20120702-1400-no8-gregory gibbs-se-pdx-jodo-shinshu-buddhism-rennyo-i'll take care f it
Channel: mitzi mundt
Date: 31/08/2012

20120702-1400-no8-gregory-gibbs-se-pdx-jodo-shinshu-buddhism-rennyo-i'll take care f it
we can be intellectual and scientific about everything we do.
 [model] merged with a very spiritual model of transformative influence.
this tension is 
essentially the diversity which exists between the views of
shinran and rennyo shonin
shinran being very intellectural deep and elevated, 
...carrying this message to everyone

besides being willing to refer to the pure land as blissful eternity. which you would never imagine shinran as doing, there is a story about rennyo shonin.

rennyo shonin had this housekeeper for about 20 years, that had helped him working around the-hongani, from time to time she would say, gomonshu, i'm sorry, but to tell you the truth, don't know if i am going to the pure land or not.  rennyo said, "I'll take care of it."  i.e., don't worry about it.  Shinran would never have said that.  Rennyo has known this woman for 20 years. [rennyo] knows her heart was open to the teaching. and she doesn't know it.  so he says.  i'll take care of it.  in other words, don't worry about it. these are very different personalities.
accessed in this life or at its end.     entering this realm is like being on a train whose inevitable destination is enlightenment. that's a phrase i got from laverne sazaki sensei who had gone to do meditation with, gasan roshi, a fukuoka zen roshi. laverne sensei asked gasan roshi, are you enlightened? gasan: i am on a train whose inevitable destination is enlightenment. i really like that phrase.  ... guarantees access to amida's realm to anyyone, who sincerely serenely and authentically turning thoughts toward amida and his project of universal liberation.
this turning thoughts toward, can be accomplished by  saying buddha's name in conjunction with a phrase meaning to revere and rely upon. for example, namu amida butsu
kimyo jinji po, muge kyo nyorai. this foundational promise, numbered 18 in the most traditional list of 48 vows, expresses a vast caring and unconditional acceptance. it is hard to understand such a primal vow, without a person or community of persons being the subject of the compassion intention. it can't be an accident. there is something like what we mean by intention going on here. there's got to be a little model of what a person is for what the buddha is, because there is kindness is being directed to us. there is a literary term where one thing symbolizes the other, where the whole is used for the part.

20120702-1400-no8-gregory-gibbs-se-pdx-jodo-shinshu-buddhism-rennyo-i'll take care f it. gregory gibbs.