Rev. Peter Hata
Today I’d like to discuss a subject that was inspired by an e-mail we recently received at our Living Dharma website. It’s from someone named “Araceli.” In her e-mail, Araceli writes, “Good morning, I would love to attend next Sunday’s service; this would be my first time ever visiting a Buddhist temple. I’m interested in learning more about Buddhism. I know this may sound dumb but I would like to know if there is a dress code. I wouldn’t want to offend anyone. Thank you in advance, Araceli.”
I responded, “Dear Araceli, Thank you for your interest and for asking your question. It’s not dumb at all, but one that expresses your sensitivity. As you can see in the various photos of our services either at our website or Facebook page, there isn’t a dress code other than what would be considered appropriate for most public places such as stores, restaurants, and of course, churches and temples. We do have a few major services throughout the year where members tend to wear more formal clothing. But even then, our more youthful members tend to come in jeans, t-shirts and flip-flops regardless of the service…and that’s OK. In Buddhism, our most important consideration is not so much our outer appearance but our inner awareness.” Today, I’d like to speak a little about what this inner awareness is in Buddhism.
Actually, I’ll confess I just made up the words “inner awareness” when I responded to Araceli because I was looking for words that could form a sort of contrasting pair with the idea of “outer appearance.” The more common Buddhist term for inner awareness is probably “mindfulness” or perhaps “meditation,” but since Araceli said she hadn’t visited a Buddhist temple before, I didn’t want to use Buddhist terms. But both mindfulness and meditation refer to the universal Buddhist practice of inward contemplation, which as I think you all know, is exactly what the Buddha did under the Bodhi Tree in attaining enlightenment 2500 years ago.
Interestingly enough, the Buddha did actually on at least one occasion use the words “inner awareness.” In the Akantha Sutra of the Pali Canon [AN 10.71], the Buddha says, “If a monk wishes to be dear and pleasing to his fellows in the holy life, respected by and inspiring to them…then he should be one who brings the precepts to perfection, he should be one who is committed to inner awareness, he should be one who does not neglect meditation, and he should be one who is endowed with insight.” Essentially, the Buddha is describing here the lifestyle of a Buddhist monk and I think that other than the precepts that a monk follows—not to kill, steal, engage in sex, lie, or take intoxicants—the three qualities of inner awareness, meditation, and insight are relevant to all Buddhists and are all related: we acquire inner awareness through the practice of meditation, and what we receive is insight. But exactly what specific kind of insight does inner awareness, or mindfulness lead to in Buddhism?
In the Buddha’s life, we know that at the age of 35 he sat under the Bodhi Tree and, with deep inward contemplation, examined his own mind, and ultimately attained awakening. What is most significant is that when the Buddha examined his mind, he didn’t say, “Oh how smart I am,” or “Oh, look at all the knowledge I’ve acquired.” Remarkably, what he saw was disturbing. He saw that not only is all life impermanent, that everything around him was in a constant state of flux and that all things must eventually perish, he also saw that within his own mind there was this same impermanence. In other words, there was no permanent self; what he considered his “identity”—for instance that his worldly name was Prince Siddhartha Gautama—was not actually “real” but simply something believed by his ego, and that this so-called identity was itself constantly changing relative to his causes and conditions. He understood that it is this ego or sense of self—not impermanence itself—that causes human beings to become attached to things that inevitably change and which then makes life difficult. Because of this ego, we are out of sync with impermanence, with change. To use a very simple example, when so-called “good things” happen to us, say the weather is mild and comfortable, we are happy. But when so-called “bad things” happen to us, say the weather is very hot as it is today, we feel miserable and usually constantly complain about it. Our egos make it hard for us to accept things not going our way.
In any case, this insight that the self is actually an illusion is the teaching of anatman or “no-self,” and is the essence of wisdom in Buddhism. We say it is “negative” because it involves seeing that we aren’t the constantly good, exemplary people we think we are, but actually only what we are currently experiencing from moment-to-moment. Not only are our physical bodies of course impermanent; our mind or ego-identity is also impermanent because it changes depending on the causes and conditions of our life. In his awakening, the Buddha clearly saw the fallacy of the ego—that it was like one giant “house of cards,” and that in seeing the fallacy for what it was, the entire house suddenly collapsed. In our Shin Buddhist tradition, we refer to this collapsing of our ego-beliefs as a kind of “spiritual death”—all those facts and statistics we cherished and thought were ours are shown to be only an illusion. So one way of looking at the Buddha’s enlightenment is that he awoke to and became one with the truth of impermanence.
But while the aspect of wisdom is negative, the other inseparable and positive aspect of Buddhism is compassion. As we know, after his awakening, the Buddha compassionately walked throughout India for 45 years sharing the Dharma with countless people. Starting from his original Sangha of five disciples, as people met the Buddha and were awakened by encountering through him the Dharma or teachings, countless people attested to the veracity of the truth of impermanence and at a later point in the Buddha’s life it’s reported that the Sangha grew to tens of thousands of followers. The Buddha himself pointed out these twin aspects of wisdom and compassion. In one sutra of the early Pali Canon [Brahmajala Sutta, DN 1], the Buddha, upon attaining awakening, is said to have exclaimed, “Khina jati Vusitam brahmacariyam.” This phrase has been translated by Dr. Nobuo Haneda as, “My life has perished; the universal work has been established.” The statement, “My life has perished” refers to the negative aspect, to the experience of spiritual death, to the collapse of the ego’s “house of cards”; the statement, “the universal work is established” of course signals the positive or compassionate aspect of embarking on the path of the bodhisattva, the person who compassionately strives to share the Dharma with all beings.
But let me get back to Araceli’s question and to my emphasis on inner awareness instead of outer appearance. I’d like to clarify that in Buddhism, it’s not actually a matter of one being more important than the other; in other words, it’s not that because of our inner awareness or mindfulness that therefore our outer appearance doesn’t matter at all. Rather, I think the Buddha’s teaching is that with inner awareness—with the realization that what we had considered our “self” or “identity” is nothing more than a precarious “house of cards” and that we can let go of it—the benefit we then receive is the same as that received by the Buddha. In other words, we gain a compassionate appreciation of all life and naturally want to share the dharma with all people. Regardless of their outer appearance, everyone is equally precious.
Let me bring in one other important point here, which is to tie together this idea of inner awareness or Buddhist insight with our particular Jōdo Shinshū tradition. Jōdo Shinshū means “the True Teaching of the Pure Land,” and I think you all know that we understand the “pure land” not as a physical place but as a kind of image that dates back to the origins of Pure Land Buddhism in India and China, and which served as a kind of expedient metaphor for enlightenment itself. In our Pure Land tradition we consider a certain sutra of the Buddha to be the most important, and it’s known as the Larger Sutra. In this sutra, the Buddha tells his disciples the story of a seeker named Dharmakara. I think Dharmakara’s story also relates to my talk today about inner awareness because I think it could be said that Dharmakara’s inner awareness was so deep that like the Buddha, he attained buddhahood and in fact became the Buddha known as Amida Buddha, which is the central object of reverence in our altar. Of course, actually, it’s the other way around: the Buddha acknowledges in the Larger Sutra that Dharmakara’s achieving buddhahood is the prototypical example of how he himself attained buddhahood and therefore of how we today can also attain buddhahood.
On his way to attaining buddhahood, Dharmakara made various Vows, which we could think of as being like extremely committed and unbreakable promises. Some of these Vows address this aspect of appearance and specifically, how a buddha, or an awakened person, sees differences in appearance. And of course, the references to “appearance” here are not simply referring to a “dress code” but in the deepest sense, all aspects of our appearance such as our ethnicity, our gender, our age, and so forth. For example, Vow #3 says, “If, when I attain Buddhahood, humans and devas in my land should not all be the color of pure gold, may I not attain perfect Enlightenment.” Here again, the word “land” refers to the Pure Land, to the state of being enlightened. In essence, this vow is stating that for a buddha, regardless of outward appearance, all people possess the same inner “spritual treasure,” the same inherent buddha nature. A similar vow is Vow #4, which states, “If, when I attain Buddhahood, humans and devas in my land should not all be of one appearance, and should there be any difference in beauty, may I not attain perfect Enlightenment.” This vow is expressing the same enlightened view that all life is precious and beautiful, regardless of appearance.
I think these particular Vows of the Larger Sutra have many implications in our modern society. For example, they address the issue of bullying which we know has begun to be a significant problem in our schools. We know that children who are bullies tend to target other children who might look a little different from their peers. But the 3rd and 4th Vows state that all people are equally beautiful whatever their appearance may be. This doesn’t mean that we all should dress alike or look alike, but that everyone should be appreciated just as he or she is. To have this kind of view is, from the standpoint of Buddhism, to in fact be awakened, to see things as they really are, not through our usually self-centered and judgmental viewpoint. Whatever one’s gender, ethnicity, economic status, or outward appearance, the 3rd and 4th, and really all the Vows in the Larger Sutra point out that there is no discrimination against anyone on the path to the Pure Land.
However, in closing, and this is perhaps the most important point of all, in order for us to be able to see everyone as being perfect as they are, we ourselves must have a deep inner awareness. We must be mindful, or as we say in our Jōdo Shinshū tradition, we must have the spirit of “Namu Amida Butsu.” With deep inner awareness, with realizing the fallacy of the ego-self, we truly can appreciate all life as one.
Thank you for listening.
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