Higan Reflections 

In March, on the occasion of Shunki Higan, the Spring Equinox, when day and night are in exact balance, Jōdo Shinshū Hongwanji Buddhists put their busy lives on pause and reflect upon the people, causes, and conditions that brought them to the Path of Nembutsu, and Amida’s Vow to Save All. NamoAmidaButsu!

Looking back, one of the great influences on my spiritual life was our maternal grandmother, Toku Nakawatase, who always smelled of incense…and mothballs! But that’s a different story.

Grandma Toku Nakawatase was famous for confronting lay people, ministers, and even bishops, by saying, “Nembutsu ga deru ka ne?” which can be translated as “Namo Amida Butsu still doesn’t just pop out of your mouth?!” 

In other words, you still haven’t realized that you are a deluded, silly, all-too-human, self-centered being? Haven’t you awakened to the truth, reality-as-it-is, that Great Compassion and Infinite Wisdom has always embraced you, never to abandon you? That the Great Compassion of the Buddha Amida created this opportunity for you to encounter the Nembutsu, allowing you to walk the path of liberation from the bondage of selfishness. Aren’t you humbled and truly grateful that you have been saved from your Ego-Self?

“Nembutsu ga deru ka ne?!” You still haven’t learned to just say Namo Amida Butsu in gratitude for life as it unfolds, for reality as-it-is? Haven’t you acknowledged your debt of gratitude to the kind and gentle people who nurtured you in the past, and the countless people and living beings who sustain your life today?

You aren’t trying to repay this debt of gratitude by thinking pure and beautiful thoughts, saying pure and beautiful words, and doing pure and beautiful deeds? You aren’t trying to be kind and gentle to every living thing and protect all those who are weaker than yourself?

In Jodo Shinshu, you don’t have to believe anything, give up anything, or change your life in any way. You are going to be all right just as you are. 

In Jodo Shinshu, you listen intently to the Dharma, pause and reflect, and look inward to find the Truth that is inside of you. You are going to be all right just as you are. 

In Jodo Shinshu, you simply awaken to the Truth that Great Compassion and Wisdom has always embraced you, never to abandon you. You are going to be all right just as you are. 

In Jodo Shinshu, you learn to entrust everything, just as you are, to All- Embracing Compassion and All-Inclusive Wisdom, the Buddha Amida. In Jodo Shinshu, you truly accept that your birth in the Pure Land, just as you are, is already assured. You truly accept that your return to this world to help others in the way you truly aspire, is already assured.

In the single thought-moment when you awaken to the Truth, you transcend the Ego-Self and shinjin—the Heart-and-Mind of Compassion and Infinite Wisdom of Amida—comes to you, and you become what you truly are.

Awakening to the Truth, we experience “eshin” “turning of the heart-mind”, we transcend the Ego-Self and begin to live a True and Real Life by trying our very best to be kind and gentle, to protect all those who are weaker than ourselves, and thinking, saying, and doing that which is pure and beautiful. We are brought to the live the life of gratitude.

The hardest thing to grasp in Jodo Shinshu is that you can’t do anything to “achieve” shinjin—the heart-and-mind of the Buddha Amida comes to you naturally, as Life unfolds. Shinjin comes to you, just as you are. In fact, the harder you try to “achieve” shinjin, the faster it slips from your grasp! 

To paraphrase the myōkōnin Saichi, “You do not become Amida—Amida becomes you,” just as you are. In Jodo Shinshu, we say Namo Amida Butsu in gratitude for the Great Compassion and Wisdom that saves us from ourselves not in spite of our limitations, but precisely because of our fundamental selfishness, our silly humanness, our Ego-centric belief that we are the exception. 

Shinjin—the heart-and-mind of Amida’s Compassion and Wisdom—saves you, just as you are. 

That’s why every morning when I look in the mirror, I ask myself, “Nembutsu ga deru ka ne?!”

And my answer to myself is, “Nope! Try harder! NamoAmidaButsu!”

And that’s why Jodo Shinshu is for me. 

Mahalo piha and NamoAmidaButsu!

Rev. Kerry