This spirituality is also generic in the sense of being multi-faith.
Amida Buddha is the most all-embracing Buddha. To serve Amida Buddha is
to serve all Buddhas. It does not matter whether those other Buddhas
have historically been designated as “Buddhist” or not. They could have
been founders of other religions or spiritual movements. It says in our
scriptures that when we go to the Pure Land, every morning before lunch
we will make a tour and give offerings to all the other Buddhas.
Therefore, to visit temples of other denominations and faith
communities respectfully and in friendship is, for a nembuts’sha,
simply to carry out what we are told to do in our own scriptures.
This does not mean that all religions are the same. They are all
different: that is their richness. Ordinary people like ourselves are
catered for in a diversity of ways. The measure of a religion is the
degree to which it is centred upon Tathata - or, you could say, “Is your
God a Buddha?” By this I do not mean, Is he/she/it signed up to the
Buddhist religious institution. I mean is your God kind, wise, loving,
all-embracing, - does your God embody love, truth, goodness and
spiritual beauty? Everybody has a God of some kind. For some their God
is money, for other nationality, for others pleasure-seeking, for many
security, and so on. But none of those just listed are Buddhas - or, if
they are Buddhas, then they are heavily disguised. It is the nature of
things that by the pursuit of almost anything one can be led to wisdom
in the end, but sometimes the road is rocky.
The secret of Pureland is the nembutsu. That is all. If you are a
nembuts’sha you are a Purelander. Nothing else is essential. What
ceremonies, if any, we do, or what dress we wear, or how long our hair
is, or what social causes we support, or whether we live in community
or in family households or alone, even what we call ourselves - all
these are strategic decisions we make. They can change. Nembutsu alone
is real and true. For a Purelander all religious or spiritual practice
is just another way of expressing nembutsu. All auxiliary practices
carry the risk of enhancing our sense of self-power, but if we are
conscious enough to minimise that risk, then there are many beautiful
things that we can do to decorate our nembutsu practice.
On the one hand, therefore, Pureland is a religion in which clergy
are unnecessary since nembutsu is freely available to all. On the other
hand, Pureland has always given rise to priests and ministers (rather
than monks and nuns) because it is so helpful to have a spiritual
friend on the path who can help one to tease out “this is me.” The
Pureland minister is, therefore, not remote and not somebody who is
intent upon his or her own enlightenment, but is close to the people,
and ordinary being who is dedicated to the faith, ministers to others
(rather than being served by them, primarily), and is thus a very
precious asset to the community. At the core of a Pureland group will be
found dedicated people of faith who may or may not be learned, who may
or may not have practical skills, but who have been “seized by Amida
never to be forsaken” who thus become like the hot coals that keep a
fire going. And those who do so minister, do so because of their deep
realisation that they themselves are ordinary.
It is not nembutsu to see the nembutsu as intending anything other
than entrusting ourselves to the Measureless Light. Amida’s grace
reaches everywhere. We can, therefore, entrust ourselves wherever we
may be. To entrust oneself implies seeing one’s own weakness and
fallibility. It does not require that we necessarily understand the
nature of Amida with any precision or in anything more than an
intuitive way.
The spiritual experience of each person is unique. Each person’s
experience of the practice is singular. This is one of the reasons why,
next to the nembutsu itself, the practice of listening to one another
has become one of the most cherished activities of our communities.
Pureland gives rise to individuals who listen to one another and so
learn to live in harmony, respecting and appreciating one another’s
experience of the practice. Consequently, Pureland communities are in a
constant process of evolution. Once the nembutsu is established as the
bedrock of our practice we are released from all other rigidities.
This is also why Pureland is closely associated with the arts. As an
artist one must entrust oneself to the Muse. This does not mean that one
ceases to make effort. It means rather that one becomes fully alive and
fascinated with life in a very particular kind of way. A nembuts’sha is
an artist with life and that often expresses itself in some specific
art form.
The spirit touches each person uniquely according to his or her
karma, just a a skilled wood carver can “see” the finished scupture in
the raw piece of wood and “knows” what the piece of wood “wants to be”.
We come into this world as karma. Thus each has his or her koan. We can
say, each is here for a purpose and although in the last analysis all
those purposes may comes down to a single entrustment to universal
love, the actual form that it takes in each life is unique and special.
Release from the koan does not generally come via a cleverness on our
part since all our efforts are coloured by the same taint. At the same
time, there is no point in forcing oneself or another to go against
their karma-purpose - what in some other religious systems might be
called soul. Now if the soul and spirit are trying to find one another,
as if lost in a mist, it is, in fact, the spirit that has the better
chance of success because we, blinded by our individual karma, cannot
see very far. Nembutsu is like a cry that says, “I am here,” trusting
that Amida will come and find one, like a parent finding a lost child.
To say “I am here,” fully, implies also saying truthfully, “This is
what I am.” My spiritual location is my being and while I disguise my
being I remain more difficult to find and also blind to those occasions
when I am found.
This is why we say that nembutsu is the crying out of a foolish
being. “Infinite Light, be my delight, shine on me, an ordinary.” When
I am able to say, “I am here, this is me, just as I am,” then Amida
does not have much difficulty in finding me and shining his light into
my life. All this is quite open, but what happened then is a secret.
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A brief explanation of the nembutsu which is the primary practice of the Amida Pureland School can be found here.