We all want our lives to make sense, to have some effect, and to be of some service to the great unfolding that we feel is happening on a universal scale. In Zen, this has been referred to as “our innermost request.” I think this call is the only thing that makes the fact of our dying comprehensible and moves it into the realm of meaning. That is, there is something within us that wonders if any of this has meaning.
But what is meaning? Meaning is the self´s urge to find truth in its subjectivity. However, our subjectivity is, from the Buddhist perspective, the most intractable obstacle to awakening.
Normally, our subjectivity goes unquestioned. When explored, it reveals deeper and deeper layers of complexity that separate me further from “objectivity,” that is, things-as-they-really-are. Thus, we can say that it is precisely this subjectivity that obfuscates our capacity to see truly, rendering the process of deeper introspection as the very obstacle we must overcome! Yet we cannot even trust our idea of “objectivity” truly because, as we are now, we cannot know reality as-it-truly-is; all we can know is a distorted facsimile filtered through our subjectivity.
We must, therefore, abandon subjectivity, or ego, in order to awaken.
In the Pure Land tradition of Jodo Shinshu, or Shin Buddhism, this is often spoken of through the dichotomy between Self-Power and Other-Power. The Shin Buddhist abandons all hope of achieving awakening on calculated Self-Power and instead entrusts themselves to an Other-Power beyond the self, known as Amida. But for me, this can be misleading – because even this binary (Self vs Other Power) is a product of subjectivity, and thus, it too must be eventually discarded.
In Vajrayana, the teachings of Dzogchen or Mahamudra make leaps in their attempts to thrust the seeker forward into an arena that is outside subjectivity, and the methods they utilize are very effective. Both traditions teach that our normal efforts to awaken are more stirring of the pot of distraction and must therefore be jettisoned by relaxing the mind until its own natural effervescence, or rigpa, shines through.
In Shin, nembutsu functions as this kind of technique; we call out Amida´s name until we realize Amida is the one calling to us—not from a subjective-objective dualism point of view but as something that, when undertaken with non-egoic sincerity, propels us outside this binary and into a realm of true awakening.
This is the Pure Land, as I understand it. We “attain” it each moment subjectivity is transcended. And yet, the great paradox is that we ultimately transcend nothing. This is because we are released here and now, as we are, no longer grasped by duality.
In Shin, during this process of opening to a transcendent Now, we descend into the very subjective, which separates and creates separation, and it is here, in the midst of this, that we realize pure objectivity. The realm of non-dual, all-pervading, non-abiding awakening. When such a realization is reached – and it can always be reached – we feel ourselves grasped by an understanding outside our very personal subjectivity, not by a being, but by be-ing.
This be-ing is limitless in “wisdom” and “compassion” (in actuality, another binary to be transcended). This limitlessness is perceived as illumination, as an awakening, and in Shin Buddhism is referred to as Amida; Limitless Light and Limitless Life, that be-ing outside time, and yet full in its ever-present self-luminosity.
In such moments we are indeed free. We are liberated from seeking and outside the boundaries of subjectivity. What is left are simply karmic remainders: the limitations of being embodied in a physical vehicle that will age and eventually die, enmeshed in years (lifetimes?) of karmic patterning whose seeds will gradually play themselves out.
But in the Nembutsu, as in Vajrayana´s trekchod (spontaneous cutting of tension) and togal (practice of clear light), “crosswise” leaping, and Zen-like jumping from the 100-foot pole, strategies, ideas, and images, are found “methods” which arouse us from the opaque slumber we normally live in to instead awaken and see thingsas-they-really-are. This can be a deeply affecting, humbling, and transformational experience.
It is the path, and the end of the path. Right here, right now. Because Nirvana is seen as not separate from Samsara. Instead, where we are right now is where we need to be. We need only see it as it is.
What Shin Buddhism, Zen teachers like Hakuin, and Vajrayana masters like Tilopa all understood was that every spiritual act to discipline or tame the mind actually strengthens subjectivity, making it more difficult to abandon later. This is why “relaxing,” “letting go,” or “true entrusting” are constantly emphasized — to remind us that we must get out of the way, surrendering subjectivity in order for true awakening to occur.
Such abandonment of ego, such subjectivity, does not come naturally. As children, we develop an egoless and dynamic relationship to experience, up to a point. Then this begins to wane as we rehearse and perform as “I,” strengthening the subjective until our ability to live out of a natural freedom is occluded by the “I” habit.
But now, as adults, we must relearn by unlearning.
What Zen calls “beginner’s mind” must be paradoxically practiced again and again until we remember it! Once recaptured though, we can live out our lives in full naturalness without calculation. Away from the limiting shackles of subjectivity and into the effulgent embrace of limitlessness.
