QUESTION: I wanted to know how I could deal with the bad karma and delusions which cause me great pain in this life, whether or not there are practices or ways of chanting to receive benefits within this life.
SHORT ANSWER: Nembutsu brings measureless benefit here and hereafter.
LONGER ANSWER: There are two ways in which we suffer from karma. One is that the conditions of one's life may be adverse. The other is that one is attached to old wounds, defeats, blows to pride, rejections and so forth, cruelties that are not actually operational in the present but which one finds it hard to relinquish. The practice of nembutsu chanting brings relief in respect of both kinds.
In the case of adverse circumstances, turning one's mind to Amida brings one into a larger scheme of things. Present difficulties are seen as transient and relatively less huge - just blips in the cosmic scheme. The more deeply one takes refuge the less important one's poverty or oppression of circumstance appears. The more clearly one sees the bombu nature of oneself and others the more one experiences a fellow feeling for all of humanity. As in all schools of Buddhism, benefits derive from giving merit away and caring for others - love, compassion, sympathetic joy and equanimity.
In the case of attachment to the past, the practice of nembutsu enables us to know that it is precisely to beings in the kind of state that we are in that grace comes. There is no particular need for us to shed our past. In fact, We have far more past humiliations than we think. Karma is fathomless and we have been battered in infinite ways. In the aeons of time the tears we have shed would fill oceans.
Thus nembutsu brings all kinds of benefit. It makes us part of a loving and compassionate community both here and beyond. When we turn to Amida we receive the Tathagata's infinite blessing. This is what Buddha has vowed, so we can rely upon it completely. In regard to the present we feel relief. In regard to the flow of time we feel confidence. In regard to the past, we make it our offering to the Buddhas - they know better than we what to do with it. In regard to the future we feel assured. All is completely assured. Namo Amida Bu
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Thank you for sharing, Juline. Yes, any good practice tends to gradually sink in and transform us making things that once seemed burdensome into assets. The nembutsu is particularly powerful since it accesses the merit (love, grace, compassion) of the Buddha, a bit like plugging into a powerful current.
Thank you Dharmavidya.
For me the Nembutsu opens up possibility and holds my little concerns and karma in wider and kinder context.
Years ago when I first met you I was experiencing an existential crisis (feeling I had nowhere to place my feet). You kindly offered to be a reference point. I now realised that was a symbol of Amida Buddha and a call to refuge. In years gone by I find myself more and more turning back, like one would come back to the breath during meditation, turning back when the world feels too much or overwhelming, always returning to the love and grace of Amida. The weightless feeling I experienced years ago was terrifying but recently I feel less afraid. Nowadays I mostly have a floating, lighter sensation despite ongoing awareness of groundlessness. I guess the nembutsu has something to do with it!
A deep bow and gratitude for your love and teachings. _/|\_
NAB,
Juline
Thank you, Modgala. Yes, it is easy to confuse one feeling with another and awe is surely the most sublime form of fear.
Thank you for the question and for the answer.
Personally I have found the nembutsu to be a great gift even when I first heard it and when I did not understand it. The nembutsu has both helped me come to terms with my past and come through some big challenges in my twenty years of practice with you Dharmavidya.
however the greatest gift of the nembutsu has been the enabling of this little self to go beyond numerous fears and do the things I was very scared about. I also came to the understanding that what I was feeling was not always fear but sometimes a sense of awe..
Namo Amida Bu