Chapter 1

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WISDOM OF THE EAST

BUDDHIST PSALMS

TRANSLATED FROM THE JAPANESE

OF

SHINRAN SHŌNIN

BY S. YAMABE AND L. ADAMS BECK

CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION

LAUDING THE INFINITE ONE

OF PARADISE

CONCERNING THE GREAT SUTRA

CONCERNING THE SUTRA OF THE MEDITATION

CONCERNING THE LESSER SUTRA

OF THE MANY SUTRAS CONCERNING THE INFINITE ONE

CONCERNING THE WELFARE OF THE PRESENT WORLD

OF THANKSGIVING FOR NAGARJUNA, THE GREAT TEACHER OF INDIA

OF THANKSGIVING FOR VASUBANDH, THE GREAT TEACHER OF INDIA

OF THANKSGIVING FOR DONRAN, THE GREAT TEACHER OF CHINA

CONCERNING UNRIGHTEOUS DEEDS

CONCERNING DOSHAKU-ZENJI

CONCERNING ZENDO-DAISHI

CONCERNING GENSHIN-SOZU

CONCERNING HŌNEN SHŌNIN

OF THE THREE PERIODS

CONCERNING BELIEF AND DOUBT

IN PRAISE OF PRINCE SHOTOKU

WHEREIN WITH LAMENTATION I MAKE MY CONFESSION

ADDITIONAL PSALMS

INTRODUCTION

BY L. ADAMS BECK

It is a singular fact that though many of the earlier Buddhist Scriptures have been translated by competent scholars, comparatively little attention has been paid to later Buddhist devotional writings, and this although the developments of Buddhism in China and Japan give them the deepest interest as reflecting the spiritual mind of those two great countries. They cannot, however, be understood without some knowledge of the faith which passed so entirely into their life that in its growth it lost some of its own infant traits and took on others, rooted, no doubt, in the beginnings in India, but expanded and changed as the features of the child may be forgotten in the face of the man and yet perpetuate the unbroken succession of heredity. It is especially true that Japan cannot be understood without some knowledge of the Buddhism of the Greater Vehicle (as the developed form is called), for it was the influence that moulded her youth as a nation, that shaped her aspirations, and was the inspiration of her art, not only in the written word, but in every art and higher handicraftsmanship that makes her what she is. Whatever centuries may pass or the future hold in store for her, Japan can never lose the stamp of Buddhism in her outer or her spiritual life.

The world knows little as yet of the soul of Mahayana Buddhism, though much of its outer observance, and for this reason a crucial injustice has been done in regarding it merely as a degraded form of the earlier Buddhism—a rank off-shoot of the teachings of the Gautama Buddha, a system of idolatry and priestly power from which the austere purity of the earlier faith has passed away.

The truth is that Buddhism, like Christianity, in every country where it has sowed its seed and reaped its harvest, developed along the lines indicated by the mind of that people. The Buddhism of Japan differs from that of Tibet as profoundly as the Christianity of Abyssinia from that of Scotland—yet both have conserved the essential principle.

Buddhism was not a dead abstraction, but a living faith, and it therefore grew and changed with the growth of the mind of man, enlarging its perception of truth. As in the other great faiths, the ascent of the Mount of Vision reveals worlds undreamed, and proclaims what may seem to be new truths, but are only new aspects of the Eternal. Japanese Buddhists still base their belief on the utterances of the Buddhas, but they have enlarged their conception of the truths so taught, and they hold that the new flower and fruit spring from the roots that were planted in dim ages before the Gautama Buddha taught in India, and have since rushed hundred-armed to the sun. Such is the religious history of mankind, and Buddhism obeys its sequence.

The development of Mahayana Buddhism from the teaching of the Gautama Buddha has been often compared with that of the Christian faith from the Jewish, but it may be better compared with the growth of a sacerdotal system from the simplicities of the Gospel of St. Mark. That the development should have been on the same lines in all essential matters of symbol and (in the most important respects) of doctrine, modified only by Eastern habits of thought and environment, is a miracle of coincidence which cannot be paralleled in the world unless it be granted that Christianity filtering along the great trade routes of an earlier world joined hands with Buddhism in many unsuspected ways and places. Evidence is accumulating that this is so, and in a measure at present almost incredible. And if it be so—if it be true that in spite of racial distinctions, differences of thought and circumstance, the religious thought of East and West has so many and so great meeting-points, the hope of the world in things spiritual may lie in the recognition of that fact and in a future union now shadowed forth only in symbol and in a great hope. This, however, is no essay on Buddhism, either earlier or later, and what I have said is necessary to the introduction of these Jōdo-Wasan, or Psalms of the Pure Land, which are a part not only of the literature, but also of the daily worship and spiritual life of Japan. Their history may be briefly told.

Buddhism passed into Japan from China and Korea about 1320 years ago, in or about the year A.D. 552. It adapted itself with perfect comprehension to the ideals of the Japanese people, inculcating among them the teachings of morality common to the great faiths with, in addition, the spiritual unction, the passion of love and sympathy, self-devotion, and compassion, in which Buddhism and Christianity are alike pre-eminent. The negative side of Buddhism, with its passionless calm and self-renunciation, is the only one that has been realised in the West, and the teachings of Mahayana which have borne fruit and flower, visible to all the world, of happiness, courtesy, kindliness in the spiritual attitude of a whole people, have never received the honour which was their due.

For with the Buddhist faith there came the germ of the belief that the Gautama Buddha in his own grandeur bore witness to One Greater—the Amitabha or Amida Buddha—that One who in boundless light abideth, life of the Universe, without colour, without form, the Lover of man, his Protector and Refuge. He may, He must be worshipped, for in Him are all the essential attributes of Deity, and He, the Saviour of mankind, has prepared a pure land of peace for his servants, beyond the storms of life and death. This belief eventually crystallised and became a dogma in the faith of the Pure Land, known in Japan as Jōdo Shinshu, a faith held by the majority of the Japanese people. It is a Belief which has spread also in Eastern Siberia, many parts of China, Hawaii, and, in fact, whereever the Japanese race has spread. And the man who stated this belief for all time was Shinran Shōnin, author of the Psalms here presented.

He was born in the year A.D. 1175 near City-Royal—Kyoto, the ancient capital of Japan. He was a son of one of the noblest families, in close connection with the Imperial House, and had it not been for the passion for truth and the life of the spirit which consumed him, his history would have been that of the many other brilliant young men who sank into mere courtiers—“Dwellers above the Clouds,” as the royalties and courtiers of the day were called among the people. But the clear air above the clouds in which his spirit spread its wings was not that of City-Royal, and the Way opened before him as it has opened before many a saint of the Christian Church, for while still a child he lost both his parents, and so, meditating on the impermanence of mortal life, and seeing how the fashion of this world passes away, he abandoned his title and became a monk in one of the noble monasteries whose successors still stand glorious among the pine woods above Lake Biwa.

These were not only monasteries, but seats of learning, as in Europe in the Middle Ages, and here the Doctrines were subjected to brilliant analysis and logical subtleties which had almost superseded the living faith. In that cold atmosphere the spirit of Shiran Shōnin could not spread its wings, though for twenty years he gave his thoughts to its empty glitter. Therefore, at the age of twenty-nine he cast it all behind him, and in deep humility cast himself at the feet of the great Teacher Hōnen, who, in the shades of Higashiyama, was setting forth the saving power of the Eternal One who abideth in the Light and in whom is no darkness—the Buddha of Boundless Light. And in this place and from this man Shinran received enlightenment.

Life now lay before him as a problem. Unlike as the two men are in character and methods, his position resembled that of Martin Luther on quitting the Church of Rome. For the Buddhist monastic rule requires its members to be homeless, celibate, vegetarian, and here, like Luther, Shinran joined issue with them. To his mind the attainment of man lay in the harmonious development of body and spirit, and in the fulfilment, not the negation of the ordinary human duties. Accordingly, in his thirty-first year, after deep consideration, he married the daughter of Prince Kujo Kanezane, Chief Minister of the Emperor and head of one of the greatest houses in Japan, and in that happy union he tasted four years of simple domestic joy, during which a son was born to him. Then the storm broke.

Trouble was stirred up by the orthodox Buddhist Church with evil reports which reached the ears of the Emperor, and Shinran was sent into banishment in the lonely and primitive province of Echigo—a terrible alternative for a man of noble birth and refined culture. He took it, however, with perfect serenity as a mission to those untaught and neglected people, and into their darkness he brought the light of the Father of Lights, and the people flocked to the warmth and wonder of the new hope, and heard him gladly. The story is told by a contemporary, whom I have thus rendered:

“In the spring of the third year of the era of Kennin, the age of Shinran Shōnin was twenty-nine. Driven by the desire for seclusion, he departed to the monastery of Yoshimizu. For as his day was so remote from the era of the Lord Buddha, and the endurance of man in the practice of religious austerity was now weakened, he would fain seek the one broad, straight way that is now made plain before us, leaving behind him the more devious and difficult roads in which he had a long time wandered. For so it was that Hōnen Shōnin, the great teacher of the Doctrine of the Land of Pure Light, had taught him plainly of the inmost heart of the Faith, raising up in him the firm foundation of that teaching. Therefore he certainly received at that time the true meaning of the Divine Promise of universal salvation, and attained unto the imperishable faith by which alone the ignorant can enter into Nirvana without condition or price.

“From the province of Echigo Shinran passed onward to that of Hitachi, and entered into seclusion at Inada, that little village of the region of Kasama. Very lonely was his dwelling, yet many disciples sought after him, and though the humble door of the monastery was closed against them, many nobles and lesser persons thronged into the village. So his hope of spreading abroad the Holy Teaching was fulfilled and his desire to bring joy to the people was satisfied. Thus he declared that the revelation vouchsafed to him in the Temple of Rokkaku by the Bodhisattwa of Pity was indeed made manifest.”

It is that revelation which speaks in these Psalms—the love, aspiration, passion for righteousness and humility which are the heart of all the great religious utterances of the world.

“Alas for me, Shinran, the ignorant exile who sinks into the deeps of the great ocean of human affections, who toils to climb the high mountains of worldly prosperity, and is neither glad to be with them who return no more to illusion, nor takes delight in approaching more nearly to true enlightenment. O the pity of it! O the shame of it!”

This cry alternates with the joy of perfect aspiration, and it is that which keeps these psalms in warm human touch with the spirituality that is neither of race nor time, but for eternity.

He was sixty-two years of age when he returned from exile to City-Royal, and though he made it his centre, it was his home no more. He wandered from place to place, teaching as he went, after the manner of the Buddhas. At the age of ninety his strength suddenly failed, and the next day he passed away in perfect peace.

Such were the outward events of his life; his own writings must give the history of his soul. His teachings to-day are spread far and wide in the land of his birth, and are an inspiration to millions within and without its shores. In him was the harmonised spirit of Buddhism at its highest. Those who can enter into the heart of Shinran Shōnin will have gained understanding of the heart of a mighty people which is said to be impossible of Western reading, and yet in its essentials is simple as the heart of a child.

L. ADAMS BECK.

EDITORIAL NOTE

The object of the Editors of this series is a very definite one. They desire above all things that, in their humble way, these books shall be the ambassadors of good-will and understanding between East and West—the old world of Thought and the new of Action. In this endeavour, and in their own sphere, they are but followers of the highest example in the land. They are confident that a deeper knowledge of the great ideals and lofty philosophy of Oriental thought may help to a revival of that true spirit of Charity which neither despises nor fears the nations of another creed and colour.

L. CRANMER-BYNG. S. A. KAPADIA.

NORTHBROOK SOCIETY, 21 CROMWELL ROAD, KENSINGTON, S.W.

BUDDHIST PSALMS

LAUDING THE INFINITE ONE

1. Since He who is Infinite attained unto the Wisdom Supreme, the long, long ages of ten Kalpas have rolled away.

The Light of His Dharma-Kaya is in this world eyes to the blind.

2. Seek refuge in the True Illumination! For the light of His Wisdom is infinite.

In all the worlds there is nothing upon which His light shines not.

3. Take refuge in the Light universal.

As the Light of His deliverance is boundless, he who is within it is freed from the lie of affirmation or denial.

4. Seek refuge in That which is beyond understanding,

For His glory is all-embracing as the air. It shineth and pierceth all things, and there is nothing hid from the light thereof.

5. Take refuge in the ultimate Strength, for His pure radiance is above all things. He who perceiveth this Light is set free from the fetters of Karma.

6. Seek refuge in the World-Honoured.

Since His glorious radiance is above all He is called the Buddha of Divine Light. And by Him is the darkness of the three worlds Enlightened.

7. Excellent is the Light of His Wisdom. Therefore is he called the Buddha of Clear Shining.

He who is within the Light, being washed from the soil of Karma, shall attain unto the final deliverance.

8. Take refuge in the Mighty Consoler. Wheresoever His mercy shineth throughout all the worlds, men rejoice in its gladdening light.

9. The darkness of ignorance perisheth before His light. Therefore is He hailed as the Buddha of Radiant Wisdom. All the Buddhas and the threefold choir of sages praise Him.

10. His glory shineth for ever and ever. Therefore is He called the Buddha of Everlasting Light.

Most excellent is the virtue of this light, for he who perceiveth it is born into Paradise without dissolution of being.

11. The glory of the Infinite is boundless, therefore is He known as the Buddha of Light Past Comprehension.

All the Buddhas glorify the majesty of His holiness that leadeth all the earth into His Kingdom.

12. His clear shining transcendeth all revelation, nor can human speech utter it. Therefore is He named the Buddha of Light Unspeakable.

All the Buddhas glorify the glory of the Infinite One who is Buddha through His promise of Light immeasurable.

13. Take refuge in Him who is Holiest of Holy. Sun and moon are lost in the ocean of His splendour. Therefore is He named that Infinite in whose radiance Sun and Moon are darkened. Before whose Divine Power even that Buddha made flesh in India himself faltereth in ascribing praise to the Majesty of His true glory.

14. Far beyond human numbering are the wise in the high assemblage of the Infinite One. Therefore let him who would be born into the Land of Purity seek refuge in the Great Congregation.

15. In Paradise are the Mighty unnumbered, Bodhisattvas ranked in that hierarchy nearest to the Perfect Enlightenment. Thence are they made flesh upon earth according to the way of salvation that all having life might be saved.

16. Take refuge in the ocean-deep Soul Universal.

For the sake of all dwelling in the Ten Regions hath He kept the fullness of all the Teachings, in His divine and mighty promises.

17. He who is Infinite never resteth, for together with the Bodhisattvas of Compassion and Pure Reason He laboureth, that the souls of them that duly receive Him may have salvation, enlightening them with the light of His mercy.

18. When he who is born into the land of Pure Peace returneth again into this sinful world, even like unto that Buddha made flesh in India, he wearieth not in seeking the welfare of all men.

19. Seek refuge in the World-Honoured, for His Divine Power is Almighty and beyond man’s measure, being made perfect in inconceivable Holiness.

20. The Srāvakas, the Bodhisattvas, the Heavenly Beings and Souls in Paradise, they in whom wisdom is made equal unto beauty, declare their attributes in order, according to their former birth.

21. Seek refuge in Him in whom all strengths are equal.

Nought is there to compare with the excellent beauty of the Souls in Paradise, for their being is infinite as space, and far are they above celestials and mortal man.

22. Whoso would be born into Paradise shall in this life be made one with those men that return no more unto birth and death.

In that Pure Land is none who hath stood among doubting men, and none also who hath trusted in his own deeds for Salvation. To this do all the Buddhas witness.

23. If all having life in the Ten Regions hear this Holiest Name of Him that is Infinite, and attain unto the true faith, they shall obtain joy and gladness.

24. For when a man with joy accepteth the sacred vow of Him that is infinite who saith, “I will not attain unto perfect Enlightenment unless in Me shall all the world be made whole,” at that very time he shall assuredly be born into Paradise.

25. Seek refuge in the Almighty Spirit.

By the divine might of His promise, by the Infinite One was Paradise created; yea, and the Souls of men that dwell therein. And there is nought that may compare with them.

26. Seek refuge in the unutterable Wisdom.

Of His Land of Peace the half cannot be told. Even the word of the Buddha himself could not utter it.

27. Myriads of happy souls were born, are born and shall be born into that Land of Purity, not from this world alone, but from the hidden worlds also, and the Ten Regions.

28. So soon as man heareth the holy name of the Infinite One and with great gladness praiseth him, he shall attain to the reward of the holy Treasury of Merit.

29. Go forward, O Valiant Souls, seeking the Law though all the worlds fall into flame and ruin, for ye shall have passed beyond birth and death!

30. The innumerable Buddhas praise the triumphant divinity of the Bringer of Light. To Him do gather the myriad Bodhisattvas, unnumbered as the Sands of Ganges in worship from the Eastern world.

31. As from the East, so gather also to the Infinite One the Bodhisattvas from the Nine Regions of the worlds.

With Sacred Psalms the Gautama Buddha himself laudeth the boundless glory of the Infinite One.

32. Seek refuge in the World-Honoured.

To Him do the myriad Buddhas of the ten Regions bring homage with songs and praises, that they may sow the seeds of merit.

33. Bring homage to the Hall of Great Teaching and to the living Bo tree that is in Paradise! Yet this land, glorious with the Holy Tree, radiant with the Hall of Great Teaching that shineth with the Seven Jewels, where innumerable souls hastening from all the ends of the Earth shall be born, is but the temporal Paradise.

34. In awful reverence seek refuge in the purity of Him that welcometh. For by His Divine Promise was this glorious land, great beyond human measurement, made to be.

35. Seek refuge in the wisdom inconceivable. For the perfection of His Virtue—that Virtue availing for all the world, and the perfect way by which He willeth that man shall take refuge in Him, are past all human speech or thought.

36. Take refuge in the wisdom that is most truly infinite. For He is faithful, having promised in His Divine Might, and on his perfect clear promise that cannot be shaken is the merciful way of salvation builded.

OF PARADISE

37. Seek refuge in the heavenly harmony.

For the jewel groves and gem trees of Paradise give forth a sweet and most excellent melody in pure and ordered unison.

38. Seek refuge in the Divine Promise, the Treasury of Merit,

For the seven jewel trees are fragrant in Paradise where the flowers, the fruits, the branches and the leaves thereof

Cast back their radiance the one to the other.

39. Bring homage to the perfect Righteousness.

As the pure wind blows over the trees glorious with jewels,

It draweth from them a noble music with five-fold strains of harmony.

40. In all the world is no place hidden from the glory shed by hundreds of myriad rays from the heart of every flower of Paradise.

41. Like unto a golden mountain reflecting the myriad rays of these heavenly blossoms, so is the form of the Infinite One.

42. From His Sacred Body, as from a well-spring, floweth this light over the Ten Regions of the world.

By His Sacred teaching He leadeth all having life into the way of light.

43. Seek refuge in the Treasury of Righteousness.

For in Paradise is that holy lake, with its waters of eightfold Virtue, all-glorious with the seven jewels. And all this is the inconceivable handiwork of Purity.

44. Seek refuge in the All-Honoured.

For when sorrow and sighing are fled away, the Holy Land shall rejoice with joy and singing. Therefore is it called Paradise.

45. The Buddhas of the Three Ages and the Ten Regions, they in whom the Dual Wisdom is perfect and their illumination entire, lead all the worlds marvellously into the way of Salvation, the Truth being their Vehicle.

46. He that seeketh refuge in the Kingdom of the Infinite One is a citizen of the Kingdom of every Buddha.

Let him that is set free, with single heart give praises unto One Buddha, for in so doing he praiseth all.

47. The faithful believer at that moment when he rejoiceth in the sound of the name of the Infinite One hath revealed unto his very eyes the Buddha of Light.

48. Let him that hath faith praise the Virtue of the Divine Wisdom.

Let him strive to declare it unto all men that he may offer his thankfulness for the grace of the Buddha.

CONCERNING THE GREAT SUTRA

49. The Venerable Ananda, rising from his seat, and looking upwards to the World-Honoured Gautama Buddha, his eyes being opened, marvelled greatly, seeing the glory of his Lord so transfigured.

50. The Venerable Ananda asked the Cause of that glory, for the Lord, shining in the Light that was hitherto unseen of the world, taught openly, for the first time, that Truth for which He came into the world.

51. In the meditation of the Great Calm the Buddha whose countenance is glorious, commendeth the most excellent wisdom of Ananda for that he asked the way of knowledge, desiring to be instructed.

52. That Buddha that was made flesh in India was in this world manifested that he might preach the Divine Promise of Him who is Infinite.