Three Minds: Do we need to cultivate a particular state of mind when saying the nembutsu?

Have you pinned me, Satya Robyn? Great, thank you. Welcome everybody. So I'm going to talk for a little bit about, uh, exploring this question and the, and the three minds, and then we'll have some time for discussion and questions and answers. So the question I'm exploring is something like— well, it's not something like, it is: do we need to cultivate particular states of mind when we're saying the Nembutsu, or can we just say the words? And, um, the three minds— Honin mentions the three minds, and that's what caught my attention. Honin, the, uh, the Japanese Pure Land priest from about 800 years ago who revolutionized Buddhism and, and brought to Japan the idea of the exclusive Nembutsu, that this is the only practice one needs. And, uh, as you might remember, Pure Land Buddhism came under quite a lot of persecution in Honin's lifetime, leading to his exile, the exile of some followers, and the beheading of some followers as well. So one of the ways Honen responded to this was to produce a small summary of his teaching, which was called the one-page document, one-page document or one-sheet document, just a few paragraphs long, setting out the essentials of what he taught, at times given secretly to his most trusted followers when they were the most, uh, persecuted, I suppose. And it served two purposes. One, like, it was a summary of the most important teachings. And two, it showed who he trusted, because not everybody got a copy of this. Um, Shinran got a copy of this, for example. And in this few paragraphs, one of the things he mentions is the three minds. It doesn't explain what they are, but he does mention them. And to me, that suggests two things: that they're important because he's only got a very small space to describe this most essential of teachings, and he chooses to mention them. And two, a lot of people would have known what he was talking about because he doesn't say what the three minds are. He just says the three minds. So it caught my attention. Well, what are these three minds? And we're going to circle back to what Heron said about them, uh, in a little while. First of all, I want to say what they are and where they come from. So they come from the Contemplation Sutra, which is one of the Pure Land sutras that describes what the Pure Land looks like, and also describes various practices you can do to be reborn in the Pure Land. So we're familiar with the Longa Pure Land Sutra, which includes Amida's 18th vow, where if anyone who calls on Amida's name with faith can be reborn in the Pure Land. This is a similar sutra, it's got similar imagery in, and it describes various practices that one can use to get into the Pure Land. And at one point it talks about what you need to do if you want to be born in the best place in the Pure Land. It says, those who attain birth on the highest level of the highest grade are sentient beings who resolve to be born in that land and awaken the three kinds of faith. And are so born there. What are the three kinds of faith? They are sincere faith, deep faith, and the faith that seeks birth there by transferring one's merit. Those who have these three kinds of faith will certainly be born there. So those are the three minds, sometimes called the three faiths: the sincere mind, the deep mind, and the mind that transfers merit. Let me tell you how Shan Dao described them. So Shan Dao was a Chinese Buddhist master. He was the one who wrote— he wrote lots of commentaries on the Pure Land Sutras, including the commentary that Honin read that gave him his awakening of faith experience and charged him up full of passion for, uh, Nembutsu practice. But in his commentary on this sutra, he says, sincere mind is worshiping the Buddha as the bodily act, praising and glorifying him as the verbal act, and concentrating on and contemplating him as the mental act. In performing these three kinds of act, you are required to be sincere. Hence, this is called sincere mind. So it's doing those practices with sincerity. Second, deep mind. This is the mind of true faith which accepts you, an ordinary person full of evil passions, possessed of few roots of good, subject to transmigration in the three worlds and unable to escape from this burning house. Nevertheless, now you recognize the fact Amitābha's universal primal vow It definitely ensures birth in the Pure Land of those who recite the name even 10 times or once. Since you do not entertain even a single thought of doubt, such a state of mind is called deep mind. It's pretty wordy, Shandao, in this translation. Third, making aspiration for birth through merit transference. You aspire for birth through transferring any— all the roots of good towards it. Hence, such a state of mind is called making an aspiration for birth through merit transference. So any good that you do, you dedicate it towards being born in the pure land. And Shandha said, basically, if you're saying nembutsu, you have to get these things straight. You should be sincere, when you're saying the Nembutsu, when you're making offerings, when you're doing prostrations. You should clearly see your own nature and have no doubt in the power of Nembutsu, and you should want to be born in the Pure Land and put any little good that you achieve towards that goal. So for him, it was definitely something that you needed to cultivate. Let's circle back to Honen. In the one-page document that I described, Honen says, reciting the Nembutsu and believing in birth in the Pure Land naturally gives rise to the three minds. So for Honen, it's a different story. You don't have to get those things straight first. When you say the Nembutsu, you tend to become more sincere, you tend to notice your own flaws more deeply, and the longing to be born in the Pure Land tends to strengthen and develop over time. He also makes this differentiation between self-power and other power Nembutsu. If you're saying the Nembutsu with sincerity, with an understanding of your own flaws, and with a longing to be born in the Pure Land, that's another power. Nembutsu. Anything else is self-power. Let's try and— let me try and bring it to life a little bit. So the other day I was listening to a talk by another Pure Land priest, and, um, in it he described his own practice of saying Nembutsu, um, in a voice loud enough to hear which is the advice that Honin gave. And I thought, oh, I'm a Pure Land priest, I should be doing lots of Nembutsu in a voice that's loud enough to hear. But I hadn't been. I'd been in quite a strong phase of doing Kwan Yin practice, um, Kwan Yin, the Bodhisattva of Compassion, often appears next to Amida in Pure Land shrines. Um, and Kwan Im's vow to relieve all living beings of suffering, very similar to Amida's vow to welcome all beings into his Pure Land. And for me, actually, Kwan Im practice, practicing with Amitabha or Amida, in my experience, those are like two different windows looking into the same garden. And maybe you see a little different view when you look through a different window, but it's taking you to the same place. And I was really feeling strongly connected to Kuan Yin. It was after I'd bought this new, um, Kuan Yin rupa at the antiques fair down the road. Just naturally, my heart filled with this kind of faith. This was my higher power, my other power. I was doing Kuan Yin mantra recitation I was thanking Kuan Yin when good things appeared in my life, or when pleasant states of mind appeared. It was really— I really felt like I was in the midst of the Pure Land appearing a lot of times when I was doing this Kuan Yin practice. And yet I heard Enrique, the Pure Land priest, mentioned doing Nembutsu, and suddenly I'm like, oh, I should be doing Nembutsu. So I switched And I let go of the koan mantra and I started saying Nam-myoho-renge-kyo in my morning practice, and the feeling quality was totally different. It was perfunctory. I was more easily distracted. Um, I was fidgeting. I didn't feel any intimacy with the Buddha or with myself. I didn't feel present. I was just saying the words. And that wasn't me doing— having a sincere mind, right? I had just done it because some kind of egoic thought was like, oh, you're supposed— your practice is supposed to look like this. So I was doing it from that place. That's not sincerity. That's— I don't know what it is, something different. Um, So no wonder it felt flat. And actually, in noticing that, I dropped the Nembutsu, came back to Koinen practice, and what I found was a little while later I started saying the Nembutsu again, uh, quite naturally, and the sincerity in the practice came back and I felt this affinity for Amida again without forcing anything. And for me, as I say, when I was practicing with Kwan Im, it felt like I was experiencing the Pure Land in this moment, in this world. Occasionally it definitely didn't feel like that when I was practicing the Nembutsu from a place of this is what I'm supposed to be doing if I'm a Pure Land priest. 'Other people will respect me more if they see me doing the practice I'm supposed to be doing,' uh, whatever that cluster of thoughts was. Letting that go and letting the Nembutsu come back naturally felt like I was getting closer to the Pure Land again. And maybe that's similar to Honin talking about, like, uh, the difference between other power and self-power. Nembutsu. Shinran took it one step further and said, actually, those, those minds, those states of faith, that is the Buddha appearing in you. That is the gift of the Buddha, um, and it's already been given to you, right? You just have to notice that it's there. The sincerity, the depth of seeing your own flaws. There was some of seeing my own flaws in that little story, but Let me tell you another incident which I think illustrates, uh, something similar. I'll try and do it in a, in a shortish way. I was talking to somebody about all sorts of things, including, uh, the state of the world and how they were managing and how I was managing and Things that were unfixable in their life, in other people's lives, in the world around us, or that felt unfixable, that we experienced in that way. And I noticed, or I didn't notice at first, but I went into sort of a telling mode. Oh, you should just be more accepting of the things that you can't accept. That's really important. And it is important, right? But I wasn't doing it. I wasn't, um, the other person was frustrated with the world and I was frustrated with them. And I was just saying, well, just be more accepting. I wasn't being very accepting myself. And I noticed when I noticed this in the conversation, I was able to shift it and come into a place of like, oh, what is actually going on for this person in front of me? Rather than me trying to change them, just listen to who they are right now. And in doing that, their frustration softened, and we were both able to come to a place of real tenderness around the things that we can't fix in the world. And, and I, I even even as I kind of approach, I could feel some of the tenderness and some of the sadness and some of the heartbreak of everything that can't be fixed. You know, in the UK today, we've had the far right marching in London, for example. I was still holding that feeling at arm's length. So I dropped out of the frustration. I'd come into more of a place of fellow feeling, but there was still something. I wasn't completely in touch with it. I just had a little taste of it, and I realized there was some fear of, of dropping into the feeling completely, because actually it was like, it's safer to be somebody who might have some control here. It's safer to be, you know, someone who can feel upright. It's safer not to have your heart broken. And in noticing that, and not really believing that, that any of those things are safer— they just maybe allow you to feel a little bit less sometimes— I, I dropped down more into the feeling of heartbreak at what is unfixable in the world. And then, of course, what rose naturally is this sense of what is unfixable in myself. The person I was with couldn't change who they were, and they couldn't change the people in their lives or the world. I noticed the things I couldn't change about myself. And there was a real tenderness in that. And I suppose the point of that story really is, is just to show how easily we are taken away from this feeling of heartbreak, this feeling of tenderness, um, and would prefer to be in a place of, I can change this, I can do something about it, you should do something about it, who's going to do something about this. And for me, there's something there's some echo of what Shandao and Honin are speaking about here, because it's like, in, in trying to avoid the truth of things that couldn't be fixed immediately, maybe there's some hope for the future. I was keeping myself away from something that was painful and something that was true, but coming into the real honesty about the situation— oh, this can't be fixed right now, I don't have the power to change this— also released a feeling of tenderness, of warmth to myself, to the person that I was with. And that also felt like the Pure Land appearing in this moment, a move away from, uh, if you like, a move away from self-power. To other power. So what, what I can say is the sincere mind, which is the, the mind that really feels intimate with the Buddha and, and, and wants to connect with the Buddha from a kind of really heartfelt place, like, that is a more pleasant experience than doing it from a place of, uh, 'ought' or 'should' or trying to control things. It feels more like the Pure Land appearing. And I think it's, it's a— the sincere mind is a wiser place. The deep mind is the, the mind that sees our own frailties really is a wiser place than the mind that ignores our own frailties. Do you need to get those straight in your mind for the Nembutsu to be effective? Or as Honin says, are they a fruit? Are they a gift? Are they something that arises naturally when you say the Nembutsu? And I think for me it's a little bit of both, right? Knowing about those things means that I can check like, oh, what's my experience of the practice right now? What am I hiding from myself? What haven't I noticed that's getting in the way of my connection with my higher power, with my other power? And that's a useful practice. But I also really trust, from my experience over many years of chanting, that even just saying the words moves me more in that direction. If If, as Honin says, if you say the words knowing that you're saying, knowing the meaning of the Nembutsu, knowing that you're saying the words in order to be born in the Pure Land, for me that takes me in that direction. And yes, there's a difference between self-power Nembutsu and other power Nembutsu. And yes, sometimes it feels like the Pure Land is appearing, and sometimes I feel distant from it. And that's a good thing to keep an eye on, but For me, any Nembutsu, uh, takes me a little bit closer that place. So that's where I land. Um, well, maybe that's not— I've got a lot of notes for the— for too many for the length of time for this event, but I'm going to pause there and let's, um Thank you all for listening. Let's stop the recording. So if you're listening online, I hope that's evoked something for you and, and stirred some thoughts that you can take in your own practice. If you're here live, uh, we're going to move into, uh, more of a phase of discussion. It still says it's recording.