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Thread: Amida Buddha: the One Life

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    Amida Buddha: the One Life

    http://journeytozen.wordpress.com/20...-the-one-life/

    Recently I have been reading a lot about Amida Buddha and in particular Jodo Shinshu Buddhism. Jodo Shinshu is a 800 year old sect of Buddhism that rose up in Japan during the Kamakura period. The founder of the school is Shinran Shonin. To some Jodo Shinshu followers he is considered the incarnartion of the Buddha of Compassion. Shinran Shonin taught a path that was open not just to monks and nuns, but for all people. He emphasize what his teacher Honen Shonin emphasize of the Pure Land Sutras.

    The main teaching and practice of the Jodo Shinshu school is the Nembutsu. Taitetsu Unno a Jodo Shinshu priest translates the Nembutsu as “the Name that Calls”. Then Nembutsu is the saying of Namo Amida Butsu. Namo or Namu is to take refuge or to revere. Amida Buddha is the Buddha of Infinite Life and Infinite Light.

    But what exactly is Amida Buddha? Jodo Shinshu just like Buddhism in general is based on intuitive or direct experience of the divine. It is experiencing truth here and now. So, in order to understand Amida Buddha, one has to experience Amida. In Buddhism, words are like a finger pointing to the moon. Do not mistake the finger for the moon. We have a bit of information that will point us to Amida, but what remains is for us to experience Amida here and now in this life.

    Amida Buddha is not just a physical essence or Buddha man somewhere in a literal western pure land. Amida Buddha is here and now all around us. He or it is within all things. Be it rocks, trees, humans, or animals, sky, earth it is all Amida. Yet Amida also transcends this. Amida Buddha is the One Life. It is that which we merge back into when we shed this physical body. It is that One Life that manifest in unicity into forms. It is the Ocean of Oneness that connects all beings. It is that which Quantum Physics are trying to understand in terms of entanglement. All of it is around us and yet transcends us.

    Amida Buddha is not a God. It is not some Judgemental father figure residing over a paradise or heaven. It is not Allah above the 7 heavens, it is not God the Father with christ seated next to him. Amida is beyond God. God is just a concept never to be experienced, whereas Amida is that which can be experienced here and now. We can never say: “I have become God”. The religious zealots would pelt us with stones and/or the masses would brand us crazy. All of though can awaken to our Buddha Nature, that which is our Original Nature and Witness the Unicity of all Life. In such a state we can say that we are Amida Buddha.

    In the great Shin work by Kenryo Kanamatsu “Naturalness: A Classic of Shin Buddhism” it states:

    “The time when the heart asserts itself and forces us to look beyond our narrow self. Here we feel an unthinkable power stronger than ourselves, compelling us to choose between the self and the not-self, between ignorance and enlightenment. This Unthinkable Power stronger than ourselves, this persistent urge impelling the self to transcend itself, is a call to us of the All-feeling Compassionate heart, the Eternal Spirit of Sympathy-who is in his essence the Light and Life of all who is World Conscious. To feel all, to be conscious of everything, is the Spirit.”

    This is a beauty explanation of the experience of Shunyata or emptiness. It is the losing or shedding off of the Ego and transcending the Self to awaken in the Eternal Spirit of Compassion. It is entering the realm of the Uncreated, Nirvana.

    The beauty of Jodo Shinshu is that it is a path to ridding oneself of the little self. This path is not a path of going off into a forest or monastery to spend a lifetime of meditation and practice. It is not a path that only monks and nuns can take up. It is a path for modern men and women. For children for everyone. It is a path of deep hearing. That is our only task is to deeply hear the call of Amida or the One Reality calling us to awaken to Truth. Amida herself gives us deep entrusting. With deep entrusting in that One Life we awaken to Enlightenment. Our ignorance is revealed and we transcend our own ignorance. Complete Wisdom flows through all things at all times. Amida is in our every breath and inbetween breath.

    To be intouch with this One Reality, we can listen to the call of Amida herself. That call is the name that calls. It is the Nembutsu. Namo Amida Butsu. Simply chanting this and entrusting in Amida one is saved by the powerful underlying nature of all existence. One is saved by the greater Self that which transcends Ego consciousness. The beauty of this is we dont have to strive in hard practice to deeply entrust in Amida, because in Shin Buddhism, Amida herself gives us shinjin or deep entrusting. So relax and do not use your calculating mind to calculate how many times you should say Namo Amida Butsu, or how hard you should try, instead give all this thinking up to Amida and just sail on the easy waterways of Amida.

    Namo Amida Butsu!

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    Re: Amida Buddha: the One Life

    Namaste SS,

    That was a nice info. Initially I thought you were talking of Amitabh Buddha but after reading your complete post, it was clear that this Amida is not Amitabh.

    OM
    "Om Namo Bhagvate Vaasudevaye"

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    Re: Amida Buddha: the One Life

    Namaste,

    Thank you devotee glad you liked. Amida is Amitabha but in Jodo Shinshu a sect of japanese Buddhism, Amida is interpreted in a very different way. Shinran Shonin the founder of the school expressed experiencing Amida here and now. Taitetsu Unno a Jodo Shinshu priest called the sutras about the life of Amitabha as a myth. He says a myth is something that describes something true and real. He mentions that it is to explain the inexpressable. Bits of Rubble transformed into Gold and Shin Buddhism by Taitetsu Unno talks deeply about Amida as being Shunyata. Also Dr. Alfred Bloom another Jodo Shinshu priest has many works discussing this One great Ocrean of Life that is Amida Buddha. He gave me a beautiful email concerning the deep nature of Amida.

  4. #4

    Re: Amida Buddha: the One Life

    i have a hard time with speaking of buddhism since most people are converts to it that i have known or met.
    i only understand talking to people that are born into hinduism or buddhism.
    american buddhist converts make me lost.
    the only things i can understand are written by eastern born buddhists.

    it sounds so hurtful to say but i can not see how one can become a hindu/buddhist. you have to be born into it. western religionists are big on religion conversion and the christian sects are about conversion of thought into their ways like someone can shed their skin and become another race or creature. i am so confused by the idea of conversion the the west embraces.

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    Re: Amida Buddha: the One Life

    Quote Originally Posted by kstrosper View Post
    i have a hard time with speaking of buddhism since most people are converts to it that i have known or met.
    i only understand talking to people that are born into hinduism or buddhism.
    american buddhist converts make me lost.
    the only things i can understand are written by eastern born buddhists.

    it sounds so hurtful to say but i can not see how one can become a hindu/buddhist. you have to be born into it. western religionists are big on religion conversion and the christian sects are about conversion of thought into their ways like someone can shed their skin and become another race or creature. i am so confused by the idea of conversion the the west embraces.
    Well then, may your time upon this forum bring you into awareness on the reasons those of us born in some unfamiliar location upon the map would seek the Truth and once found to embrace it.

    We are not skin...we are not these creatures we inhabit... we are a portion of Shiva.

    Truly we are not the location we were born anymore than the color of our hair. Our position to Beloved Shiva is determined not by these transient outter things...but by words, thoughts, and deeds.

    Welcome to HDF, Namaste<3
    Last edited by NayaSurya; 14 February 2011 at 06:50 AM.

  6. #6

    Re: Amida Buddha: the One Life

    Quote Originally Posted by NayaSurya View Post
    Well then, may your time upon this forum bring you into awareness on the reasons those of us born in some unfamiliar location upon the map would seek the Truth and once found to embrace it.

    We are not skin...we are not these creatures we inhabit... we are a portion of Shivaya.

    Truly we are not the location we were born anymore than the color of our hair. Our position to Beloved Shivaya is determined not by these transient outter things...but by words, thoughts, and deeds.

    Welcome to HDF, Namaste<3
    Yes this is so!

  7. #7

    Re: Amida Buddha: the One Life

    Quote Originally Posted by kstrosper View Post
    i have a hard time with speaking of buddhism since most people are converts to it that i have known or met.
    i only understand talking to people that are born into hinduism or buddhism.
    american buddhist converts make me lost.
    the only things i can understand are written by eastern born buddhists.

    it sounds so hurtful to say but i can not see how one can become a hindu/buddhist. you have to be born into it. western religionists are big on religion conversion and the christian sects are about conversion of thought into their ways like someone can shed their skin and become another race or creature. i am so confused by the idea of conversion the the west embraces.
    I don't know about your circumstances, but few of the most brightests hindus I have met were those who were western borns but have adopted Hinduism. I didn't find their thoughts confusing.

    Yes, there are some who still carry the Abhrahamic strain strong in them, and these converts will either try to experess these biases in their new faith or inevitably turn back to the old religion with some philosophical baggage which has no use or purpose there.

    But those who had throughly rejected what's wrong with Abrahamism and then adopted Hinduism, I have found them much advanced and also refreshing from the tradionalist India born Hindu who are unable to discard the superstitions of their own faith.

    But each of us experience the world differently.
    What is Here, is Elsewhere. What is not Here, is Nowhere.

  8. #8

    Re: Amida Buddha: the One Life

    "most brightests hindus I have met were those who were western borns but have adopted Hinduism."

    In the west people tend to be studied but that dose not mean they are bright at all. good mimics perhaps.

    i was raised be a lax buddhist mother so i do not understand western though to ways of understanding eastern thought.

    the majority of people from the east you will meet are lay believers that rarely know much about the dharma. that is why you feel that way.

    personally i will not humor converts (most are not really converts they just have beliefs, i do not even think that any hindu pandits ( especially Smarta ) will deal with conversion because there is not hindu conversion process.)

    i do not think there is a conversion to buddhism. conversion is a western thing and i do not thing it exists in the dharma. the westerners can not purge their minds of their western upbringing it is totally impossible from a chemical biological POV.

    Most western buddhists are assume the the buddha was an atheist, and that pali theravada buddhism is the original buddhism. It is not it is a horrible corruption of buddhism and has create a gape and mistrust between hindus nad buddhists and they are the ones that have the strangle hold on buddhism. If i meet some one who says they are an atheist budddhist I know they are buddhist in name only and follow corrupt schools of buddhism. (Yes I know I am bullheaded and harsh and bigoted and refuse to adopt a liberal POV of religion not matter who dislikes it, but i will not insult them to their faces. but they are 100% wrong about my things about buddhism).
    i am very old fashioned, I am not liberal, I admittedly think all women should be in hte home and i have very orthodox social/political (1900's-1920's American POV on life) views and life style and do not accept or respect many things like sexual orientation I am 100% politically correct and I do not care what people thing of my or my views but i will never insult anyone but I will only tolerate them. I am what polically correct liberals and secularist hate and are bigoted against.

    Again I would never be rude crude or hostile to anyone. but i refuse to lie to them to spare their feelings that is if they ask. I usally do not offer my opinions on anything to people as it is a waste of time and westerners 99% of the time do not understand much of anyhting beyond what they may have been trained to do as a profession.



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