MURYOKO
'Infinite Light'
Journal of Shin Buddhism
John Paraskevopoulos
Vulnerability
In modern society, people often go to great pains to avoid appearing vulnerable. Vulnerability is commonly seen as a weakness which betrays our innermost frailties and exposes the fears we are reluctant to show the world. This can sometimes lead to us assuming a false sense of control over our lives and an unwillingness to be candid with our emotions. The fear of becoming hurt or wounded in some way in our relationships with other people or in our dealings with the world, can serve to undermine our capacity for intimacy and self-knowledge. All these tendencies, which are quite common, are capable of causing much distress and suffering in our lives. They can stunt our inner growth and prevent us from becoming fully human - as precarious as that state might be.
If one considers that we have no resources to draw upon in coping with life except our own experience or sense of right and wrong, we may indeed feel justified in shutting out the world and blunting our receptivity to certain experiences in life. If all we can rely on is our view of how things appear to us, we may very well be able to protect ourselves, to some degree, from being overwhelmed by things which may hurt us. However, we may also be depriving ourselves of the possibility of other perspectives which may help us to overcome some of the tribulations from which we seek to flee.
Shakyamuni Buddha taught that the root of much of our suffering can be found within ourselves; that it is our own delusions, prejudices and ignorance that provide the fuel for sustaining our manifold miseries and anxieties. This, in turn, perpetuates our belief in a permanent and stable self which is but an illusion which life's troublesome experiences soon expose if we had but eyes to see it. By fuelling this sense of a 'self' that is separate from others and disconnected to the world around it, we soon begin to form a hardened carapace around us which lets nothing in and which slowly, but surely, leads to spiritual atrophy through lack of proper nourishment. So, what is this nourishment ?
In the Sutra on Immeasurable Life which Shakyamuni expounded on Vulture Peak in Rajgrha, we hear of the existence of Amitabha, or the Buddha of Infinite Light and Eternal Life. Amitabha represents the ultimate reality which is marked by the four characteristics of eternity, bliss, purity and true self. This reality, also known as Nirvana and Buddha-nature, also constitutes the heart of all things. In other words, Amitabha, the Infinite, is omnipresent, suffusing all things with its wisdom and compassion. By opening up ourselves to the influence of the Buddha's Light, we are able to participate in its liberating truth and enjoy its joyful influence on our lives. The way in which we are able to allow Amitabha's light to work on us and transform our delusion into wisdom is through His Name - Namu Amida Butsu. The Name is the form which is assumed by the Buddha’s infinite wisdom and compassion, which is inconceivable, in order to reach us.
This leads us back to our initial observations about being vulnerable and fully human. By becoming embraced in the Buddha's Light, we naturally feel compelled to surrender to it. In doing so, we also come to resist our ingrained tendency to conceal our innermost fears and anxieties for we freely and willingly choose to surrender these as well. When we genuinely experience the immense compassion of the Buddha we cannot but joyfully abandon the shackles with which we have allowed ourselves to be woefully bound. No longer entrusting ourselves to our myopic views and experience, we are free to express our full individuality without fear of being hurt or harshly judged by our peers. We learn to accept ourselves, warts and all, because we are accepted by the source of life itself, the Buddha of Infinite Light, which does not discriminate between the good and the bad, young and old or man and woman. Accordingly, we become 'our foolish selves' as the Pure Land master Honen once said. We cease trying to do violence to ourselves by abandoning all attempts at conforming to a false image of who we are - an image created by self-centered illusions which imprison us and cut us off from everything that is true and real. Ultimately, surrender is the key for it relieves us of our karmic burdens and allows us to become authentic individuals untrammelled by the need to feign control or pretend to be better, or even other, than we really are.