Editor's Note - This is an excerpt from the April 2008 issue of the Buddhist Wheel

Hilo is a town where much of nature has been left untouched.  It is a very beautiful town.  After I got used to living in Hilo, I was able to spend my time there comfortably and happily.

Still, when I would sometimes become depressed in the evening, I would go out to the yard and lie down on the lawn.  I felt both excited and surprised to see a lot of big shining stars right in front of my eyes.   Even if I closed my eyes, I could see the stars.  It felt as if I was seeing the infinite world there.  Whether my eyes were open or not, I felt the infinite world.  It was the first time for me to have this feeling that I became very attached to this feeling of the infinite world.

Stars have been related to the history of human beings.  For example, way back in time, people used the stars as their compass.  Polynesians also used the stars as their compass when they voyaged to the other islands.  We have so many stories that relate to stars.   Sometimes people say to me, “Sensei, you look like a Hollywood star…( it is a joke --HOHOHO)

Anyway, when I was a college  student,  I  heard  that  “a human being’s mind and heart has working of CHI JYOU I. CHI means intelligence or mentality. JYOU means… actually, there was no word in English, and I could not find the word JYOU in my dictionary. The closest I would say is sympathy or mercy or feeling or emotion without thought.   It means something like unconsciousness.  The core or essence of religion is JYOU, or feeling or emotion or sympathy or mercy.  A German philosopher and theologian, Friedrich Daniel Ernst Schleiermacher, who was called “Father of Modern Protestant Theology,” said that religion is feeling the universe and to feel the infinite.  When someone asked him “What is religion?”

He answered that “religion is to feel the universe.  I have been embraced by the universe; the universe always is giving me life, to be able to exist, and to have the feeling we speak of as the baby’s mind.   And, we live fully entrusting to the infinite.  This is religion.”

That’s what he said.  Religion is not the working of intelligence or mentality.  Religion is not a moral act done consciously or by one’s own effort to find GOOD.   It is just to feel infinity, without limits or doubts.  Religion is to feel confident that the infinite always working within and around us. The professor said exactly what I have come to believe.

The professor further said that we have lost JYOU. JYOU is a way to grasp the infinite. JYOU is felt in the passage to the infinite.  We cannot reach the infinite by the CHI or I (ego), intelligence or mentality, or consciousness because intelligence or mentality or consciousness understands only that which is limited by experience or knowledge.  CHI and I cannot detach from limited things. JYOU is passive in that no real conscious effort is involved.  Because JYOU is passive and not done consciously, we can accept the infinite just as it is, if we have JYOU.

Shinran Shonin wrote in Shoshinge at beginning, “KI MYOU MURYOUJYU NYO RAI, NAMO FUKASHIGI KOU.”

“I take refuge in the Tathagata of Immeasurable Life, I entrust myself to the Buddha of Inconceivable Light.”

It means Amida Buddha is infinite life and light. We therefore need to know what the infinite is.  When we realize what the infinite is, then how gratifying the infinite becomes to us.  When we realize the infinite, how inconceivable Light becomes to us.  When we encounter the Vow by the infinite, we may not understand what the infinite is, but this is because, we are only bonbu or an ignorant being, limited only by conscious experiences.   We can try to reach the  world  of  infinite, and we can make our effort to reach Amida  Buddha’s  world.  We  can try through JYOU.

When I was a college student, I asked my master this question, “Where is the heart or mind?” At that time I was confused about where the mind was, whether the heart or mind was in the head or chest.  The master answered, “When you are attached to something, which part of your body gets tight?  Not head, hah? Your head can understand by intelligence or mentality and consciousness. You always tend to think with your intelligence, mentality and consciousness. That’s why you cannot understand.  You have to study Buddhism with your heart.”

I was shocked.  When you are attached to a movie or a good story or nice people, which part of your body becomes tight?  How do you study or listen to the teaching?  We need to study what the infinite is by the JYOU.   We need to loosen our attachment to our “I” or ego, and instead, openly allow the infinite to reach us.  Just as the brightness of faraway stars shine brightly in the night skies of Hilo, Amida’s Vow reaches all of us.  Whether our eyes are open or closed, whether our minds are bonbu, unconditional entrusting is all we need.

Namo Amida Butsu

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