Blind Passions

At the heart of Shin Buddhism is contemplative practice, as is the case with most schools of Buddhism. But rather than seated meditation, in Shin Buddhism, we do chanting. There are many chants in Shin Buddhism, but the main chant that we do invokes Amida Buddha. In Japanese, it goes: Namu Amida Butsu. This is derived from the original Sanskrit scriptures of Pure Land Buddhism from India: namo amitabha buddha, where namo means “I bow” or “I entrust,” and “Amitabha Buddha” means the Buddha of Infinite Light.

To break this down a little bit more: Namo, the one who bows, bows because they realize that they have attachments, delusions—what in Shin Buddhism we generally call “blind passions.” They realize this because they’re illuminated by the deepest truth, the dharma. Since Pure Land Buddhism is part of the larger stream of Mahayana Buddhism, this truth is emptiness, oneness beyond words—the dharmakaya, the buddha body, which, in Shin Buddhism, is expressed as Amida Buddha, the Buddha of Infinite Light.

But just as emptiness is not something external, Amida Buddha is not an external being but our deepest, truest self—our deepest, truest reality. Because emptiness—the deep flow of the oneness, of reality, of the dharmakaya, or Amida Buddha beyond words—is not static but dynamic, the more accurate translation for Amida Buddha would probably be “the dynamic awakening of infinite light.”

So when we chant Namu Amida Butsu, namu is this foolish, delusional being, filled with blind passions, but when illuminated—by the deeper greater reality of emptiness, oneness, and the awakening of infinite light—is
realized, enveloped, and embraced into the deep flow of the oneness of reality. This naturally leads one to release the grip of the ego attachments, to bring one’s palms together, and to bow in humility, through which the foolish being filled with blind passions realizes that they are—have always been, and will always be—completely one with emptiness, oneness, the dharmakaya, the awakening of infinite light.

I’d like to explain this to you using a story from many, many years ago when I was still a graduate student. My wife and I were living in the Bay Area, in northern California. There are many temples, including many Shin Buddhist temples, in the area, and I started to get invited to give talks at local temples. One year, I was invited to give a talk at a Buddhist temple in San Luis Obispo, which is several hours down the coast. Being a poor graduate student, I had a very bad used car, which had broken down many times, so I decided to rent a car at the San Jose airport. I had an upgrade coupon, so I got a nice new red Thunderbird. My old car didn’t even have working air-conditioning, so this new red Thunderbird was a serious upgrade.

My wife was coming with me, and my cousin Scott, who also lived in the Bay Area, said he would join us too. So the three of us got in this nice new red Thunderbird and hit the road in the early evening. As I was driving down the freeway, it started to get a little dark, and as soon as I noticed that, my immediate reaction was to turn on my headlights. I think I was trying to be particularly attentive on this trip because this was my first full-weekend seminar that I was giving at a Buddhist temple. I straightened up my posture, paying special attention to my driving. But as I kept going, I noticed that the cars coming from the opposite direction didn’t have their headlights on. I put on my thinking cap. Ah, I know what it is. It’s rush hour. Everybody’s distracted. Some people are thinking, “What’s on TV? Are the kids behaving? What’s for dinner?” But not me. I’m not distracted.

I continued to drive for another ten to fifteen minutes, and then there was a tapping on my shoulder. It was my cousin Scott. He said “Mark, Mark, you can take off your sunglasses now.”

I thought everybody else was deluded. But who was the real deluded being?

I like to tell this story because it fits so well with this Shin Buddhist teaching of blind passions and boundless compassion. Buddhism is fundamentally about practice and awareness, not about doctrines and beliefs. And I think this story illustrates this very well. I had all the right ideas: I should be prepared, I should be calm, I should be focused, I should be paying attention. But, really, I was just full of myself, thinking I’m this upcoming scholar of Buddhism about to give a weekend seminar. I was so blinded by my ego, my self-image of who I thought I was or should be that I literally could not see the sunglasses directly in front of my eyes, and instead I thought everybody else was deluded. But who was the real deluded being? Who was the foolish being filled with blind passions? It was Mark Unno.

And what brought me to that realization was my cousin Scott extending his hand of great compassion. This part also works very well for illustrating this teaching of Shin Buddhism: blind passions and the realization of boundless compassion, the foolish being and the awakening of infinite light. My cousin Scott is very gentle, and the way that boundless compassion, the realization of emptiness and oneness, works is also very gentle. Why? Because emptiness has no judgment. There is no right or wrong. Instead, emptiness, oneness, the awakening of infinite light is like a mirror. When you look into the mirror, then you see any faults, any distortions that you yourself might have. The mirror makes no judgment. The mirror merely reflects back the true nature of yourself. In this case, it reflects back the true nature of the karmic self, the self that has attachments, blind passions, and delusions.

And so this is the dance of the foolish being and the awakening of infinite light, of blind passions and boundless compassion, in the Shin Buddhist tradition, which we realize in the contemplative practice of chanting Namu Amida Butsu. I, this foolish being filled with blind passions, am illuminated, enveloped, and dissolved into the great flow of the oneness of reality, of the realization of emptiness, of the awakening of infinite light.

Adapted from Mark Unno’s Dharma Talk “Opening the Heart of Great Compassion: The Path of Shin Buddhism.” Visit tricycle.org/dharmatalks for more.