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Spiritual
Preparation for Death
2. The Most
Uneducated Are Capable of the
Three Minds (sanjin)
3.
Cultivating
the Three Minds for Ojo@@@
@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@
4. How to Get Ready
for Death – The
Importance of a Composed Mind@@
5.
Mental Composure
in the Death Agony@
6. Honenfs Disciple
Shoku on the Nembutsu for a Dying Bonbu
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All
selections, except
where noted, come from the Pictorial Biography of Honen Shonin
(Honen Shonin
gyojoezu),
also known as the Forty-eight Fascicle Biography
(Shijuhachikan-den). The
translation is from Honen the Buddhist Saint: His Life and Teaching
by Harper
Havelock Coates and Ryugaku Ishizuka, Chion-in: 1925.
Ku
Amidabutsu, one time when
taken ill, wrote Honen, asking him what to do to make sure his faith
was just
what it ought to be. The following is Honen's reply:
For
common people, Birth into
the Pure Land is incomparably the surest way to get deliverance from
the cycle
of birth and death (samsara). There are of
course many kinds of religious disciplines,
aiming at this end, but the nembutsu is the best of
all, because it is the
one prescribed in the Original Vow. Amida says in this Vow, "If when I
become
a Buddha, any sentient beings in the ten quarters of the world should
call on
my name as many as ten times, and fail to attain ojo, I shall refuse
the gift of
perfect enlightenment." And Shan-tao goes on to say regarding it, that
as
Amida now actually exists as a Buddha, we may be perfectly sure his
Original
Vow has not failed of its purpose, and that all sentient beings calling
upon
his name are sure of ojo.
Thus
the Original
Vow guarantees ojo to the one who
says the nembutsu, and so when we
pray to Amida
we ought to keep this in mind, and address Amida thus: hOh Amida, as
you have
made no mistake in your Original Vow, do not fail to welcome me to the
Pure
Land." We do not need to trouble ourselves about other things at all.
Again, it says in Genshinfs Ojoyoshu, regarding the
thing to be done when we
come to die, gJust do this. Say to Amida, 'As there can be no failure
in your
Vow, fail not to receive me into your Land of Bliss. Namu Amida
Butsu.fh Or you may even
abbreviate
still further, and merely say,hI pray you will receive me without fail,
Namu
Amida Butsu."
For directions as to what to do in the hour of death, nothing could be
better
than this. It
says, moreover, in the Chfun-i-lun#1 that if a person
has stored up merit by
saying the nembutsu at
ordinary times, and their mind is clear, they will be able to attain ojo all right, even
though they
are not able to do it when they come to die."
Note
#1: The Ch'un-i lun Q^_
(Jap. Gungiron,
or Solution
of Various Problems Regarding the Pure Land Way of Salvation) is a work
written in seven volumes by Huai-kan, one of Shan-taofs disciples, and
the
fifth Chinese Patriarch of Jodo Shu. The passage here quoted is from
the seventh
volume.
Chapter
48,
section 2, page 780.
The
Most Uneducated Are
Capable of the Three Minds (sanjin)
Honen
once said: Again in
reference to the three minds (sanjin), there are some
who say that if a
person understands them when they repeat the nembutsu, of course they
will possess
them. But in the case of ignorant people who do not know even the names
of
those minds, how is it possible for them to have them? Now this too, I
must
repeat, is a great misconception. Even though one is so ignorant as not
to know
the names of these three minds, if they only put implicit trust in
Amida's Vow,
with no doubt in their heart at all, and thus call upon the sacred
name, they
are already in possession of these minds. And so if one practices the nembutsu with this simple
faith, these
three minds arise of their own accord within them. There are, then,
even among
the most uneducated, those who practice the nembutsu, and when they
come to face
death, they accomplish their Birth into the Pure Land with complete
composure of
mind. This is a fact of actual experience. There is not the slightest
shadow of
doubt about it. Whereas on the other hand, there are in fact very many
who do a
great deal of arguing about these three minds, about which they know
very
little, and when they come to die, it is anything but a desirable
death. This
is something which everyone ought to take seriously to heart.
Chapter
21,
section 35, page 405.
Cultivating
the Three Minds for Ojo
Honen once said:
Now it is said that one
repetition of the nembutsu just at the hour
of one's death is worth more
than all the nembutsu repetitions in a
long life
of
a hundred
years. Is
this because at that moment there is more karmic efficacy in that
one
repetition than in all the others? No. The point is that a passage in
Shan-taofs Hymns in Praise of Birth (Ojo raisan) says that the one
who has that
so-called three minds is sure of ojo, and as the one
earnest repetition at the
last hour fulfils this condition, we say it is of greater value than
all the
repetitions one could make for a hundred years without it. But repeated
in this
spirit at any time, it has the same value as if said in one's dying
hour, for
the passage explicitly says, gassuredly.h
Chapter
45,
section 5.4, page 735.
How to Get
Ready for Death – The
Importance of a Composed Mind
Honen once said:
May it be that when you
come down to the closing scene of life, you shall, with a composed
mind, look
into the face of Amida Buddha, call upon his name with your lips, and
in your
heart be able to await with confidence the welcome to be extended to
you by his
holy retinue. Even though through the days and years of life, you have
piled up
much merit by the practice of the nembutsu, if at the time
of death you come under
the spell of some evil, and at the end give way to an evil heart, and
lose the
power of faith in and practice of the nembutsu, it means that
you lose that Birth into
the Pure Land immediately after death. And though, you may have one or
two or
three or even four lives after this, or no matter how many times you
experience
birth and death hereafter, you are cut off from the possibility of
salvation.
Surely this is indeed a most terrible thing to contemplate, and one
which no
words can describe. This is why Shan-tao so tenderly urged us to pray
thus: gMay
we, the disciples of the Buddha, when we come to die buffer no mental
perversion, nor come under the spell of any hallucination, nor lose the
consciousness of the truth, but, free from agony of mind and body, may
we in
peace of mind, like those in an ecstasy, have that holy retinue of
Amida come
to meet us, and, embarking safely on the ship of the Original Vow, may
we have
our Birth into Amida Buddha's Pure Land, and sit upon the lotus of the
first
rank.h@ From this it is clearer still
that we should pray for a composed mind when death comes. There are
some who
say that people who pray for a composed mind at the hour of death do
not really
put their trust in Amida's Original Vow, but stop and think how
superior they
must be to the great Shan-tao himself! What a base and dreadful thing
for a
person to say!
Chapter
21,
section 37, page 407.
Mental
Composure in the
Death Agony
Honen
once said: It is a
good thing for a person to pray that their last sickness may be as free
from
pain as possible. There are cases of people dying without any sickness
at all,
and such are indeed beautiful. But the human body, made up of some
eighty
thousand particles of karmic dust, from which issue innumerable
disorders, is
liable to suffer the pains of a death-agony,#1 as
excruciating as if
one were pierced through and through by hundreds of thousands of swords
and
spears. Having eyes, they are like one having none, trying in vain to
see; and
their tongue stiffens so that they cannot say what they would. This is
one of
the eight pains#2 people suffer, the bitter pain of death. And so even
the
devotee who believes in the Original Vow and prays for ojo
is unable to
escape it. And yet even though they become insensible through their
agony, when
they come to draw their last breath, they are, by the power of the
Amida
Buddha, kept in their right mind and attain ojo.
The moment of death is
no longer than the time it would take to cut a hair, and bystanders are
unable
to tell the exact frame of mind they are in, but it is known to the
Buddha and
to the dying person. Besides, the so-called three desires#3 are at that
moment
awakened within them, and demons try to take advantage of them, so that
they
lose their composure of mind. Now one's religious adviser is powerless
to
remove such affections and it is by the power of the Amida Buddha alone
that it
can be done. We may depend upon it that the saying is true, the cords
of all
the evil karma are powerless to bind (the one who calls on the sacred
name).
NOTE
#1:
gDeath-agonyh is the translation of the Japanese damma-tsuma,
from dan
f,
"to cut
through," and matsuma
(Sk. marman),
a joint or
articulation. According to the Kosa Sastra
(vol. x), a human body
is joined together by a hundred articulations. When these are severally
pierced
by one of the three elements - water, wind, or fire - whose power is
augmented
in the hour of death, it is as if a sharp sword were cutting the dying
personfs
body to pieces. So this came to mean the gdeath-agonyh.
NOTE
#2: The eight pains
(Jp. hakku
ͺκ)
– the
eight kinds of pain inherent in human life: (1) shoku
Άκ (Sk. jatir-duhkham),
birth-pangs; (2) roku Vκ
(Sk. jara-d.), pains of age; (3) byoku
aκ
(Sk. vyadhi-d.)
pains of
disease; (4) shiku κ
(Sk. marana-d.),
of death; ( 5 ) aibetsuriku
€Κ£κ
(Sk. priyaviprayoge-d),
of parting
with loved ones or objects of affection;@
(6) onzoeku
πκ
(Sk. apriyasamprayoge-d.),
of meeting
with what one dislikes;@ (7 ) gufutokku
sΎκ
(Sk. yad apicchaya
paryesamano na labhate tadapi-d.),
of not obtaining what one seeks;@ (8) go-onjoku
άA·κ
(Sk. samksepena
pancopadanaskandha-d.),
of the five powerful elements, that is the body
itself produces pain; Nirvana Sutra
(Northern Version) vol.
XII; U. Ogiwara Bonkan Taiyaku, Bukkyo-jiten.
NOTE
#3: These refer to
the mentality of a person at death, on whose approach (1) there arises
within
one a strong love for spouse and children and all that one has, (2) one
fears
lest one should lose their body, and (3) longs to catch a glimpse of
the place
into which one is destined to be born. In
their case, it means
for example that if a bad person sees the chariot of fire coming to
meet them,
they greet it as something for which they have an affection, or if they
are
destined to be born an animal, such as a pig or a cat, this particular
animal
appears to them as an object of yearning. Yokusan.
For further
particulars see the Joyuishikiron
vol. VIII; and the Kusharon
vol. XI.
Chapter
23,
section 9, page 439.
Honenfs
Disciple Shoku on
the Nembutsu
for a Dying Bonbu
Shoku
once said: Now according to the Meditation Sutra, people destined
to be Born into the
lowest class of the lowest rank in the Pure Land have no power to
discolor
anything whatever, because they are just common mortals without any
goodness
either spiritual or secular. In their death-agony they are so bereft of
consciousness that they can neither act, speak nor think. They have
been bad
their whole lives through, so in the anguish of the last crisis, there
is
nothing they can fall back upon, and they are powerless to cease from
evil or
do good, much less to grasp the meaning of Mahayana or Theravada
doctrines, the
ultimate goal of all Buddhist aspiration, or the ordinary means by
which it may
be won. In such an hour, there is no use of trying to secure merit by
erecting
a pagoda or shrine or the like, and the parting with home and friends
and the
abandoning of worldly ambitions rend their hearts. They are in fact
deluded
fools of the deepest dye, quite beyond all hope of salvation.
A
religious adviser comes and asks, gCan you not understand something of
the
Buddha's power,
and realize something of the marvelous efficacy of the nembutsu?" But the person is
"so
overwhelmed in their death struggle, that such thoughts are quite
beyond them.
Then they are advised to repeat the words of the Sutra, "If you cannot
think
upon the Buddha's power, then call upon the name of the Buddha of
Boundless
Life (Amida)." In spite of all their mental confusion and distress,
they
go on repeating the sacred name ten times, and with each repetition the
bad
karma, which was vile enough to condemn them to eight million kalpas
of
transmigration, is all
taken away. Instead of such an awful fate, they take a place of honor
upon the
"golden lotus which shines in glory like the sun."
A
person in such an extremity as they were in, has nothing like what we
call religious
aspiration, nor can their nembutsu take any
coloring from either the
meditative or non-meditative disciplines. In simple
compliance with the directions
of their instructor, without any pretentious to wisdom on their own
part, they
attain Ojo
by the mere repetition of the gunvarnishedh nembutsu. It is just as if
one were to
take hold of a child's hand and make it write something. Would such
writing be
a reason for praising the child? This is the kind of nembutsu repeated by
those who belong
to the lowest classes of the lowest rank. They attain Ojo by merely taking
Amida's name
on their lips as advised by their religious instructors.
Amida's Original
Vow was made
particularly for the benefit of those guilty of the five grevious acts (gogyakuzai), and its
efficacy is the
outcome of the most rigorous religious austerities practiced by Amida
through
five kalpas
and billions of years. So whenever anyone calls upon Amidafs sacred
name, in which
all these merits are stored up, even though they are so far gone that
they no
longer have the power of even keeping the meaning of the nembutsu itself in their
mind, they
immediately acquire, by the mere repetition of the sacred name, the
same
deliverance from the endless round of transmigration, from which their
own long
continued and oft repeated penances could alone have delivered him.
Chapter
47,
section 3, page 763
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