The Unfolded Path

The Buddha’s first sermon to his five disciples forms the basis of much of his subsequent teaching and has been handed down to us 2,500 years later.  The story of the Buddha tells us that as he ventured from his palace and exited the “Four Gates” he encountered an old man, a sick man, a funeral and a monk.  With each experience his anxiety and his deep sense of the suffering of man grew.  It was those experiences that motivated Siddartha to leave his home and seek a answer to the suffering of man.  After years of practice he reached an understanding of the world and human suffering.  He realized that the natural changes and the old age, sickness and death that occur cannot be stopped but how we experience these events can be changed.

Each of us will at sometime in our lives experience these four gates or events through our own lives or through the lives of others around us.  The difference between us and Siddartha is that we will continue to live our lives and not contemplate these changes with the urgency and depth that Siddartha did.  However the Buddha has left for us the Dharma through which we are reminded of the urgency of seeing the truth of our lives.

The Buddha clearly shows us that the cause of our anxiety, pain and suffering is the ego centered, blind self that stumbles through the world. We often hear of the Eightfold Path that the Buddha taught in his first sermon, but we look at them as practices for us to do.  Nothing could be further from the truth if we look at the true meaning of the Eightfold Path or 八正道 hashodo.  The first and last characters are easy enough to understand ha is eight and do is path.  The term sho can be found in Shinran’s Shoshin Nembutsu Ge. Shinran uses the character Sho together with Shin to describe faith.  “The faith given through the Power of His Original Vow”[1]  The term Sho here refers to a faith without doubt a faith given by the Buddha.   It intimates “the same as the Buddha”. Therefore the Eightfold Path is not just a path or practice to follow but the path or the practice of the Buddha.

Our path on the other hand is an unfolded path.  We have yet to discover the path the Buddha had taken. We have yet to unfold the truth of the Dharma and its wonders.  As an example the first of the Eightfold path is “Correct View” This means to see the world as the Buddha does.  To see the world as the Buddha does means to see a world of interdependency, impermanence and emptiness.  However much we intellectually know and understand this we do not live our lives and see the world this way. We the world through the eyes of our ego centered self and we live our lives as if it will last forever.  We cling to the idea of self and all our possessions as real and lasting.

This can be said of all of the eight including “Correct Meditation” which is to truly see the self and when it comes to the Eightfold Path how we cannot follow this path. As much as we desire to follow we find ourselves gossiping, scowling, criticizing, inattentive and lazy.  The intent here is not to point out one’s flaws but open our eyes to the wisdom and compassion of the Buddha whose intent is to save beings such as ourselves who cannot follow this path.   When Shinran called himself a “Baldheaded fool” he was looking at himself honestly and his inability to practice the way of the sages and his only recourse was the Nembutsu.  This is what Shinran was referring to in the above quote from the Shoshinge.  The Buddha’s Eighteenth Vow is the vow that assures our birth in the Pure Land of Amida despite the fact that we cannot practice. 

As we look at the Eightfold Path we are looking at the true and real self and are made to realize how fortunate we are to have encountered the Dharma and the Buddha’s vow to save all sentient beings.  How grateful I am, Namoamidabutsu.

Rev. Shinseki