Only One?
December 19, 2008 Recently I was told about a woman who chanted "Amituofo" for hours every day. All her friends were impressed with her dedication. Her family was very proud of her, and she felt that she was doing very well in her practice.
Then one day, she suddenly became ill and died. When she opened her eyes in another realm, she expected to see the Western Pure Land. But to her great consternation, she looked around and realized she was in a very different place! Panicking, she began to try to figure out what was happening. Then she saw the king of the underworld approaching her.
Not understanding any of this, she asked "Where am I? What is happening?" The king of the underworld confirmed her worst fears. She was indeed in the hell realms. Not knowing how this could have happened to her, she told him about the thousands of hours she had chanted "Amituofo." She asked why wasn't she in the Pure Land.
To be just, the king told an attendant to bring out a large sieve as well as the bag containing all the chants the woman had done. Feeling more confident the woman felt that now everything would be straightened out. As the attendant began to pour the bag of chants into the sieve, the only sounds were of the chants pouring into the sieve. And then came the sound of them falling through the sieve's holes.
The woman leaned over and peered into the sieve. She saw one lone chant that was large enough to have not fallen through the holes. She looked up at the king questioningly. He returned her gaze and asked, "Do you remember the day you were under a tree when a terrible thunderstorm suddenly blew over? You were terrified and curled up next to the tree trunk. Suddenly a large flash of lightning lit the sky all around you and at the same instant there was a tremendous crash of thunder right above you. You called out in fear "Amituofo!"
"That is the one lone chant that was large enough to have not fallen through the holes in the sieve. That was your one chant of true concentration and sincerity."
Reader Comments (6)
I have become a Pure Land Buddhism learner since about two years ago. I enjoy reading your posts especially this one because it assures me that Buddha name reciting counts only with genuine sincerity and mindfulness.
Thank you Venerable for your compassion.
Kuei-sen
http://molisang.blogspot.com/
Welcome and thank you for commenting. When a fellow nun told me the story, I likewise enjoyed it. All the unmindful chants done with wandering thoughts planted little seeds for the future. But it was that one that mattered now.
I read a Tibetan Buddhist teacher saying that these references to hell as an ever-present possibility are a device to shake people out of their apathy and get them to practice. But if one sees through it as a heavy-handed device, is it really so effective? It seems a bit like overkill. Shouldn't our motivation be more about moving towards the light and our true potential than trying to avoid the flames of hell? It all seems a bit medieval. Even the Catholic Church has given up on the hellfire and brimstone stuff these days as it's been recognized that this kind of fear-mongering has had the effect of driving intelligent people away.
These comments and questions were triggered by this post but are really in response to the many references to hell that I've encountered in other Buddhist writings. I'm not saying that I've found an emphasis on hell on this blog! I'm also not trying to argue that there is no such realm as hell, but rather that is seems to be invoked a little too often! Fear-mongering seems inherently unhealthy, as people who are fearful are in an unbalanced state of mind which induces self-protective, egocentric behavior. Fear is the antithesis of love.
Venerable, my comments may seem an overreaction to a simple story, but it touched off feelings that have often arisen when reading other Buddhist material written by Eastern teachers. I haven't encountered this big stick approach with Western teachers, perhaps because they realize that a lot of us have had enough of that already in our Judeo-Christian backgrounds?
Yes, it's just a story, a gentle reminder we need to be mindful in our chanting.
The woman did not go to hell because of ineffective chanting. The point is that she hadn't chanted sincerely and mindfully enough to accomplish rebirth into the Pure Land. And actually the king of hell was pretty polite. He had her chants weighed and then patiently explained to her why the one chant had not fallen through.
The reality of the six realms is that one of them is the hell realm. Frankly, I don't speak about it much here because this blog is for a wide range of people, a good number of whom are not Pure Land Buddhists. (So I save the more serious stuff for other times.;-)) The people who read the blog are good people trying to be better. In the past I fussed a lot about how Chinese Buddhism (and other forms I'm sure) try to scare people into being good. I figured that might have worked in the past when people were uneducated and fear of hell was a good way to convince them to be good. But after all, people today are educated. We don't need to be scared. Plus people today watch the news every night and if that doesn't terrify them, I'm not sure images or writing about hell will either. So all teachers and writers need to do is teach people they should be good and love others, and everything will be fine.
So I took the route of trying to teach about cause and effect and morality. After all, if everyone is so well educated, then learning about cause and effect as well as appealing to their higher nature of compassion and loving-kindness should be all they need to be good. Right? Or perhaps not.
Perhaps, what we need is a healthy balance. A striving for the light, and an awareness that there are serious consequences to not striving sincerely enough. The knowledge that yes there is something to fear. Not to be debilitated by fear, but to have it around as a reminder. To keep us from getting complacent. Or arrogant. Or too comfortable.
It's all about balance. And after all, if the Buddha spoke about the "unpleasant subjects" to some degree, he must have had a good reason. Like wanting to do everything in his power to keep us headed in the right direction. Every moment of our lives.
Ven Wu Ling Have mentioned that when Nian Fo,
its the quality that counts, not the quantity.... ^^
seriously, my heart still do not really understand what sincerity is about.
I can only hope through the quantity of Nian Fo,
my heart can gradually turn to a quality Nian Fo....