5. What is the Object of the Nembutsu Exercise?
One may ask in this connection: Whatever the content of the Samādhi, which is the real object of the Nembutsu, rebirth in the Pure Land or the Samādhi itself? Or is the Samādhi a kind of foretaste of the rebirth? No teachers of the Jōdo as far as I can learn make this point thoroughly clear for us. But if we can so view the matter, the Samādhi may be regarded as the subjective and psychological aspect of the Nembutsu exercise, and the rebirth as the objective and ontological aspect.
In this case, the Samādhi and the rebirth are only the same thing described in two ways, but as the Samādhi is attainable in this life while rebirth is an affair taking place after death, the Samādhi must be said to be identical with the rebirth in a most specific sense; that is, the rebirth is not to be judged as an objective and temporal event, but as a form of subjective assurance of a thing that is surely to take place. If so, the rebirth means a spiritual regeneration and as such it can be regarded as identical with the Samādhi.
This view of the Samādhi is supported in the Anjin Ketsujōshō by an unknown author, which is, however, one of the most significant books on the teaching of the Jōdo school. In this the author states that the faith is to be firmly established by the realization of the Samādhi—the faith in the original vow of Amida whereby the devotee is assured of his future destiny. For the Samādhi obtains when the mind of the devotee is so perfectly identified with the mind of Amida that the consciousness of the dualism is altogether effaced from it. This conclusion, not only in logic but from the factual point of view, is inevitable seeing that the entire structure of Buddhist philosophy is based on an idealistic monism, and no exception is to be made about the realistic Jōdo. Read this from the Meditation sūtra:
'The Buddha said to Ananda and Vaidehi: After you have seen these, you should think of the Buddha. You may ask, How? Every Buddha-Tathāgata has his body in the spiritual world (Dharmadhātu) and enters into the mind of every sentient being. Therefore, when you think of the Buddha, your mind itself becomes endowed with the thirty-two marks of greatness and also with the eighty secondary marks of excellence. This mind is transformed into Buddhahood, this mind is no other than the Buddha himself. The ocean of true all-knowledge possessed by the Buddhas grows out of your own mind and thought. For this reason, you should apply yourselves with singleness of thought to meditation on the Buddha-Tathāgata, who is an Arhat and a Fully-enlightened One.'
In the PratyutpannaSamādhi sūtra,1 which is thought by the Jōdo teachers to be one of the sources of their teachings, we have this:
'And again, Bhadrapala, when a young man of fine mien wishes to see his own features, ugly or handsome, he takes up a vessel of refined oil or of clean water, or he brings out a crystal or a mirror. When either one of these four objects reflects his image in it, he definitely knows how he looks, ugly or handsome. Bhadrapala, do you think that what the young man sees in these four objects has been already in existence there?
'Answered Bhadrapala, O no, Blessed One.
'Is it to be regarded altogether as a non-entity?
'O no, Blessed One.
'Is it to be regarded as being within them?
'O no, Blessed One.
'Is it to be regarded as outside them?
'O no, Blessed One. As the oil and water and crystal and mirror are clear, transparent, and free from muddiness and dust, the image is reflected in them when a person stands before them. The image does not come out of the object, nor does it get into them from the outside, nor is it there by itself, nor is it artificially constructed. The image comes from nowhere, vanishes away to nowhere; it is not subject to birth and death; it has no fixed abode.
'When Bhadrapala finished thus answering, the Buddha said:
'Bhadrapāla, so it is, indeed, as you say. When the objects are pure and clean, the image is reflected in them without much trouble. So is it with the Bodhisattva. When he meditates on the Buddhas with singleness of thought, he sees them; having appeared to him they stay with him; staying with him, they explain things to him that he wishes to understand. Being thus enlightened by them he is delighted; he now reflects: Whence do these Buddhas come? And whither does this body of mine vanish? When he thus reflects he sees that all the Tathāgatas come from nowhere and go out nowhere. So it is with my own body; it has no definite path by which it comes, and how can there be any returning to anywhere?
'He reflects again: This triple world exists only because of the mind. According to one's own thought, one sees oneself in one's own mind. My now seeing the Buddha is after my own mind; my mind becomes the Buddha; my mind itself is the Buddha; my mind itself is the Tathāgata. My mind is my body, my mind sees the Buddha; the mind does not know itself, the mind does not see itself. When thoughts are stirred, there is Nirvana. All things have no reality in themselves, they take their rise owing to thought and laws of origination. When that which is thought vanishes, the thinking one himself vanishes. Bhadrapāla, you should know that all the Bodhisattvas by means of this Samādhi attained great enlightenment.'
Viewing the Samādhi of Nembutsu from this absolute idealistic point of view—the Samādhi that is realized by constant reiteration of 'Namu Amida Butsu'—we can state that the Samādhi, and the establishment of faith in the Buddha, and the assurance of rebirth in his Land of Purity, describe one and the same psychological fact which constitutes the foundation of the Jōdo (Pure Land) doctrine.
Hōnen says in his commentary on the Meditation sūtra that the devotee should be like a man who has lost his senses, or like a deaf and dumb person, or like an idiot, when he devotes himself exclusively to the practice of the Nembutsu, pronouncing the name of the Buddha day and night, whether sitting or standing, lying down or walking, and for any length of time, one day, two days, a week, a month, a year, or even two or three years. When the practice is carried on in such wise, the devotee will surely some day attain the Samādhi and have his Dharma-eye opened, and he will view a world that is altogether beyond thought and imagination. This is 'a mysterious realm where all thoughts cease and all imaginings are swept away, being in full correspondence with a state of Samādhi'.
In this Samādhi where the devotee is fully confirmed in the faith, according to the author of the Anjin Ketsujōshō, 'The body becomes "Namu Amida Butsu", and the mind becomes "Namu Amida Butsu".' If so, is this not a mystic state of consciousness corresponding to that which is realized by the koan exercise?
The explicit claim made by the Jōdo teachers, that the repetition of the Nembutsu is the easiest method of salvation for all beings, is of course based on the original vow of Amida, in which the Buddha assures his followers of their rebirth in his Land of Bliss, if they only pronounce his name as showing their good faith and willingness to be thus saved.
To re-enforce or strengthen their teaching, they describe, on the one hand, in glowing terms the beauties of the Pure Land, while, on the other hand, they are never tired of picturing the miseries and horrors of this world, and the sinfulness and the helpless ignorance of the beings therein. Therefore, those who wish to be helped by this doctrine will have to be earnest devotees of 'Namu Amida Butsu' and be pronouncing and reciting the phrase all the time. But when they are doing this, their ultimate object of being members of the Pure Land community may gradually give way to the immediate daily practice itself of the Nembutsu. And even when their deliberate attention is focussed upon it, the psychology of the unconscious may begin to function by itself independently of the ultimate aim, which is supposed to take place at the end of this life; for the nearer happenings always claim the more intimate and intense concentration of mind.
Let this concentration be brought up to the highest pitch and there will be the intuition of such mystical truths as these: Rebirth is no-birth; to think of Buddha is not to have any thought; every moment is the last; this mind is no other than the Tathāgata himself; while the body belongs to this world, the mind is enjoying itself in the Pure Land; this body, as it is, is of the same order as Maitreya Bodhisattva, etc. Such statements seem to be not so typically Jōdo; in fact they go much against its generally realistic tendency, but we cannot altogether ignore this mysticism entering into the structural foundations of practical Jōdo, and there is no doubt that this comes from the psychology of the Nembutsu.
The Shin Branch of the Pure Land sect emphasizes faith as the only condition of rebirth in the land of Amida. Absolute trust is placed in the wisdom of the Buddha which goes altogether beyond human conception. Put, therefore, your faith in this wonder-working wisdom of Amida and you will straightway be taken up by him; there is no need for your waiting for the last moment when a band of welcoming Buddhas comes down from above; nor need you entertain any anxious fears about your destiny after death, thinking whether or not you are after all bound for Naraka (hell). All that is required of you is to abandon all thoughts regarding yourself and to put your unconditioned trust in the Buddha who knows best how to look after your welfare.1 You need not worry at all about the last hour when you have to bid farewell to this life on earth. If, while living, you had been instructed by a wise adviser and had awakened one thought of trust in the Buddha, that moment of awakening was for you the last moment on earth. When trusting the original vow of Amida 'Namu Amida Butsu' is once pronounced, you are assured of rebirth in his Land; for this believing heart is the rebirth.2
But how can one really have this believing heart which raises the owner at once to the order of the fully-enlightened One, bringing him up to the company even of Maitreya?1 Mere listening to the teachers will not do it. Nor will the mere saying of the Nembutsu. How does one come to have this absolute faith—the faith which is evidently the same in substance as enlightenment? How can we be sure of our rebirth? How do we come to entertain no doubts as to our future destiny?
A certain state of consciousness must be awakened within us whereby we can be confirmed in our faith. Reasoning, or reading the sūtras, or listening to the discourses of the wise and enlightened will not induce this consciousness. As the history of religions tells us, there must be an intuitive insight into the truth, which is the abandoning of the self into the original vow of Amida. And is not this the moment when 'Namu Amida Butsu' gushes out of one's inmost heart (adhyāśaya)? Is this not what the Shin teachers mean when they say, 'Utter the Name once, and you are saved'?
1 Translated into Chinese for the first time by Chih Lou-chia-ch'ien, who came to China in the latter half of the second century, during the latter Han dynasty. The English translation is drawn from Jnanagupta's Chinese translation (A.D. 586), instead of from Chih Lou-chai-ch'ien (A.D. 1 79); for Jñānagupta's is more intelligible, though Chih Lou-chia-ch'ien is better known to students of the Pure Land school. The Taisho Tripitaka, Nos. 416-419.
1 Shūji-shō.
2 From Yui-shin Shō Mon-i.
1 Op. cit.