This is a long post, I wish to share a translation by James H. Sanford of Ikkyu's Amida Stripped Bare. This text is beautiful, and highly rewarding to go through, I can't recommend reading it enough. Given the length of the text, I've broken it into two posts. The second half will be posted tomorrow likely if you don't wish to wait, you can seek it out yourself, the text is called Amida hadaka monogatari.
Once a man called Tametada, the Kozasa Captain, came to Ikkyū's residence and said, 'As I'm not a very bright man, I find it difficult to master zazen meditation or the scriptures; I simply pray earnestly for the saving grace of Amida and wholeheartedly recite his name. But I feel remaining doubts that are not easily dispelled, and so I've come to ask you about them. Now, don't they say that Amida lives in a Paradise of ten-trillion lands? I don't understand how the prayers I recite can get to a Buddha in those far-off ten-trillion lands while I live here in this world. For an ignorant fellow like myself it's all quite incomprehensible. I beg to ask you about this.'
To this Ikkyū replied, 'Since Amida is a Buddha who effuses his radiance from the ten-trillion Western lands to all the worlds of the ten directions and sheds his light on all living creatures, how could your prayers not reach those ten-trillion lands? In response to this question the Kangyō says, "His radiance illumines the worlds on every side and does not abandon those who have recited the Buddha Name [nembutsu] and have thus been accepted." If one looks deeply into the matter, it can be seen that Amida is like the fire within a stone. Such fire fills the voidness of Dharma-worlds in every direction; it is a flame that existed before the Age of Universal Emptiness. When the universe congealed, this flame shrank to a spark the size of a mustard seed, and although it still exists within the stone, it is invisible, and when we examine the stone, we perceive neither heat nor cold. It neither bursts forth into flame nor dies out; it is always there and appears in a sudden flash only when steel strikes the flint.
'Amida as well, by his very nature, existed in the space of the Dharma-worlds even before the Age of Emptiness. Never coming into being, never retreating into hiding, he was there emitting his radiance long before living beings developed the faculty of full faith and sincerity and learned to call on his name. Without doubt he is in the Pure Land. It is like saying that the moon in the sky is reflected in all waters, although, in fact, it does not to our eyes lodge in dirtied waters, but is seen only in pure water. Further, a crystal of quartz which is truly pure both inside and out may be transparently clear, but inside it there is something that partakes of both fire and water. Yet in a soiled gem this is not seen.
'Amida is like this, never far from view. This is why the Kangyō says, "Never far removed." The ten trillion lands are not distant. Truly, your chant will reach them. For although Amida is willing to dwell in the heart of anyone, including those who have led lives devoted to evil views and debauchery, the poor and the mean, still so long as they lack a heart of true purity and sincerity, he does not appear to them. We can put it like this--if you were to pull a flint up from the depths of the foulest mire and clean it off, it would still give out its spark when struck. The faithful hearts of living creatures resemble the contact of flint and steel. This is the basis on which Amida rests. For the sake of the creatures living in this degenerate age, practically expedient methods are applied, and the name "Amida" is given.
'My sect would say "satori" or "Buddha-nature", which is the same thing. The Scripture of the Lotus of the Wonderful Law is the manifestation of the fervent desire of the Buddhas of the past, present, and future to put all creatures on the direct path to Buddhahood and is thus King of all scriptures. Thus in one chapter of the Lotus it is said that in the worlds all around there is but One Vehicle, not two and not three, and that statements to the contrary were made by Buddha only out of expediency. But these very words, "not two, not three", the "Single Law", were also Buddha's expedients; the highest limit of Truth is fulfilled in a single word. This single word "wonder" is the wonder of the omnipresent universal Buddha. The eight chapters of the Wonderful Law of the Lotus were expounded simply to express that Wonder. It is the same idea as the expression, "ten thousand dharmas as one". '
The captain then asked: 'There are four directions, North, East, South, and West, but the Western Land is especially marked off as the one where Amida lives. How is this so?'
Ikkyū replied: 'The West is autumn--it is the quarter wherein the ripened fruits of all things are harvested. All things, all plants, are produced in the East, and as summer passes, they ripen and come to fruition in the autumn, even as fallen leaves are gathered in. The East is the direction of birth. The sun, the moon, and all living creatures appear in the East, then pass South through the area of yang then go North to embrace yin until they are born again in the East. In this world creatures are buried beneath the errors of wrongdoing, passion, attachment, and stupidity, and they suffer birth after birth. But if one makes the great realization, all errors will dissipate; he will escape the wheel of transmigration, and be able to mature. For this reason, the very body of the awakened person takes on the aspect of the West and is called a Pure Land, for the Buddha Amida resides within it.
'If the directions are considered in terms of colors North is black, East is blue, South is red, West is white, and the Center amidst these four is yellow. The white of the west is a whiteness that is the ultimate color of all things. White snow represents the ultimate in coldness, but even in the ultimate heat of summer, the high white clouds that the common people call "Bandō Tarō" appear. When flame is touched to wood, a red color is produced, but after the wood has been exhausted, it turns to powdery white ash. Too, men in extreme age have white hair. An ancient poem says:
On the snowy slopes of Echigo
There are rabbits white not only in body
But even in soul.
'Of the five colors, white is basic. If things are cleaned until they reach that basic white, they can be freely dyed any other color. If a person applies his intellect and cleans up his mind's essence, then he will gain Buddha-enlightenment, and there will no longer be a Pure Land to rely on nor a Hell to fear, nor any passions to escape. Good and Evil will not be separated, Life and Death will become as one, and he will be able to be reborn as whatever he pleases. This is called the Jewel of the Absolute or again the Precious Wishing Jewel, the inexpressible giver of peace, the ultimate, ineffable joy. It is a state called by those fully awake to it the Pure Land Paradise. It is the gift given to us grumbling fools. By this, you may know in what sense Paradise is set in the West.
'If we compare the mortal body to the one thousand universes, we can awaken to the fact that it is like space extending in ten directions, and there is no way to say whether a place is in the East, West, North, or South. As the ancients put it, "As there is from the outset neither East nor West, where can North and South be?" If we were to consider the thousand universes as having settled into our body, the head is Mt. Sumeru, the eyes are the sun and moon, breath is the wind, the hands and feet are the four great continents, hair is the vegetation, bones the rocks, blood the water, and flesh the earth. Thus we are taught, "Hate and avoid the befouled places; seek and rejoice in the Pure Land." The original meaning of "befouled place" is "impure earth". Therefore, these words refer to the bodies of those creatures who have gone astray. One should avoid such a state. Likewise, "Pure Land" literally means "fresh earth" and refers to the bodies of those who have awakened. Although we are explicitly taught to seek and rejoice in this state, those who awaken to this fact are few indeed. We can find all the thousand universes contracted within the mortal body. It is equivalent to the Dharma-worlds; it is no different from them. In the voidness the Dharma-worlds there is neither quality nor form, and what maintains these "bodily" manifestations is simply the Buddha Amida.
"Formless, Buddha is called the Dharma-body. [Dharma-kaya]. With form, Buddha is called the Bliss body [Sambhoga-kaya). The Phenomenal Buddha, who comes into the Eight Realms of life for the benefit of living beings, is called the mortal body [Nirmana-kaya]. These are the three Bodies of Buddha [Tri-kaya]. When it is understood in this way, one can see that there can be no Pure Land and no Buddha except in these three bodies. Thus we hear of "The Pure Land simply in the heart" and "My own heart is Amida." Too, the idea that Buddha resides in no other place than the body refers to this Dharmakaya body. Thus in the Kongō-kyō it says, "Buddha is Being-without-locality and is born in our very hearts." The six patriarchs and the six teachers by understanding this message awakened to great truth. There is a poem:
Even as men awaken with prayers to Amida,
The cuckoo sings its own name in the morning sky.
And again,
Not knowing Amida was in the South,
I made vain pleas to the West.
The poem says that Amida was "in the South" [minami ni] , but the essence of the poem means "in every body" [mina mini] Such things are your text for satori.'
I have no notes to provide, but would love to discuss what is contained above in detail with anyone willing to discuss it or comment upon it.
Submitted January 27, 2018 at 07:35AM by Dillon123 http://ift.tt/2rJZey7
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