Tricycle | Awake in the World

We are not called upon as Buddhists to deny the world, and certainly not to escape from it. We are called to live with it, and to make our peace with all that is. In Buddhist terms, that peace is called Tathagata. The Thus Come One is enlightened as he is, not as he would wish himself to be. There is no escaping this. The world of worries we wish to escape from in the beginning of Buddhist practice is found to be enlightenment itself in the end. We don't understand this, of course, and so we keep striving for a distant, idealized kind of Buddhahood, only to reach its threshold and be turned back the way we came. In this way, we receive the teaching of the Buddha with every mala we say. 

That is what the beads have taught me. Now, after many years of handling them, taking in their teachings through the palm of my hand, I am occasionally able to recognize a little of that teaching when I see it manifested in others. There is the Tibetan mother of a friend of mine, dispossessed of her homeland, happily walking through the town where I live, an enormous goiter swelling above the neckline of her traditional dress. She fingers her beads continuously, smiling all the while. She speaks little English, but as I witness her reach the end of her mala and happily twist it about in her hand to finger its beads back the other way, I see that she is at peace in the world, as though she had actually spoken the words aloud. Buddha. Dharma. Sangha. The teachings are all there. She carries them. And when she isn't carrying them, she wears them on her sleeve.

Saying the Nembutsu:
NEMBUTSU LITERALLY MEANS "to think of Buddha," and is based on the teaching that "when you are mindful of the Buddha, the Buddha is mindful of you." The principal practice of Pure Land Buddhism, nembutsu originally referred to a complex series of practices leading up to a vision of Amida Buddha in his Western Paradise. But many centuries ago it came to mean just what it does today: simple recitation of the words Namu Amida Butsu, "I take refuge in Amida, the Buddha of Infinite Light and Life."

Reciting the nembutsu sets the minds of those who practice it directly in the presence of Amida Buddha, with no intermediary whatsoever. Therefore, it can be taken up by anyone, anywhere, at any time—whether they have received instruction in that practice from a Pure Land teacher or not.

Honen, the founder of the Pure Land school, taught: "The way to say the nembutsu lies in having no way." In other words, any way of saying the nembutsu is fine. You may say it very fast or very slowly, use its traditional six-syllable form, Na-Mu-A-Mi-Da-Bu, or abbreviate it down to Na-Man-Da-Bu, as many Japanese people do; it makes no difference at all. In saying the nembutsu we rely on Amida's Vow to save all beings who simply call upon his name. To be too concerned with such matters as rhythm or pronunciation takes our minds off of the Buddha. And so it is best not to worry. Amida will hear us wherever we are, in whatever condition we find ourselves, and however we say his name.

In reciting the nembutsu, some traditions stress the use of malas, also called juzu ("counting beads"), to keep track of their recitations, while others do not. For those who wish to use a juzu, one simply recites the nembutsu once for every bead, turning about at the guru bead to going back in the other direction, repeating this cycle as often as possible. Pure Land practitioners who favor a simple, heartfelt recitation still use malas, only they refer to them as nenju ("thought beads"), to indicate that they are not to be used for counting. In such cases, they simply place their hands together in gassho, with the beads encircling both palms, and chant. Placing our hands together in gassho is the basic attitude of devotion in the Pure Land school. The left hand joins the right, palm to palm, and in this way, symbolically speaking, our deluded selves are joined with Amida. When we place our hands together in this way, we find that they match up perfectly. For each finger of the left hand, there is a finger of the right to embrace it. The match is perfect. Nothing is left out.

This is a beautiful description of the way worried beings are saved by Amida. For every moment of delusion, every act of greed, folly, or confusion, there is Amida right beside us, embracing us as we are. If it were necessary to change first in order to be worthy of birth in the Pure Land, few of us could attain it. Fortunately, all that is required is that we unite with the Tathagata. When we join the palms together in this way in an expression of simple faith and utter the words Namu-Amida-Butsu, and whether we count our beads or not, all is taken care of. Amida embraces us on the spot.

Contributing editor Clark Strand is the author of How to Believe in God, Forthcoming from Morgan Road Books.

Images ©Tri Luu