It is generally assumed that philosophic Buddhism, and especially that form of it expressed in the Pali Canon, is par excellence the way to salvation or illumination by self-help. For in the philosophy attributed to Gautama by the earliest records no place is given to a God or gods who can assist man in the development of spiritual life; the existence of such divine beings is not denied—it is ignored on the ground that no power on earth or in heaven can interfere with another’s karma. And karma (Pali, Kamma) is a very inclusive term, for primarily it means “action” or “doing,” though in a secondary sense it has come to mean the law of cause and effect—a sense that has been much overemphasized by Western theosophical interpretations. But it would seem that original Buddhism does not only set aside the possibility of interference with karma for the reason that it is impossible to separate a cause from its effect (in the Christian sense of absolution). It also rejects the possibility of divine intervention at the causal end of the process, having no parallel to the Christian concept of Grace. In Christianity there is no human power which can, of its own resources, make for righteousness and salvation, for by reason of original sin it is impossible for man to move upward without the gift of divine Grace. Buddhism, however, would appear to be a method of lifting oneself up by one’s own belt, for according to a famous passage in the Maha-parinibbana Sutta (v. ii, 27–35), we are advised, “Be ye lamps unto yourselves. Be ye a refuge unto your selves. Take to yourselves no other refuge.”1
Both Hinayana and Mahayana Buddhism in the historical development of their philosophy and practice have, for the most part, kept to this principle of absolute self-reliance. If any faith was involved, it was faith in one’s own capacity to work out one’s own salvation, and faith in the ability of Buddhism to supply the necessary method. In the Hinayana system the method was to exhaust the process of karma by perceiving the fundamental unreality of the individual (atta) who sets karma in motion. The Mahayana followed a variation of the same method, but, under the influence of Brahmanic thought, supplemented the idea of individual unreality with the concept of a universal, nondual Reality similar to the Vedantist idea of Brahman. In one sense this Reality, called by such names as Tathata, Sunyata, and Dharmakaya, was beyond karma (akarma), and thus the realization that it alone existed involved deliverance from the toils of karma, even though one might continue to live in the “world of birth-and-death.” But the radical nondualism of, say, the Lankavatara Sutra (Suzuki, 1932) refused even to make any absolute distinction between karma and akarma, the world of illusion and the principle of Reality, the transient, separate individual and the eternal, undifferentiated “Suchness” (Tathata):
There is no Nirvana except where is Samsara; there is no Samsara except where is Nirvana; for the condition of existence is not of a mutually-exclusive character. Therefore, it is said that all things are non-dual as are Nirvana and Samsara. (p. 67)
The problem of faith and works in Buddhism, as we shall discuss it, will be entirely in terms of the Mahayana school. To understand its doctrinal and psychological background we must pay particular attention to the Mahayanist doctrine of nonduality, bearing also in mind that only in Mahayana has a way of salvation by faith arisen. Our attention will be directed, however, to doctrinal and psychological aspects of the problem rather than historical, for we cannot say precisely whether the historical development of the way of faith came as a logical result of certain philosophic trends or as an answer to a natural human need. Furthermore, the historical aspect of the problem is complicated by our uncertainty as to the exact age of many of the important sutras involved. But we do know that the way of faith developed quite early in Mahayana history, playing an important role in the works of such early patriarchs of the school as Nagarjuna, Asvaghosa, and Vasubandhu.
Mahayana philosophy is centered upon two closely related ideas. The first, descended from Vedanta, is that Enlightenment (the Buddhist life-goal) consists in an inner realization of nonduality. All those things upon which unenlightened man depends for his happiness are dual, and thus conditioned by their opposites. Life cannot be had without death, pleasure without pain, joy without sorrow, youth without age, or good without evil. We cannot, therefore, depend for our ultimate salvation and security upon any one aspect of a given pair of opposites (dvandva), for the two are as essential to each other as back and front are essential to the totality of any object. Thus, while we look to such limited states for our salvation, we are involved in a world of ups and downs that goes under the general name of Samsara, the wheel of birth and death.
From the beginning, the purpose of Buddhism was to find deliverance from this wheel, to discover the state of Nirvana, differing from these limited states by being eternal, unchanging, and subject to no ups and downs. In the Pali Canon there is no special emphasis upon the nonduality of Nirvana. It is here something quite outside and different from Samsara—an escape. But the Mahayanist Nirvana is described in much the same language as the Upanishads describe Brahman, the “One-without-a-second.” Here Nirvana is the experience that differs from all these limited experiences by having no opposite. The Mahayana sutras are at such pains to stress the nonduality of Nirvana and Enlightenment (bodhi) that they do not even allow Nirvana to be opposed to Samsara, or Enlightenment to be opposed to Ignorance (avidya). To the fully enlightened man Samsara is Nirvana; ordinary, everyday experience of the world of opposites is for him transformed into the supreme spiritual experience of deliverance or freedom.
The second important principle of Mahayana is the Bodhisattva-ideal. In one sense the Bodhisattva is a lesser Buddha. In another, he is one who, by patient striving throughout countless incarnations, has attained the right to Nirvana, but who postpones final entry into its eternal rest in order to come back into the world and work for the liberation of “all sentient beings.” But this rather picturesque view of the Bodhisattva is actually taken from the Hinayana standpoint. Nirvana is still an escape from Samsara, even though the Bodhisattva has temporarily renounced it. But from the thoroughgoing Mahayana standpoint, the Bodhisattva-ideal is the necessary consequence of a philosophy denying the duality of Nirvana and Samsara. The Bodhisattva has no need to escape from Samsara because he realizes that it is Nirvana. Thus, to quote the Lankavatara Sutra again,
those who, afraid of sufferings rising from the discrimination of birth-and-death, seek for Nirvana, do not know that birth-and-death and Nirvana are not to be separated the one from the other; and, seeing that all things subject to discrimination have no reality, imagine that Nirvana consists in the future annihilation of the senses and their fields. They are not aware … of the fact that Nirvana is the Alayavijnana (universal mind). … (Suzuki, 1932, p. 55)
But whatever the view of Nirvana, the Bodhisattva is the savior, the one who makes vows (pranidhana) to postpone any final withdrawal from the world until he has seen all living things liberated and raised to the level of his own understanding. Thus, in a number of Buddhist sects, the monk repeats daily the following vows to identify himself with the Bodhisattva-ideal:
How innumerable sentient beings are, I vow to save them all;
How inexhaustible our evil passions are, I vow to exterminate them;
How immeasurable the holy doctrines are, I vow to study them;
How inaccessible the path of Buddhas is, I vow to attain it. (Suzuki, 1927, p. 323)
But it will be noted that, although the monk vows to save all sentient beings, he does not seem to expect anyone to save him. The remainder of his vows are firm affirmations of self-help, and this is in line with the main trend of Mahayana philosophy and practice in all but the popular sects, which have put the Bodhisattvas in the position of saviors to be worshipped and relied upon almost exactly as the Christian relies upon the saving power of the Christ. Thus there would seem here to be a huge inconsistency between popular and philosophic Buddhism in the Mahayana school. The purpose of this study, however, is to show that this inconsistency is more apparent than real.
In modern China and Japan, by far the most popular form of Buddhism is a way of salvation by faith. It has attained its most radical and interesting development in Japan, but, as we have seen, its origins are in India, far back in the early days of Mahayana history. Most students of Buddhism are at a loss to find any true similarity of purpose between these popular cults and the highly self-reliant Buddhism of Gautama and philosophic Mahayana. They are generally regarded as a mere degeneration of the creed, a pure concession to unregenerate human nature, which demands supernatural beings to achieve what men are too lazy and too frightened to achieve for themselves. There is no doubt whatever that there are plenty of lazy and frightened human beings and that an easy method of salvation by faith would naturally appeal to them, especially in the more extreme forms which altogether discount the efficacy of works. But there are other considerations, and from a certain point of view these very extreme forms become full of the deepest interest. Here let it be said that I owe this point of view to Dr. D. T. Suzuki (1939), who has recently made a particularly suggestive study of the philosophy and psychology underlying the Buddhism of faith. But as yet he has made no thorough study of the psychological relations of the way of faith and the way of works.2 This seems to me a very necessary line of inquiry, because I believe that Western students of Christian background can never really understand the Buddhism of works unless they approach it through the Buddhism of faith, itself so close to Christian belief.
Generally speaking, the Buddhism of faith is founded upon the Sukhavativyuha Sutra which, so far as we know, was compiled some three hundred years after Gautama’s death. The Sukhavativyuha tells of one Dharmakara, who, in some immeasurably distant age, made forty-eight vows concerning the liberation of sentient beings. Before making these vows he had devoted himself, for an equally incomprehensible span of time, to innumerable good works, thus acquiring for himself a store of merit sufficient to give abundant aid to the whole world. But he renounced the reward of Highest Attainment due to him for these works, in order that he might preside over the Buddha-land (Buddha-kshetra) of Sukhavati, the Western Paradise, and there watch over the world until all living beings had been born into his Pure Land and thus assured of final illumination. From then on he was known as the Buddha Amitabha (Boundless Light) or Amitayus (Eternal Life). The Chinese form of the name is O-mi-to-fo, and the Japanese is Amida, by which he is most generally known. In the second part of the sutra it is declared that those who, in complete faith, turn towards Amida and repeat his name will be born after death into his Pure Land.
But it is hard to find in the sutra itself sufficient ground for some of the later interpretations put upon it, and it was not until the time of the Japanese Amidist, Shinran Shonin, that there evolved a real philosophy of salvation by pure faith. In the sutra, Amida is able to transfer his merit to others because, according to the philosophy represented by the Avatamsaka Sutra, each single atom contains in itself the whole universe. Therefore, what is done by one individual effects all others; if one man raises himself, he raises at the same time the whole universe. But here Amida is not the sole source of merit as the Christian God is the sole source of goodness. In early Mahayana the transference of merit (parinamana) is a process that may operate mutually between all beings, and, though the individual is helped by sharing Amida’s merit, he is yet able to acquire merit by his own unaided efforts, thus adding his own contribution to a universal store. Thus, in the Sukhavativyuha the possibility of self-help is by no means excluded, and Amida remains one among many Buddhas; he is not yet raised to the position of sole source of light and life and made the personification par excellence of the final, supreme Reality. His distinction is just that he has made a particularly large contribution to the store of merit in which all may share, and has put his buddha-kshetra at the disposal of all who seek it in faith. There is still the difference between in faith and by faith.
The growth of a cult around Amida was supported by a prevalent view that in this dark cycle (kali yuga) of history it is impossible for anyone to attain Enlightenment here on earth, although some progress might be made toward it. Hence the advantage of being born after death into a realm unencumbered by the snares and impurities of earthly life in its dark cycle. And here we are able to note either a rationalization of pure laziness or else the growth of what Christianity calls the conviction of sin, the realization of man’s impotence apart from God. There is, moreover, a remarkable parallel to this gradual break from the legalistic, ethical self-reliance of Buddhism in St. Paul’s revolt against the Jewish law—and for similar psychological reasons. Thus, in the seventh chapter of his Epistle to the Romans St. Paul writes, “Nay, I had not known sin, but by the law: for I had not known lust, except the law had said, Thou shalt not covet. But sin, taking occasion by the commandment, wrought in me all manner of concupiscence.”
In just the same way there were Buddhists who found that the rigid morality of monkhood, with its insistence on the negative precept, served only to aggravate the inner desire for vice. They found themselves in a spiritual impasse, unable to change themselves because the self that had to be changed was also the self that had to do the changing—a feat as impossible as kissing one’s own lips. Certainly a deep insight into the psychology of the Lankavatara and the Avatamsaka would have shown a way out of the impasse, a way that many of the self-help school discovered (as will be shown) but that many more missed. The trouble was not in the peculiar difficulties of that psychology, but in the obstacles to be overcome before one could get a glimpse of it. It lay hidden under a vast metaphysical structure, which those unendowed with considerable powers of intellect could not penetrate, sifting the grain from the chaff. And even then they might be left with a grain that mere intellect could not appreciate.
It was, therefore, not surprising that Far Eastern Buddhism revolted in two quite distinct ways from a combination of metaphysics and self-discipline that might have been endurable separately, but hardly together. The first revolution was against the metaphysics, and this gave birth to the Chinese school of Ch’an (Japanese, Zen) whose profound intuitive grasp of the essentials of Mahayana made its ponderous intellectualism unnecessary. Zen discovered a way of communicating the meaning without the words, and for once the Mahayana became, in practice, a psychology and a religion as distinct from a philosophy. But in doctrine and discipline Zen remained essentially a way of self-help. The real revolution against absolute reliance on works and self-discipline came last of all, in Japan. Its leader was Shinran Shonin (1173–1262), a disciple of the great Pure Land (Jodo) teacher, Honen Shonin.
Prior to Shinran, the Pure Land school had been only partially a way of salvation by faith, and even today there are two distinct forms of Pure Land Buddhism in Japan—Jodo-shu and Shin-shu, the former still placing a considerable emphasis on the efficacy of works. Thus Japanese Buddhism is divided into the two great divisions of jiriki (self-power) and tariki (other-power), the way to Enlightenment by self-reliance and the way by reliance on the Original Vow (purvapranidhana) of Amida. Under jiriki we include the Zen, Shingon, Tendai, Kegon, and Nichiren schools, under tariki the Shin, while Jodo comes more or less in between, though with a list to tariki.3
Shinran began his Buddhist studies at the famous community of Mount Hiyei, near Kyoto, where he attained a rank of some importance. But, in spite of such attainments, he was overwhelmed by the moral problem, recognizing that in his heart he was no better than the merest novice. He was deeply conscious of his humanity and keenly aware that mere self-discipline was wholly inadequate to deliver him from the bondage of karma. Trying to work out karma with self-discipline was like trying to pick up soap with wet fingers; the harder you grasp, the faster the soap slips away. (The analogy is mine, not Shinran’s.) More than any of his predecessors, he felt conscious of the overwhelming bondage of earthly life in its present cycle, and, as a man of feeling rather than intellect, he was finally attracted to the bhakti-marga of Pure Land in the person of Honen Shonin (1133–1212). To Honen he unburdened his mind, and was advised to put his trust in Amida and to abandon the monkish life by marrying. Subsequently, Shin priests have never vowed celibacy. Shinran did not remain in the Pure Land school to which Honen belonged; he founded his own school to preserve the purity of a faith which he felt that ordinary Jodo priests did not fully understand.
There are two principle features of Shinran’s religion. The first is his conception of parinamana, or merit transference. For him, Amida was the sole and original source of merit. Birth in the Pure Land was no longer a question of directing one’s own store of merit toward Amida—as a strictly accurate reading of the Sukhavativyuha would indicate. Shinran turned the sense of the words, making birth in the Pure Land dependent on Amida’s turning his store of merit towards the individual. The second feature arises from the first, and is the doctrine of pure faith. According to Shinran, no possible human merit could ever earn the tremendous right of birth in the Pure Land, and to imagine that so great a blessing could ever be claimed as the just reward for human effort was to him the height of spiritual pride. In the light of Amida’s infinite compassion (karuna), all beings, whether worms, demons, saints or sinners, were equally deserving of love, as if Amida would say, “I have the same feeling for the high as for the low, for the just as for the unjust, for the virtuous as for the depraved, for those holding sectarian views and false opinions as for those whose beliefs are good and true.” Those who would put faith in Amida must therefore offer themselves to him just as they are, not imagining that the Pure Land can ever be a reward for human virtue. Amida’s love is not to be earned; it is as much universal property as the sun, moon, and stars—something to be accepted with humility and gratitude, but never measured against human merit. Thus Shinran said:
You are not to imagine that you would not be greeted by Amida in his Land because of your sinfulness. As ordinary beings you are endowed with all kinds of evil passions and destined to be sinful. Nor are you to imagine that you are assured of birth in the Pure Land because of your goodness. As long as your jiriki sense is holding you, you would never be welcomed to Amida’s true Land of Recompense. (Suzuki, 1939, p. 253)
All that is necessary is to give up forever any idea of attaining merit by one’s own power, and then to have faith that one is accepted by the compassion of Amida from the very beginning, no matter what one’s moral condition. One must even give up the idea that faith itself is achieved by self-power, for faith, too, is Amida’s gift. Thus man as man becomes spiritually passive and, by Amida’s grace, lets the eternal love flow into him and save him just as he is, symbolizing his faith by repeating the nembutsu, the formula Namu Admida Butsu (Hail, Amida the Buddha!). According to the Anjin-ketsujo-sho,
To understand the Vow means to understand the Name, and to understand the Name is to understand that when Amida, by bringing to maturity his Vow and Virtue (or Deed) in the stead of all beings, effected their rebirth even prior to their actual attainment. (Suzuki, 1939, p. 249, italics added)4
The fact that Amida himself is the sole source of grace is further stressed in this passage quoted from Shinran in the Tannisho (Ch. VIII):
The Nembutsu is non-practice and non-goodness for its devotees. It is non-practice because he does not practice it at his own discretion, and it is non-goodness because he does not create it at his own discretion. All is through Amida’s power alone, not through our own power, which is in vain. (Fujimoto, 1932, p. 10)
At first sight it would seem that the efficacy of Shin depends upon certain supernatural sanctions of a kind that ordinary jiriki Buddhists would have great difficulty in believing. Such difficulties will always be experienced while Shin is studied in terms of its theology, for to anyone but a Christian it would seem the merest wishful thinking. For it amounts to this: that it is possible to become virtually a Buddha by pure faith. According to Suzuki (1939),
being born in Amida’s Land means no more than attaining enlightenment—the two terms are entirely synonymous. The ultimate end of the Shin life is enlightenment and not salvation. (p. 264)5
Thus Shin devotees refer to their dead as Mi hotoke, or “Honorable Buddhas.” But as soon as we examine the psychology of Shin as distinct from its theology, it becomes possible to relate it to the deepest experiences of Mahayana as expressed, for instance, in the Lankavatara and in some of the writings of Zen teachers, notably the Lin-chi-lu (Japanese, Rinzai-roku). For we have to ask not what Shin believes, but what are the causes and results of that belief in terms of inner feeling, of those inner spiritual experiences which words alone can never fully communicate.
For example, let us take the case of any person acutely aware of his shortcomings, his fears, desires and passions, his lack of insight, and of any sense of union or harmony with the life of the universe—in fact, just such a man as Shinran. Then someone tells him that, if only he will open his eyes and see it, he is a Buddha (is saved by Amida) just as he is, and that any attempt to make himself into a Buddha by his own ingenuity is rank spiritual pride. By adopting jiriki he is ignoring what is offered to him from the very beginning by the laws of the universe, and is trying to manufacture it for himself, so that he can take the credit for having earned it. When we say that a man is a Buddha just as he is, what does this mean in terms of psychology? It means that he is divine or fundamentally acceptable just as he is, whether saint or sinner, sage or fool. In Amidist language we would say that he is accepted for birth in the Pure Land by Amida’s compassion, which is “no respecter of persons”—in other words, that man is given the sense of freedom to be what he is at this and any moment, free to be both the highest and the lowest that is in him. This results at once in a great relaxation of psychic tension. All self-powered striving and contriving (hakarai) is set aside in the realization that Buddhahood can neither be attained nor gotten rid of because it alone is. For, in Mahayanist nondualism, the Buddha principle, Tathata, has no opposite and is the only Reality. And while the Anjin says that Amida effected our rebirth into the Pure Land “even prior to actual attainment,” the Lankavatara says that, if they realized it, all beings are in Nirvana from the very beginning. Here are two doctrines, but one psychological experience.
In practical terms this experience is one of exhilarating spiritual freedom, amounting almost to the sanctification of ordinary, everyday life. For, when man feels free to be all of himself, there is a magic in every littlest act and thought. Thus the Zen poet, Hokoji, says:
How wondrous strange and how miraculous, this—
I draw water and I carry fuel.
One cannot resist quoting Herbert from the Christian standpoint:
All things of Thee partake;
Nothing can be so mean
But with this tincture “For Thy Sake”
Shall not grow bright and clean.
A servant with this clause
Makes drudgery divine;
Who sweeps a room as for Thy laws
Makes that and the action fine. …
This is the famous stone
That turneth all to gold,
For that which God doth touch and own
Can not for less be told.
This experience may be clarified and related more closely to the jiriki way by further consideration of the Lankavatara and the writings of certain Zen teachers. It will now be clear that Shinran’s faith has a right to be considered as philosophic Mahayana expressed in rather colorful, symbolic imagery, even though it appears to be quite dualistic in conception. Philosophic Mahayana would not allow the dualism of self and other, man and Amida; but, if it is followed far enough, Shin arrives in experience at what Mahayana states in philosophy—although complete nonduality is actually beyond philosophic description. Furthermore, the Lankavatara insists that Samsara, the world of life and death, is Nirvana, and Samsara just as it is, with all its pain and suffering. So, too, Shinran insists that we are saved by Amida just as we are, with all our imperfections. In other words, ordinary men are Buddhas just as they are, and, according to Hui-neng, of the Zen school, those whom we call Buddhas are simply those who understand this truth. Thus it is often remarked in Zen literature that one’s “ordinary thoughts” or “everyday mind” is Enlightenment (satori). I quote a peculiarly suggestive passage from the Rinzai-roku:
You must not be artful. Be your ordinary self. … You yourself as you are—that is Buddha Dharma. I stand or sit; I array myself or I eat; I sleep when I am fatigued. The ignoramus will deride me but the wise man will understand.6
And further on the text states,
Wherefore it is said that the everyday mind is the true law.
Suzuki (1933) translates another passage from this text to the same effect; here Rinzai says:
The truly religious man has nothing to do but go on with his life as he finds it in the various circumstances of this worldly existence. He rises quietly in the morning, puts on his dress and goes out to his work. When he wants to walk, he walks; when he wants to sit, he sits; He has no hankering after Buddhahood, not the remotest thought of it. How is this possible? A wise man of old days says, If you strive after Buddhahood by any conscious contrivances, your Buddha is indeed the source of eternal transmigration. (p. 260)
This kind of writing is very easily misunderstood, for one would naturally ask, “If ordinary life is Nirvana and ordinary thoughts are Enlightenment, whatever is Buddhism about, and what can it possibly teach us, other than to go on living exactly as we have lived before?” Before trying to answer this, we must quote two mondo, or Zen dialogues. The first is from the Mu-mon-kwan (xix):
Joshu asked Nansen, “What is the Tao?” “Usual life,” answered Nansen, “is the very Tao.” “How can we accord with it?” “If you try to accord with it, you will get away from it.”7
This looks very much like pure tariki psychology. Then Suzuki (1927) gives the following from Bokuju (Mu-chou):
A monk asked him, “We have to dress and eat every day, and how can we escape from all that?” Bokuju replied, “We dress, we eat.” “I do not understand.” “If you don’t understand, put on your dress and eat your food.” (p. 12)
Clearly the monk’s question involves much more than mere dressing and eating, which stands for life in Samsara as a whole—“the trivial round, the common task.”
Applying philosophy to this more direct language, we find that the Zen teachers are demonstrating that Samsara, just as it is, is Nirvana, and that man, just as he is, is Buddha. Zen does not say so as a rule, because the terms, Nirvana and Buddha, are concepts which do not move the soul deeply and lead easily to mere intellectualism. Zen wants us to feel nonduality, not just to think it, and therefore when we say, “Nirvana is Samsara,” we are joining two things together that were never in need of being joined. For both Zen and Shin aim, in different ways, to effect a psychological or spiritual state that moves the whole being, not the head alone. They are trying to set us free within ourselves, and to make us at home with ourselves and with the universe in which we live. This freedom is known when we give up “contriving” and accept ourselves as we are, but it does not seem to me that the experience can be effective unless there has first been a state of contriving and struggle. In Zen this is self-discipline; in Shin it is coming to an acute awareness of one’s insufficiency through a previous attempt at self-discipline. It is difficult to see how the Shin experience could be fully appreciated unless, like Shinran, one had first tried the jiriki way. The danger of continuing in the jiriki way is that one may so easily become a victim of spiritual pride, expecting to make oneself into a Buddha; the danger of the tariki way is that the experience may come so easily that its true meaning is unseen and its force unfelt.
Spiritual freedom, however, involves much more than “go on living exactly as you have lived before.” It involves a particular kind of joyousness, or what the Buddhists term bliss (ananda). It is the discovery that to accord with the universe, to express the Tao, one has but to live, and when this is fully understood it becomes possible to live one’s life with a peculiar zest and abandon. There are no longer any obstacles to thinking and feeling; you may let your mind go in whatever direction it pleases, for all possible directions are acceptable, and you can feel free to abandon yourself to any of them. Nowhere is there any possibility of escape from the principle of nonduality, for “you yourself as you are—that is Buddha Dharma.” In this state there can be no spiritual pride, for union or identity with the Buddha principle is not something achieved by man; it is achieved for him from the beginning of time, just as the sun has been set on high to give him light and life.
Yet, in the life of the spirit, it is much harder to receive than to give; it is often such a blow to human pride to have to accept from Amida, God, or life what it would be so much more distinctive to achieve for oneself. In Shin terms, we should say that the meaning of freedom is that you can think any kind of thought, be any kind of person, and do any kind of thing without ever being able to depart from Amida’s all-embracing love and generosity. You are free to do as you like, and also as you don’t like, to be free and to be bound, to be a sage and to be a fool. Nowhere are there any obstructions to spiritual activity. At the same time, there is an intense awareness of the joy of that activity; one feels impelled to exercise it and feel the ecstasy of its abandon, much as we imagine a bird must feel high up in space, free to soar up, to swoop down, to fly north, south, east, or west, to circle, climb, tumble, or hover. For “the wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh nor whither it goeth. Even so is everyone that is born of the spirit.” Or, in the more matter-of-fact language of a Zen teacher,
There are no by-roads, no cross-roads here. All year round the hills are fresh and green; east or west, in whichever direction, you may have a fine walk. (Yeh-hsien, as cited in Suzuki, 1934, p. 83)
There remains the moral problem. To a superficial understanding the freedom of nonduality seems to be an invitation to libertinism of the most flagrant kind. In terms of philosophy, the Mahayana sutras state very frankly that the principle of nonduality is beyond good and evil, and that its attainment has no essential connection with morality. And morality here includes all kinds of works, both social and spiritual. Certainly the sutras speak of sila, or morality, as one of the necessary stages, but sometimes it seems as if sila were advocated simply as a safeguard against misuse of the enormous, amoral power of supreme knowledge. Thus the Lankavatara says:
In ultimate reality there is neither gradation nor continuous succession; [only] the truth of absolute solitude (viviktadharma) is taught here in which the discrimination of all the images is quieted. … But [from the absolute point of view] the tenth stage is the first, and the first is the eighth; and the ninth is the seventh, and the seventh is the eighth … what gradation is there where imagelessness prevails? (Suzuki, 1932, p. 186)
In yet another passage we read,
Some day each and every one will be influenced by the wisdom and love of the Tathagatas of Transformation to lay up a stock of merit and ascend the stages. But, if they only realized it, they are already in the Tathagata’s Nirvana for, in Noble Wisdom, all things are in Nirvana from the beginning. (p. 186)
An even stronger statement of the philosophy will be found in the Saptasatikaprajnaparamita Sutra:
O Sariputra, to commit the offences is to achieve the inconceivables, to achieve the inconceivables is to produce Reality. And Reality is non-dual. Those beings endowed with the inconceivables can go neither to the heavens, nor to the evil paths, nor to Nirvana. Those who commit the offences are not bound for the hells. Both the offences and the inconceivables are of Reality, and Reality is by nature non-dual. … In the real Dharmadhatu (realm of the Law) there is nothing good or bad, nothing high or low, nothing prior or posterior. … Bodhi (Enlightenment) is the five offences and the five offences are Bodhi. … If there is one who regards Bodhi as something attainable, something in which discipline is possible, that one commits self-arrogance. (as cited in Suzuki, 1933, pp. 251–252)
Here, besides an unequivocal statement of nonduality, there is again an example of tariki psychology, speaking of the arrogance of striving to attain Bodhi by discipline.
Mahayana does not disguise the fact that its wisdom is dangerous and we know that monks of the jiriki schools are subjected to rigid disciplines just to pre-condition them against abuse of knowledge, which is unfortunately a fairly frequent occurrence. But it would seem that such abuse is only possible when the experience of freedom is feebly appreciated or improperly understood. Oddly enough, although the experience itself and the thing experienced (Tathata) is nondual and beyond good and evil, the result of a truly deep inexperience is morality. Shinran speaks very strongly against those who make use of Amida’s vow and then go on behaving as immorally as ever. He likens them to those who, because they have found an antidote to a poison, just go on taking it. But this is rather a negative way of looking at the problem. From the positive standpoint, Shin would say that Amida’s compassion for us and all other beings, when realized, calls out a corresponding compassion in ourselves. In terms of philosophic Mahayana we should say that, having understood that we and all creatures are Buddhas, we therefore treat them with the reverence due to the Buddha principle.
A second factor that makes for morality is the gratitude felt for the freedom to be all of oneself, a gratitude so deep that men will often renounce some of that freedom as a thank-offering. Obviously there is more opportunity for this feeling of gratitude to grow when the ultimate Reality is personalized in the form of Amida. From the philosophic standpoint there is no real ground for gratitude, because in nonduality there is neither giver nor receiver. Hence the danger of a merely philosophic understanding. But from the emotional standpoint there appears to be every reason for gratitude. In discovering freedom to be all of oneself one has a similar experience to the Christian forgiveness of sins; however black your soul, it is not outside the love of God which is as omnipresent as God Himself, and in this connection it is worth citing a remarkable passage from the work of a Catholic theologian:
For we are never really outside God nor He outside of us. He is more with us than we are with ourselves. The soul is less intimately with the body, than He is both in our bodies and souls. He as it were flows into us, or we are in Him as the fish in the sea. We use God, if we may dare to say so, whenever we make an act of our will, and when we proceed to execute a purpose. He has not merely given us clearness of head, tenderness of heart, and strength of limb, as gifts which we may use independently of Him when once He has conferred them upon us. But He distinctly permits and actually concurs with every use of them in thinking, loving or acting. This influx and concourse of God as theologians style it, ought to give us all our lives long the sensation of being in an awful sanctuary, where every sight and sound is one of worship. It gives a peculiar and terrific character to acts of sin. … Everything is penetrated with God, while His inexpressible purity is all untainted, and His adorable simplicity unmingled with that which He so intimately pervades, enlightens, animates and sustains. Our commonest actions, our lightest recreations, the freedoms in which we most unbend—all these things take place and are transacted, not so much on the earth and in the air, as in the bosom of the omnipresent God. (Faber, 1853, p. 65, italics added)
There are important points in which Faber’s (1853) words diverge from Mahayana philosophy, for, in Christianity, God is essentially Other. But, in so far as doctrine is a symbol of our inner experience, I can see no important difference between the inner feeling suggested by Faber’s words and the inner feeling of Mahayana Buddhism, especially in the Amidist cults. Thus the experience of freedom or Enlightenment is like discovering an immeasurably precious jewel in one’s littlest acts and lowest thoughts. One discovers it where all jewels are first found—in the depths of the earth, or lying in the mud. Those who appreciate jewels do not leave them there; they lift them up from the depths, polish them, place them on velvet or set them in gold. This polishing and adornment is our symbol of morality, the expression of our joy and gratitude in realizing that
This very earth is the Lotus Land of Purity,
And this very body is the body of Buddha.8
It is here interesting to note that considerable importance is given to worship in the Zen school which, philosophically, is the most iconoclastic form of Buddhism. Perhaps there is a clue to the apparent inconsistency of worship and nonduality in the following incident from the Hekigan-shu:
Hwang-pa (Japanese, Obaku) stated, “I simply worship Buddha. I ask Buddha for nothing. I ask Dharma for nothing. I ask Sangha for nothing.” Someone then said, “You ask Buddha for nothing. You ask Dharma for nothing. You ask Sangha for nothing. What then, is the use of your worship?” At which remark, Hwang-pa gave him a slap on the face!9
The Buddhist feeling of worship and gratitude is most notably expressed, however, in the Bodhisattva-ideal, based on a profound intuition of the basic unity of all creatures and things. Those who, having attained Enlightenment, do not become Bodhisattvas, helpers of the world, are termed pratyeka-buddhas, which, in Mahayana philosophy, is almost a term of abuse. They are not willing to share their experience of freedom with their other selves, and, strictly speaking, Enlightenment is no Enlightenment unless it is shared and circulated. It is no one’s property, and those who try to possess it for themselves do not understand it. Service, morality, and gratitude are our response as men for a gift to which we cannot respond as Buddhas. The Buddha-principle is beyond morality, but not so the human principle. From the standpoint of nonduality, these two principles are one; yet what is so often overlooked in the study of Mahayana is that from the same standpoint they are two. For nonduality excludes nothing; it contains both unity and diversity, one and the many, identity and separation. Japanese Buddhism expresses this in the formula byodo soku shabetsu, shabetsu soku byodo—unity in diversity and diversity in unity. For this reason, philosophically, morally and spiritually, Buddhism is called the middle way.
1. An interestingly different train of thought is suggested by this passage if we follow Mrs. C. A. F. Rhys Davids’ translation of “yourselves” as “the Self,” in the Upanishadic sense of atman.
2. With the one exception of an essay on the Koan exercise and Nembutsu (Suzuki, 1933, p. 115). This, however, does not relate to our present theme.
3. Actually, the full name of the Shin sect is Jodo-Shinshu, but I use Shin alone to avoid confusion with Jodo.
4. The Anjin is a work by an unknown author, see Suzuki (1939, p. 248n).
5. By “salvation” Suzuki means simply birth into Amida’s Paradise after death, using the word in its eschatological rather than mystical sense. In the latter sense, salvation would be almost synonymous with enlightenment.
6. I am much indebted to the Rev. Sokei-an Sasaki, Vice-Abbot of Mamman-ji, for allowing me to consult his unfinished translation of the Rinzai-roku, which is otherwise unavailable in English.
7. I follow Sohaku Ogata’s (1934) translation.
8. From the Song of Meditation by Hakuin (1683–1768), one of the most famous Japanese Zen teachers.
9. I follow the version of Kaiten Nukariya (1913, p. 96). Buddha, Dharma and Sangha (the Buddha, the Law and the Order of the monks) are the three refuges (tri-sarana) taken by all Buddhists.
Faber, F. W. (1853). The Creator and the creature. Baltimore, MD: Murphy.
Fujimoto, R. (Trans.). (1932). The Tannisho: A religion beyond good and evil. Kyoto, Japan: Hompa-Hongwanji.
Nukariya, K. (1913). Religion of the Samurai. London, UK: Luzac.
Ogata, S. (1934). A guide to Zen practice. Kyoto, Japan: Bukkasha.
Suzuki, D. T. (1927). Essays in Zen Buddhism. Vol. 1. London, UK: Luzac.
Suzuki, D. T. (1933). Essays in Zen Buddhism. Vol. 2. London, UK: Luzac.
Suzuki, D. T. (1934). The training of the Zen Buddhist monk. Kyoto, Japan: Eastern Buddhist Society.
Suzuki, D. T. (1939). The Shin Sect of Buddhism. Eastern Buddhist, 7(3–4), 227–284.
Suzuki, D. T. (Trans.). (1932). The Lankavatara Sutra: A Mahayana text. London, UK: Routledge.
Reprinted from The Review of Religion, 1941, 5(4), 385–402. Copyright 1941 by Columbia University Press. Copyright not renewed.