The Teaching of Zuiken

Letters from Zuiken Sensei to the Reverend Jack Austin

Letters from Zuiken, Part 10

The Buddha's Wisdom and Compassion that we have acquired through Faith of Shin Buddhism is Buddha-Nature . Pure Faith is the manifestation or acquisition of His Compassion and Wisdom, and therefore Pure Faith is the only cause (condition) of entering the Pure Land, and of attaining the Supreme Enlightenment in His Country. Excepting Pure Faith there is no other way of becoming a Buddha for a bombu at the present time. For this reason, Pure Faith is called The Only Cause (or condition) of entering the Pure Land or realizing 'Buddha-Nature'.

By the way, Buddha-Nature has many meanings. In self-power Buddhism it means: 1) The Absolute Truth; 2) The Whole One; 3) All Things; 4) The Absolute Wisdom; 5) The Emptiness; 6) The Indefinite Nature of All Things; 7) The Nature (power) of being able to become a Buddha; 8) The Teaching of Becoming a Buddha; 9) Buddhahood, and so on. In Shin Buddhism Buddha-Nature means: 1) All sentient beings have Buddha-Nature, which is yet dormant, or covered with delusions; 2) Our Buddha-Nature can be fully manifested when we are born in Amida's country through his Vow-Power; 3) The Buddha-Nature in the Pure Land reveals itself in this world of ours in the form of the True Teaching (Kyo), the True Practice (Gyo) of His Name, and the True Attainment (Nirvana in the Pure Land); 4) Amida Himself is our Buddha-Nature; 5) Amida’s Sacred Name is our Buddha-Nature; 6) Amida's Great Love and Compassion is our Buddha-Nature; Nirvana (which we can realize in the Pure land) is our Buddha-Nature; 7) Dharmakara’s Compassion, which embraces all the sentient beings like His children is our Buddha-Nature; 8) Amida's Enlightenment, which He attained on behalf of us is our Buddha-Nature; 9) His Vow that he vowed, If all the sentient beings should not be born in My Country, through My Virtues, then I shall not attain Enlightenment, is our Buddha-Nature.

We common people can acquire Buddha-Nature in our Pure Faith in the present life. In the pure Land we can realize the Buddha Nature which we have got in the present life. Buddha-Nature is Nirvana; Nirvana is the purity of the mind, clear of all delusions, subjectivity and discrimination.

Why is Amida's Land called pure? Because Amida's Mind is pure, of Pure Wisdom and Pure Compassion, and the people who are born in His Land can realize the same Pure Mind (Nirvana) as Amida's. In the Pure-Faith in His Sacred Name, and in His Pure Land (Perfect Enlightenment), Amida's Pure Mind and the believer's muddy mind become one and the same.

Why did Buddha Shakyamuni speak of Buddha-Nature? In order to make the people have the hope of becoming a Buddha, preventing their despondency, he preached the Buddha-Nature. But Buddha-Nature is not like the seed of fruit. Christianity says: Man is made by God after His image, and therefore everyone has divine nature (divinity). But it does not say that one can become God. This is the defect of Christianity. As for Buddha-Nature the following book can be consulted: Vasubandhu's The Essay on Buddha-Nature , The Buddha-Nature by Dogen-Zenji, and the Mahayana-Maha-Parinirvana Sutra , etc.

In Zen Buddhism, one day a disciple asked Joshu: Is there Buddha-Nature even in a dog? Joshu answered: Existent (U; Sein). Buddha-Nature is beyond both Nicht and Sein .

Shin followers cannot, of course, understand the true meaning of the story of Joshu's dog's Buddha-Nature. But we can be born in the Pure Land through Pure Faith , the substance of which is Amida's Wisdom and Compassion. We cannot be born in His Land by our self-power , or by human discrimination, or by wrong conception, or by moral good or evil, or by prayer to Buddha, or to God, or to gods. The self-power efforts are not Pure Faith . They are defiled, impure, and imbued with delusory conceptions or efforts, and therefore the men of these erring faiths cannot possibly enter Amida’s Pure Land.

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