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30 EASTERN HORIZON | FACE TO FACE

listening. Through the hearing and reciting of nembutsu, Many people these days feel stuck. Whether mentally,
we can experience oneness with transcendent reality emotionally, or spiritually there seems to be a sense of
that is Amida Buddha. Shinran describes a life focused weariness over the way life has been one continuous
on perceiving the Name of the Buddha in the Jōdo monrui series of challenges over the past several years. It often
jushō (Passages on the Pure Land Way): “Saying the seems like we have been riding the same out-of-control
Name is in itself mindfulness; mindfulness is nembutsu; rollercoaster with no way of knowing if it will ever slow
nembutsu is Namu-amida-butsu.” This is the foundation down. This story we have been living has conditioned
of the Shin Buddhist path: hearing, reflecting, and us to see life in a certain way and limits our ability to
responding to the call of Amida Buddha, which is the see opportunities and our potential for meaningful
nembutsu. According to Shin scholar Dennis Hirota, transformation and change.
“To hear the Name is to hear or apprehend the power
of light, and this light or hearing becomes enduring Shinran found himself in a spiritual doldrum from
mindfulness in the hearer.” A life of nembutsu is a where he saw no way out. Living with the old story
continuous encounter with compassion embodied within of who he was limited his ability to see the dynamic
the Name manifested in our daily lives. This activity working of wisdom and compassion in his life. Only by
of hearing and perceiving the nembutsu is an endless shifting his perspective was he finally able to experience
conversation between dynamic wisdom and compassion Amida’s embrace which radically transformed his
and beings living in the world of samsara. This is why in life. Shinran shares his appreciation for this new and
Shin Buddhism the true place of practice is our ordinary profoundly hopeful story of spiritual awakening in the
everyday life in which spiritual awakening is an ever- Kōsō Wasan (Hymns of the Pure Land Masters):
deepening appreciation for the joys and sorrows of life
with a profound sense of awe and wonder. Nembutsu is a My eyes being hindered by blind passions,
path of eternal becoming in which no experience is ever I cannot perceive the light that grasps me;
wasted and leads to a life of awakening. Yet the great compassion, without tiring,
Illumines me always.
As the aim of Buddhism as taught by Sakyamuni
Buddha is to attain enlightenment or Nirvana, is Holding on so tightly to the old story defining his life kept
Amida’s Pure Land the same as Nirvana? Shinran stuck and unable to change. Only by letting go
of who he thought he was empowered his ability to live
In traditional Pure Land thought, the Pure Land was authentically within a new life-giving story made possible
considered an ideal place for practicing the Dharma. This through Amida’s light of wisdom and compassion.
is why it was desirable to be born there so one could
eventually attain enlightenment. However, according to How does clinging to the old stories we tell about
Shinran, birth in the Pure Land means we immediately ourselves limit our ability to perceive our challenges as
attain perfect awakening. Thus, when our human opportunities—of seeing the light that grasps and never
life is fulfilled, we will attain nirvana, enlightenment, abandons? How do our pride and ego keep us trapped
or Buddhahood by being born in the Pure Land. In within a life-limiting and disempowering narrative of
becoming one with Amida, we become part of the eternal who we think we are? Only when we surrender our
vow of compassion that works to liberate all beings. old story can we transform spiritual hopelessness into
an empowered life of awakening. This is the true and
As the world becomes more secular, what aspects of real life of being born in the Pure Land. I believe Shin
Shin Buddhism you believe can relate very well with Buddhism offers a path of realistic hope for those of us
the modern youths of today? who are hopeless. EH