Sailing west

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12/01/2005

Why Sailing West?

West is the direction of the Pureland. The Pureland is the land of Amida Buddha, a land to create here, a land to hope for, a land to be reborn in.
Pure Land Buddhism is based upon the Pure Land sutras first brought to China circa 150 by the Parthian monk An Shih Kao and the Kushan monk Lokaksema, which describe Amitabha, one of the Five Wisdom Buddhas, and his heaven-like Pure Land, called Sukhavati.
A whole series of Buddhist Pureland masters developed the concept of a Pureland in the west, where the Buddha of measureless light and life is residing, further.
One can see this as mythos only, but it is more than that. It is central to one of the most esoteric and exoteric, mystical and practical, profound and easy, sophisticated and simple, singular and encompassing branches of Buddhism.
An other central and essential aspect of this kind of Buddhism is the Nembutsu, the calling of Amida Buddha's name, which is to be practiced, silent in yourself or verbal as a kind of mantram at least one time every hour of one's waking life. (In the Jodoshu school).

A phrase that is used in Summary of Faith and Practice of the Jodoshu school is:

The primary practice requires only one essential: realize that you are a totally foolish being who understands nothing, but who can with complete trust recite 'Namo Amida Bu;' know that this will generate rebirth in the Pureland, without even knowing what rebirth in the Pureland truly is.

I sailed west literarily by leaving Amsterdam for a life in a Buddhist community in England. This was not something I did easily. In a way I had to. My life came to a dead end and went totally astray. My spiritual path ended in a ‘cul de sac.’ I lost virtually everything, and found a new life in the west. After years of struggling that is to say. The Buddhism I came across is for hopeless cases, people that cannot hope or even aspire to be enlightened or deserve any of the other goodies that is promised by most of the spiritual schools that offer their services to the public. The most remarkable aspect of the Jodoshu or Amidist school is its compassion for ordinary people that have almost given up any attempt to live a spiritual or religious life.
But one pays a price. The price is to give up one's attempts for self development, in the beginning a real rebuke for one's pride and ego. That is replaced by the notion that one is a foolish being (Chinese: Bompu), who cannot now and never attain her or his own salvation. Now I can say this with a smile, with some irony: Yes I am a foolish being. This was not the case three years ago. I had the habit to attract attention for my intellectual 'brilliance' as often as I could and tried to hold center-stage as long as I could. Saying that you are a foolish being and making a nice show out of it is one thing but experiencing and feeling it is another thing. This was for me a process of deep contrition and repentance about the stupidities that brought me and my life almost to a complete standstill. Another aspect was faith, one has to have faith, it is the essential foundation on which the whole of the efficacy of the practice is resting. Faith was however precisely, something I had lost. And above that the word faith was so much associated with the Christian faith that I said good bye to, that it was a hard thing to swallow, that Buddhism is a religion in which faith plays a key role. This despite all attempts to make it a life-philosophy and in a way an anti-religious movement. Many people say nowadays: "I am spiritual but not religious." Well it is quite simple, such a spirituality does not exist or it must be superstition. I have not yet spoken about the price one pays to try and live an ethical sound life, that is just the other side of faith. The one does not exist without the other. So this is the golden triangle that is to be lived as fully as one is able to: Faith, ethics and action or practice. The ability of living in this triangle is given and not something one can claim to be of one's own making.
This school of Buddhism stands in an important way in opposition, though not in conflict, with any other Buddhist and many other spiritual and religious schools in that it makes a fundamental distinction between self-power (Jiriki in Japanese) and other-power (Tariki). That means basically that one needs help of an universal nature for one's salvation and that one cannot even hope on one's own power for that. Again a hard thing to swallow, to admit that there is something outside oneself, something of a very real nature that can save one and even everybody from daily misery or to speak with Pirandello: The pain of living like this.
To the West I went, living the past months in Amida France in a remote place, enjoying nature, contemplation and a tender happiness that I was almost forgotten it existed in my life.
You can read much more on the website of the school I am so happy and grateful to be a member of on this
URL: http://www.Amidatrust.com
This journal contains my musings and inspiration and is an expression of my rediscovered trust in life and in the possibility to make the place where we live a better one. I hope you my friends will like it.

00:40 Posted in BLOG INTRO | Permalink | Comments (2) | Email this

Comments

Dear Leo - a beautiful design and I love the content. You are in the perfect place for reflection and express it so well.

Posted by: Sujatin | 11/14/2005

Hi Leo,
look forward to reading your journal and meeting up with you again sometime in Narborough. Namo Amida Bu

Posted by: ray | 11/14/2005