“Amida's mind is full of true compassion
And His light completely encloses the whole universe.
Making it possible for those attached to forms
to attain birth in His land with ease."
(Master Shan-tao, Ojoraisan)
The effect is similar to the cause, so when the cause and origin of your
practice is your unenlightened personality, the effect is delusion. Similarly,
when the cause and origin of your practice is Amida Buddha, the effect is
always Enlightenment and Buddhahood. This should be very well
understood.
When one relies on his own power, various obstructions appear. These are: 1. internal obstructions caused by his own mental states, attachments, illusions and blind passions; and 2. external obstructions caused by Maras[1] and various spirits who try to hinder the practitioner from attaining the ultimate goal.
Due to these two kinds of obstructions, false spiritual achievements may occur. They are so intense that in the mind of the practitioner and people around him these may seem to be genuine. Supernatural powers and visions can also appear to divert him from the right path. We cannot really imagine how easy it is to fall under the seduction of these false powers and achievements!
It is important to know that the Path of Sages or the path of personal power and the Pure Land path are two separate Dharma gates into the supreme Buddhahood. They should never be thought of in the same way. What one path requires, the other doesn’t, and vice versa.
In Zen Buddhism for example, one often hears the saying of “killing the Buddha”, which means that if during meditation a Buddha image appears into your mind, this may be false and an obstruction to genuine spiritual realization. Why is that? Because on the Zen path one relies on emptiness of all phenomena and on the Dharmakaya beyond any form that we can conceive with our limited minds. In such circumstances, what appears in your mind can be misleading as it might be only a personal representation caused by attachment and illusion. Also, because with any of the methods of the Path of Sages (i.e. self-power Buddhism) you rely on your own effort to meditate, various demons and Maras can take the false form of Buddhas in order to misguide you. Thus, when such visions and forms appear, you have to treat them as fabrications of the mind and go on aiming to achieve the ultimate Buddhahood.
To the contrary, on the Jodo Shinshu Path we are guided by Amida Buddha in His transcendental (Sambhogakaya) manifestation. We do not rely directly on the ultimate Dharmakaya of Buddha nature, but rather we take an indirect road to it through the Nembutsu of faith and birth in the Pure Land.
In Jodo Shinshu, as we rely exclusively on Amida Buddha and have faith that all spiritual realizations come only from Him, we are not in any danger of being misguided or influenced by internal or external obstructions. If a vision appears, this is genuine too, as the effect is similar to the cause. Because we rely on Amida (the cause) and not on ourselves, the result (effect) is a manifestation of Amida, not of our own unenlightened mind. Thus, what can be an obstruction on the Path of Sages is a help on the Pure Land path.
Please do not have any fear if you have entered the Pure Land gate of settled faith in Amida Buddha. You are safe from the very moment you take your first step on this path. Nothing can harm you, nothing can make you retrogress, and nothing can stop you from attaining birth in the Pure Land of Amida and ultimate Buddhahood. If shinjin (faith) has been received into your heart, all these will come naturally.
The goal of both Dharma gates is the same: supreme Buddhahood and Nirvana - and both gates were preached by Shakyamuni Buddha. When followers of the path of personal power and those of Pure Land path become Buddhas, they awaken to the same ultimate Buddha nature which is beyond any form and color that we can conceive with our limited minds, but until then, they should not misunderstand the meaning and characteristics of these two separate Dharma gates.
The Pure Land path of exclusive reliance on Amida Buddha should not be judged based on the criteria of the Path of personal power (also called the Path of Sages). More than this, it should not be changed or preached in such a way as to accommodate it to the Path of Sages. It is very sad, for example, that nowadays some try to transform the simple, faith-oriented Jodo Shinshu teaching into a more Zen-like practice to make it acceptable to the so-called modern reader who has no taste for beliefs related to transcendental Buddhas.
A Pure Land follower should never ask guidance in matters of his attainment of Buddhahood from masters and teachers who follow the Zen path, Theravada methods, or any other method that implies or teaches in one way or another some sort of reliance on personal power, because this will only cause great confusion in his mind.
Mixing the two separate Dharma gates at the level we are now as unenlightened beings is extremely dangerous and is an obstruction on the Buddhist path. Only a Buddha who has transcended all methods and is completely free from delusion can play with various practices and understand them fully, but unenlightened beings cannot and should not imitate the behavior of the Buddhas until they have become Buddhas themselves.
At the level we are now we cannot truly understand the “Oneness of all things”, no matter how much we read and talk about this, so we should stay humble and embrace the dualistic vision of the one who saves (Amida Buddha) and those to be saved (beings who have faith in Him). This is all we need now as ordinary people caught in the suffering of birth and death.
[1] Mara (often pluralized as “Maras”) is a celestial demon who plays with practitioners minds, distracting their attention and offering them false sensations of spiritual fulfillment, thus stopping them from attaining true freedom or Buddhahood. Mara also tried to stop Shakyamuni from becoming a Buddha.
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Namo Amida Butsu
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