In the last couple of podcasts, I’ve presented different ways of using the pratyaya that the mind is conditioned by its object; and I have presented this from a psychological perspective. So, I’d like to say a little bit now about this same set of principles applied to the spiritual life.
Turning your mind to a wholesome object and displacing unwholesome objects by wholesome ones is one way of thinking about the whole matter of the spiritual life. When you turn your mind to Amida, when you turn your mind to Buddha, Dharma and Sangha, when you turn your mind to the Pureland, you are turning to a wholesome object.
When you keep that wholesome object in mind, then you will have a wholesome mind, and the cultivation of the mind at a deeper level will go on and on and on, and gradually you’ll be saturated with wholesome mind; and this happens quite automatically, we might say, in a natural way like roots growing underground, giving strength to the plant.
And here we see, on the one hand, this is holding in mind a wholesome object: the Buddha as the most wholesome object imaginable.
Also, it’s a matter of driving out other objects, the things that might corrupt the mind.
In the Song of Ippen he talks about the nembutsu as the end of wrong thought. By using the nembutsu one either drives out corrupt thought or, one might think, in a certain way, that one puts a kind of, shall we say, a padding around it, a safety bag. If you’ve got something radio-active or extremely hot or difficult to handle in one way or the other, and you want to transport it somewhere, then you need some sort of shield around it, so that it doesn’t damage you.
Also, we talked, in talking about these principles, how investigating the rupa that you’ve got can lead you to the Dharma, can lead you to the truth of that object.
Because, on the simple level spirituality is about a good object replacing the bad object, but at a more fundamental level one sees into the nature of all objects, all rupas. All rupas are fundamentally Dharmas. So, investigating the rupas of everday life, the things that we encounter all the time.
As we investigate into them, we discover the Dharma within them. Or we discover not so much the Dharma within them as that we discover that they are the Dharma! Even on the surface they are the Dharma, its just our way of construing them [that is problematic]. Corruption is not in the thing itself, the corruption is in our own mind.
So, when we investigate the rupa with our mind already full of refuge, then we find the Dharma within the rupa. These are the first two factors of enlightenment. The first factor is mindfulness which is the establishment of refuge. When you have refuge established within you, then you can investigate; and when you investigate having refuge, then you discover: “Aah! There is the Dharma in everything!” Even in the person who seems dangerous or that you shy away from: there is the Dharma. Even in a situation that is difficult, problematic: still, there is the Dharma. One sees the Dharma everywhere. And as in the Pratyutpanna Samadhi Sutra: wherever one looks, one sees Buddhas.
So, these are two applications of the pratyaya, the object relation, in the spiritual life.
Namo Amida Bu is a sufficient wholesome object to completely transform your life.
Namo Amida Bu
Thank you very much
Dharmavidya
David
REFERENCES
- The podcast mentions the Pratyutpanna Samadhi Sutra which was most probably the first Pureland Sutra to get translated into Chinese as 般舟三昧經 Bānzhōu Sānmèi Jīng. The title means "The Sutra of Meeting the Buddhas of the Present Face to Face". In this sutra, Amitabha Buddha says: "If you wish to come and be born in my realm, you must always call me to mind again and again, you must always keep this thought in mind without letting up, and thus you will succeed in coming to be born in my realm." This sutra was an inspiration to Hui Yüan 慧遠; (334–416) of Mount Lu, who founded the first White Lotus Society of Pureland Buddhists in China.
- The podcast mentions the Seven Factors of Enlightenment. These are 1/ Mindfulness, 2/ Investigation of Dharma, 3/ Energy (or enthusiasm), 4/ Rapture (or joy), 5/ Pacification, 6/ Samadhi (Concentration), 7/ Equanimity.
- There is a 25 minute video of the seminar on Object Relation here
https://youtu.be/o_lbZCTzXAc
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IPPEN'S HYMN
Search into yourself,
But froth on the stream
That soon vanishes
See nothing remains
Ponder on your life,
A shimmer of moon
With each fleeting breath
How it falls away
Human and god realms
We cherish and seek
Though we love such forms
No one can keep them
The pain of the hells
All the lower realms
Though we all hate them
We seize them again.
From far in the past
To this present day
The things we long for
Remain out of reach.
Some may understand
The two Dharma gates
But old mind still turns
Subverting the Truth.
Those entanglements
Cast them all away
And with a true heart
Just call Amida
With breath after breath
Amida Buddha
Namo Amida
The end of false thought
That very moment
From perfect bliss realm
Amida will come
With kind Quan Shi Yin.
Their hands they reach out
In welcoming joy
When we just entrust
They do draw us forth.
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