Expanding Not Contracting

Pastoral Letter of 19th August 2006

Dear friends I write to you in acknowledgement that we are all, as Shinran said, fellow practicers and fellow disciples of Shakyamuni Buddha and Amida Nyorai. This means that spiritually we are all on the same footing. Even though our roles in this world may temporarily carry different responsibilities, still, we are all just disciples of Buddha drawing upon Nyorai’s grace. In practice this must mean that we have a deep responsibility to the Dharma and the Sangha. The Buddhas and Tathagatas have given us the Dharma and Sangha as the practical actualisation of their work and we are invited to participate to the best of our ability. The Dharma is the way of understanding and love. The Sangha is the community of harmony and awareness. The Dharma and Sangha are Pure Land in the making and we are continually reviewing our own part therein. I am currently travelling in North America and meeting many Dharma brothers and sisters as well as people of other faiths. I am struck by the complexity of my relation to other faithful people. On the one hand it is an utter delight to be among other Buddhists and to sit with them and chant praise of Nyorai together. It does not matter to me at all what terminology people use nor what form is employed in the organisation of their temples - though I am always interested to see what works and at what cost. I am most interested in the tenor of their faith and how it shows in their life and I have found much to admire: generosity, hospitality, intelligent concern, tenderness, co-operation, serious practice and much joy. I want to emphasise before I go on that this positive impression has been far and away the dominant note. At the same time, I have also encountered a few things that I find troubling. I would like to share with you impressions left upon me by two brief statements made by practitioners of two different faiths. I had a discussion with a Buddhist practitioner and I asked what this person thought of the situation in the Middle East. I told him that I had just read a report that the mortuary in Baghdad received over 1800 dead in the month of July, up from about 1000 in January, mostly deaths by violence. This person replied that only a foolish person cares about others since one’s task is to get on with one’s own spiritual training. After all, he added, there is nothing you can do for them. He attributed this supposed wisdom to the great Chinese Zen master Lin Ji, founder of the Rinzai School. I imagine the attribution is correct, but whether my conversation partner had taken the right nuance of meaning from it is perhaps another matter. Be that as it may, I was shocked since this is not at all my understanding of the proper spiritual attitude. Spiritual practice means, I believe, overcoming self and caring for others. In the context of the world, this means overcoming our parochialism and feeling compassion for those far away as well as those near at hand. Whether we are immediately in a position to help them in practical ways is not the point. Through, on the one hand, examining one’s own failings and vulnerability to falling into greed, hate and delusion, and, on the other, contemplating Nyorai’s encompassing grace, one finds fellow-feeling arising for all sentient beings, whether they are near or far, whether they are innocent or blameworthy, whoever they may be; indeed for all species. All this is the working of nembutsu. Also, as we constantly remember the Buddha we cannot help noticing what kind of person he is and his intention of great good must rub off upon us even if our individual capacity to enact it is limited. In the context of our own Amida-shu, we see that the sangha is the vehicle that Nyorai has created for the realisation of that great intention. Although each of us may only play a small part individually, collectively we have been drawn into this Dharma for Nyorai’s purpose. When we take refuge in the Three Jewels, therefore, we are starting to enter into the flow of something greater than mere individuality. It is in this way that our lives become meaningful as part of the great undertaking and it is this great undertaking that we trust will contribute to easing the ills of the world in Baghdad or wherever. Ordination, for instance, is simply a further intensification of this taking of refuge. As such it is not an individual matter. We should not think of ordination as a personal career move. There has been some excellent discussion in one of our forum’s recently about training for ministry within Amida-shu. Let me repeat here what I have said there. What is clear is that ministry is not just for or by ministers. To minister means to serve and we all serve. W are all fellow practicers and fellow disciples of Nyorai and discipleship means little if there is no ministry dimension to it. An individual may think of spiritual training as a series of steps. First one takes refuge. Then one joins the Amida-shu. Then one follows a training in ministry. Then one ordains. Then one progresses through whatever ranks there may be in the sangha. Or, alternatively, one joins a religious community, then joins Amida-shu, then becomes a novice and eventually an amitarya. Looked at in this way it seems to be a kind of spiritual career. This way of thinking, however, though it is not wholly wrong, I fear, really misses the point. The point is that we are collectively committed to Nyorai’s work. There are many jobs to do within the great scheme and what is required is willingness to do them, gratitude for the opportunity and identification with the greater whole rather than with personal advancement. Whether one ordains or not should be a function of what will best facilitate Nyorai’s purpose. As Honen said, “If being a lay person impedes practice, ordain. If being a monk impedes practice, disrobe.” I will serve as head of the Order as long as that seems to be the useful thing to do. The time for a person to ordain is when it is right for the School and the Order that one do so. This may or may not be what one would choose if one were deciding purely in terms of personal preference and convenience. An ordination is an act of the Sangha for the benefit and continuance of Nyorai’s work. It is not a career move of an individual. The same is true with all the separate roles and responsibilities within a sangha. Being an abbot, bellmaster, magazine editor, local organiser, kitchen assistant or whatever should be a function of the collective need not of one’s own desire for status. Vocation has, nowadays, all too frequently come to mean what I feel is right for me whereas really it means what Nyorai needs us to do. The thought “What is right for me?” is part of the picture, but if it dominates then that person is not yet right for ordination. To shift from an individualistic mode to one in which one thinks in terms of the collective good is a hallmark of Buddhist practice. When this shift occurs a person becomes willing to do whatever is necessary. This means that sometimes a talented person might seem not to advance - they are more use where they are. At other times it might mean that a person seems to advance very suddenly or ahead of what they thought themselves capable of - the sangha needs them to carry out a role. Several members of our sangha know this experience. It may even mean that a person seems to have moved sideways or down. Up and down are worldly dimensions, not spiritual ones. Mostly, of course, people seem to progress and obviously we do our best to prepare ourselves and one another so that a person is not thrust into a role that they have too much difficulty handling and also so that those who have commitment and ability make the most use thereof, but this is not a perfect world and we never know what demands reality and Buddha’s work will conspire to bring to our door nor what it will ask of us. The boundary of the Pure Land is defined by people’s willingness - that is as far as it goes – and it is completely destroyed by envy and self-serving. My second encounter was with a Christian religious. The point that struck me came when he was asked by a third party to say something about the afterlife. He replied that he found the term afterlife offensive, that he believed that after death there is nothing and that before death there is only the present moment and that the true and full realisation of the present moment constitutes the real and superior understanding of the doctrine of eternity. These principles he attributed, I thought somewhat dubiously, to the Catholic Church. Now I felt some sadness when I witnessed this conversation. It felt as if a clever argument had been substituted for real spiritual nourishment. I sensed that the enquirer had not received what they had hoped for. There is a great pressure these days for those of us who profess a religion to find some way of formulating it that will give no offence to the dogmas of secularism. The result, however, is often to take all the stuffing out of the pillow leaving it limp and unsupportive. Of course, I do not want to say that people should or must believe in the afterlife or anything else come to that - we should not be coerced into affirming that there is only the present moment either. What one believes is not really a matter of choice, but more a function of conditions. It is however, part of the function of religion to provide a larger perspective. Belief has long been a dangerous subject in Western culture ever since people could be fed to lions for it and right through the times of the inquisition and the stake. It is quite understandable that people want to guard the principle of freedom of conscience. However, there is also a danger in the pendulum swinging too far in the other direction. When I first encountered it, the rhetoric about only the present moment existing seemed intriguing and sophisticated. Gradually, however, I have come to find it disappointing and debilitating. If there is no future there is no point and if there is no past there is no context or meaning. If we are not allowed to give purpose and meaning to life then it is a sad matter. Unfortunately the doctrine of now-only has been propagated well beyond its useful meaning in many cases, by Buddhists, myself included long ago, but, as this conversation showed, not solely by them. It seems a clever thing to say that only the present moment exists because it is always “now” but is this not really just an empty sophistry, like saying that “one” is the only number because when you count you are, at any given moment, always counting a single item? Actually one could just as well say that the only time that does not exist is the present because one never actually perceives the present moment, which is always gone before it can be grasped, and go on to say that far from confining one to living in the present moment religion is about perceiving the existence of the infinite past and limitless future and making that vast scope the background to all one’s acts, no matter how insignificant they may seem in themselves. Let us paint life on a bigger canvass not a disappearingly small one. Now these two doctrines - to care not for others and to regard only the present moment of one’s own experience seem to be related. They seem to be two ways of casting off concern for a wider perspective and, in the most literal sense, to constitute narrow-mindedness. We can narrow our minds down to a moment of time and we can narrow them down to our own experience alone. One can, of course, see virtue in these ideas - they are not wholly wrong or bad. Concentration upon one’s own practice can avoid inappropriate meddling and focus upon the present moment can reduce worry and even bring vividness to immediate experience. All these are good things and so we should not say one should ignore the present moment and the personal responsibility; but we should beware of the invitation to confine ourselves to it in an exclusive way. There is nothing profound about doing so. The religious person nowadays has to contend with persistent criticism from secularists and has had to struggle to find a philosophy that might retain some respectable credentials in the contemporary world and so I can empathise with the one who has taken refuge in a clever formula of words that sounds religious or profound and is simultaneously invulnerable to assault from the secular quarter - I sympathise. I sympathise but I do not align. I entered the religious life because I had experienced things to which science does not provide meaning and that are outside the ken of secularism. Secular philosophy has a very important place in modern life and it should have. This place lies in the arena of public policy where it is important to preserve an open society in which people of many differing forms of religious profession can live together in safety. Human nature being bombu we need institutions that regulate our affairs in an even handed way and protect us from persecution and fundamentalist intolerance. The fact that secularism provides useful tools for civic administration does not, however, mean that it holds the secret of the meaning of life. It does not. It is simply an expedient. The quest for meaning requires something more. Nor is science any use in this area either even though the advance of science is of immense importance for human culture. Science at best enables us to explore and marvel at the wonders of the universe and to accommodate its forces in ways that benefit beings. It tells us nothing, however, about meaning. It tells us what and how, not why nor whither. So there are different dimensions to a meaningful and satisfying life. The spiritual dimension involves a deep human connection with the mind of the ordinary person who does not want sophisticated philosophy primarily, but wants to be understood in his or her place of alienation or disorientation and given courage and a bigger perspective in which to place his or her existence. Modern society provides few guiding icons that are of any real use. Emulating those who are commercially successful or who have become celebrities as exemplifying the highest social attainment will only leave whole generations of people anxious and lost. I hope that those of us who are involved in living the spiritual life can exemplify an alternative that is modest, warm hearted and informed by fellow feeling, grounded in a philosophical outlook that is expansive not narrowing. The universe in a grain of sand and eternity in an hour, for sure; Yet also: numerous as Ganges sands and then some more. Innumerable are sentient beings: he vows to save them all; A myriad kalpas does he cross - yet reckons them small. The mind will not encompass the scope of that great vow Yet he is not impeded by reflection upon “How?” He gathers all the scope of time and all of space as well And we are swept up in his wake transcending heaven and hell. There are no limits to this path except our willingness For we are merely foolish beings one must confess. See there the lovely cherry blossom, here the frosty gale; Amida calls, the sea is up, we must set sail. Namo Amida Bu Dharmavidya