When is Chanting Effective?

Question: Must people know who Amitabha is for the recitation to be effective, or does it have power regardless?

Response: To attain rebirth in the Pure Land, we need to have faith, vows, and practice. Basically, faith means that we believe what the Buddha taught us, vows means that we make the vow to be reborn in the Pure Land, and practice means we live a moral life and chant “Amituofo.”

Sakyamuni Buddha told us that at the end of the Dharma-ending age, the age we are now in, as his teachings are gradually lost to us; the last sutra to remain will be the Larger Amitabha Sutra, also called the Infinite Life Sutra. This sutra “will remain for another hundred years to rescue sentient beings and lead them to the Western Pure Land.” After that, only the name of Amitabha Buddha will remain for a final one hundred years.

From this, we can see that just chanting “Amituofo” benefits us. How much depends on our good roots, good fortune, and causal conditions. But, at the very least, chanting “Amituofo” will plant more seeds in our Alaya (most subtle) consciousness. So while we do not know when we will benefit from our chanting, we can be assured that at some time we will.

For our sake—and the sake of all those we have vowed to help—the sooner we attain the ultimate benefit and achieve rebirth in the Pure Land, the better.

Trying to meet non-material needs by material means

 

I've written about happiness several times; about how less is more and life is like a soap opera, and when people have asked what attachments are.

Happiness is an inner state. An inner state cannot be brought about by external circumstances. An inner state arises from our mind. From our perceptions and thoughts. From the conclusions we draw and the things we tell ourselves. So happiness does not come from more things or experiences. And it certainly does not come from believing the advertising we are assailed with everywhere we look.

The Buddha warned us about the three poisons of greed, anger, and ignorance. Our greed can destroy our practice. And as we are now beginning to realize, greed can destroy our world. It can do this in many ways. We desire power, we crave revenge, we yearn for love—the list is endless. But the bottom line is: “I want.” And the unspoken thought following this declaration is…and I’m just not going to think about the consequences.

Today I read Use less or use better?. The entry, the excerpt below from a New Yorker article, and the comments were equally good. 

"I asked [Amory] Lovins how his plan to save the world through energy efficiency could accommodate the open-ended nature of human desire. If, as he claims, conservation is profitable, what was to stop the profits from going straight toward more consumption?

"It doesn't automatically prevent that," he said. But, he added, "you might plow the money back into more efficiency rather than more powerboats and helicopter skiing. After all, you don't rewash your clean clothes in the cheaper-to-run washing machine, because your clothes are already clean. At some point, I think you get jaded by continuous trips to Bali.

"Your neighbors might point out that what you're doing is increasingly antisocial," he continued. "On a moral or spiritual level, at some point you may discover you're not all that happy having more stuff or more travel. Trying to meet non-material needs by material means is stupid and futile. Every faith tradition that I know decries materialism.

"Markets are meant to be greedy, not fair. Efficient, not sufficient. They're very good at short-term allocation of scarce resources, but that's all they're good at. They were never meant to tell you how much is enough or how to fulfill the higher purpose of a human being."

We need to figure out where happiness comes from, what our preoccupation with self-gratification is doing to our world and the less fortunate beings we share it with, and how we are going to change.

And as we know from our practice of Buddhism, change starts with ourself.

* "Mr. Green: Environmentalism's Most Optimistic Guru," January, 2007 New Yorker, Elizabeth Kolbert with Amory Lovins

Do not Waste the Opportunity

We shall follow the rules set by the Pure Land patriarchs:
be a vegetarian;
be mindful of Buddha;
refrain from committing evil and cultivate good deeds;
know the law of cause and effect; and
cultivate good fortune and nurture virtues
so we can eradicate our karmic obstacles in this life and
attain rebirth in the Pure Land at the end of this life.

This way, we will not waste this lifetime and
this opportunity of being students of the Buddha.

~ Patriarch Yin Guang ~ 

Ego and Practice

Question: Could you please advise on how ego plays a part in daily Buddhist practice. Does ego prevent us from the mindfulness needed to relinquish attachments and is there "good ego" that helps our practice.

 

Response: Good question Bill, thank you. Ego plays a very important part because it keeps distracting us from our practice. When we sit in meditation or do prostrations, our "ego" keeps interrupting us with "I want to be comfortable! This hurts." When we practice giving, our "ego" prompts "Don't give that away, you might want it someday."

Or how about that "Hey, we've worked hard today, have another slice of pizza." (Okay, I'll personally confess to that one. But I have been working very hard. Honest.) When we want to practice patience, ego pops up with "I don't want to wait quietly in line, I want service now! Where's my double Java Chip Frappuccino Light?" (Had to go to Starbuck's website for that one.) 

Ego constantly tries to distract us from our mindfulness to relinquish attachments and aversions because it wants to be the center of attention.

As for a "good ego"—what's good is our true nature. It doesn't ask what's in it for me, but rather, how can I help others.

Above all Worry and Care

A laywoman once approached a well-known Elder Master and asked: “I have recited the Buddha’s name for some time now, but have not seen any sign of progress. Can you explain to me why this is so?"

The abbot said, "Reciting the Buddha’s name is not difficult; the difficulty lies in (1) perseverance. Perhaps you have not recited regularly and in a persevering manner.”

The laywoman replied, “You are entirely right. I am usually interrupted in my recitation and have not been persevering, because of family obligations. From now on, I will put aside all distractions and vow to keep reciting exactly as taught.”

Some time later, she returned and asked, “Since receiving your instructions last time, I have put aside all external distractions and recited the Buddha’s name regularly, every day. Why is it that I still do not see any results?”

The abbot replied, “Reciting the Buddha’s name is not difficult; the difficulty lies in perseverance. Persevering is not difficult; the difficulty lies in (2) being single-minded. Although, on the surface, you may have put all distractions aside, in your mind you still worry about possessions and property and are still attached to children and family. You have neither discarded worry nor eliminated the root of love-attachment. How can you achieve one-pointedness of mind and see Amitabha Buddha?”

Hearing this, the woman sighed aloud “That is so true, Master! Although I have seemingly abandoned all distractions, my mind is still preoccupied with them. From now on, I vow to disregard everything and recite the Buddha’s name singlemindedly.”

Thereupon she went home and, from that time on, each time her children or anyone else sought her advice or confided in her, she would invariably reply, “I want peace of mind, and do not wish to be bothered by anything.” For this reason, everyone referred to her as “the woman who is above all worry and care.”

A few years later, she went to bow to the abbot at his temple, saying, “Thanks to your advice and teaching, I have now achieved one-pointedness of mind and have seen Amitabha Buddha. I have come to pay my respects and take leave of you, Abbot, because I will soon be reborn in the Pure Land.”

The laywoman in our story achieved liberation because she was enlightened to two principles: perseverance and single-mindedness. Thus, to be successful, the Pure Land practitioner should consider everything, from personal possessions and property to family and friends, to be illusory and phantom-like, coming together temporarily and then disintegrating.

If we care about family and friends, we should ensure our own rebirth and liberation and then rescue them. This is true affection! Therefore, to recite the Buddha’s name effectively, we should not only ignore one hundred distractions, we should discard all distractions, be they one thousand or tens of thousands!

~ Seeker’s Glossary of Buddhism