Dharmavidya writes:
Here in Amida we
practise Pureland Buddhism, which could be said to be Buddhism with a
human (sometimes very human) face. It is Buddhism for ordinary people.
In Japan the vast majority of Pureland priests are married. They conduct
the religious life of the community in a similar manner to Protestant
clergy in the West. By contrast, Buddhism in the West has developed
around the monastic lifestyle and has a rather puritan ideal. Many
Western people seem to feel more at home with that kind of austerity
even when it is practised by denominations that also practise sexual
discrimination, authoritarian organisation and ethnic bias. In Amida we
are not so austere. We have both a celibate and a non-celibate track. We
revere as founder both Honen Shonin, who was celibate, and Shinran
Shonin who was not. To paraphrase Honen, our attitude is that if being
in a relationship would impede your practice of nembutsu, then be
celibate; if being celibate would impede your practice, then enter a
relationship.
At the present time
the Amida sangha is clearly going through a developmental change.
Several people are entering into new relationships. Personally, I feel
that this is much to be welcomed. It is in keeping with the Pureland
Buddhism of Japan and it tends to make our sangha one that ordinary
people in society can more easily relate to. It means that some members
of the sangha will have a partner who can be a support and help them to
carry out their role in the Buddhist community. At the same time some
other people prefer to remain celibate. This is also excellent. The
celibate path is a very special one that provides the opportunity for
people to dedicate themselves to practice and to have an openness to
others that is universal. Both paths are important and it has always
been my intention that Amida would be a sangha in which both tracks are
available and work together in harmony and co-operation.
I was ordained
nearly 33 years ago and I have seen a lot of changes in the Buddhist
world. The order in which I originally ordained did in due course give
up on having married priests and now only has a celibate track. I
thought, and still think, that this was regrettable - a mistake. As the
leader of a sangha myself it has always been my wish that in our own
sangha both tracks should be available and treated with honour.
Furthermore, I do not see any reason why people should not move from one
track to the other in either direction so long as this is accompanied
by serious reflection, commitment and decorum. A lot of this is simply a
respect for naturalness. It is natural that people sometimes fall in
love. It is natural that sometimes relationships end and it should be
quite acceptable for people to choose not to enter into a new one. The
training that people receive in the Amida sangha equips people very well
for both styles of life. After several years of celibate training
people sometimes then feel ready for a married life and much more mature
in their approach to it. Similarly, after experience of relationship
some people come to realise that their spiritual life will actually be a
lot richer and their capacity to help others stronger if they are
independent of relationship ties. Respect for this diversity should be a
hallmark of our approach.
In the early days of
Amida we maintained these principles by having an amitarya track that
had restrictive relationship rules and a ministry track that did not.
This dispensation served us well at that time. However, it gradually
became apparent that the essential difference between being an amitarya
and being a minister was not the factor of openness or not to
relationship and pressure developed to change the system. Initially I
was resistant to changing. However, as so often, not only was I wrong,
but once the changes came in I was one of the first to avail myself of
them and I now see how the new situation that has emerged is preferable
with all four options (celibate and non-celibate amitaryas and celibate
and non-celibate ministers) catered for.
When people are on
different tracks there is, of course, always a risk that polarisation
occur or factions form. We are human, after all. There may be the
feeling that "our group is getting bigger" or "our group is getting
smaller" when somebody changes from one track to another. When we stand
back from the situation we soon see that such feelings, while
understandable, are misplaced. A sangha develops erratically. Sometimes
there are more women and sometimes more men, sometimes more elderly
people and sometimes more young ones. There are any number of criteria
upon which we could create factions. The essence of sangha, however,
lies in our ability to transcend such sentiments and adhere to what is
more fundamentally true. We are all together in our regard for Amida
Buddha and in his light all such polarisation seems trivial.
An intimate
relationship provides certain advantages and poses certain problems.
Being celibate and independent also provides certain advantages and also
poses some problems. Whether the advantages outweigh the drawbacks
depends essentially upon the amount of goodwill. There is an obvious
hazard when members of a religious community have spouses. The spouses
arrive with a different culture. Will this be a cause of friction? Will
the outside world culture thus imported undermine the distinctive
culture that the community have so carefully nurtured over many years?
Undoubtedly there will be some effects of this kind. However, if the
community is mature - as the Amida community now is - there is also gain
for the community in the additional creativity that results.
The success and
excellence of the Amida community has always rested on its exploitation
of synergism. When varied elements conspire together the scope for
creativity and mutual aid expands exponentially. Applying this principle
to the phenomenon of community members taking outside partners one can
assume that in the long run there will be an overall gain for the
community. In some couples there will be not enough good will and those
couples will eventually part company with the community. In other
couples there will be sufficient goodwill for the gain to work in favour
of the community. Overall the gain will be greater than the losses.
This principle applies to a wide range of activity. It is why the Amida
community has so often seemed to be facing a difficulty and then
invariably emerged stronger. There seems to be a difficulty when the
difference factor is in focus, but when one can stand back and take a
wider perspective one sees the synergistic gain.
In order to gain
from synergism it is immensely important that we listen to one another
and discuss everything in a spirit of goodwill. Gatherings in which we
share our spiritual life in an atmosphere of deep mutual respect are a
hallmark of the Amida way - our "sacrament", one Order member has called
them. Currently, as a direct consequence of the recent changes that I
am referring to here, we are seeing a deepening and an opening in these
gatherings. People feel freer to share their emotional inner process
than formerly - I certainly do. This has benefitted us all and is an
immediate gain for everybody involved. Some Buddhist communities
restrict such intercourse out of a mistaken concern for the formalities
of "right speech", but here we believe that truly right speech is not
speech lacking frankness, artificially stripped of all challenging
content, but genuine sharing from the heart in which we all become
vulnerable, in which we acknowledge bombu nature, care for one another
and trust in an Other Power to take care of the emergence of collective
wisdom. This is where miracles do occur. During periods of change in the
community such gatherings are particularly important and it has been
deeply moving to see some of the sharing and extraordinarily touching
encounters that have occurred. Let us not be afraid to be "just as we
are". This is an amazing opportunity. Learning to drop our masks in
company we can trust is a vital part of Buddhist training.
The Amida sangha has now lived through and digested a huge amount of collective experience in a relatively short number of years and this has made it an intensely interesting and exciting adventure to be part of. We have evolved a strong and unique culture. We are not trying to imitate other groups or approaches or to replicate Japan in England. We are unique. I am entirely confident that the changes that are going on at the moment will enrich that unique and amazing culture and there is ample opportunity for all the people currently involved - younger and older, celibate and in relationship, lay and ordained, men and women, to contribute now even more than before to this increasing richness and the synergistic developments that it makes possible. Where else can one have such an opportunity?
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