Shōshinge: Hymn of True Shinjin and the Nembutsu (Session 29)

Posted on July 11, 2023September 22, 2023

Wednesday, October 11, 2023

We welcome you to join us via Zoom Meeting from the comfort and safety of your own home on Wednesday, October 11 for this free Dharma Study Class.

6:00 p.m. Shōshinge Sōfu Chanting

Chanting Shōshinge embodies the heart of daily Nembutsu practice in Jodo Shinshu Buddhism. Join us to experience the settled the mind through focused breathing and meditative listening.

7:00 p.m. Reading and Discussion

Please join us as we encounter the teachings of Honen-bo Genku, Shinran Shonin’s teacher, who established a radically inclusive Sangha community where leading figures of high society sat shoulder to shoulder with outcastes and thieves to hear the message of Amida Buddha’s great compassion:

Master Genku, well-versed in the Buddha’s teaching,
Turned compassionately to foolish people, both good and evil;
Establishing in this remote land the teaching and realization that are the true essence of the Pure Land way,
He transmits the selected Primal Vow to us of the defiled world:

Ho’onko: the Annual Memorial Service for Shinran Shonin

Posted on January 1, 2023February 7, 2023

In the Jodo Shinshu School of Buddhism, it is customary to hold an annual Ho’onko 報恩講 (Pronounced HOE-OWN-KOH) Memorial Service in remembrance of Shinran Shonin (1173-1263), the Japanese Buddhist priest who we look to as the founder of our tradition. The tradition of annual Ho’onko services was initiated by Shinran’s great-grandson Kakunyo during the 33rd Year Memorial Service for Shinran. At the Nishi Hongwanji Temple in Kyoto, Japan, the Hoonko observance is held each year from January 9^th to 16^th, culminating in an all-night Dharma marathon of talks by ministers from all over Japan. This year, we will observe Ho’onko at the San Mateo Buddhist Temple on Sunday, January 22. In temples of the Jodo Shinshu tradition, Ho’onko is considered to be the most important Buddhist service of the year.

If we conducted a survey of our Sangha members asking everyone which of our annual Buddhist services is most important, we wouldn’t be surprised to hear many responses along the lines of Hanamatsuri (Sakyamuni Buddha’s Birthday) or Obon (the grateful remembrance of departed loved ones that we hold every summer). Of all the Buddhist services we observe throughout the year, why is Shinran’s Memorial Service traditionally given the most emphasis?

Into the name flow all of Amida’s uncountable virtues

Posted on December 16, 2021December 16, 2021

. . . into the name flow all of Amida’s uncountable virtues. That is to say, in the name are contained all the merits and virtues of Amida’s inner enlightenment, such as the four kinds of wisdom, the three bodies, the ten powers, and the four kinds of fearlessness. Also contained in it are all the merits and virtues of his outward activities, such as the major and minor bodily characteristics, the emanation of light, the preaching of the Dharma, and the benefitting of sentient beings.

(Honen’s Senchakushu published by the Kuroda Institute, page. 76)

Hōnen Shōnin’s parting words to his students on the occasion of his being sent into exile

Posted on December 5, 2021May 10, 2022

“Do not resent my being sent into exile, for I am approaching eighty years of age. Even if we were living together as teacher and students in the capital, my departure from this saha world is drawing near. Even if we are separated by mountains and oceans, do not doubt that we will meet again in the Pure Land. Though we may reject this world, our human existence carries on. Though we may cling to life, our death will come. Why insist upon being in a certain place?

“What’s more, while I have spent all these years sharing the Nembutsu teaching here in the capital, it has been my heartfelt wish to go into the outlying regions and share the teachings with the farmers who work the fields. However, a time had not come when I was able to fulfill that wish. That I am now able to pursue this long-held wish is thanks to the great benevolence of the emperor.

The Vow of the Buddha is Deep

Posted on May 1, 2021May 10, 2022

In late 1206, while the Japanese Emperor Gotoba was away from the capital on a pilgrimage to the Kumano Shrine, his consorts Suzumushi and Matsumushi joined a Nembutsu gathering led by Honen’s followers Juren-bo and Anraku-bo. After hearing the Nembutsu teaching, the emperor’s consorts experienced a great change of heart and took ordination as Buddhist nuns.

When the emperor returned and discovered that Suzumushi and Matsumushi had renounced their lives in the imperial palace to join Honen’s Nembutsu Sangha, he became enraged and ordered Juren-bo and Anraku-bo to be executed along with two other leading followers of Honen. Honen was ordered to be exiled on the island of Shikoku. Seven more of his followers, including Shinran, were dispossessed of their priesthood and sent into exile, scattering the community throughout Japan. While many lamented the exile, Honen instructed his disciples that this too should be accepted as the flow of karmic causes and conditions in their lives. The following were his parting words to the Sangha:

“Do not resent my being sent into exile, for I am approaching eighty years of age. Even if we were living together as teacher and students in the capital, my departure from this saha world is drawing near. Even if we are separated by mountains and oceans, do not doubt that we will meet again in the Pure Land. Though we may reject this world, our human existence carries on. Though we may cling to life, our death will come. Why insist upon being in a certain place?

The Path to the Pure Land: A Translation of and Commentary on Shinran’s Saihō-Shinan-shō

Posted on April 27, 2021May 6, 2021

Wednesday, May 5, 2021

7:00 p.m. via Zoom Meeting

Rev. Dr. Toshikazu Arai

Professor Emeritus

Soai University, Osaka

We invite you join us to hear Rev. Dr. Arai share insights from his recently published translation of Shinran’s record of teachings by his master Honen. This superb translation makes Saihō-Shinan-shō available to English language readers for the first time.

CLICK HERE to purchase The Path to the Pure Land: A Translation of and Commentary on Shinran’s Saihō-Shinan-shō

To join us for this online Dharma Session, CLICK HERE and sign up for “Study Classes and Seminars”.

Dharma Discussion: Śīla (July 19, 2020)

Posted on July 18, 2020August 22, 2020

Please review the Bodhisattva Precepts

Discussion Questions

How do you practice these precepts in your daily life?
Is there meaning in doing one’s best, even though one is not able to practice these perfectly in daily life?
Which of these do you think our world needs most at the present moment?

Honen’s Perspective on upholding precepts (from The Passages on the the Selection of the Nembutsu in the Original Vow)

If the original vow required us to make images of the Buddha and to build stupas, the poor and destitute would surely have no hope of birth, but the fact is that the rich and highborn are few, while the poor and lowborn are exceedingly many.

True Victory

Posted on February 1, 2020August 22, 2020

In a recent address to the Sangha, our temple President began his remarks with the words, “I would like to offer my condolences to Reverend Adams. . .” Wondering what loss I should be grieving, I momentarily searched my memories of the preceding weeks. Then he finished his sentence with the words, “. . . for the inhospitable treatment your Minnesota Vikings received from the San Francisco 49ers yesterday afternoon.” I grew up in Minnesota and the previous day those two professional football teams had faced off for the Division Title. Having suffered defeat at the hands of the 49ers, the Minnesota Vikings lost their chance to play in the Super Bowl on February 2. For many families, Super Bowl Sunday is a major social event that rivals the traditional winter holidays as an occasion for gathering friends and loved ones for elaborate feasting and celebration—or drowning your sorrows in bean dip and hot wings if your team happens to be losing.

Olympic Victory

Posted on March 1, 2018August 22, 2020

Growing up in Minnesota, my favorite sport was alpine skiing. As a teenager, I competed in slalom racing on my high school ski team and the great sports hero of my youth was Olympic slalom champion Alberto Tomba. Our team practiced at a local ski hill that somehow managed to rise out of the flat surrounding farmland, gradually increasing in elevation over the years thanks to innumerable dump truck loads of dirt. I never came close to winning a race, but I enjoyed practices because the course of gates was set differently each time, transforming the otherwise unremarkable little hill into a challenging and exciting place to ski.

Hymn of True Shinjin and the Nembutsu

Posted on July 1, 2017January 24, 2023

At the San Mateo Buddhist Temple, we look to Shinran Shonin (1173-1263) as the founder of our Jodo Shinshu tradition. However, Shinran himself never set out to found his own Buddhist school. Throughout his writings and teachings, he describes himself as a humble student of his teacher Honen Shonin (1133-1212), as we find in the following words from A Record in Lament of Divergences (Tannisho):

As for me, I simply accept and entrust myself to what my revered teacher told me, “Just say the nembutsu and be saved by Amida”; nothing else is involved.

I have no idea whether the nembutsu is truly the seed for my being born in the Pure Land or whether it is the karmic act for which I must fall into hell. Should I have been deceived by Master Honen and, saying the nembutsu, were to fall into hell, even then I would have no regrets.

The reason is, if I could attain Buddhahood by endeavoring in other practices, but said the nembutsu and so fell into hell, then I would feel regret at having been deceived. But I am incapable of any other practice, so hell is decidedly my abode whatever I do.

(Collected Works of Shinran, p. 662)