On Doctrine and Experience

Once you deepen your acquaintance with Shinbuddhism, you cannot fail to be surprised to learn that this deceivingly simple from of the Buddha-Dharma actually is grounded on an elaborate doctrine, the milestones of which are summed up in the Anjin Rondai, the Topics of Faith, of the Nishi Hongwanji. This may seem especially strange for people who have come to know Shinbuddhism through popular introductions, which inevitably have the flaws of their merits. A very common reaction, which I once witnessed in a discussion forum, is to relegate the classics, i.e. the works and utterances of Shinran Sonin and Rennyo Shonin, to the study of historians, and to insist on the value of so-called "personal experience" instead.

However, due to the widespread individualism and subjectivism, such a "personal experience" amounts mostly to a mere stirring of moral sentimentalism, and is part and parcel of exactly those things a follower of the Middle Way has to let go, namely passion (i.e. sympathy or antipathy) and opinion (i.e. error). In Shinbuddhism, this letting-go is the abandonment of hakarai, of ego-centered calculation, that is brought about entirely by the Other Power of Amida's Saving Vow. The absence of calculation on behalf of the person of Shinjin, the cause of which is the Ocean of Amida's Merits embodied in Namo-Amida-Butsu, is the Shinbuddhist approach to the Heart of the Buddha's Realisation, namely that everything is devoid of anything personal, i.e. the Realisation of Suchness.

Now, if passion, including the clinging to personal happiness, is to be foregone, so is also opinion. The "intellectual" pendant of moral sentimentalism is positivist rationalism, of which secular humanism and religious fanaticism are the two inseparable facets. So a preoccupation with doctrine may ultimately lead to the error of dogmatic literalism or doctrinaire self-righteousness which also is a form of hakarai. This error can be avoided if Shinbuddhist doctrine is understood in terms of a spiritual therapy, the steps of which have to be followed until reconvalescence is ensured. It is a means -- a necessary means, perhaps, but only a means to the Ultimate End of Realisation, the Seed of which is Amida's Trust.

Doctrine, then, is a ladder which can be discarded once it has been scaled, to use Wittgenstein's simile. This may appear utterly scandalous to someone who is obsessed by the "pristine Buddha Dharma". However, it has to be clearly understood that until Realisation has been achieved, i.e. until Enlightenment becomes actual, the ladder of doctrine is still required. And according to Pure Land Buddhism, Enlightenment takes place only at the point of dissolution of this last nama-rupa, and the consequent Birth into the Land of Bliss.

There certainly is an Experience that is essential to Shinjin, but there is nothing personal to it, though it can be called Personal with a capital "P", namely the Buddha's Realisation as it is distilled into the

NAMO AMIDA BUTSU