Editor's Note - This is an excerpt from the September 2009 issue of the Buddhist Wheel

“When I’m lonely I recite
    NamoAmidaButsu,
Then I feel him take my hand,
I gassho to Amida”

These words are part of the Late Bishop Tsuji’s gatha: “Gassho to Amida”, sung every Sunday at the 9 A.M. Dharma Family Service.

During the Obon season, our Sangha and larger community pause and reflect on our relationships with family members and loved ones. In the tradition of the True Pure Land Teaching-- Jodo Shin, the term Kangi-E— Joyous Gathered is used. The term “Joy” is understood conventionally as an emotive element produced out of its experience—in this case the joy of service and dance in appreciation of family and community.

Religiously, and foremost however, “Joy “expresses a spiritual dimension or experience in the aspirant as a major turning point in the journey of enlightenment. Spiritual Joy is the stage when the seeker no longer regresses or back-slides with uncertainty and ambivalence.

When the aspirant lives in the absolute certainty that he/she has entered Amida’s Assembly, he/she experiences an assurance of perfect enlightenment at the moment of physical death. This is a dynamic element crucial to the Shin tradition. It refers to the person of Shinjin—the Diamondlike True-Entrusting (Kongo-Shinjin) in Amida Buddha’s Primal Vow—the absolute Other Power-working carrying the person of Shinjin to Amida’s Country of Supreme Bliss. In other words, the person of True- Entrusting is constantly aware of his/her deeply self-centered (karmic) state until the moment of death, but due to the power of Great Compassion or Amida’s Vow-Power, that limited, karmic life has been transformed into the wondrous power of Great Compassion or NamoAmidaButu. In day to day application, though, such a person is subject to his/her deep, self-centered existence; thus, the experience of Amida’s Buddha’s Compassion “softens” human behavior through the dynamic power of Amida’s gratitude accompanying the person of True-Entrusting.

May I share an expression of Shin living mirrored in the following email recently received from a fellow Buddhist. It speaks to the Other-Power-working in this life, as well as the next. The following adapted narrative is entitled, “Grandma’s Hands”:

“…Grandma, some ninety years plus, sat quietly on the patio chair. She didn’t stir, just sitting quietly, looking at her hands. Sitting down next to her, she seemed obl ivious to my presence…Grandma f inal ly looked up at me and asked, ‘Have you ever looked at your hands…, really looked at them?’ I opened my hands and examined them, turning them over, closed, opened, and responded, ‘I guess I never looked at my hands…why?’

Grandma continued ‘…Stop and wonder about these hands, how they served you throughout life. These hands have become wrinkled and frail, but they reached out to hold and was held in return.…When I was little they tried to catch my fall when I went tumbling to the floor. They put food in my mouth and garments on this body, whether tying shoes or pulling on boots, these hands have been through all seasons My parents taught me to place my hands together to pray in gassho, to say ‘thank you for this food, this health and this family”— itadakimasu..thank you for the seen and unseen blessings which make my life possible—gochisousama’.

...These hands held my husband and wiped my tears when he went off to war…They were dirty, raw, swollen, bent… uneasy and clumsy… still, they held our newborn child against my heart. Its finger encircled by a simple wedding band, declared to the world, ‘he is my dearest love, my husband, my best friend whom I love no matter…’, they penned those notes and letters to him, and shook uncontrollably when I buried him next to his parents… These hands, firmly, yet gently, guided our chi ldren and grandchildren…and lent themselves to a neighbor in need, and trembled in pain and anger when this heart was confounded and confused...these hands have marked the passage of human life, no matter how painful and serene…

…And while at first, I thought these hands could reach out, finally touching the face of the Infinite, instead, all the while, they’ve been touched and led by Amida’s Hands, that is the unknowing and miraculous power of Love and Care…to most he is God, to others, Amida, and so forth… and thus, whilst we were sure our own hands having done all that was done in this life, it was not, after-all, our own doing or hands, but, instead, the Buddha’s Hands and Heart, His wondrous working already taken ours in his, guiding them, never, letting them go…”

NamoAmidaButsu!

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