Nembutsu

The central element of all Pureland practice is called nien fo. Fo is the Chinese word for Buddha. Nien refers to a thought or impulse of the mind. Nien fo, therefore, means to have the Buddha in mind. Anything that brings the Buddha to mind is nien fo. Buddhists, therefore, have many reminders that help them to keep the Buddha in mind. They have statues and pictures and amulets and special clothes. They learn to do things in ways that remind them of the Buddha. Having Buddha in mind makes one happy. Buddhism is a cheerful religion.

Little rituals built into the day can generate a sense of beauty, peace and reverence in the midst of ordinary life. Thus, it is common for Buddhists to greet one another by putting the palms together in front of the chest in a gesture called anjali, or by saying “Namo Amida Bu”. Whatever brings the Buddha to mind is nien fo and so is Buddhist practice. Nien fo helps us to be faithful to the Buddha and his vision.

Pureland Buddhists say the nembutsu inwardly or outwardly on innumerable occasions. At first, it may feel strange saying these three Sanskrit words and initially they may not mean much to you. However, as you continue, you will build up a wealth of association with this simple gatha within which all the love, compassion, joy and peace of the Buddha is indicated. “Namo Amida Bu” ... “Namo Amida Bu”

Buddhist practice is about orienting the mind. The mind is always conscious of something. It responds to objects. Buddhism, therefore, sets up strong wholesome objects before the mind. We can refer to such wholesome mind-objects as icons. Icons may be real things, sacred art images, or purely imaginary forms. A Buddha statue, a nembutsu scroll, one's spiritual teacher, and Amida's Pure Land are all icons. Buddhist contemplation, or meditation, is defined as holding a wholesome object in mind. Contemplation, therefore, is sustained mindfulness of an icon. As Pureland Buddhists, the most important icon is the Pure Land in the West, with Amida at its centre.

Remember, nien fo means to bring Buddha Amida to mind and the method of Pureland practice is to have this wholesome object in mind as much as possible until it is there all the time without special effort. Sometimes nien fo is done sitting quietly as formal meditation. Sometimes it is done in the midst of ordinary activities as mindfulness in everyday life. The advantage of nien fo over many other Buddhist methods is that it takes only a moment to bring Amida to mind and you can build the habit of doing so into all your activity, so that Amida is always with you. Every time Amida enters your mind, the mind becomes better. When one acts with a good mind, happiness follows, “as the wheel follows the hoof”. Nien fo is a fool-proof method of practice.

The nembutsu is, in fact, like a key that unlocks the whole of Buddhism, or a window through which the whole of Buddhism can be understood. When we are with other Pureland Buddhists we can greet them by saying “Namo Amida Bu”. We can say “Namo Amida Bu” as a way of saying “Thank you”, or when acknowledging that something has happened. We train ourselves so that “Namo Amida Bu” is the first thing that comes to mind. If things go well, we say “Namo Amida Bu” to celebrate. If things go badly, we say “Namo Amida Bu” to say that it doesn't matter. In this way we learn that “Namo Amida Bu” will carry us through all the vicissitudes of life. No matter what happens to us, we invoke Amida. “Namo Amida Bu” becomes our constant companion through life. This is the core practice of Pureland. This is our way of taking refuge.

Namo Amida Bu

From the Amida Trust Pureland Introductory course

 

You may have heard that Buddhism is “not a religion”. Amida Buddhism, however, retains the true religious core of Buddha’s message - faith in the Unborn - and so provides a safe place where each person can penetrate below the veneer of rational secularist practice and explore the heart of faith in an intimate and vibrant way, free from judgementalism or narrowness. According to Buddhism, religions are made by humans to put us in relation to that which no human ever made - that which is beyond this relative world. Each religion is fallible, but what it points toward is eternal. Buddhism is no exception. Buddhism points out the Deathless.

Amida Buddhism, therefore, is a religious path. Its particular approach is to take refuge, as a deluded and vulnerable being, in the Unborn - in Amida Buddha - through a simple act of prayer called nembutsu. We can say, therefore, that there are three elements to Amida Buddhist belief and practice: the ordinary nature of the devotee, Amida Buddha as the object of devotion, and the nembutsu prayer as the primary form of practice. Amida Buddhism partakes of the Pureland tradition of Buddhism deriving from the Buddha in India via a transmission through China and Japan. It is not a self-improvement technique nor an exotic pastime - it is a deeply personal, yet wholly transcendent, inquiry into the meaning of one's life.

The characteristic flavour of Amida Buddhism is the bitter-sweet feeling of confronting one’s own far from perfect nature and also the many troubles of the world around while feeling totally loved and accepted just as one is. This religion thus provides a place where we can face ourselves as we truly are and arrive at a deep sense of fellow feeling with all sentient beings, all being likewise afflicted, likewise impermanent. It also provides the frame within which to turn one’s life to useful purpose. There is here no requirement that one must achieve any particular degree of spiritual accomplishment before one can make oneself useful. You do not have to struggle to love yourself - because you are loved already and received by the Buddha just as you are. You do not have to cultivate self-esteem, for the modest are always acceptable. You do not have to become enlightened - because it is precisely for deluded beings such as ourselves that Amida Buddha made his great vows.

This, then, is a religion - a good religion - a religion free from judgment, where love is central, where friendship prevails, and the spiritual search can be conducted amongst good company in real safety and where one's existence can become purposeful in the profoundest sense - the sense that assuage one's deepest religious instinct. It is a religion directly concerned with the nature of faith and its sustaining and revolutionary power. It is a path to which one can commit one’s life at any level and to any degree. It is a religion of open-handed grace. In the eyes of the gentle Buddha we are already acceptable. If we can allow this truth to penetrate deeply while remaining honest with ourselves about our nature, we will experience both joy and pain and we will swiftly enter into the bitter-sweet, yet completely pure, realm of Amida Buddha. Then we will find our life naturally guided into a new path - the path described by all Buddhas - in which one’s views, thoughts, speech, actions, lifestyle, effort, preoccupation and vision are all naturally yet wonderfully transformed.

Namo Amida Bu

Dharmavidya David Brazier, December 2005

“Amidism or Pureland is that form of Buddhism that centres upon Amida or Amitabha, the Buddha of limitless light. An Amidist is one who lives in the light of the Buddha. This form of Buddhism is called Pureland, since Amida's light reveals a realm called the Pure Land where all who enter will be enlightened. Entering, however, does not require any degree of achievement. It is simply a matter of entrusting oneself.

One could say that Pureland is a religion for people who have already failed at other spiritual practices. Where most forms of Buddhism exhort us to practice hard and attain a supreme state called enlightenment that is characterised by a range of superlative virtues, Pureland speaks to those who have discovered through experience that they are actually deluded to the point where a salvation of that kind is not in the offing. It is when one realises that despite unremitting sincere effort, one has not actually managed to keep even one of the Buddha's precepts purely nor even once attained to the state of samadhi without blemish that one may find that the Pureland Gateway begins to speak to one's condition.

To take refuge in the Buddha means to depend upon something outside of oneself for one's safety. The refugee does not know what the future holds. Buddhists are those who see that their spiritual safety in this spiritually dangerous world depends upon the Buddha. To take refuge is to entrust oneself completely. We talk also of taking refuge in the Dharma and the Sangha - the Buddhist teachings and community - as extensions of the Buddha, these being the manifestations of his work in this world. So there is, especially in Pureland Buddhism, an extended sense of the Buddha - Buddha here in our world, manifesting as Dharma and Sangha and engaging with the real world of our time. The Amidist does not look for the goal of the spiritual life within himself so much as in the world around him.


One of the great enigmas of life is the separation of self and other. I am not you. We meet as others to each other. Yet we are not indifferent to one another. Our lives are influenced. We are dependent in a multitude of ways. There is nothing in us that is not dependent upon things that are other. Time, otherness and dependency present a matrix of parameters that bound our life and the Buddha referred to this as "dependent origination" or "co-arising through conditions". We are what we are because of others. We are what we are now because of the past. Yet neither others nor the past are completely determining of what we are. We could not be what we are without them, yet they do not entirely determine us either. Thus, our responsibility in life is complex. We are not free to do anything, yet we do have to choose to do something, and often in circumstances we would not have chosen had we been able to do so.

In Western philosophy, these conundrums have given rise to much thought on the question of personal will. In Eastern thought they have been provocative of questions about the source of the impulse toward the spiritual life. Thus, where the West has argued about free-will versus determinism, the East has been concerned with self-power versus other-power. One is not a Buddhist because one invented Buddhism. One is a Buddhist because one has been inspired by the Buddha. Parallel statements could be made about any other affiliation. The Amidist believes that his spirituality is not primarily a function of his own effort, but a function of having encountered the Buddha. The fact of placing the source of one's spirituality outside of one's self is characteristic of all Pureland Buddhist schools.

The pre-eminent practice of Pureland is, therefore, mindfulness of Buddha. Buddha-mindfulness celebrates the fact that there is an intimate connection between oneself and the Buddha. We can call this connection faith, but it is not exactly what is meant by the word faith in theistic religions. "Amida" means "The Measureless". What this indicates is the Buddha's willingness to accept all beings just as they are, rather than, for instance, to measure their worth and decide accordingly. The Buddha is not the creator of the world, nor does he interfere in natural laws nor does he administer some kind of cosmic retribution. The profound mysticism of Amidism lies in the knowledge that one is already accepted completely and unconditionally. Buddha-mindfulness, therefore, is not a means to attaining something. It is a form of gratitude and wonderment.

Human life involves much affliction. We are dependent upon conditions that are frequently adverse. Along with the exquisite beauty and the noble truth of this life there comes much tribulation. The Buddha was not exempt from this. He too had enemies, suffered from disease, coped with dissension among his friends, and so on. His mother died when he was born. Several attempts were made upon his life. His teachings did not always meet with approving audiences. Sometimes life was hard. At the same time, he attained to a peace of mind that was unusually profound. How so? He trusted the Amida. He lived his life in a bigger light. By trusting him, we trust that light too. Our lives become bigger hearted. A big life can contain more without losing its stability. Buddha was a big person. He was big because he had faith. He recommended that faith to others, and some of them took it on and passed it down to us. They are an other-power for us.

The sort of faith that we are talking about that is the hallmark of Pureland is something that arises in us when we despair of our little selves. While we are still trying to achieve salvation by efforts that originate in our own life project, we will never have faith in anything other than self. Such a self-power orientation, however, is ultimately self-defeating. Our whole life experience is experience of what is other. Even the things we think of as self are other when we think of them. My ideas, my body, by feelings and so on are not me at the point where I hold them in my regard.

Pureland, therefore, provides a philosophical space wherein we may address some of the deep and intransigent dilemmas of our existential being. We exist, so we must act. However the real sources of our acts are never fully known. We want to be perfect in many ways yet find ourselves to be far, far, short of our ideals. We want the world to be pleasant and find it full of sufferings that cannot be eradicated. Thus we live poised between the ideal and the actual. To hold this position of poise is an act of faith. With the ideal comes the actual. With the dark comes the light. With the present comes the shadow of the past and the uncertainty of the future. With samsara comes the Pure Land”.

Dharmavidya David Brazier, February 2003

Primal Vow
Just as it is
Just as you are

Commentary
The most simple and difficult aspect of Amidism is to trust that one is acceptable just as one is. There is nothing whatsoever to achieve. There is no divine punishment or purgatory for sins. There is nothing to achieve, but there is a deep dynamic already at work in our lives and if we allow it then we will find ourselves seized by it. This inner dynamic is called the primal vow. It is an inner longing. Amidism is a matter of awakening to this inner dynamic. It is not a personal possession but rather a function of the inconceivable measurelessness of existence itself that constantly pulls us beyond ourselves. Mostly people do not feel acceptable as they are and so spend a lot of energy on avoidance and escapism - different forms of hiding - and this prevents them from realising what is most deep and sincere. In the eyes of the Buddha they are acceptable just as they are but they create their own hell because they are not acceptable in their own eyes. Of course, one also meets conceited people who purport to be self-satisfied but this is just a shallow front. It is, in fact, impossible to get out of the habit of escapism without some kind of wake up call from beyond ourselves. This wake up is “the voice of the Buddha” in one form or another. Sometimes it is provided by inspiration such as from a spiritual teacher, sometimes by a crisis in our life that gives us a shock, and commonly by some juxtaposition of the two. On the one hand, therefore, we need nothing. On the other hand, we need to be woken up by the Buddha. Then we awaken to natural faith. Faith in Buddhism means to entrust oneself to reality - to things just as they are (tathata) - not to anything supernatural, nor to wishful thinking.

Even if the whole world is on fire
Be sure to pass through it to hear the Dharma;
Then you will surely enter the Path of the Buddha
And everywhere deliver beings from the river of birth and death
- The Larger Pure Land Sutra

Five Refuges
In Amida we take refuge
In the Buddha we take refuge
In the Dharma we take refuge
In the Sangha we take refuge
In the Pure Land we take refuge

Commentary
All Buddhists take refuge in the Buddha, Dharma and Sangha. Amida Buddhists additionally take refuge in Amida Buddha and in the Pure Land. The two additional refuges deepen our appreciation of the original three.
The Buddha: By the Buddha is meant the Buddha Shakyamuni, the founder of the Buddhist tradition in this historical epoch, who was a human being who renounced and overcame greed, hate and delusion, thus entered enlightenment and discovered the Primal Vow by means of which he was able to live a life of service to all sentient beings.
The Dharma: Dharma means both the Buddhist teaching and reality. The Buddha pointed out reality: birth and death, bliss and affliction, paths of noble living and paths of corruption. He bade us take our life in hand and set it upon a noble path.
The Sangha: Sangha means the community of those, ordained and lay, who follow the path pointed out by the Buddha. To take refuge in sangha is to commit oneself to being part of the movement that the Buddha founded for the emancipation of this world from delusion.
Amida Buddha: Amida means measureless. The historical Buddha gave teachings about Amida Buddha to help us to see all existence in the aspect of what is immeasurable and ungraspable so that we might turn away from little lives and mean minds and be released into a greater vision.
The Pure Land: There are two paths in Buddhism, the Path of Sages and the Pure Land Path. Amida Buddhism is a Pure Land path, based on faith in the vision of the Pure Land rather than on achieving personal enlightenment by one’s own efforts.


Threefold Faith
Shraddha, Prasada and Abhilasa

Commentary
Shraddha means to have complete faith in the act of refuge. Prasada means to have clarity of mind. Abhilasa means to have pure aspiration and willingness to undertake whatever action may be for the good of all. Faith in all its forms is central to the Amidist approach. All forms of ethical behaviour spring from faith. If there is little faith then there is bound to be a selfish intention even if one’s actions are superficially respectable. Faith in Buddhism refers to the overcoming of self and is the implementation of the doctrine of non-self.


Threefold Mind
Sincerity, Depth, and Longing.

Commentary
Faith is not something imposed from outside. It is something that wells up from within. It is triggered from outside. It is like a hidden treasure that somebody has sewn into our clothing without our knowledge. Perhaps one day somebody points out the lump in the hem of our garment and on closer examination we discover the diamond. The nature of this faith is a feeling of longing for the Pure Land, as if one had been exiled from his true home. Looking closely we discover that this longing is a fundamental part of our nature. It is our deepest place. Being sincerely in touch with this deep longing gives us courage and directs us to “go forth for the benefit of all sentient beings, in the service of gods and humans” to do all that we can to assist the Buddhas to make the Pure Land visible to all so that all are similarly awakened to their most fundamental drive until all are living in the service of all.


Threefold Path
Sila, Samadhi and Prajna.

Commentary
In Amidist Buddhism we do not see ethics, mind cultivation and wisdom as the path leading to enlightenment so much as the path leading from the awakening of faith. If one has faith in the Pure Land then one naturally wants to serve all beings and so one’s behaviour is likely to be kind, compassionate, wise and friendly. Similarly, if one has faith, then one is not troubled by setbacks or confused personal agendas so the mind becomes clear and bright. Amidist Buddhism does not present spiritual perfection as an emotionless or mindless condition. It is a condition in which the feelings of gratitude, awe, longing and reverence become powerful motivators giving a person energy, patience, single mindedness and clarity of purpose.


Threefold Practice
Keeping the Pure Land in mind
Engaging fully with the world of bliss and affliction
Renunciation

Commentary
Keeping the Pure Land in mind means always to be guided by faith. This may be expressed in many different ways. Many practitioners like to recite the names of the Buddha and especially the name Amida, perhaps in the form Namo Amida Bu. Or to visualise the Pure Land in the form described in the scriptures or naturalistically. Some find their faith strengthened through contact with natural phenomena and others through listening to teachers or inspirational study. The most characteristic method in Amidist Buddhism is to call the name of Amida thereby expressing the depth of faith and longing in one’s heart.
Engaging fully with the world of bliss and affliction means that faith atrophies if it is not acted upon. If we have the vision of the Pure Land before us we can hardly help ourselves wanting to make it a reality in everything we do. Even though we may have very poor capacity and have much spiritual blindness, still, if we have faith, we have some light and if we act on whatever light we have, be it ever so small, more light will appear. If we can trust that the light is really Amida - measureless - then we can entrust ourselves to it. The words for bliss and affliction are sukha and dukkha. The Buddha’s said that his whole teaching was concerned with pointing out dukkha and the possibility of its transformation into sukha. We will soon realise that dukkha is really to be understood as whatever threatens our faith and sukha as whatever strengthens it. The Buddha told his followers to go forth into the world to help everybody in every way we can - to resist the conditions of ill, assist the afflicted and demonstrate an alternative.
Renunciation means that if we have faith we do not want to be encumbered with things and habits that get in the way of our living in accordance with that faith. This is where all the common practices of Buddhism come to be seen as valuable: simplifying one’s life, making offerings, bowing, contrition, rejoicing in others, reverence to teachers, spiritual ancestors and the objects of refuge, requesting teaching, generosity, hospitality, non-killing, non-stealing, avoiding sexual misconduct, non-use of intoxicants, right speech and so forth.


Transmission of the Dharma
Without our many generations of teachers we would never have awakened to the truth
Without our awakening to the truth the future generations would be without help.

Commentary
From Shakyamuni Buddha down through Ananda and more than eighty generations of teachers the faith in the Buddhist Pure Land has come down to us and nobody fully awakens this faith without help. The call from without awakens the call from within. Even though a person may be granted a vision of the Pure Land spontaneously, faith matures through the inspiration of living and ancestral teachers.

 

- The Larger Pure Land SutraAll Buddhists take refuge in the Buddha, Dharma and Sangha. Amida Buddhists additionally take refuge in Amida Buddha and in the Pure Land. The two additional refuges deepen our appreciation of the original three.: By the Buddha is meant the Buddha Shakyamuni, the founder of the Buddhist tradition in this historical epoch, who was a human being who renounced and overcame greed, hate and delusion, thus entered enlightenment and discovered the Primal Vow by means of which he was able to live a life of service to all sentient beings.: Dharma means both the Buddhist teaching and reality. The Buddha pointed out reality: birth and death, bliss and affliction, paths of noble living and paths of corruption. He bade us take our life in hand and set it upon a noble path.: Sangha means the community of those, ordained and lay, who follow the path pointed out by the Buddha. To take refuge in sangha is to commit oneself to being part of the movement that the Buddha founded for the emancipation of this world from delusion.: Amida means measureless. The historical Buddha gave teachings about Amida Buddha to help us to see all existence in the aspect of what is immeasurable and ungraspable so that we might turn away from little lives and mean minds and be released into a greater vision. There are two paths in Buddhism, the Path of Sages and the Pure Land Path. Amida Buddhism is a Pure Land path, based on faith in the vision of the Pure Land rather than on achieving personal enlightenment by one’s own efforts.Shraddha means to have complete faith in the act of refuge. Prasada means to have clarity of mind. Abhilasa means to have pure aspiration and willingness to undertake whatever action may be for the good of all. Faith in all its forms is central to the Amidist approach. All forms of ethical behaviour spring from faith. If there is little faith then there is bound to be a selfish intention even if one’s actions are superficially respectable. Faith in Buddhism refers to the overcoming of self and is the implementation of the doctrine of non-self.Faith is not something imposed from outside. It is something that wells up from within. It is triggered from outside. It is like a hidden treasure that somebody has sewn into our clothing without our knowledge. Perhaps one day somebody points out the lump in the hem of our garment and on closer examination we discover the diamond. The nature of this faith is a feeling of longing for the Pure Land, as if one had been exiled from his true home. Looking closely we discover that this longing is a fundamental part of our nature. It is our deepest place. Being sincerely in touch with this deep longing gives us courage and directs us to “go forth for the benefit of all sentient beings, in the service of gods and humans” to do all that we can to assist the Buddhas to make the Pure Land visible to all so that all are similarly awakened to their most fundamental drive until all are living in the service of all.. In Amidist Buddhism we do not see ethics, mind cultivation and wisdom as the path leading to enlightenment so much as the path leading from the awakening of faith. If one has faith in the Pure Land then one naturally wants to serve all beings and so one’s behaviour is likely to be kind, compassionate, wise and friendly. Similarly, if one has faith, then one is not troubled by setbacks or confused personal agendas so the mind becomes clear and bright. Amidist Buddhism does not present spiritual perfection as an emotionless or mindless condition. It is a condition in which the feelings of gratitude, awe, longing and reverence become powerful motivators giving a person energy, patience, single mindedness and clarity of purpose. means always to be guided by faith. This may be expressed in many different ways. Many practitioners like to recite the names of the Buddha and especially the name Amida, perhaps in the form Namo Amida Bu. Or to visualise the Pure Land in the form described in the scriptures or naturalistically. Some find their faith strengthened through contact with natural phenomena and others through listening to teachers or inspirational study. The most characteristic method in Amidist Buddhism is to call the name of Amida thereby expressing the depth of faith and longing in one’s heart. means that faith atrophies if it is not acted upon. If we have the vision of the Pure Land before us we can hardly help ourselves wanting to make it a reality in everything we do. Even though we may have very poor capacity and have much spiritual blindness, still, if we have faith, we have some light and if we act on whatever light we have, be it ever so small, more light will appear. If we can trust that the light is really Amida - measureless - then we can entrust ourselves to it. The words for bliss and affliction are sukha and dukkha. The Buddha’s said that his whole teaching was concerned with pointing out dukkha and the possibility of its transformation into sukha. We will soon realise that dukkha is really to be understood as whatever threatens our faith and sukha as whatever strengthens it. The Buddha told his followers to go forth into the world to help everybody in every way we can - to resist the conditions of ill, assist the afflicted and demonstrate an alternative. means that if we have faith we do not want to be encumbered with things and habits that get in the way of our living in accordance with that faith. This is where all the common practices of Buddhism come to be seen as valuable: simplifying one’s life, making offerings, bowing, contrition, rejoicing in others, reverence to teachers, spiritual ancestors and the objects of refuge, requesting teaching, generosity, hospitality, non-killing, non-stealing, avoiding sexual misconduct, non-use of intoxicants, right speech and so forth..From Shakyamuni Buddha down through Ananda and more than eighty generations of teachers the faith in the Buddhist Pure Land has come down to us and nobody fully awakens this faith without help. The call from without awakens the call from within. Even though a person may be granted a vision of the Pure Land spontaneously, faith matures through the inspiration of living and ancestral teachers.

Dh.D.J. Brazier
2002

(Dharmavidya, inspired by Honen Shonin’s Ichimai Kishomon)

For those with the karmic affinity with Amitabha Buddha, wishing to practice a religious life in truly simple faith, freeing themselves of sophistication and attachment to all forms of cleverness, the method of opening oneself to Amitabha’s grace is the practice of Nien Fo with body, speech and mind, particularly verbal recitation of “Namo Amida Bu”. This is not something done as a form of meditation, nor is it based on study, understanding and wisdom, or the revelation of deep meaning. Deep meaning is indeed there for the nembutsu is a window through which the whole universe of Buddha’s teaching can be perceived in all its depth, but none of this is either necessary or even helpful to success in the practice. Rather such study cultivates secondary faculties to be held separate from the mind of practice itself.

The primary practice requires only one essential; realise that you are a totally foolish being who understands nothing, but who can with complete trust recite “Namo Amida Bu”; know that this will generate re-birth in the Pure land, without even knowing what rebirth in the Pure Land truly is. This is the practice for ignorant beings and ignorance is essential for its accomplishment. This practice automatically encompasses the three minds and the mind of contrition as a fourth. To pursue something more profound or more sophisticated, or to have a theory, or to think that understanding will yield greater enlightenment than this is to be misled and to fall back into self-power whereby the whole practice is spoilt. However wise, learned or skilled you may be, set it aside and be the foolish being completely in the performance of the practice. Nothing else is required and anything else is too much. Faith and practice cannot be differentiated.

The Buddha-body is delineated by the precepts. How deficient we are in comparison! By our daily difficulty in the preceptual life, we awaken to the presence of the myriad karmic obstacles without which we would already perceive the land of love and bliss, we would be as the vow-body of Buddha. Thus we know in experience that we are foolish beings of wayward passion. This knowledge of our condition is part of the essential basis when it gives rise to contrition. Thus all obstacles become impediments to faith unless we experience contrition and letting go. Saving grace, as was made clear by Shan Tao’s dream and advice to Tao Cho, only comes through the sange-mon.

If you can perform the practice in this simple minded way, Amida will receive you and you may fear for nothing since all is completely assured. Dwelling in this settled faith you may then use your secondary faculties, your knowledge and skills and accumulated experience, as tools for helping all sentient beings. But do not then think that anything of relevance to your own salvation is thereby accomplished, nor that you are making something of yourself. Whatever merit there may be in your actions of this kind, immediately and totally dedicate it to the benefit of others, that they may enter the Pure Land and that you yourself may not be encumbered by consciousness of virtue which will only contaminate the practice. As Honen says, “without pedantic airs, fervently recite the Name.”