Attachment to previous practices

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明安 Myoan
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Attachment to previous practices

Post by 明安 Myoan »

Can someone please provide me with commentary by either Honen, Shan-tao, or Shinran regarding practitioners who enter the gate of exclusive nembutsu practice, yet still cling to their prior Buddhist practices?
I want to say Honen wrote about this at least several times, but I'm not finding what I need.

Please feel free to share your own experiences with this also.

For instance, I have many times attempted to resume this or that practice, visualization, other mantras, and so forth.
Without fail, I reach a point of futility, fully aware of my shallow good roots, how easily I break the precepts or abandon meditation when conditions suit me. So every time, I find myself back to nembutsu, only having spent my time half-heartedly in other practices instead of continuous nembutsu.

I know some successfully blend other practices with Pure Land, but I'm seeking writings that specifically address those who have entered the gate of exclusive nembutsu practice.

Thanks!
Namu Amida Butsu
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明安 Myoan
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Re: Attachment to previous practices

Post by 明安 Myoan »

Found a few passages specifically about those struggling to abandon former practices, and a few less specific:

"In this gate of birth through the nembutsu, moreover, two practices are distinguished: single practice and sundry practice. Single practice is to perform simply the one practice of the nembutsu, awakening the aspiration for the land of bliss and the faith of entrusting to the Primal Vow, never mixing any other practices whatsoever with it. ... People who enter the gate of the nembutsu but combine it with other practices are attached to their former practices and have difficulty abandoning them. ... Without endeavoring in the nembutsu of easy practice that accords with the Primal Vow, meaningless is it to follow various practices rejected by the Primal Vow." - Seikaku, The Shin Buddhist Classical Tradition Volume 2

"Pursuing the teaching of nembutsu while practicing the holy gate and nembutsu concurrently may indicate that the holy gate is being practiced as an auxiliary act to the practice of nembutsu. This fact will certainly doom one's practice of the holy gate." - Honen, The Promise of Amida Buddha

"Their devotion to Amida Buddha is not continuous and their concentration on the Pure Land is interrupted; their karmic practices for birth in the Pure Land -- the attainment of this birth for other people -- is hindered." - Shan-tao, ibid.

"To be too lazy to observe the right practices encouraged by Master Shan-tao and yet with to pursue the miscellaneous practices in addition is pointless." -- Honen, ibid.

"The miscellaneous practices may not be a hindrance to birth in the Pure Land, but neither do they assure it. ... Is it not a waste to substitute [nembutsu with] the miscellaneous practices, which do not assure birth in the Pure Land, when you should be observing the right practices? Give this serious thought." -- Honen, ibid.
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janpeterotto
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Re: Attachment to previous practices

Post by janpeterotto »

Monlam Tharchin wrote:
Please feel free to share your own experiences with this also.

For instance, I have many times attempted to resume this or that practice, visualization, other mantras, and so forth.
Without fail, I reach a point of futility, fully aware of my shallow good roots, how easily I break the precepts or abandon meditation when conditions suit me. So every time, I find myself back to nembutsu, only having spent my time half-heartedly in other practices instead of continuous nembutsu.

I know some successfully blend other practices with Pure Land, but I'm seeking writings that specifically address those who have entered the gate of exclusive nembutsu practice.

Thanks!
Feel free ! This is what my zen roshi (Aitken) said many years ago when I admitted in dokusan that solving/responding to all those koans were sooo boring while the wonderful name of Amitabha was all I needed to come to the Pure Land. He was a really good roshi ! Freedom was the thing.

I don't blend things, but rather let Amitabha be a very large life where I can do as St Paul proposes: try anything -- but some things are not useful, others are !

I can't really connect to "exclusive nembutsu practise" since I feel like Rennyo does in his letters -- he advices all to practise confucian thinking and ethics and keep silent about the wonderful pearl his has in his heart, the nembutsu. That means, for me, walking around in a mostly Christian setting and whisper the Name all the time. As rev. Harry Bridge says, the nembutsu should be humming all the time while we are awake ! If you like to do it hip-hop or blues-like or boring gatha-wise, it's up to you. Feel free !
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Re: Attachment to previous practices

Post by Admin_PC »

Geeze, I'm not sure how I missed this thread...
Sorry I'm late to the party.
Honen, from the forward section of the JSRI version of the Senchakushu wrote:"If one has the heart of the nembutsu then going about daily
activities, engaging in various other practices like making offerings
or meditating, and getting involved in social welfare activities is
something one should do. However, if these activities become the
center of one's life and the nembutsu auxiliary, then one should re-
prioritize one's life."

- Honen (Tsuneni osei rarekeru okotoba, SHZ., 493)

I know it may seem like he's saying 2 totally different things in 2 different places, but that's not really the case.
The issue in the earlier quotes is one feeling like one's nembutsu practice is not enough and trying to supplement it with other activities.
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明安 Myoan
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Re: Attachment to previous practices

Post by 明安 Myoan »

Honen, in Senchaku hongan nembutsu shū wrote:Even though a man may have previously studied the Gateway of the Holy Path, if he feels an inclination toward the Gateway of the Pure Land, he should set aside the Holy Path and take refuge in the Pure Land. An example of one who did this was the Dharma Master T'an-luan, who abandoned his lecturing on the Four Treatises and wholeheartedly sought the shelter of the Pure Land. The Dhyana Master Tao-ch'o abandoned his manifold activities in studying and teaching the Nirvana Sutra and began to propagate the practice of the Pure Land of the West exclusively. Such was the case with the wise and learned masters of old. Why, then, should we foolish men in the Age of the Dharma's Decadence fail to follow their example?
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Re: Attachment to previous practices

Post by Admin_PC »

Yes, there are statements like that...

I'm feeling lazy this morning.
In the BDK Senchakushu, check out:
-the first paragraph on page 109
-the last paragraph of page 110
-second full paragraph on page 117
-on page 134, whenever the topic of abandoning other practices comes up, the qualifier "for a while" is used.

Personally I look at other practices like brushing my teeth: they may not get me to the Pure Land, but they're probably not a bad idea to help me in my day-to-day life.
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Re: Attachment to previous practices

Post by Serenity509 »

A book like Taming the Monkey Mind explains several Pure Land practices, with Nembutsu recitation being one of them:

http://www.buddhanet.net/pdf_file/monkeym.pdf

It's hard to get bored with Pure Land practice, given the full array of practices which fall under Pure Land.
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Re: Attachment to previous practices

Post by Admin_PC »

Monlam Tharchin wrote:Can someone please provide me with commentary by either Honen, Shan-tao, or Shinran regarding practitioners who enter the gate of exclusive nembutsu practice, yet still cling to their prior Buddhist practices?
It might just be easier to stick to Shan-Tao as he may a bit more approachable on that front.
Honen quotes him a lot in the Senchakushu.
There's also the Kannenbomon:
http://www.euroshinshu.org/www12.canvas ... nbomon.htm
I really can't wait until there's a translation of his Commentary on the Mediation Sutra.
You can also check out this site for Shan-Tao related teachings:
http://www.purelandbuddhism.org/

ShanTao is supportive of exclusive practice, but his writings seem to equate that with the 5 Right Practices and a primary emphasis on nembutsu, rather than the exclusive single practice of nembutsu:
The Right Practices of the Pure Land Way are:
1) the right practice of reading and reciting Pure Land Sutras
2) the right practice of contemplation on Amida and His Pure Land
3) the right practice of doing prostrations to Amida Buddha
4) the right practice of reciting Amida Buddha’s name
5) the right practice of giving praises and offerings to Amida Buddha

Trying to find support for practices other than Nembutsu in Honen's quotes in the Senchakushu can be kind of tough because he wrote the book explicitly to make the case for exclusive Nembutsu practice. But that's why the qualifiers "for now" are so significant on page 134, because it's the idea of a particular focus for a particular period of time - not an ultimate statement. Honen is a bit more open/lax in Promise of Amida and other works, so those would be easier to find supporting statements - but it's still fairly hard. I broke out my Kindle copy of Promise to use the search to find more quotes and had no luck in finding anything supportive. I think the old fall back is true though, that if other practices support your nembutsu in the sense that they keep you engaged with nembutsu when you start getting "antsy", then it's probably okay as long as your ultimate goal is rebirth in Sukhavati through the nembutsu. Of course if you're looking for statements opposite of "support" for other practices, Honen's filled with them. :) Not sure that if I was looking for quotes from masters of exclusive Buddha-Name recitation that I'd waste any time with Monkey Mind as it's a Chan text and not from the exclusive Buddha-Name recitation school; no mention of Shan-Tao, Honen, or Shinran at all in that text.
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Re: Attachment to previous practices

Post by Serenity509 »

Sometimes people are so attached to singleness of practice that they get uneasy about anything that resembles meditation. If you sit in a relaxed position, close your eyes, chant the Nembutsu, and focus on the sound of your chanting, is that a form of meditation? If, according to Shinran, Amida resides in the Nembutsu itself, why not contemplate on the sound of it?
If you wish to see or hear me,
Call Nembutsu –
For it is in Nembutsu that I live.
http://buddhistfaith.tripod.com/beliefs/id24.html
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Re: Attachment to previous practices

Post by janpeterotto »

I don't know if this helps but I just ran into Shinran in the Tannisho: "Personally I don't know if the recitation of the Nembutsu will lead me to the Pure Land or rather takes me to hell.....But since I am not able to perform any religious activity at all, hell is my home anyway."

This means to me: I say the Name in hopeful gladness and that is all there is to it. If Amitabha, as Dr. Al Bloom says in the Sept./Oct. issue of Metta, means the Buddha of Immeasurable Light and Life, then this metaphor cannot be defined in human understanding. So why try?

Gassho
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Re: Attachment to previous practices

Post by gordtheseeker »

Good thread. Find myself in similar space. Try a variety of religious practices, but eventually they all fail and I am back to the nembutsu. :woohoo:
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