Although I live the nembutsu...I rarely...
have the desire to be born immediately into the Pure Land.

- Shinran Shonin

The following is a story I've enjoyed from the past. It is a story about an older woman who attended the morning service and chanting religiously. One morning, as she sat in front of the Buddha statue in the altar, the resident priest overheard her making the following remark. "Oh, Buddha," she said, "I am getting older and older and my children and grandchildren are getting to be too much for me. They are always bickering and quarreling, and I am feeling weary. I am losing interest in living. I hope you will soon take me into your realm of great peace and bliss." All this was said quite humbly and sincerely. The priest, however, had his reservations.

The following morning he rose and hid behind the Buddha's statue. The lady came as usual. And unsuspectingly she placed her palms together and began to relate her usual prayer. Then, what seemed to be like a lion's roar from the Buddha statue itself, the priest shouted: "Lady! In answer to your prayer I am ready to take you now! Get ready!"

The lady shrieked with great surprise: "But Buddha, I was only joking. I don't want to go with you right now. It's too early! I have to be here for my children and grandchildren!" She then literally dashed out of the temple.

This story always brings a smile on my face, and even laughter at times. In the normal course of our daily life, this is a humorous story. Still, if each of us were summoned like the older woman, would we be ready to go? Aside from a having major illness, we may surely flee as fast as we could. In spite of the dharma reminder that our life is a journey homeward bound to the Pure Land of Bliss and Peace, I would imagine that this daily life of agitations and frustrations is the very condition we cannot give up easily or readily. Our attachment to it is fathomless. Also, to what extent are we truly ready to enter the Pure Land, not merely as an ending to life, but rather as our spiritual home to which we return at the time of our death? Are we ready? Will we ever be ready, without awakening clearly to our real state of being, to the self that we really are?

Shinran Shonin expresses our dilemma as: "Although I live the nembutsu, I rarely experience rapture and joy, nor do I have the desire to be born immediately into the Pure Land". In this realization, he sees the power of his deeply-rooted blind desires as the cause which makes him reluctant to go to the Pure Land. Also, he is, at the same time, awakened to the reality that it is for this very reason, Amida's true compassion works even more for his emancipation and liberation.

He further states, "Truly, how strong and powerful blind desire is! (For this very reason) those who are reluctant to go immediately are the special concern of Amida's true compassion. For this very reason, the vow of true compassion is completely dependable and absolutely certain. If our hearts rejoiced and desired to go swiftly to the Pure Land, we might be led to suspect that perhaps blind desire no longer existed."

Once we have awakened to the boundless power of Amida's compassion, we become the sole concern of Amida's compassion whether we are ready or not. Our birth then into the Pure Land is even more assured because this is all due to the design of Other Power (Amida Buddha). Is this clear in our heart and mind?