24 August 2025
Summer 2025
Keith Snyder
Resident Priest and Managing Director
The historical Buddha, Shakyamuni, lived at a time that was at the tail end of the Iron Age. That’s a long time ago. After his death, his disciples continued their monastic practice under the guidance of the teachings they had received from the master. However, it did not take long for differences of opinion to develop on how to interpret the teachings. Whether it was questions concerning the monastic rules, or philosophical questions in general, a great number of schools, or sects, emerged. Then a big shift in thinking occurred with rise of the Mahayana with its ideal of the bodhisattva path.
Spring forward to 12th century Japan, the time of Hōnen. By this time the original teachings had morphed into a great number of “buddhisms” based on various sutras and commentaries by influential teachers, often becoming increasingly complex as competing interpretations of scripture and tradition developed. Cosmic visions of spiritual worlds beyond our normal consciousness were offered to those who would undertake certain practices. An advancement up the ladder of the bodhisattva path and the states of mind that accompany it was promised.
Hōnen (1133-1212) was a serious student and practitioner of the Buddhism of Mt. Hiei in the hills above Kyoto. But the Buddhist practices that had developed around the Tendai interpretation of the sutras, as brilliant as the system was, seemed to have no effect in bringing him to the expected spiritual states. He tried everything with great effort but it got him nowhere. However, instead of blaming the teachings, he blamed himself, declaring that he was incapable of advancement in the three forms of learning (precepts, meditation, wisdom).
At the same time the politics of Mt. Hiei, where the advancement to positions of power dominated the thought of the priests, and armies of monks were raised to fight opponents, must have been off-putting to a serious monk like Hōnen. From Mt. Hiei he travelled to Nara to investigate the earlier forms of Buddhism that had entered Japan in the Nara period. Again, he could see no results in following the methods of these traditions.
Eventually, in the midst of this spiritual dilemma, while going over the writings of the 7th century Chinese monk Shan-dao (613-681), he seems to have had a type of awakening in which the significance of nembutsu hit him like a lightening bolt. Rather than a practice of purification and advancement on a spiritual path, nembutsu was a sign that the individual right here and right now, in the flawed and confused state of samsaric existence of this moment, was already in a state of salvation.
Hōnen’s realization of the significance of nembutsu is based on the apprehension of three factors: time, place and person. When is this? Where am I? Who am I? You could say that this is the driving force of Kamakura Buddhism, with its focusing on the reality of the here and now.
Time
To the Buddhists of Hōnen’s generation, and to many generations before him, the fact that they were living at a time when the Buddha Shakyamuni was no longer preaching in the world was the most regrettable aspect of their existence. Not only that, but they believed in a classification of the period of time after the death of Shakyamuni as a gradual decline in the ability of humans to understand or practice the teachings. By the reckoning of that system, Hōnen was living in the age of the Mappō (末法), the final age, in which people are no longer able to practice Buddhism effectively. What Hōnen witnessed on Mt. Hiei could only have reinforced his belief in this idea.
The time in which Hōnen lived was also a period of warfare among rival warrior clans. The Gempei war between the houses of Taira and Minamoto ushered in a new era with the establishment of a shōgunate in Kamakura.
Place
As stated above, Hōnen lived in late Heian/early Kamakura Japan. Of all the various lands through which the Buddhism of the Indian subcontinent had travelled, Japan was about as far away as you could get. So if Hōnen felt removed from the original Buddha in time, he was equally as removed in space. Thanks to a number of prominent Japanese monks who travelled to China, Buddhism in a number of highly developed forms had been assimilated in Hōnen’s native country.
People
According to the standard view of our unenlightened existence in this world, we are beings who have been blindly struggling in a sea of ignorance for innumerable eons of time. Infected by the three poisons of craving, anger and ignorance, we continue to act (karma = action) in ways that are harmful to self and others. This may be a bleak view of existence but it is meant to wake us up and help us face reality. Hōnen recognized this reality in his own life and longed for a way to break free.
I mentioned Shan-dao above and his importance to Hōnen. In his explanation of the so-called Three Minds 三心 (really three mental attitudes) of the Contemplation Sutra, he interprets the one called Deep Mind 深心 as being of a twofold nature: a) belief in the individual, and b) belief in the Dharma.
Belief in the individual (機の信心) is the belief that one is inextricably caught up in a web of confusion and suffering with no clear way out. Transmigrating endlessly in the six paths of existence, we continue, birth after death after birth after death in a state of ignorance. Belief in the Dharma (法の信心) is the belief that complete enlightenment has been attained in the form of the Sambhogakaya Buddha Amitayus (Amida), and that because of the vows and practices in the bodhisattva stage and the resulting enlightenment, we are already in a state of “Pure Land Birth.”
It is the juxtaposing of these two beliefs that results in the realization that we, here and now, in our present state of delusion, in this imperfect world, at this time in the history of our world, are exactly where we need to be. There is no other place to be. It is a very personal realization rooted in this very life that we are living now.
TIME-PLACE-PEOPLE