Inside the Cups of Some Bombus

Recently I have conducted a discourse through smses with a close dharma friend on the aspect of ‘self-power’ which I named it ‘calculations’ or ‘doubts’ of bombus. We frequently hear people saying that bombus need to ‘empty their cups’ first to partake in the Primer Vow of Amida or to receive the gift of shinjin as it is. The Vow Power of Amida is to unmistakably save those hearing the Vow and readily accept the offer of Amida unadorned.

We need not to ‘add value’ to the Vow as the Vow in itself complete and all-embracing. The Vow Power expressed in us bombus as Nembutsu which is Namu Amida Butsu has no difference from Amida himself, in fact His Name, his Vow and his Body and Land are one and inseparable. Since, the Vow-Power is Amida himself, what do you think the valueless bombus like us can do to ‘brighten up’ the priceless Vow. On the contrary, when we try to add our personal values onto the Vow, we actually draw ourselves further away from the Vow.

Adding our personal values means there are hidden ‘doubts’ residing in our subconscious mind that we are unaware of their presence. Without freeing these calculations, you will never entrust yourself wholeheartedly to the true working of Amida.

What are there inside your cups? What makes you keep lingering over to it?

Our cups are filled with self-power activities brewed with different ‘flavors’. We are not talking about self-attachment here which is much emphasised in the path of sages. However, we are talking about the mindsets that we harbor day by day about ‘what we need to fulfill’ when come to the matter of settling of shinjin.

I came from the path of sages and know how hard one is to let go one’s self-effort in one hand and let Amida on the other.

What is there inside your cups? Empty IT as I think IT is just awful.

• We should at least do good to match the vow power of Amida
• We should not at least do bad things to meet Amida’s light of salvation
• We should develop some percentage of purity of mind at least to obtain shinjin
• We should behave like Master Honen or who and who that watched their precepts well
• We must do nembutsu as much as possible as Honen did or so and so did
• We should change the way of living we are now following
• We should do this and that, and so and so….
• We should not have this and that, and so and so….

I believe there are more to add to the list if you can name it.

However, the Primer Vow of Amida simply DOES NOT need these ‘worldly things’ or ‘anything you can name it’ in your cups to condition the Vow. In fact, it is because we bombus could not afford to do ‘so and so’ in this conditional world, Dharmakara Bodhisattva VOWED and ACCOMPLISHED ALL CAUSES that WE would NEED for Rebirth. He spent 5 kalpas's duration to ponder over the causes and effects of establishing the Pureland that he dreamed and how could we be saved to His land of Bliss and become Buddhas once and for all. He comtemplated on our predicaments and saw through our nature. He knew us as if he were our heart and mind. He knew how ‘incapable’ we were in facing life-and-death matter. He knew that we were utterly sorry to ‘Do-It-Ourselves’.

Out of this compassionate heart, He willingly ‘DID IT ALL’ for us and went to a lot of unimaginable difficult bodhisattva practices on our behalf through unmemorable kalpas of life and when he went through with IT, he turned into Amida Buddha and His land of Ultimate Bliss was finally materialised. His NAME is heard throughout the 10 directions as a fulfillment of the Vows. All Buddhas in the 10 directions reverently and readily propagate His NAME and the Vows. When His NAME reaches us, knowing that IT is not merely the light of our deliverance but in fact the FRUITION of our deliverance, we receive IT gratefully with full conviction and express ‘Namu Amida Butsu, I submit to YOU Amida Buddha’. This is the reception of shinjin.

I remembered quoting in one of my smses to a friend with Zuiken’s statement sounding

‘Doing nothing, I rebirth into Amida’s land of bliss.

How inconceivable the Vow power is’.

In his returned sms, he argued that 'are we Buddhists not have to do good and abandon the gravest offenses and cardinal sins principally'. I did not claim in the first place that the Primer Vow allows us to act freely and inhumanly. However, Zuiken’s statement is truely a plain idea about the activities of the salvation which is primarily the working of Vow Power of Amida with no rooms for bombus’ calculations to take effect. It sounds like without one knowing it, one has been rescued and saved to the other shore of nirvana. People might get it wrongly that this is probably another false teaching as it seems to against what we are repeating over and over here the all-importance matter of settling of shinjin.

Precisely, ‘Doing nothing’ resembles to the meaning of ‘no working’ or ‘calculations’ on the side of bombus and ‘true working’ is mainly on the side of Amida. “How inconceivable the Vow Power is’ is a reflection of shinjin or bearing witness to the undivided faith in Amida. We need not keep saying that we have got shinjin when we are firm and determined. We will just say the nembutsu naturally, in conformity with the working of the 17th vow of Amida to help glorify His Grace and NAME and as an expression of indebt gratitude.

Seek no shinjin in your poor bombus’ deluded and ever changing mind; seek shinjin in the intent of the Primer Vow of Amida and his NAME which is everlasting and ever ready for you to receive just as it is. Your nembutsu or saying of Namu Amida Butsu out of true entrusting heart to Amida is the expression of Shinjin or Nembutsu of gratitude.

Without shinjin preceding the nembutsu, the nembutsu is a nembutsu without true working. No true working simply means self-working or self-efforts which is futile and fruitless at the end.

True working is the working of Amida’s Vow Power on receivers of shinjin which of course bearing inconceivable and marvelous fruits:
- Assured of non-retrogression instantly on Earth as the present result
- Rebirth into the land of recompense of Amida the life after and immediately transformed into Buddhas
- Join the ever-ceasing activities of salvation of Amida in the ten directions of the Universe through various manifestations

There are of course some other cups of bombus of different flavors worth discussing at another time. Know what inside our cups and empty IT are primarily important in order to meet the light of Amida plainly.