CHAPTER 2 Even If You Listen Again and Again

(Revised on 21 August 2016.)

Even if you listen again and again, 

So that you know more than before,

Your mind remains pitch-dark and unclear

Even so, you can be saved—

How inconceivable this is!

Namo Amida Butsu.

“The darkness of the mind” refers to the delusion and blind passions of bonbu being left intact “just as they are,” and does not refer to the “skeptical mind” that doubts the Primal Vow. Some scholars put forward the idea that there can be “birth with doubt,” but this is not true. There is no such thing as “birth with doubt.”

The Illuminating Truth

My mind is “real pitch darkness.” In such a “really pitch-dark” condition, there is no way I can be born in the Pure Land. It is because of Amida Buddha that the “pitch-dark mind” becomes illumined, and therefore He is reverently called “the illuminating Truth (the true and real illumination).” Do we attain birth in the “pitch-dark” condition, or do we become illumined in order to attain birth? This is a difficult question. How? How? Contemplate this mind and realize its pitch-dark nature (mumyou no yami). It is Amida Tathagata who guides this blind man by the hand across the sea of suffering. You do not need to take the trouble to brighten your mind or think of ways to illumine it.

That pitch-dark falling state is precisely the Primal Vow’s object of salvation.

It is very imperative to trust in and rely on the Buddha’s power. If you grab only the superficial meaning of the words of the Buddha Dharma, the sky will never brighten. No matter what, I just could never listen decently enough to the Buddha Dharma; yet the Primal Vow takes such a being as me for its object. How inconceivable this is! How inconceivable!

Amida Buddha has proclaimed, “I assure you of your afterlife.” So why are you still not satisfied with things, calculating about “being dark” and “being illumined”? Don’t you see that you are heading in the wrong direction?

“Destroying the whirlpool of karmic consciousness—the illuminating Truth. Namo Amida Butsu, Namo Amida Butsu.”

The Boundless Light

The light of the Buddha knows no bounds. The Buddha says, “Wherever you are, it remains my territory, which includes even the hellish realm.”

The Equal Enlightenment

The Buddha says, “Whether wise or foolish, I will save them equally.”

The Unhindered Light

No compassionate power surpasses the Buddha’s. His unhindered light illumines and nurtures objects without being blocked by evil karma and blind passions. No matter what happens and what sort of “objects to be saved,” the light of the Buddha can never be obstructed.

The Culmination of the Mahayana

We tend to speak of the Buddha Dharma as “the salvation of the Buddha, the salvation of the Buddha,” but in fact there are so many things that we cannot understand. Speaking of “salvation,” we tend to cater to it in the wish that we could be saved. As we absolutely can’t gain salvation, when we come to realize personally that “I absolutely can’t gain salvation,” Amida’s “unhindered light” will appear.

The truth is that [the Buddha’s] working saves you “just as you are.” “Just as you are” means you don’t have to prepare your mind for a makeup. A makeup is a pretense, which can be washed off after a bath; your true colors will then be completely revealed. Only the true colors you are given birth to by your parents cannot be removed.

Peace of mind (anjin) that works through our true colors is the spirit of the Founding Master. What is meant by peace of mind that works through our true colors is “just as you are.” “Just as you are” is fine. Whether you have “a dark mind” or “an illumined mind,” be born in the Pure Land just as you are. To turn such a salvation of “just as you are” into a reality, Amida Buddha has gone through immeasurable kalpas of lives of hardship, and now he has become the One we know as Namo Amida Butsu.