Thank you. Thank you, everyone. Wow, it's a really, really wonderful opportunity to be able to speak to you tonight. I am, as you said, Harry Gyokyo Bridge. I'm currently the Resident Minister of the Buddhist Church of Oakland, which is Jodo Shinshu Temple, right on the edge of Chinatown in Oakland, right by the Lake Merritt Art Station. I don't know, it's easy. We're called the Buddhist Churches of America, and it's very easy to kind of stay inside, right? Keep inside our Buddhist Churches of America and pretend like that's all there is. So it's just really, really a wonderful, wonderful opportunity to get to speak with you like this and meet you and get to share the Dharma. Jodo Shinshu is a Japanese school of Pure Land Buddhism. And there's a lot of probably misconceptions about it.

[01:03]

Maybe even misconceptions would be good because a lot of people just don't know about it at all. So knowledge is actually zero. Let's see. Where to start? I think the basic, well, see, I was going to say the basic practice, but even that's kind of misleading. But let's start there. Let's kind of back up a little to just Pure Land Buddhism. Pure Land Buddhism is a form of Mahayana Buddhism that... has its roots in India, probably in the early times of the Mahayana, the development of the Mahayana, if not back to Shakyamuni Buddha himself, depending on whether you ask a follower or a scholar, right? As a follower, I would say Shakyamuni, of course, and beyond. Scholars would say, you know, around 100 BCE to 100 CE or AD, whatever you wanna call it. And it focuses on Amitabha Buddha. who is sometimes called a cosmic Buddha, not Shakyamuni. Shakyamuni, during one of his dharma talks, tells about, several dharma talks, tells about Amitabha Buddha, or Amitayus Buddha, the Buddha of infinite light and immeasurable life.

[02:16]

And this Buddha used to be a prince or a king, who met another Buddha, right? It's kind of the classic story of becoming a Buddha, right? Someone meets a Buddha and decides, I want to be Buddha too. And so he says, I'm going to make vows and I'm going to make the best Buddha land of all. The unsurpassed Buddha land. And this is told in the larger Sutra of Immeasurable Life. He goes on to make, the classic version is 48 vows, right? And these vows he makes first and then he does the practices. And then Ananda or whoever, I don't quite remember, says, so what happened to him, this Dharmakara Bodhisattva? What happened to that Bodhisattva who made the vows? And Shakyamuni says, he's a Buddha now. He's Amida Buddha. And he's in his pure land to the West. One of those vows comes to be interpreted as saying, anyone who says my name, wishes to be born in my land,

[03:22]

sincere mind will be born there and if this doesn't come true may i not attain enlightenment right and the sutra says he attained enlightenment right so therefore the mechanism works the vow was fulfilled right and so through the fulfillment of the vow anyone who says his name ten times namo amitabha buddhaya or namo amida buddha is a japanese form right i take refuge in amida buddha will be born in his pure land so that's kind of the the basic structure, right, the basic form and kind of the background from the sutra. This, you know, this is a really, really old form of Buddhism. There's not a whole lot of evidence from India for people practicing it, although, well, Sakavati is a Sanskrit name, right? So a lot of sutras will say anyone who copies this sutra or does the practice, one of the benefits is they'll be born in Sakavati. They'll be born in Amidas Pure Land. Okay. There's like an old Amitabha statue that was found in India.

[04:22]

Well, just the feet. They found the feet and the inscription, right? So it's an old form of Buddhism. Really develops a lot in Central Asia, right, with the Silk Road and everything. They think of those gigantic Buddha statues, right, in Izabhamiyan, the ones that were destroyed, right, in the early 2000s. So Buddhism was really developing. a lot around this time, right? Mahayana Buddhism, we don't really know what was going on, but my impression is that the Buddha's gone, Shakyamuni Buddha is no longer here, and so all these kind of different ideas, practices, doctrines, right, begin to develop, and so this Pure Land teaching is one of them. Sometimes it involves visualization, visualizing Amida Buddha, and all these very, detailed, exact descriptions of the number of light beings and, you know, all this different, you know, the curling hair between his eyes. You have to visualize this. Visualize this pure land.

[05:23]

But then there's also this practice of reciting his name. Namo Amidabut is the Japanese version. It develops in China, too. Seems to have been really popular in China. Goes, you know, Korea, Japan, Vietnam, all over the place. But it's in Japan that it actually first becomes an independent school. Japan has that too, Tendai. Tendai is kind of the classic example. Tendai Buddhism, Maokie and Kyoto, Saichou, has all of the human kinds. There's Zen there. There's Pure Land stuff. There's esoteric tantric Buddhism. It's all being done on Maokie. But at the same time, Kamakura, Japan, if you know your Japanese Buddhist history, also a lot of people end up going on these very exclusive kind of paths. Nichiren, Nichiren Buddhism, just chant the title of the Lotus Sutra. Honen, and then Shinran, who's the founder of Jodo Shinshu, just say Amida's name, just take refuge in Amida Buddha.

[06:29]

Dogen, right, with Zen. So this... trend towards exclusive schools happens, what, around 1100s, 1200s, and Jodo Shinshu is one of the results of that. One of the significant things that, well, I don't want to say misunderstood, it's not a lot to not understand, but that in Jodo Shinshu we don't meditate at all. It's like, well, some people can. You can meditate if you want, but there's no... set meditation practice in Jodo Shinshu Buddhism. Really, really, just we're citing the name, Namo Amida Butsi. On the surface is kind of what we do, right? Of course, we chant sutras, and we bow, and we offer incense, but we don't have any set meditation. And I think that the way that I've kind of come to understand it is Purim Buddhism is very... One really important strand of it is that it's for anyone.

[07:35]

Pure Land Buddhism is for anyone and everyone. And so, Shinran Shonin's teacher, Honen, he taught aristocrats, he taught warriors, he taught prostitutes, he taught farmers, or he taught anyone who would come and listen. So that this Buddhism of Namo Amiga Butsu, of the Pure Land Buddhism, is for anyone. At that time in Japan, Many people couldn't do Buddhism. Farmers. If you're a farmer, you're going from sun up to sun down, working in the fields. You don't have time to go to a monastery or whatever. So someone like that would normally have been excluded. But Pure Land Buddhism takes in all of those people. Someone who can't meditate, someone who can't do difficult practices, someone who can't just throw everything away and go into a temple. they could still say Namo Amida Butsu. So this was a very kind of egalitarian practice and school of Buddhism that spread a lot during the Kamakura period.

[08:40]

And then Shinran Shonin is kind of one of Honan's disciples. And I mean, it's kind of interesting. If you look at the history, the Japanese history at this time, Chirilin can take on kind of antinomian characteristics, kind of rebellions, right? Rebelling against the institutions of the day. And so it seems, you know, not just non-ramidabutsu. There's also no monastic rules necessarily. And monks are doing this stuff, right? Shinran Shoni, the founder of Jodo Shinshu, was a monk for 20 years on Mount Hiei. And it seems like, from what little we know of letters and dream diaries and everything, that the harder he tried, the worse it got, the less he was able to accomplish. And so in despair, he leaves here looking for something and encounters Honan. This is the Reader's Digest version, right? Encounters Honan, learns of the teaching of Amitabha Buddha, learns of this Namo Amida Utsu, you're accepted as you are.

[09:48]

You don't have to be perfect. You don't have to be a good person. Actually, they go so far as to talk about evil people, right? But this is a teaching for evil people, people who are not considered socially good, including hunters, fishermen, right? People whose jobs require taking life, warriors, bad bunks. Shinran being one of those, because he's actually one of the, maybe the first one to officially marry. He's a monk. He's still a monk, and yet he's married. He takes on a wife. And he's not the only one. There's a lot of this going on at this period of time in Japanese history. So Shinran talks a lot about being a foolish person, evil person, even Ichantika, someone who doesn't have Buddha nature. And yet, Amida's power, the power of the vow of Amida, is stronger than that. And that by taking refuge in Namo Amida Buddha, one is grasped, never to be abandoned.

[10:53]

That's one of the expressions that they use. And we're looking at birth in the pure land. I mentioned those antinomian kind of upstart people. Some people would say, yeah, Namo Amida Buddha, that's all you need. You don't have to be good. It's for evil people. In fact, you should try to be evil. You should be as evil as you can. You should drink. you should do all kinds of bad stuff, because if you don't, then you're doubting Amida. So, that's not what Shunran says, but there are people, there are people teaching this, right? It's to the point that he gets really mad, the emperor, there's an incident where a couple of handsome monks with nice voices go and spend the night at the palace, and the emperor's not there, and he finds out about it, so they get beheaded, Ponan and Shinran get exiled. It's not just religion, right? There's politics and there's economics. There's everything going on here. And Shinran is actually disrobed.

[11:54]

Later on, he's reinstated as a monk. So it's actually very controversial teaching, too. If being good isn't the point, then shouldn't I? Can't that be bad? Why not just indulge in evil? And it looks like there are even people that Shinran trusted teaching people like that. So that he has to write letters. And there's these great letters, collections of his letters. And you can just feel his sadness and anger, I think, in hearing people teaching this. And he says things like, how can you encourage people to take poison just because they know there's an antidote? That's not the point. The point isn't to indulge in evil. The point is that someone like me, who can't be good, is still grasped as I am. by Amida Bhutto. And then the question comes, well then what happens? You know, okay. Does anything change? Does something happen in this grasp? Is it just, this is one of the doctrinal kind of things where as you are, right, you're accepted as you are.

[13:01]

So if I'm grasped, then great, I've got my ticket. When I die, I'm born in the Pure Land. Great, no problem. I'm done. Right, I keep giving money to the church. I'm just kind of an upstanding, upstanding member of society, and that's good enough, right? I've said Namo Aminabutsu ten times, and so I'm going to the Pure Land, no worries, right? Or is there some kind of transformation, some kind of, does something happen to the practitioner, right? The main, that experience, right, is called Shinjin in Japanese. It's often been translated as faith, which a lot of people don't like, because it sounds too Christian, maybe. It's been left as Shinjin in Japanese. I've been kind of looking around, this is my first time here, and it's my first time in, not my first time, but a rare occasion to go into another school's place. So I noticed, I've been looking for Japanese words since I was in the bathroom, and I found bathroom soji.

[14:04]

Why is it just so bathroom cleaning? I don't know. I do it all the time. I say Japanese words in my temple all the time, even though probably 80% of my members don't speak Japanese and don't even know what it means, right? So another option is to leave it. Shinjin. Don't translate it. Maybe no English word can express what it means, right? Maybe someday it'll become an English word like sushi. It's a good narrative. Some Japanese words do become English words, right? Sushi, even Buddhist words like Buddha, right? So maybe, I don't know, another, but the version that I like if I'm going to translate Shinjin is the entrusting mind. The second Shin is Shin and Shin, right? The second one is mind, like Bushin, right? Buddha mind. But the first one is this character Shin, like Shinjiru. In modern Japanese it just means to believe. I believe this. Maybe it means something like faith. What other faith means? But even the word faith means so many different things, right?

[15:07]

I'm not a student of Christianity, but I understand that faith can mean a lot of different things. We usually think it means blind faith if we don't like Christianity, right? But I think that to a dedicated Christian, it has a lot more meanings, right? So even using the word faith isn't possibly misleading. But then this idea of entrusting, entrusting in Amida Buddha, that there's some, I don't know, It implies some kind of trust, right? You know, we want to trust people. We want to trust the president or trust, you know, whoever. But when it's human beings, we never really know, right? And that person that we trust could break that trust. But I think the idea is that the compassion of the Buddha, right? The Buddha power that we're actually brought to in trust in Amida Buddha. It's not something that I do. It's not like, yeah, I really believe this guy. I'm going to believe really hard, right? I'm going to trust this guy as hard as I can. It's like, rather that I'm brought to a trust. That trust comes naturally, spontaneously, not from me, right?

[16:11]

But from Amida Puta. You know, there's so many ways, different ways that I could talk about this. And I talked a little bit about the history of... I guess I'll just point out that it is a kind of a Japanese form of Buddhism. It was brought here late 19th century, 1899, September 1st was actually considered the date when the missionaries came from Japan to San Francisco to minister to the Japanese American, no, there were Japanese immigrants at that point. I don't know if they're American yet, right? And so it's been overwhelmingly ethnic, ethnically Japanese American. My temple is probably, here in Oakland, is probably one of the most diverse, and I think it's still like 90% Japanese. And I look at them like, oh, it's such a diverse temple. Because some are like 95%, 98%, especially more like farming areas. And mainly farmers who came from Japan after the major restoration, and for the first time in centuries, Japan has opened.

[17:15]

And so people came to America, they went to Canada, they went to South America from Japan for looking for opportunities. And so Jodo Shinshu and the Buddhist Churches of America were founded and trying to help these immigrants. And then since that time, it's been gradually opening up. One of the ways that... One of the ways I like to think about zhōru shīn shū, zhōru shīn shū, zhōru is pure land. And then shīn just means true and shū is school. So the true pure land school, I don't even like to explain it because I don't like that name. It implies that the other ones are not true or less true somehow. But one of the schemes that I like to use to kind of think about it is in terms of wisdom and compassion, you may or may not have heard about.

[18:16]

I'm sure you've heard about it. Maybe you heard the Japanese words. Buddha, if we want to break Buddha down, the essence of Buddhahood, maybe one way to do it is wisdom and compassion. Wisdom is, I don't know, I think of it as the way reality is. Are there things really like? Empty. Empty of inherent existence. Impermanent. Interconnected. All those wonderful things that we hear about. There's wisdom. And the flip side of that, wisdom without compassion is not perfect Buddha. The flip side is compassion. It's active, caring, kindness, wanting to awaken all beings, any beings that are suffering. The Buddha wants to awaken them, wants to end their suffering. One without the other. Compassion without wisdom isn't any good either, right?

[19:17]

They're like two sides of the same coin. Right? So wisdom and compassion. One where we can see this is six patamidas, right? The six perfections. The only ones I really remember are number one, dana, right? Selfless giving. And number six, prajna, right? Wisdom. I can never remember the other four. But you almost don't have to. I read this up. And it's funny, because at our temples, we hear, oh, it's ohigan, we have to talk about six paramitas. Okay, there's dana, selfless giving. This means giving selflessly, not thinking about yourself, right? Only thinking about the other, only, you know, giving without thinking about your own benefit. Okay, today's ohigan, this is great, thank you very much, and it's done. And I'm always like, what happened to the other five? We never talked about the other five. And I thought that it was just lazy ministers. You know, didn't want to talk about the other five, but apparently different schools put different emphasis on the six paramitas, right?

[20:20]

So some schools may be more wisdom side, right? And my maybe misconception of then is that it's more of an emphasis on wisdom. And then other schools may put more emphasis on the compassion side. Donna being the prime example. Yeah. That's an oversimplification, of course. And I think that if we look at the Bodhisattva path, it requires cultivation of both, right? That we want to cultivate compassion to help others, and that we want to cultivate wisdom, right? So that we're not deluded about how things really are, right? So it's interesting. I think we still, we often think about wisdom and compassion as something, especially six Padmitas, right? As a Bodhisattva, this is what I'm supposed to be cultivating, right? I'm trying to cultivate wisdom. I'm trying to cultivate compassion and trying to practice compassion and put that practice into my life. So Shinshu, Pure Land Buddhism, especially, well, definitely Jodo Shinshu is interesting because it also talks about wisdom and compassion, but it kind of changes the directions around it.

[21:31]

So that rather than it being my compassion, trying to be compassionate to others, I see myself as receiving the compassion of Amita Buddha, right? So that I become the recipient of this Buddha compassion. So it's still, because a lot of times, I don't know, you can still find in books, Chodo Shinshu is like the Christianity of Buddhism. Just have faith in Amida Buddha, and you'll be born in heaven, and it's just like Christianity. Forget it. Who wants that? My impression is that if you like Christianity, you don't need something else. You have Christianity. If you don't like Christianity, you don't want to go somewhere else that looks like Christianity. So I think we get kind of a... I was going to say a bad rap. I shouldn't put it that way. This kind of, to me, misconception of Jodo Shinjiu as this kind of Christianity in Buddhist form. But I prefer to see it more in terms of wisdom and compassion.

[22:33]

I think that we can see it in that way. And that's funny because I think like Chinese Buddhism, Tendai, all this stuff is mixed together, right? You have sin, you have... pure land. Maybe you do esoteric Buddhism. You do Navinya, right? Very strict observance of the precepts, right? And that it's all mixed together. And some people may have more emphasis on one than the other, but it's all mixed together, right? But Japan, I don't know, those wacky Kamakura period Japanese Buddhist leaders went on this exclusive practice way, right? Of only pure land, right? Only Zen, only Uchiden, only Chant, the the title of the Lotus Sutra, right? So that's one of the challenges for me, I think, is as, I mean, here we are in America, right, where it's not only you guys and we guys, there's a whole bunch of other Buddhists out there, right? There's probably like, what, 10 years ago, my friend, someone told me there was like 350 Buddhist organizations in the San Francisco Bay Area, right?

[23:39]

All kinds of different countries, all kinds of different schools, and so, And that's why it's so great to be here, right? To finally, you know, make contact with some other Buddhists who are at like a different school. And, you know, maybe if we tried to like hold up, we could have a debate or something, right? And say, well, my sutra says, right? Look, it says right here. And then you say, well, my sutra says, right? And we could try and like butt heads. And because Shun Shun is very exclusive. Only take refuge in Amida Buddha. We don't take refuge in Kanon. Oval Kiteshvara, right? Don't take refuge in the Lotus Sutra. Amida Buddha is the best one. Only do that one. And we actually, you would think we could get over it, but... One of the chants that we do is called Sambujo, the three invitations. We respectfully invite Amida Buddha into the dojo and scatter flowers. We respectfully invite Shakyamuni and scatter flowers.

[24:40]

We respectfully invite the Buddhas of the ten directions. And they might stop doing that chant at our honsan, at our main temple in Kyoto. I've heard rumors that they're going to stop doing that one because we're not supposed to be inviting the ten direction Buddhas. I'm just learning one that's important, right? So with those kind of issues, right, it can be, I don't know, it can be frustrating, but at the same time, for me, yeah, I just take reputation on me to Buddha. I don't meditate. I've all got different kinds of Buddhism and I love different Buddha images and, you know, want to pay my respects to them. But for my own personal life, it's pretty much Jodo Shinshu for me. And, you know, the kind of Buddhism that I teach to my members. Well, I mean, I teach general Buddhism. You know, I don't really like general Buddhism. I don't really think there is such a thing. But, you know. Four Noble Truths, Eightfold Paths, Six Panditas, right? I have to teach that stuff because that's the basis, right, that all forms of Buddhism grew out of, right?

[25:44]

And in Japan, in Japanese, they don't. If you become a minister, you might get a class or two on general Buddhism. But for the most part, it's really not an important part of the teachings. But here in America, it's not a Buddhist country, right? Well, we're getting there. But, you know, I want to... Those basic ideals of compassion, kindness, giving, and then also impermanence, interdependence, are things that I also want to spread and share with people as the basis. Oh, we only have 10 minutes left. Do we have questions? Comments? Discussion? Is that okay? Yeah, let's do that. Can you talk a little bit about the transformation from being acknowledged that there was an issue and then through the way he became Buddhist Church of America and I know some about the Buddhist Church of America's response during the experiment.

[26:57]

Can you talk a little bit more about that? Yeah. That's a huge part of the Japanese-American experience, right, is the internment during World War II. And my impression is that, you know, a lot of the priests were put in the top security camps because they were viewed as potential spies, right, that they had direct connections to this religious organization in Japan that actually did have ties to the military's government and everything. So my impression is that after the internment ended, that they... didn't want to stand out as much, right? A lot of the temples were already built, and we already had taken on a lot of Christian forms, like pews. That's one of the best parts, pews. We get to sit in chairs. I don't like the organ so much, but I think that's part of it, is the kind of not wanting to stand out necessarily. It's like, hey, look at us, we're Buddhists, we're different, right?

[27:59]

So that's another explanation I've heard for calling our temples churches. But there's an interesting, this all comes back to language, I think. Actually, I think they were called kyokai before World War II even. And the Japanese translated church into the word kyokai. Church in English, we think house of God, right? If you know, if you read a little bit, right? But the Japanese changed it to kyokai, gathering place for the teachings. Right? A place to gather and hear the teachings. And so, when they start all these missions in these foreign lands, they're actually not temples. Temple would be otera, right? Or ji, right? But like honggan ji is our main one. But actually, they were from the beginning, I think, they were called kirokai. They were called churches, which got re-translated back into English as church. So it's interesting. There's a lot going on there. I used to think we should be called temples. I kind of wanted, and some actually, like the Berkeley Buddhist Temple, they changed their name to Temple instead of Church.

[29:00]

And I used to think that was the way. But then I realized, but temple is an English word, too, which has roots in Europe, right? Like the Mormon temple or the Jewish temple. So temple is actually just as loaded as church. And then when I went, I was the minister in Lodi before I came to Oakland. And it's kind of a small farming community. And a couple times I said to members, oh, yeah, I'll be at the temple. And they said, huh? I said, I'll be at the church. Oh, okay. They think of it as a temple. They think of it as a church. So... Yeah, so, you know, there's a lot going on there. I think a lot of it is social, but there's a lot of institutional stuff going on underneath, too, as well. Yeah. I wonder if you could say something about the demographics of the people who come to the church. Is it something there about young people? Are there also older people? Are they mostly Japanese-American? And also, what is the role of the minister in the church? Um... Yeah, right now we're still pretty ethnic, I think. I would guess 70% to 90%, depending on the temple.

[30:05]

Although ecology in Virginia is more like 10% Japanese American and 90% non-Japanese, so there are exceptions. Spokane, Washington also has really gotten a non-Japanese membership. But for the most part, Japanese American. For the most part, over the age of 60, the Lodi Church was, what was it? 60, 70% are over the age of 70. So we're kind of in trouble if that low 30% doesn't grill, right? Because those people who are in their 60s, 70s, 80s, 90s, they give so much money but also work so hard that these ladies are like in their 80s and 90s and they're there at like 2 in the morning doing sushi or 5 in the morning for the bazaars and everything working so, so hard for the temple. And younger people do as well, but I don't think to that extent. I mean, it's probably the work ethic, right, of first, second generation Japanese-Americans, which I certainly don't have. But we do have younger people.

[31:06]

I think the cities have more younger people. A lot of times it's through intermarriage. The break open has happened, I think, in the past 20, 30 years. Japanese Americans are, the numbers of 10 years ago where 50 to 80% are not marrying other Japanese Americans. So I think we get a lot of our children and families through intermarriage and they decide, you know, do we want to go to the Protestant church or the Buddhist temple? Well, I remember being there in a kid and I loved it. So we get a lot of people in their four, what, 30s, 40s, 50s coming with families. But those people left after high school. It's interesting because we do have what we call Dharma school. So it's family-oriented, right? This is Buddhism for people that are really busy, right? But they still come on Sunday to hear the Dharma and, you know, be together with friends. And so we have Dharma school from, what, kindergarten to 12th grade? But the thing that happens is after 12th grade, they go to college and we say, bye, come back for bazaar.

[32:06]

And that's about all they've come for. And they just kind of, I don't know, that's one thing I'm concerned about is that It's not feeding them, sometimes I feel like, right? I think it's good, and they learn a lot, but it's not feeding them that they're like, yeah, I've got to go back to temple, right? Until they get kids. And then they're like, I want my kids to grow up Buddhist or whatever, and so then they come back to the temple. So that's kind of the demographic that I see. And then non-Asian people we have coming in all the time, but I find that very often they don't stay, is my impression. They come and look, but for whatever reason, I'm trying to figure it out, because I'm new here, so I want to make it more welcoming. And I wonder if maybe with our Sunday service, we have Sunday services, 10 a.m. So it's kind of a weird model in a way for Buddhism. And so I'm wondering if there's other things that we can do if we're not meeting some people's needs, and that we can meet people's needs in another way, whether it's a Saturday study class, meditation, whatever. And then my way as a minister is to...

[33:11]

Preach, for one thing, and give Dharma talks. Explain it to the kids on a kid level, which is really hard. Explain it to adults in a way that doesn't put them to sleep, which apparently is hard because a lot of people fall asleep. It helps that I speak English because for many long years, long time, a lot of the ministers didn't really speak that much English. or it was very thick dialect English. Then funerals, that's the other big one, funerals and memorial services. So ministering to my members about that, I think it's one of the main things that I do. Yeah. Good point. So either you were going to talk about the great idea of your, let's have a word. Oh, good. You've been yawning, just kidding. There's something I'm interested in. This one sounds very strange, but I have to think that we do share the same practice.

[34:13]

What we do is that what we do there in the Zendul point, or I know Zendul, take on the story posture. What I think about us after listening to your talk is, I tend to say we emulate wood up. And that's how we do that. The question is this. In my experience, I started down this for a clock. I think that's a very existential human experience. So in your tradition, do you have teachings or practices to cross this path if that person ended up in this lifetime?

[35:16]

Or is it really focused on, let's say, concept, an idea of the next life or life? Good question. Very often, traditionally, pure land seems to have been focused on the afterlife. On what happens after you die. And that the time of death is really important. Maybe you can prepare for that by saying, thousands of times a day. But ultimately, it's the time of death that's important. And if you don't have auspicious signs of purple clouds and everything when you die, maybe things didn't go well. But... Shinran is interesting, Shinran Shonin and Jodo Shinshu Buddhism in that this life is important and kind of like the wisdom and compassion being the two sides of the same coin. They talk about this deep entrusting in the Buddha as compassion, pure compassion that saves us and then deep insight into myself.

[36:24]

seeing myself as I truly am, seeing parts maybe that I don't really like to see, seeing deeply into parts that almost hurt, I think, to touch this, you know. And that's maybe not something we can do alone. And we talk about this metaphor of that shadow of the inside myself can only be seen when illuminated by the light of Amida Putta. So I think that that's maybe kind of this bridging of the gap. It's not something that I can do, though, That's why when I said about the practice of Nembutsu, right? By saying Namo Amida Butsu. But for Shinran, it's not my saying Namo Amida Butsu. It's actually hearing Namo Amida Butsu that's resounding throughout the universe. It's this deep hearing and hearing about the vow and hearing about the compassion of Amida Buddha. And that's not like an audible kind of hearing. It's some deeper spiritual kind of hearing. And... I'm okay as I am.

[37:25]

I don't have to change. That's the key thing. I don't have to become good in order to be embraced by Aminoputta. I'm okay as I am. Sonomama would be the Japanese term, right? Nothing has to change. And yet, once grasped, I think that something does change, right? That's what I kind of hinted at, the transformation, right? That once grasped by that compassion, whatever that means, That something does change. And I'm still a foolish being. And yet something's different. I've been shown another way. That I now want to become more like Buddha. And yet realize how far I fall from that. So I think that the life of Jodo Shinji is actually a life of reflection. Reflecting on myself. Trying to be like Buddha. Trying to be compassionate. Trying to help others. But in the thrilling, seeing that... seeing that part of myself, right? And then, but it's okay. I'm okay as I am, but I still want to change, you know, it's this kind of knife edge of, you know, constantly kind of falling to either side.

[38:30]

So I don't know if that answers your question, but that, yeah, so it's interesting, because the main book is called Kyôgyô Shinshô, it's Shinran's main writing, and that Kyô is practice. But D.T. Suzuki translated it, because apparently his mother was Jodo Shinshu. So he translated it, and the version that was published, instead of practice, is called living. So instead of saying the practice for me is to say Namuami Gabutsu, the practice is to live. To really live. Not to live that... the superficial dukkha suffering life of just grasping an attachment, right? But to truly live, to see myself as I am, to not try and trick myself, to not try and anesthetize myself so that I'm just kind of not feeling anything, right? It's hard. The Namo Amda Butsu and the Pure Land Path is sometimes, Namo Amda Butsu is called the easy practice, right?

[39:33]

Because it's easy because anyone can do it, but I think it's actually, the path is extremely difficult because you do see yourself maybe in a different way than you did before. You have some chatting with four people in your practice. We have both. Sure. I'll do one of the three invitations. Just one. normally we just go and it's Japanese right and just get monotone but so it would be Ah.

[40:47]

It's Tendai. It comes from Tendai. So we have a lot of the kind of things. Yeah, yeah. Can you say a little about how you came to this, but most of all, you're so passionate about it. And what woke up that passion? And what did you get your daily habits? How do you do it? I'm half Japanese. I grew up in Massachusetts, but I spent high school in Tokyo at an American school, so I took Japanese and hated it. And then during college, I had moved back to the States and came out to California to visit a friend, and they happened to be Jodo Shinshu. They're Japanese American. My friend's mom says, hey, you want to go to Tobin's grandfather's memorial service? And inside my head, I'm like, no. I don't want to be rude, so I'm like, sure. Right? So we go to this temple and, you know, they said, they said, go up and do incense offering.

[42:14]

I was like, no way. I just sat there, you know, really shy. But the Dharma talk just, wow. I was like, what is this guy talking about? This is amazing. I was 20. I was in college. And I don't remember what it was. I just remember it was general Buddhism. But it really resonated. And so, you know, my friend's mom gave me some books. It took a few years to kind of get into it. It's hard to get into Buddhism sometimes, huh? I think so, because there's so much to learn, right? And so sometimes books aren't enough, but books were good for a while. And I, you know, used bookstores and everything, and I was reading, reading, reading. I was playing in a band at the time. And it got to the point when, you know, we'd go in and sound check. And then I'd go out to my car and whatever the book I'd bought that day and sit in my car with the light on, you know, reading the book. Buddhism became more important to me and more exciting than music was, which is kind of amazing, you know, because I was so into music, but there was a shift, right? And then one of the books my friend's mom had given me years earlier now, I opened it up and it says, Institute of Buddhist Studies, Berkeley, California.

[43:21]

We are a graduate school for Buddhism. And I thought, that's what grad school is for. It's for studying what you're doing yesterday. No, I had friends who went to grad school. When I graduated college, I was like, good, I'm done. And no more school for me, right? But then I realized, oh, there's a grad school for Buddhism? Great, I want to go there. And I kept reading. We are also a seminary for training ministers for the Buddhist churches of America. That's what I want to do. I want to become a minister. And it was almost, I was telling this story the other day, it was almost like, tangible, like something inside me I felt, like turn around. And they call it eshin, like the turning. And it was just like, just reading those two sentences, I was like, this is what I want to do. And then I did what I had to do, and I ended up moving out to Berkeley in 96. I went to Institute of Buddhist Studies, and was in school for way too long, and went to Ryuko. And my parents both died during that time. And when my mom died, I felt like Shinshu really... fulfilled something, a need of me.

[44:24]

When my dad died, I just felt empty. Shinshu wasn't doing anything. Buddhism wasn't doing anything. I was just, but I was in a bad spot. I was kind of depressed at that time, I think. So I went back home to sell the house and grew my hair back out and played my band again. I had to kind of reclaim a part of myself that I'd lost, music. I was mentioning to someone, you know, that I kind of quit playing music when I went out to study Buddhism. And so some part of me was dead and I had to kind of bring it back to life. And then I was like, well, I already borrowed all this money from Buddhist Church of America and I started seeing this Japanese girl who lives in Japan. So I guess I'll go back to Japan and go to school there. And so I got back on the wagon or whatever, you know, back on the path. and went back to school, and it was the most terrifying thing I'd ever done in my life, to go to Japan to study, because I had a lot of issues. So my whole path has been about becoming me, you know, rock, like improvisational rock music.

[45:27]

And so... Since that time, I've begun reintegrating music and Buddhism for myself. Something like the YouTube video. Or I've started writing music that has something to do with Buddhism. You know, I'm not even sure what that really means. Buddhist music for myself. But it really has... And sometimes I feel totally not passionate about it at all. I just sit at my desk and I'm surfing on the internet. And, you know, I have to write an article. Oh, I do have to write an article. It was due yesterday for my newsletter. Oh. I think I can put another step today. So definitely like foolish being in existence. For the most part, just my everyday kind of life. I'm not like constantly thinking about Buddha or anything. And I think when it really does come alive is when someone dies. And that I have to minister to these people is one of the times. I mean, it's terrifying.

[46:28]

I hate it. I hate doing funerals. I hate when someone dies and I have to go do the Makaragyo, you know, go to their house and chant a sutra and meet with them. But at the same time, I feel like I'm helping them. I feel like I'm giving them focus and, you know, helping them get through this really, really difficult time. I actually hate doing weddings more. But weddings people have these high expectations, right? It's hard to live up to that. But I feel like, you know, when someone's grieving, that that's a time when I can help them. And then, you know, I like teaching. I like talking like this. And I like learning. I still like reading. You know, I'm not doing it all the time, but I made the mistake of stepping in the bookstore. You know, and so recently, you know, teaching, I think, is the best thing, right? Because when you teach, you got to know what you're teaching. And so stuff that I studied when I was at grad school and kind of... came over, you know, or didn't dive deeply into. Now I'm kind of like, oh boy, I gotta talk about Vasubandhu at this thing.

[47:29]

So I have to go read that Joe wrote on his treatise on the Pure Land and dig into it. But it's fun too. It's exciting, you know, that opportunity to deepen my understanding of the Dharma and then pass it on to others. Do you hear you say Amida Buddha's name, Japanese? Wow. Namo. Japanese, the way we pronounce it, Namo Amida Butsu. Amida Butsu. So Amitabha or Amitayus are the Sanskrit names, and they got shortened to Amida, which is nice. It's easier. It contains both. Infinite light and infinite life. Butsu is just Buddha, the Japanese pronunciation of Buddha. Namo or Namo, take refuge in. So let me close with this. It's kind of interesting because when Namo Amida Butsu would be normally translated as I take refuge in Amida Butta.

[48:33]

I take refuge in the Tathagata of unhindered light shining throughout the ten directions. But actually there's no I there. Namo is just take refuge in. So Japanese, you can do that. You don't always have to say, you can just say, go somewhere. You don't have to say, do you want to go somewhere with me? But in English, we always say, I, I, I, me, me, you, you, you, right? So literally, it's take refuge in Amida Buddha. It's not I take refuge in Amida Buddha. So Shinran's interesting because he turns it around and says, it's the command of Amida Buddha. It's not I take refuge in Amida Buddha. It's all the Buddhas in the 10 directions saying, take refuge in Amida Buddha. What are you waiting for? Take refuge. And so hearing that command is more important than reciting something.

[49:36]

You say what the meaning is of the core of the parodies by the day. Um, that's a good point. The normal name in Japanese is Juzhu, right? Counting beads. Thanks for scholars, special ones, and maybe counting mantras, right? Counting recitations. But in Jodo Shinshu, the number of times you say it is not important. One Nenbutsu, one Namwamidabutsu, one Namwamidabutsu said, uh, in Shinjin, it's sufficient. So we call it Nenju, which becomes mindfulness beads. And so I've been on this one because it's the kind of guest speaking. I only use this one when I speak in other temples, but normally we have a much shorter one because the number of beads doesn't matter. It's just the mindfulness, just to remind you, right? To help you be mindful, I mean, to put the mindful of yourself. How do you actually practice mindfulness? When you say it, what does that do?

[50:46]

I mean, body at night, what's going on? I mean, we do, there's really no set form, yeah. Sometimes when we're chanting, so at the end of the sutra, then we do like six recitations, and then we do the echo, the lyric transference thing. I'm sitting here counting, I'm not focusing, I'm not like visualizing Amida or anything. I'm thinking, okay, looking at the page. Okay, last one, ring the bell. I'm usually not thinking about anything in particular. I'm just trying to do it right. There are more ritualized ones, more like the chant that I did before. There's some really nice melody ones. But again, that's ritual, which isn't good or bad. But it's not like a practice. But ideally, Nembutsu is another name for this. It's literally mindfulness of the Buddha, but it means saying, it means reciting the name. Ideally, it's spontaneous.

[51:46]

There is no thought behind it. It's not me saying, I should be saying it now, or this is a good time to say it. It's ultimately spontaneous. So when you go to the head temple in Kyoto, Sometimes it's all these people, and they've come from all over Japan, and you're all crammed in there, and just out of nowhere, you're all waiting for it to start, and some, like, bachan, this, you know, 80-year-old lady or something will be going, namanga, namanga, namanga. That's kind of an abbreviated form, right? Or really loud. Or this, you know, guy in the front, namanga, namanga, right? And it's funny, because I've seen, you know, Japanese people who are here, they're visiting, they're like, wow, what's that? It surprises them, because in modern Japan, people don't say it anymore. But I think up until recent times, people just said it. Before eating, walking around, something happens, whatever. Just an opportunity to recite the name.

[52:51]

So ideally, it's just a spontaneous recitation. That's changing here in America because it's become a kind of call-and-response because people aren't comfortable saying it. So I say, So it's interesting. That's all I'll say.

[53:24]

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