(10) The Way of the Nembutsu-Faith (lines 41-44)
The Nembutsu promised in the Original Vow of Amida Buddha
Is difficult to receive and retain with joyous Faith
For evil persons who have wrong views and are arrogant;
Of all difficulties nothing is more difficult than that.
We find in the Kyogyoshinsho, chapter on True Practice, many passages quoted as evidence to show the supreme merit and efficacy of the Nembutsu. One of them, from Tao-ch'o's Collection of Passages Concerning Birth in the Land of Peace and Bliss, has this to say (SSZ, I, 381):
Shakyamuni advised his father the King to practice the Nembutsu Samadhi. The King asked the Buddha, 'Why do you not recommend the practice of realizing directly the Buddha's virtue, True Suchness or the highest principle of voidness?' The Buddha replied, 'The Buddhas' virtue of Enlightenment contains immeasurable and subtle realms of realization accompanied by various supernatural powers and knowledge of emancipation, which are not objects of perception for an unenlightened person. For this reason, I recommend to you, my father the King, the Nembutsu Samadhi.
Idealist Buddhists may try to enter straightaway into the heart of the Buddhas' Enlightenment, but their limited capacities and evil passions inevitably create an iron barrier which defies their penetration. The Nembutsu Samadhi comes from Amida's Heart and reaches each one of those who humbly respond to his Call. The Nembutsu Samadhi is not only practicable, but is the most efficacious of all samadhis. The passage quoted above goes on to explain that in the following parable (SSZ, I, 381-2):
Suppose there is a big forest of foul-smelling eranda trees, in which there is a young sandalwood tree still under the ground. When this tree grows above the ground, its fragrance pervades the whole forest and transforms it into a sweet-smelling forest.
The eranda forest refers to our evil passions and defiled thoughts, and the sandalwood tree refers to the Nembutsu. A single thought of concentration on and communication with the Buddha, which is actually made possible by his boundless Mind Power, is capable of turning our evil karma into the same merit as Amida's.
No other Buddhist practice is easier to follow than the Nembutsu Samadhi, but for those who are misled by wrong teachings and believe in their own power, the Nembutsu of the Other-Power is extremely difficult to accept. In this regard we read in the Larger Sutra, in the Verses on the Visits of Bodhisattvas to the Pure Land (chap. 27):
Arrogant, corrupt and indolent people
Cannot readily accept this teaching.
But those who have met Buddhas in their past lives
Rejoice to hear it.
Shinran Shonin calls wrong-viewed and arrogant people 'evil' in the sense that they reject the right Dharma and the law of karma and so take the path to degeneration and destruction. But who are not wrong-viewed until and unless they encounter Amida, the embodiment of the right Dharma? Also, who are not arrogant unless they meet Amida's Light of Great Compassion? We are by nature self-centered, and our frame of thought is naturally constructed on the blind belief in the ego and the power which it appears to possess. As we hear and ponder on the Dharma over and over, we come to realize that what exists in the true sense of the term is the Buddha's Life, Amida, which is all-pervasive, all-inclusive and everlasting. When our eyes are opened to this ultimate reality by being endowed with the Nembutsu-Faith, all our delusory mental constructs disappear like dew on a blade of grass in the morning sun.
Shakyamuni and Amida are our Compassionate Parents;
By employing various skillful means
Have awakened in our minds
The supreme Faith beyond compare.
(Hymns on the Patriarchs 74)