and covered the beggar with it, saying “lie there in peace.” He then made a song.

12th month, second day.

The crown prince sent a messenger to see the starving man. The messenger returned and said “The serving man is already dead.” The crown prince was greatly saddened by this and he therefore had them bury the man at that spot in a tomb that was firmly shut. Several days later [trimmed for brevity] he sent (another) messenger to look (at the tomb). The messenger returned and said “When I arrived at the tomb, (the earth) was firm and had not moved. (Yet) when I opened it and looked inside the corpse had already disappeared. There was only the clothing folded above the casket.”

At this the crown prince once again sent the messenger back to retrieve the clothing. He then wore it as he always had done. The people then all marveled at this and said “It is true that a sage knows a sage!”…

Shotoku, by Michael I Como, page 102

The story is hard for Western audiences, and even modern Japanese ones, to understand without additional context. Elements such as the dead resurrecting were motifs used by an immigrant community called the Wani clan from the Korean peninsula in their origin stories, and the notion of a “sage prince” was an idea imported from Chinese-Buddhist culture.

The book takes a very detailed an exhaustive look at the legends and stories of the time, but this example shows how the legend of Prince Shotoku was gradually constructed from obscure cultural trends and symbolism popular in antiquity, and conflated over generations. In later versions, for example, the beggar is the Indian monk Bodhidharma.

Zen, the Pure Land, and Buddhism Lite

Warning: long, (mostly) unedited, stream of thought. Sometimes it’s just funner this way. 😄

Since my trip to Japan and back, I’ve been kind of debating something in the back of my head.

Much of my background in Buddhism since as far back as 2005 has been in the Pure Land tradition, especially Japanese “Jodo Shu” and to a lesser-extent “Jodo Shinshu” sects. The sure openness and simplicity are very appealing, especially when I am having a hard time in my life. At other times, I see my conduct as backsliding or lazy, or that I am not grounding myself enough in the here-and-now, and so I tend to shift toward Zen. At such times, the passivity of the Pure Land path seems out of place with what I feel Shakyamuni Buddha would have wanted to us as disciples to do.

Buddhism, as a world religion, is a religion of doing not believing.

But the reason why the Pure Land tradition is so popular across many Asian cultures, and increasingly in the West is that it realistically assesses the situation of lay followers and provides an accessible path for them to follow.

The monastic/lay-disciple relationship within Buddhism has always been a challenge throughout its history since it tends to relegate the lay disciples as passive followers. The doing of Buddhism tends to favor those who are willing to commit the time and energy into it (i.e. mendicants, renunciants, etc), leaving the laity to support them, or at least participate as time allows.

The Buddha was not insensitive to this, and sternly reminded his followers that without the lay community, they could not be a Sangha. Further, many of the original precepts in the monastic code were to avoid monks and nuns abusing their authority over the laity, including the Rains Retreat. Further, when the lay community and monastic community have a healthy relationship, everyone benefits.

The catch is that even with good intentions, the laity are often put in a more passive role. Many of the traditional sutras in the Buddhist canon are intended for fellow monks, not laity. Many of the practices require time and effort that laity simply can’t do.

While Pure Land Buddhism does help to address this, I realized that it can also lead to complacency. When dealing with my puppy, who while adorable is still behaving like a puppy, or dealing with constant pressures at work, such things tend to bring out the worst in me, and simply reciting the nembutsu over and over doesn’t seem like a particularly effective strategy.1 Further, I don’t want to forget about my experience last year, and some of the insights I gleaned from that.

On the other hand, I’ve never really liked the Zen tradition, especially in the West. Western Zen tends to feel weirdly divorced from the tradition it inherits from, sometimes flippantly so, and tends to feel sterile and lacking any sense of community. People seem come to Zen centers and practices because they need something, not because they are happy to be there.2 The Zen community in the West is comprised of he same sort of people who argue online about why such-and-such Star Wars series is good/bad, or try to out-do one another in their knowledge of Zen esoterica. In other words, it’s saturated with smarmy nerds.

In much of the current Asian-Buddhist tradition, both the Pure Land and Zen tradition stand at opposite poles between utter passivity (“it’s OK, I have faith in Amida Buddha”) or utter DIY (“I’m gonna meditate my way to Enlightenment!”). There are many efforts over the centuries, to somehow wed the two traditions, and these efforts usually gravitate toward one pole or the other. The famous Chinese monk, Yunqi Zhuhong,3 was a particularly effective example of this, but Yunqi isn’t well known in the West. Ven. Thich Nhat’s Hanh’s interpretation of Pure land through the lens of Zen, Finding Our True Home, was a pretty good modern attempt as well.

Still, these are somewhat intellectual exercises, and not always useful to lay people who may not always understand either tradition. So, going back to my main concern: how do you make Buddhism accessible (and easily understood) to a wide, non-Buddhist audience while still keeping faithful to the Buddha’s teachings on discipline, wisdom and cultivation. Further, how do you keep the “heart” of Buddhism so it doesn’t become a nerdy, sterile exercise?

I think this is where the Lotus Sutra really comes in handy. The Lotus Sutra by itself is hard to discern, and pretty tough to read, but if you’re already familiar with Buddhism, I think it helps provide the “heart” of Buddhism and helps address the question: what’s the point of it all? The parables in the Lotus Sutra are also a really great way to get around intellectual discussions and convey Buddhist teachings in a way people can adopt and carry with them, hence their popularity throughout antiquity.

However, as with Zen or the Pure Land, it’s important not to get a one-sided, literalist view of the Lotus Sutra either, or a person will go off the rails. It’s a historical text, written with a specific audience in mind, and has to be taken into context. Yup, I said it.

Anyhow, to that end, I have been thinking about this and I feel there are certain universal practices in buddhism that, regardless of sect you follow, are really beneficial to observe. By beneficial, I mean, you are aligning with teh intention of what the Buddha would have wanted us to follow either as a lay-person or as a monastic disciple. In previous blogs, I called this “Buddhism Lite”, since it distills the tradition to as simple and generic an approach as I can. You can re-name it something else.

Buddhism Lite

  • Uphold five precepts – In my opinion, this is the most fundamental practice for lay Buddhists, and really dove-tails nicely with the other practices below. If you have to prioritize the precepts versus meditation and such, prioritize the precepts. They are also the easiest to integrate in everyday life.
  • Recite “nembutsu” – in this context I am using nembutsu as simply recollecting the Buddha, and venerating him. The Buddha is our beacon in this world, and so it behooves us to give due gratitude. To me, the simplest way to venerate the historical Buddha is to recite the phrase Namo Shakamuni Buddha. If you prefer another Buddha or Bodhisattva, that’s totally fine. In the end, there is only one Dharma,4 and each figure simply embodies it. The Dharma is what maters most, not the particular Buddha.
  • Mindfulness meditation – as much as I tend to avoid mindfulness meditation, there’s no denying that it’s central to Buddhism. It is the practice the Buddha prescribed most to followers, and has a tangible value both in the near term and in the long term. I won’t prescribe how much a person meditate; just work it into your life in a way that’s sustainable (like physical exercise).
  • Optional: Uposatha – I haven’t really talked about this much, but Uposatha is traditionally when the Buddha would set aside time for devout laity and the monastic community to practice together. Think of the Uposatha as like the Sabbath, or Sunday services, etc. Uposatha is traditionally held on six days of the calendar month: the 8th, 14th, 15th, 23rd, 29th and 30th days.5 The example below is a Uposatha service you can observe at home on Uposatha days, based on existing traditions. As with meditation, make it sustainable for your life.
    • Praise to the 3 treasures:
      • “I go to the Buddha for refuge”
      • “I go to the Dharma for refuge”
      • “I go to the Sangha for refuge”
    • Confession of transgressions: All of the misdeeds I have committed in the past are the result of my greed, anger and delusion. I repent these misdeeds.
      • The key here is not to “flog yourself”, it’s about observing scientifically when your own conduct fell short and acknowledging this, wiping the slate clean, and resolving not to do them again.
    • Recite a sutra, or part of a sutra: your choice.
    • Recite the “Nembutsu” three times – see above.
    • Dedication of merit – you are not just practicing for yourself, but also for the benefit of others.

I think the key here is balancing devotion to the Buddha as a teacher, with putting things into practice in real life, and avoiding complacency.

Anyhow, this has been a somewhat rambling stream, but it was easier to just write it all out in one shot than try to explain in something more polished and shorter. If you made it this far and find it useful, thanks!

1 This is something I recall from a Jodo Shu called the ippyaku-shijūgo-kajō-mondō (百四十五箇条問答) or “One Hundred and Forty Five Questions and Answers” addressed to Honen:

Q: Is it better to recite Nembutsu abstaining from doing evil and doing only good, or to recite Nembutsu believing only in the true wish of Amida Buddha?

A [from Honen]: Abstaining from the evil while doing good things is the total admonition of Buddha. But for us, living in the real world, we disobey the admonition, so by believing from the bottom of our hearts in the real wish of Amida Buddha to save all kinds of people, we are able to say “Namu Amida Butsu”. Amida Buddha will lead all people into the Pure Land without any discrimination between people with or without wisdom, or between those who can or cannot keep the precepts. Please keep this in mind.” (Clause 145)

http://www.jodo.org/teachings/teachings01.html

2 From Brad Warner’s blog:

Plus those adoring audiences of sincere truth seekers that I imagined would hang on my trippy words of wisdom were nowhere to be found in his case. Instead, he was surrounded mainly by curiosity-seekers who never stayed around long, or by needy hangers-on who often became angry and belligerent when they weren’t satisfied with what he taught — which was always. He did have a handful of sincere students, but we were not much help when it came to supporting him.

http://hardcorezen.info/so-you-want-to-be-a-dharma-teacher/7843

Although I don’t really follow Mr Warner, this has been my limited experience as well.

3 I wrote much of this Wikipedia article, so I may be biased. 😏

4 Chapter two of the Lotus Sutra, by the way:

But stop, Shariputra, I will say no more. Why? Because what the Buddha has achieved is the rarest and most difficult-to-understand Law. The true entity of all phenomena can only be understood and shared between Buddhas. This reality consists of the appearance, nature, entity, power, influence, inherent cause, relation, latent effect, manifest effect, and their consistency from beginning to end.”

source: https://nichiren.info/buddhism/lotussutra/text/chap02.html

In other words, the Buddhas all awaken to the same Dharma, and have the same qualities and awareness. The Dharma is what matters. Also, the Vakkali Sutta in the Pali Canon.

5 How would Uposatha look in February? I would probably just bump the 29th and 30th to March 1st and 2nd respectively.

Commitment

The Lotus Sutra is one of the most important Buddhist texts in the entire Mahayana-Buddhist canon. Because of its length, its chapters, and its variety of figures, parables and such, there’s something for everyone, hence its influence on the subsequent tradition.

Lately, I have been thinking about the story of the Bodhisattva Medicine King,1 in the 23rd-chapter of the Lotus Sutra. The story is too long to quote verbatim here, but I will try to post the relevant parts. I am using the Senchu Murano translation, but the Burton Watson translation (available online) is excellent, too.2

In this chapter, the narrator, Shakyamuni Buddha, describes a land that existed countless eons ago, populated by a great Buddha:

Innumerable kalpas [“eons”, very long periods of time] ago, that is, as many kalpas as there are sands in the River Ganges, there lived a Buddha called Sun-Moon-Pure-Right-Virtue….He was accompanied by eight thousand million great Bodhisattva-mahāsattvas…The duration of his life was forty-two thousand kalpas…There was no calamity in his world. The ground of his world was as even as the palm of his hand….

Page 305, Chapter 23 of “The Lotus Sutra” by Senchu Morano

Then as this Buddha preaches the Lotus Sutra to his disciples (with emphasis added), one of them was particularly inspired. After having practiced many austeries, and offered countless kinds of incense and flowers to his teacher (Sun-Moon-Pure-Right-Virtue Buddha), he decided it was not enough :

Having made these offerings [of incense, flowers, etc. to the Buddha] he emerged from samādhi, and thought, ‘I have now made offerings to the Buddha by my supernatural powers. But these offerings are less valuable than the offering of my own body.’

Then he ate various kinds of incense….then he applied perfumed oil to his skin, put on a heavenly garment of treasures in the presence of Sun-Moon-Pure-Bright-Virtue Buddha, sprinkled various kinds of perfumed oil on the garment, and set fire to his body, making a vow by his supernatural powers. The light of the flame illumined the worlds numbering eight thousands of millions of times the number of the sands of the River Ganges….

The body of the Bodhisattva kept burning for twelve hundred years, and then was consumed. Having made this offering according to the Dharma, Gladly-Seen-By-All-Beings Bodhisattva passed away. In his next life, he appeared again in this world of Sun-Moon-Pure-Bright-Virtue Buddha.

Page 307-308, Chapter 23 of “The Lotus Sutra” by Senchu Morano

Later in the chapter, the narrator Shakyamuni Buddha, then explains that this pattern of Gladly-Seen-By-All-Beings Bodhisattva offering himself to his teacher was repeated countless times across many eons. The big reveal in this chapter was that this Bodhisattva, according to the Lotus Sutra, was now the Medicine King Bodhisattva attending Shakyamuni’s audience.

If, by this point, you’re wondering “what on earth is going on?” don’t worry. The Lotus Sutra isn’t a straightforward text. If you try to read at face-value, you will probably get really confused. Unlike the sutras of the Pali Canon, which are formulaic and dry, the Lotus Sutra is a narrative composition that relied on literary flourish and hyperbole.

Like other bodhisattvas features in the second half of the Lotus Sutra (including Avalokiteshvara in chapter 25), each one is held up as the epitome of some aspect of Buddhism. The Medicine King Bodhisattva, I think, is meant to epitomize commitment to the Dharma. The Sutra is not asking people to burn themselves to practice Buddhism. What matters isn’t the specific action, but that he kept coming back over and over, unconcerned about the trivialities of life.

If this seems odd, consider this passage from the Heart Sutra:

Because there is no attainment, bodhisattvas rely on Prajñāpāramitā [the perfection of wisdom], and their minds have no obstructions. Since there are no obstructions, they have no fears.

Translation by Lapis Lazuli Texts

Or the opening passage of the Immeasurable Life Sutra (e.g. the “Larger Sutra”) in the Pure Land tradition. I have again trimmed for brevity:

Having well learned the extensive wisdom of fearless and having realized the illusory nature of dharmas, he [a typical bodhisattva] destroys Mara’s nets and unties all the bonds of passion….

He is above all worldly affairs and his mind, always serene, dwells on the path of emancipation; this gives him complete control over all dharmas….

Having awakened great compassion for sentient beings, he kindly expounds the teaching, and endows them with the Dharma-eye. He blocks the paths to the three evil realms, opens the gate of virtue and, without waiting for their request, provides beings with the Dharma. He does this for the multitude of beings just as a dutiful son loves and respects his parents. He indeed looks upon sentient beings as his own self.

Translation by Rev. Hisao Inagaki

In each, there is a strong sense of fearlessness and long-term commitment.

But on the other hand, this is not something the bodhisattva thinks about. Consider this passage from the Diamond Sutra:

The Buddha said to Subhuti, “The Bodhisattva Mahasattvas master their mind by meditating as follows: ‘However many species of living beings there are—whether born from eggs, from the womb, from moisture, or spontaneously; whether they have form or do not have form; whether they have perceptions or do not have perceptions; or whether it cannot be said of them that they have perceptions or that they do not have perceptions, we must lead all these beings to nirvana so that they can be liberated. Yet when this innumerable, immeasurable, infinite number of beings has become liberated, we do not, in truth, think that a single being has been liberated.’

“Why is this so? If, Subhuti, a bodhisattva still has the notion of a self, a person, a living being, or a life span exists, that person is not a true bodhisattva.

Translation by Ven. Thich Nhat Hanh

So it’s not just a sense of great commitment, but also a way of living that’s not self-centered or conceited. The bodhisattvas do not keep score.

It’s like someone who is really committed to a certain hobby or sport, and they’re not even really thinking about it anymore. They just do it, and keep going, refining their craft more and more. Similarly, a good parent doesn’t count how many times they tell their kids “good job”, or how many diapers they changed. They are committed to raising their kids, and even when things are really rough, they keep at it. Mistakes are made, but they don’t quit right there. They keep going.

The Mahayana-Buddhist ideal is along these lines: someone who selflessly teaches the Dharma, helps others over and over, and polishes their minds, no matter how long it takes, and yet their total commitment means that they aren’t really consciously thinking about it. It’s just part of their being.

Anyhow, the imagery in Chapter 23 is powerful, and while this chapter isn’t usually cited by other teachers, I think it still has something to teach us.

P.S. Photo taken by me at Sanjusangendō Temple in July 2023.

1 Not to be confused with the Medicine Buddha. As far as I know, they are unrelated figures.

Source: XKCD

2 The Lotus Sutra has many, many translations in English, and honestly they’re all good. The really archaic translations from the 19th century are kind of hard to read (e.g. Soothill), but any modern translation is fine. The only time the differences matter is mostly for academic reasons, and then it just becomes hair-splitting for your average Buddhist:

Dharma Decline and Pure Land Buddhism

Pure Land Buddhism, that is the broad tradition that is found in places like China, Korea, Japan and Vietnam, frequently relies on a concept known as Dharma Decline. The idea, briefly talked about here, but the idea is that when a Buddha arises in the world and teaches the Dharma (e.g. “the way things are”), it’s like turning a bicycle wheel. In time, that wheel slows down further and further until it finally stops until another Buddha arises.

Photo by Jean van der Meulen on Pexels.com

Because of Dharma Decline, Pure Land Buddhism frequently teaches that as we become further and further removed from the time of the Buddha (e.g. the historical Buddha, Shakyamuni) it gets harder and harder to put certain teachings into practice. Instead, people can rely on the compassion of Amitabha Buddha, the Buddha of Infinite Light, in these latter days of the Dharma.

This is succinctly put in a quote by the late Chinese-Buddhist monk, Shi Yin-Guang (釋印光; 1862–1940):

Cultivation is no different from wearing cotton garments in the summer and heavy padded clothing in winter; we cannot go against the times, capacities and conditions of sentient beings. Even if the Patriarch Bodhidharma himself were to be reborn today, and wished to preach in accordance with the current times and conditions and swiftly emancipate sentient beings, there would be no better method than Pure Land.

The idea here is that just as different clothes are suited for different seasons, different teachings and practices within Buddhism are appropriate for different periods of Dharma Decline. Thus, in latter days of the Dharma, the Pure Land practices are though to the most suitable.

The background this idea comes from a Buddhist text called the Sutra of Immeasurable Life, which ends with the statement:

The Buddha further said, “I have expounded this teaching for the sake of sentient beings and enabled you to see Amitāyus [a.k.a. Amitabha] and all in his land. Strive to do what you should. After I have passed into Nirvāṇa, do not allow doubt to arise. In the future, the Buddhist scriptures and teachings will perish. But, out of pity and compassion, I will especially preserve this sutra and maintain it in the world for a hundred years more. Those beings who encounter it will attain deliverance in accord with their aspirations…”

Dharma Decline appears in a number of Buddhist sutras, but this sutra, which is central to the Pure Land tradition, explicitly teaches that the Pure Land teachings will endure the longest when other teachings are lost, obscured, or cease to be effective.

Of course, this raises some questions: is Dharma Decline real, and even if it is, is the Pure Land approach the most effective in these times?

I have no definitive answer. I have wavering opinions about this myself from time to time. I also believe it’s up to each Buddhist to decide for themselves. A follower of esoteric Buddhism (e.g. Tibetan Buddhism) could just as easily point to specific texts to prove theirs is the best practice, a Zen Buddhist might shrug off Dharma Decline and go back to meditating,1 a follower of the Lotus Sutra might just as easily make the same argument for reciting the Odaimoku. Hence, we have so many gates to the Dharma.

However, I do think Ven. Yin-Guang has a point: different Buddhist practices are suitable for different times and places, and like a winter jacket vs. a summer jacket, it helps to consider the situation: one’s own personal situation, and the situation of the Buddhist community in your area. For me, the accessibility of the Pure Land path, coupled with the straightforward approach, and flexibility with life as a parent make it preferable for me.

1 Dogen, founder of Soto Zen did not subscribe to Dharma Decline for example.

“The Buddha”, not “Buddha”

Recently, I was watching an excellent video by Extra History on the history of Buddhism, and I was happy to see that they used the term “the Buddha”, not just “Buddha”. This might not seem like a big deal, but it helps to know the difference.

The word Buddha comes from Sanskrit, and means “an Awakened One”, someone who has accomplished Enlightenment and is fully unbound (e.g. Nirvana).

In any case, “Buddha” is a title, not a name. A person who accomplishes Enlightenment is a Buddha.

Further, in Buddhism, it is thought there is not just one Buddha, but many Buddhas.

Buddhism thinks in terms of very long time, as in countless eons that span a near infinite flow of time. Within that time, when ignorance prevails, a Buddha arises. It works like a cycle.

Think of the teachings (a.k.a. the Dharma) of Buddhism, as something like the laws of physics. The laws of physics pervade the Universe, whether anyone notices or not. Along comes someone like Newton who observes them, articulates them, and teachers others. In the same way, a Buddha is one who discovers the Dharma, articulates it and teachers others. After that Buddha passes away, eventually the Dharma is forgotten again, and in time a new Buddha arises to repeat the cycle.

Thus, the historical Buddha, the one who founded Buddhism as an organized religion around 5th century BCE, is thought to one of a long line of Buddhas that span those countless eons. He is one Buddha of many. And since he was born from the ancient Shakya clan in northern India, he is called Shakyamuni Buddha, or “the Buddha from the Shakya clan”. His birth name was Siddhartha Gautama (sometimes Gotama), but his title in Buddhism is Shakyamuni Buddha.

And now you know….

P.S. More on buddhas, buddhas and buddhas.

Juneteenth and What It Means For All Of Us

In Charles B Jones’s overview of the Pure Land Buddhist tradition, he talks about a sect called the Yuzu Nembutsu sect (which I explored here), but in particular, he delves into the Buddhist concept of interdepedence, which the sect relies upon:1

Suppose you lay a row of ten coins on a table, and then move the tenth coin in front of the first, shifting the rest over one position. You probably assume that changing the order does not affet what they are in any way. However, from the Huayan point of view, they are not independent of one another; the first is coin one of ten, the second is two of ten, the third is three of ten, and so on. Their relationship with the other coins in the row is part of their identity and figure into the way we conceptualize them. When you take the last coin and move it to the first position, it changes from ten of ten to one of ten. At the same time, since the relation of the other coins to the one you moved has changed, they are no longer the same coins as before either, even though you did not move them.

Charles B Jones, “Pure Land: History, Tradition, and Practice“, page 120

It’s not enough to simply exist, things exist in relation to one another, and what affects one thing affects others. Taken in total, this is the Buddhist-Sanskrit concept of shunyata.

So, what does this have to do with Juneteenth?

The enslavement of Africans, generation after generation didn’t just traumatize and dehumanize black Americans, it dragged all of society down with it. Everyone was adversely impacted by it in one way or another, even those who profited from it. American society was poorer for it, directly contradicting its own high ideals of human rights, and forcing some to use mental gymnastics to justify such a barbaric enterprise, even resorting to organized violence to deflect their own festering guilt and paranoia. This spilled over into such conflicts as the infamous Bleeding Kansas, and then again later in the Civil War, to say nothing of the tragic deaths of countless Black Americans.

Thus, while Juneteenth wasn’t a holiday that I grew up with as a white kid of the 80’s and 90’s, I am glad to see we celebrate it now. Or rather, I am glad we have more awareness now and the holiday has the widespread acceptance it deserves. The emancipation of Black Americans wasn’t the end of discrimination, especially since the Jim Crow laws persisted even as late as the 1960’s, but as soon as slavery ended, America as a whole was that much better for it.

When we see the entire struggle for freedom and equal rights through the lens of Buddhism, it’s not just a problem for Black Americans, it poisons the well for us all. Where one suffers, we all suffer in some way. Where one person is treated with goodwill and dignity, we all benefit. When one black man in this country is unfairly persecuted by the law, or killed by police violence, it wounds us all. Where Americans of different backgrounds come together in a spirit of community, family and so on, we all benefit.

The struggle of Black America, as is struggle of Native Americans, LBGTQ people and so on is everyone’s struggle too. The little things we do on a daily basis to listen to these struggles,2 or to be an ally for others, or even just be kind on a person-by-person basis do affect others, including those we never see. This is a fundamental Buddhist truth, whether we see it or not.

Let us each leave this world a little better than the one we entered.

Namu Amida Butsu

1 The example above was originally composed by Fa-zang (法藏; 643–712), a proponent of the Chinese Huayan school centered around shunyata.

2 Sometimes this can be as simple as letting other people speak about their experiences, and not sucking all the oxygen out of the room with your own thoughts and opinions.

Amida Buddha, Ecology, and Shin Buddhism

As I continue my (re-)reading of various Pure Land Buddhist books in my collection, I realized that all my reading was centered around a medieval-Japanese-Buddhist viewpoint, with all its arguments about the minutiae of the tradition. It’s been a fun time for me, and with the benefit of age and hindsight, I have come to understand some things I didn’t when I was younger.

However, one thing pre-modern Buddhist authors seldom wrote about was Ecology.

Photo by Tom Fisk on Pexels.com

To be fair, medieval authors never had to worry about climate change, mass extinction of wildlife, plastic in oceans, etc. They did have to worry about plagues, natural disasters, feudal rulers and other issues. Different generations, different issues.

Buddhism and its concept of metta, or goodwill towards all beings, implicitly includes an ecological outlook, as does the notion of interconnectedness of all things. So, Buddhism definitely lends itself towards a more ecological viewpoint, but it’s never been really emphasized.

However, faced with monumental ecological problems we have now though, we have no choice but to confront them and adapt Buddhist teachings to educate and inspire people to make wiser choices. This is the problem of our era. But where to begin?

I think Jodo Shinshu, or “Shin” Buddhism as Westerns often call it, provides a particularly helpful attitude into how ecology and Buddhism can work. Shin Buddhism focuses awareness of, and gratitude toward everything arounds us that sustains us and carries us forward. This is embodied by Amida Buddha, the same Buddha in other Pure Land traditions, but Shinran the founder’s interpretation heavily leans toward the side of “other-power”. In other words, it’s through Amida’s grace, rather than set of practices, that one is led toward the Pure Land. Thus, one says the nembutsu (namu amida butsu) as an expression of gratitude than an explicit practice.

Further, other Buddhist practices are done out of gratitude, or because one is inspired by the Dharma (the Buddhist teachings), rather than because one is aiming towards something.

With me so far?

Out of any Buddhist tradition, Jodo Shinshu/Shin Buddhism probably has the most “Calvinist” viewpoint of anything I can think of. Granted that, under the hood, Buddhism and Christianity are quite different, but Shin Buddhism shifts the emphasis away from traditional Buddhist practice toward the power of Amida Buddha and his compassion towards all beings. Amida calls to us (just like Parable of the Two Rivers), and if we heed that call we are brought along the Buddhist path.

Thus in popular Shin-Buddhist culture, people often referred to Amida Buddha as Oya-sama (親様, “Honored Parent”). It’s not that we are born from Amida Buddha, but his compassion surrounds and sustains us like a parent. Even the famous haiku poet, Kobayashi Issa (小林 一茶, 1763 – 1828), a Jodo Shinshu follower himself, once family wrote a haiku at New Year’s when he was broke and penniless:

JapaneseRomanizationAmateur translation
ともかくもTomokaku moAt the closing of the year
あなたまかせのAnata makase noI turn to you, Amida Buddha;
年の暮れToshi no kurécome what may.
Rough translation by author, all mistakes are mine

So, what does this have to do with Ecology?

First, Shinran, the founder, didn’t see Amida Buddha as just another Buddha within the larger Mahayana pantheon. He felt that Amida was the embodiment of the Dharma itself, and since the Dharma, the Buddhist teachings, reflect reality as it is (even if us unenlightened beings don’t fully get the full scope of it) whenever we see reality, we see Amida Buddha, and his compassion for all beings. The restorer of Jodo Shinshu, Rennyo, taught similar sentiments.

Thus, goodwill, and awareness of the interconnectedness of all things, is us seeing Amida at work. When we “pay it forward” and help others, or help the environment, this is an expression of our gratitude toward Amida, but also to the life and nature around us that sustains us daily. In this light, the nembutsu isn’t just a bunch of words chanted over and over, it’s a living expression of our gratitude.

It’s something I haven’t fully fleshed out yet in my head, but I realize more and more the years that Rev Castro had been ahead of his time.

P.S. This post is pretty unpolished (I usually try to proofread things at least once), but I wanted to write down this stream of thought in my head before I forget.

Pure Land Buddhism at Large

Recently, I took some personal time to delve deep into Pure Land Buddhist teachings, re-reading some old books, but also some new ones. In particular, I was very impressed by Charles B Jones’s latest book, an excellent survey of the entire Pure Land tradition in Mahayana Buddhism.

If you’re not familiar with Pure Land Buddhism, this is a broad, broad tradition in East Asia, focused on a single Buddha named Amitabha, not the historical Buddha (Shakyamuni). There are way more devotees of the Pure Land path in many Buddhist countries versus, say, Zen practitioners. It is said that Amitabha, according to the Buddhist canon (a.k.a. the sutras), made a great series of vows to provide a refuge for all beings if they with to be reborn there. In this refuge, one will unfailingly become an enlightened being, by virtue of being so close to a living Buddha.

This might seem weird at first glance, since Shakyamuni Buddha started the whole religion in the first place, right? It’s a long story of how we got to something like Four Noble Truths to something like an ethereal paradise where people can go simply by reciting his name.

Charles B Jones’s book actually does walk through how this tradition evolved from an advanced meditative practice in India to the forms we see today, so that alone is worth reading the book. However, there’s another side to this issue that Jones’s book also covers: sectarian bias.

Way back in 2005, shortly after I married my Japanese girlfriend (now wife), we made our first trip to Japan to visit her extended family. The culture shock hit hard: I hardly knew the language, the customs and food weren’t what I expected, and the Buddhist religion that I was so interested in made no sense to me. I remember seeing Amitabha Buddha at Chion-in temple in Kyoto, and while it was very beautiful, it felt like weird superstition to me. This wasn’t mentioned in any of my books about Buddhism! Someone in Japan even asked me what I thought about it all, and I made some stupid, arrogant comment about superstition, etc.

But it was still nagging me when I got home later, and that’s when I discovered the Jodo Shu homepage in English. I slowly started to unravel things, and eventually became a devoted follower (still am in many ways), but at the time, this was very niche Buddhist teachings outside of some Western organizations like the Buddhist Churches of America (also a wonderful org, highly recommend).

Since then, there have been a lot of books published in the last 20 years about Pure Land Buddhism, but they are almost always sectarian, and obfuscate the variety of practices in favor of one single approach. I learned Pure Land Buddhism through Jodo Shu/Jodo Shinshu sectarian sources, including one overtly nationalist book by D T Suzuki (don’t get me started on that guy…), and it colored my understanding for a long time.

For all the increased information on Pure Land Buddhism in the West, it’s still based on very biased, sectarian sources, namely Japanese sects such as Jodo Shu and Jodo Shinshu. This isn’t necessarily wrong, and as a long-time follower of these traditions, they really helped me a lot when I was first getting on my feet.

However, long time readers may note that I’ve danced around other aspects of Pure Land Buddhism, but until recently I had no idea how broad the tradition was, and the many ways people have tackled the theological questions behind it.

Through Jones’s book, I realized that the tradition is huge, and varied in its approach. It’s not just a “Japanese Buddhism versus Chinese Buddhism” comparison either. Many thinkers over the centuries in many countries and eras have grappled with these questions:

  • What is the nature of Amitabha Buddha and the Pure Land? Is it mind-only? Does it literally exist X yojanas to the West? Or is it right here?
  • Similarly, is Amitabha Buddha the embodiment of the Dharma or a literal Buddha who excels at reaching out to people?
  • What is the point of striving for rebirth into the Pure Land? Is it to awaken one’s mind here and now, or is it to reach a refuge in which one can progress along the Buddhist path more easily?
  • How does one do it? Do they rely on Amitabha Buddha’s compassion (e.g. other power) or does one strive to be reborn there? Is it a “meet in the middle” situation?
  • What is the nianfo/nembutsu (念佛/念仏), and is the nianfo/nembutsu sufficient on its own to accomplish rebirth in the Pure Land, or are other practices required?

Charles B Jones covers all the ways people have interpreted these questions, in India, in China and in Japan and the variety of responses and interpretations is surprising.

For example, if we only consider the questions of whether the Pure Land and Amitabha arises from one’s own mind, a Zen-style interpretation, or a more literal savior to that exists elsewhere reaching out to others, we get a spectrum of interpretations. However even if you have two different teachers both advocate for a literal interpretation of Amitabha Buddha, they will differ on whether reciting the nianfo/nembutsu alone is enough, or what practices one should do to strive there.

Even when two teachers agree on a set of practices leading to rebirth in the Pure Land, they might differ on how much of it is due to one’s own efforts versus Amitabha’s compassion and power of his vows.

Thus, what you get is a really complicated, three-dimensional matrix of views.

For example, the Chinese Buddhist teacher, Yunqi Zhuhong (雲棲袾, 1535–1615),1 advocated a very sophisticated approach that tried to reconcile both the mind-only or “principle” interpretation of Amitabha Buddha with the more literal or “phenomenal” one often used by lay people. In his mind, both were essentially correct, and it was perfectly fine to approach from either mentality, so long as one kept up the essential practices: reciting the nianfo (nembutsu in Japanese), reciting sutras, devotional acts, etc. It confirms what I suspected for a long time: that there is more to Pure Land Buddhism than just the nembutsu.

I never even knew about Yunqi Zhuhong until a few weeks ago (I pretty much rewrote the entire Wikipedia article linked above using more sources), and this shows how sectarian views, even when benign, obscure aspects of the tradition and make it hard to understand Pure Land Buddhism at large. One can easily apply this to other Buddhist traditions such as Zen, or Theravada, etc.

Another challenge in Buddhism has always been accessibility, and Charles B Jones shows how the Jodo Shu and especially Jodo Shinshu sects in Japan really excelled at outreach to common people instead of the aristocratic Buddhist followers who focused on esoteric Buddhist practices.2 However, in order to make Buddhism very accessible to large segments of the population, it’s clear they also took some liberties in how they interpret some of the issue above, and these are issues that they have to continuously defend, theologically, to this day.

Anyhow, there’s no clear answer here on who’s right or not. Jones’s book does a great job showing all the different approaches, arguments, and the virtues and challenges of each one, and thus the reader is welcome to decide for themselves. It’s so rare to find such a balanced and thorough overview of the entire tradition. For my part, I haven’t fully decided for myself what the right approach is (hence all the book reading lately), but it really helped give me a broader picture, and plenty of food for thought.

Namu Amida Butsu

1 Pronounced as “yoon-chee joo-hong”

2 Another interesting contrast that Jones’s book shows between Chinese Buddhist history versus Japanese: Japanese Buddhist history starts with the Imperial Court patronage and over generations gradually filtered down to the general population, thus it required patronage, sects, etc. Chinese Buddhism by contrast “percolated” up from small communities, often influenced by foreign merchant communities, and thus never had to organize sects, schools and such; Buddhist communities just sprang up organically.

Cutting Losses

Recently, I was reminded of this old sutra from the Pali Canon, the Gotami Sutta (AN 8.53):

“As for the qualities of which you may know, ‘These qualities lead to dispassion, not to passion; to being unfettered, not to being fettered; to shedding, not to accumulating; to modesty, not to self-aggrandizement; to contentment, not to discontent; to seclusion, not to entanglement; to aroused persistence, not to laziness; to being unburdensome, not to being burdensome’: You may categorically hold, ‘This is the Dhamma, this is the Vinaya, this is the Teacher’s instruction.'”

Translation by Ven. Thanissaro Bhikkhu

I’ve always liked this simple, straightforward benchmark of the Dharma. It reminds me of a quote by a Zen master many centuries later (quoted here originally):

This old man [himself] has spent more than thirty years in the rinka [monasteries], sitting in Zen meditation, quietly withering away my desires, without expectations for the morrow. When hunger comes, I eat. When the time comes, I sleep….The present does not persist. The past and future do not exist

Sōtō Zen in Medieval Japan by William M. Bodiford

One of the advantages of old age is perspective, and (ideally) not getting hung up on the ups and downs of life as much compared to our youth when everything is fresh and raw. Being able to approach life through equanimity and goodwill, not being tossed about by the Eight Winds is a great gift for oneself and others.

Of course, many older people are in fact the opposite: childish, petty, and irrational too. The older one gets, the more social filters break down and their true nature reveals itself. Similarly, I still have plenty of petty and mean days myself, but looking back, I do feel the Buddha-Dharma has helped smooth at least the roughest edges over time.

That’s why, as the Buddha and the Zen teacher both show, training in the Buddha-Dharma is so useful. Setting good habits and healthy perspectives sooner than later will gradually pay off over time, like a good investment.

The more you invest, and the sooner you invest, the better.

Namu Amida Butsu

P.S. I do have certain reservations about Thanissaro Bhikkhu’s rather conservative approach toward women’s ordination in Buddhism, but that’s not to deny his positive contributions as a translator. I’d call it a “professional disagreement”, except of course I am just a layperson and not a bhikkhu. 😅

P.P.S. Unlike the last two posts, this is a new one, not a re-post. 😎