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Translated with Comments by Rev. William Masuda
Although we really cannot see into another person's mind, I often think of people's mind as being encased in a hard shell. Inside the shell are countless terrifying karmically-induced evils and defilements. They are difficult to detect because of the hardness of the shell. In this sense, no matter how much we may pride ourselves in listening and understanding the Buddha's dharma teachings, our listening and understanding may, in fact, be quite shallow and superficial. Our crowded mind and its hard encasing make it very difficult for the dharma to penetrate our mind. For this reason, when the power of Buddha's wisdom and compassion through the Nembutsu crushes the hard shell of our ego-self, the impact upon is like a large explosion.
Comment: These words remind me of Shinran's self-reflection found in his verses entitled, Gutoku's Hymns of Lament and Reflection (Gutoku Hittan Wasan).
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Each of us, in outward bearing,
Makes a show of being wise, good, and dedicated;
But so great are our greed, anger, perversity, and deceit,
That we are filled with all forms of malice and cunning. (95)
Shinran's comment, to me, is not one of self-recrimination nor the recrimination of others, but a clear awareness of our mind and heart encased in the hard shell of ego-self. The toxins that cause our sufferings from within are clearly realized in the light of the dharma so that any posturing of "enlightened" understanding or listening is seen as a pose of false pride and foolishness. The light that illuminates our whole being sharply breaks through the casing of our false ego-self and brings the clarity of wisdom and the humanity of compassion into our heart and mind. The dharma expressed as the wisdom and compassion of Amida Buddha transforms the inner, karmically induced foolishness of our human life. The hard, yet false, casing of our ego-self is now softened to become one with the flow of boundless compassion and wisdom.
True dharma teachings direct us from darkness to light. Without this movement, there is no real dharma. The dharma light of Amida Buddha's primal vow reveals our human condition and raises our consciousness of our deep concern regarding the afterlife, the consequences of our karmic evils and sins, and the force of impermanence on our lives. This is like the dawn breaking into the darkness of night. The person of Nembutsu moves through the dim light on the morning dew; returning to the brightness of the Pure Land of Buddha.
Comment: The bright light of the Buddha's wisdom and compassion that reaches our heart and mind from the Pure Land/Enlightenment/Buddhahood/Nirvana fundmentally changes our life in the here and now. The bright wisdom-light of Buddha negates our worries about the afterlife, however abstractly we conceive of it with our limited consciousness; lessens and transforms the burdens of our foolish and negative karmic acts from the past into the present and future; softens and warmly embraces our fears of death and permanent change. This bright light expressed in the Nembutsu becomes the very sustaining force guiding and directing us to the ultimate fulfillment of Buddhahood - a new birth into the Pure Land of Buddha. In the words of Shinran:
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It is a great torch in the long night of ignorance;
Do not sorrow that your eyes of wisdom are dark.
It is a ship on the vast ocean of birth-and-death;
Do not grieve that your obstructions of karmic evil are heavy (36)
Namu-amida-butsu.