Some 30 years ago, I read anEnglish translation of an essay written by the late Jodo Shinshu priest and teacher, Akegarasu, Haya Sensei, entitled "The Joy of Birth". This essay is in the book, The Shout of Buddha, which is translated by the late Rev. Gyoko Saito, formerly of the Chicago Buddhist Temple and the Los Angeles Higashi Hongwanji, and Joan Sweany.

The meaning of this essay cleared my lack of understanding of Gautama Buddha's birth proclamation: "Below the heavens and above the earth, alone I am noble." Since I was a child attending the Buddhist temple, I would treat the Buddha's birth proclamation as another fairy tale. How could a baby speak anyway at the moment of his birth? I conveniently ignored these words at Hanamatsuri. Many years passed and even in the early years of my ministry its meaning eluded me.

As I was reading the translation, however, it's meaning suddenly and intuitively struck me with great force. I realized this essay was speaking directly to me! The Buddha's birth proclamation is an absolute affirmation of all beings, including myself, as we truly are. I was joyful and deeply appreciative of the power of Buddha's wisdom and compassion to open my eyes to the true and real life he illuminates for all beings. Our Nembutsu faith too emerges from the Buddha's compassion and wisdom so that Namu-Amida-Butsu is in itself the manifestation of Gautama's birth cry: Below the heavens and above the earth, alone I am able." I am as I truly am in my suchness, as are all beings.

While recently re-reading this article, I was again moved by its simplicity and joy. With much appreciation, I share this heart-rendering article with you.

When Gautama Buddha was born, he took seven steps and said, "Under the heavens and on all the earth, I am noble!" Of course, he couldn't say it in Chinese (or Japanese English, since he was an Indian. You ask me, "Did he say it in Sanskrit then?" No, I don't believe he knew any Sanskrit at the time of his birth. "What language did he say it in, then?" Such a language he spoke cannot even be given the name of a language!

You know that even in our country the southerner's and northerner's dialects are quite different. But when a baby is first born and utters a cry, there is no distinction between south and north. The same is true of all babies - Chinese, Indian, English, French, Russian, German, Hottentot, Eskimo - babies born fifty years ago or just yesterday. As soon as they are born, they yell our - "yaaa" or "waaa", or whatever.

We think the baby is "just crying" in this loud voice of his, but this cry is not the same as an adult's (cry). For in that cry, the baby is trying to manifest his essential being. But since we cannot understand his language, we translate it as "yaaa" or "waaa" - the cry which expresses his whole life.

The biographers of Gautama Buddha studied his whole life before they decided to translate his birth cry like this: "Under the heavens and on all earth, alone, I am noble!" This is it! This is Gautama's expression of the joy of birth.

In early timed, someone translated the baby's cry as a cry of suffering, because he had difficulties leaving his mother's body and entering a new life. I think that translation was a mistake.

The biographers off Gautama studied his whole life before they decided on "I am noble" as the translation of his birth cry. We, in the same way, have to translate our birth cry through our whole life. For myself, I can say that Gautama's words are the translation of my birth cry too. I deeply believe that I shouted this when I was born.

There is no special religion of faith apart from this. Religion is this translation of the birth cry...

The first phrase, (Under the heavens), refers to the world of the gods. The second phrase, (on all the earth), refers to the world of human and other beings. And the whole cry is the life that Shinran described (in the person of nembutsu) when he said: "Even the gods of heaven and earth respect him, and the world of evil and demons cannot abuse him."