michael lambe

Around this time of year a lot of 3rd year students on the “escalator” system that takes them directly from our high school up to the associated university are busy writing up as part of their application a document explaining their hopes and aspirations for their further studies. Seeing one such student scribbling away at her first draft I engaged her in conversation. She’s taking “Modern Society” next year so I asked her if she was particularly interested in that. Not really, says she, in fact she’s taking it because it seems like the easiest course. So what do you want to be in the future, I ask, and she confesses she has little idea, except she knows for sure she doesn’t want to be a teacher. Why not, I ask.

“It looks really hard. I could never be a teacher.”

“Yeah, I thought so once too, ” said I.

It depresses me that so many students go on to university to spend four years of their lives taking a subject they have no interest in. Surely they’d be far better off studying something practical pertaining to their further career, at a technical college or vocational school. Why this need to waste four years of your life falling asleep in irrelevant lectures just so you can say you went to university? It’s a meaningless waste of an important time in your life… Why isn’t the educational system doing more to help young people truly discover what they are interested in and good at, and encouraging them to pursue that course, instead of forcing them down a predetermined path of tedium and mediocrity?

(Sigh)

Anyway, later that day passing by the north entrance to the school I chanced to look at the chalkboard they have there. Ours is a Buddhist school, so they put up Buddhist messages there every month. Here’s what it reads this month:

道を求める
ことが
なければ
迷うことも
あるまい。

michi wo motomeru
koto ga
nakereba
mayou koto mo
aru mai

Which interpreted word for word seems to mean “If a path is not pursued, there’s no getting lost either”. Obviously this is not meant to be interpreted too simply, but still, what kind of message is this for young kids who are, right now, trying to find their path in life and need our help to find it? It’s better not to try because you can’t get into trouble that way? Surely not. It troubled me. So I asked Inoue-sensei what it might mean.

I was opening a can of worms…

Japanese people are very eager to help you if you ask them something. And the more difficult the answer, the more eager they become to help you, and in fact the more of them will gather to discuss the problem. Inoue-sensei is a a very nice chap but an English teacher, so he immediately called on Koike-sensei (a teacher of religion) to assist in explaining this troublesome message. Surely, I said, it can’t be saying that it’s better not to choose a path? Inoue-sensei (the English teacher) thought it meant that we shouldn’t rely too much on ourselves to choose a path but upon the Buddha. Even though we think we are living a good life, it is only the Buddha who can save us, and so by relying too much on our own judgement we are in fact lost and we aren’t living a good life at all. I wondered if the implicit message was that if we stick too rigidly to one way of seeing or doing or living, then we will inevitably get lost. That we should go with the natural flow of things a bit more. No, said Inoue-sensei, that’s not it. And he directed my attention to the following:

善人なおもて
往生をとぐ
いわんや悪人をや

zennin naomote
oujou wo togu
iwanya akunin wo ya

Even a good person
can attain birth in the Pure Land,
how much more easily an evil one!

Well, now I was really lost. What did that mean? This is where Koike-sensei, (teacher of religion) stepped in and taught me a few Buddhist history factoids. That last quote is from the 歎異抄 (Tannisho or Lamentations of Divergences) a short collection of dialogues between the Buddhist master Shinran and his disciple Yuien. Yuien wrote them down because he was upset about the ways in which Shinran’s teachings were being warped by his followers his death. Shinran founded the 浄土真宗 (Jodo Shinshu – True Pure Land School) sect of Buddhism (the sect to which my school belongs). Previously to Jodo Shinshu there was a school called simply 浄土宗 (Jodo Shu – Pure Land School) which places great emphasis on repetition of the celestial Buddha’s name as a practical means to attain salvation. Shinran taught rather that the chanting of the Buddha’s name should be an act of gratitude more than a means to an end, and placed more emphasis on being humble and thankful for one’s life. One of his central teachings was that we are so deluded by our desires that we cannot hope to save ourselves. Only the compassionate Buddha can save us. So in a sense it easier for those who accept that they are evil to attain salvation than it is for those who mistakenly believe that they are good.

Still with me? Well, having explained all that Koike-sensei pulled out another Buddhist quote for me to ponder, a kind of companion piece to the first. If you remember this was written at the north gate of our school:

道を求める
ことが
なければ
迷うことも
あるまい。

If a path isn’t pursued,
there’s no getting lost either

Hadn’t I seen the message at the south gate? (There’s a message at the south gate?)

迷っている
ことに
気づいて
いないのが
最も深い
迷いである

mayotteiru
koto ni
kizuite
inai no ga
mottomo fukai
mayoi dearu

To be lost
and not notice it
is the very deepest
delusion

You see, said Koike-sensei, we are all lost in life. But those who do not realise they are lost are the most lost and the most deluded. In realising you have lost your way, you have a chance to find salvation by asking help of one who knows the way (in this case the friendly passing stranger would be Buddha). So maybe you do need to choose a path to realise this. In any case the teaching of Jodo Shinshu is that only the Buddha can help us and we should put all our faith in him.

However, on a side note, another writer added an addendum to the Tannisho that stated:

この「歎異抄」は、わが浄土真宗にとって大切な聖教である。仏の教えを聞く機縁が熟していないものには、安易にこの書を見せてはならない。

This Tannisho has very important teachings for Jodo Shinshu. But it should not be shown lightly to those who have not reached a mature understanding of Buddha’s teachings.

In other words, a little learning is a dangerous thing… People can so easily misinterpret religious texts, can’t they? Which begs the question, I suppose, why do they teach it to teenage girls? Or to me even? I imagine the majority of the teenage girls are not so interested anyway. I hear that as their teacher scribbles enthusiastically upon the chalk board, they are studying not so much what he writes but instead the way the hair grows thickly on the upper part but not at all on the lower part of his arm. Girls, eh? I am interested though and Koike-sensei seemed pleased to have a new student. A few days later he gave me this passage from the Tannisho translated into English:

Even a good person is born in the Pure Land, how much more so is an evil person! However, people in the world usually say, “Even an evil person is born in the Pure Land, how much more so is a good person”. At first sight this seems to be reasonable, but it is contrary to the purport of the Original Vow, of the Other-Power. The reason is that, as those who practice good by their self-power lack the mind to rely wholly on the Other-Power, they are not in accordance with the Original Vow of Amida.

Amida Buddha, the celestial Buddha, vowed you see, to devote his existence to the salvation of all sentient beings. Now, that was nice of him, wasn’t it? I’m not so interested in Buddhism as a religion to be honest, more as a way of thinking, as a common sense type approach to life. Neither do I believe in celestial powers, comforting though I’m sure their existence would be. But I think Jodo Shinshu’s emphasis on humility, and on gratitude for one’s life and also on compassion is important. Anyway, I enjoy thinking about and puzzling over these things. Expect more.