Sutra Snippets for Everyday: An Easy Way of Getting to the Source
#3 - The Tan Butsu Ge - Song of the Life of No Regret from The Larger Pure Land Sutra
Continuing this new Sutra Snippets for Everyday series where you can discover a direct relationship between you and the teachings of the Buddha, I’ll offer an additional reminder about sutra study. Even if you don’t understand a sutra when you first read it, if you keep reading it, you will be surprised at how an understanding happens despite yourself. In my experience, the understanding that comes from rereading a sutra goes deeper than the typical conceptual understanding you arrive at when reading a contemporary Buddhist teacher.
For this “Snippet” I’ll look at one section of The Larger Pure Land Sutra, also referred to as The Sutra of Infinite Life or The Sutra of Immeasurable Life. It is a section referred to as the Tan Butsu Ge. Tan Butsu Ge means "song of praise" or "song in praise of the Buddha" (Tan or San means praise, Butsu means Buddha or enlightened one, and Ge mean poem or song).
Rev. Gyomay Kubose authored an English translation and commentary of the Tan Butsu Ge in 1976, which he titled the Song in Praise of the Buddha / Song of the Life of No Regret. The subtitle, Song of the Life of No Regret, speaks to the central importance of the Tan Butsu Ge verses in The Larger Pure Land Sutra. Some Buddhist teachers refer to the Tan Butsu Ge as the essence or "heart" of the whole sutra.
I agree. I feel it goes beyond being the essence of just this sutra, but also to the heart of all Dharma and the heart of how to live a good life, a life of meaning, a life of no regret.
From The Tan Butsu Ge:
When Dharmakara gushes:
Your radiant face,
Like a mountain peak
Catching the first burst
Of morning light
Has awesome and
Unequalled majesty.Like black ink by comparison
Are the sun, the moon, or the “mani” treasure.Tathagata,
Such is your incomparable face.
The melody of your enlightenment
Fills the world...… we know how that feels.
Your Everyday Take-Away:
As Mahayana Buddhists, we consider a life of meaning as living in the spirit of the Dharma and working to help relieve and eliminate the suffering of all beings. But if we're not Buddhists, but Christians, Jews, Muslims, or secular humanists, a life of meaning is a life also guided by a higher principle or belief system that aligns our thoughts and actions to something bigger than our little, everyday, self-referential stories.
Maybe it's trying to live a life as Jesus taught; or listening for the voice of God to provide meaningful direction through prayer. Maybe it's working to help the poor or better educate children; or working to find a cure for cancer or developing a renewable energy source. Maybe it's being the best mother, father, sister, or brother you can be.
No matter where we find meaning in life, we all can point to that moment a teacher opened our eyes to it and inspired us to pursue a path aligned with that meaning. It may have been more than one teacher, but we can all remember the first WOW moment and the motivated energy it inspired in us.
The Pure Land Buddhist teacher and author, David Brazier, comments that Buddhism is “caught” rather than taught. I believe that can be said of any teacher who transmits his own deep understanding to you through his teaching. We are captivated. We fall in love with the teaching, the teacher, and the feeling it inspires in us. If we try to remember feeling that way, then the opening words of the Tan Butsu Ge will not seem a far-fetched, nor a distant mythical story with no meaning for us.
For those of us on the Pure Land or Jodo Shin spiritual path, it is a powerful, life-changing kind of falling in love. We have fallen in love with the light of the Buddha, the light of the Dharma, the immeasurable light and immeasurable life of Amida that has penetrated our dark material world ... the divisive culture we live in … our financial problems ... our squabbles with co-workers or family ... and our health challenges.
The light opens our hearts so that we can forget about this mundane world, our little stories, our ego. At that moment, we, too, become illuminated—first from the outside, then from the inside—when our hearts open and we are able to transcend our self—if only for a moment. This light and this sound that fills the world has us walking on clouds. We are in love. Life is beautiful and everything is possible. Our exuberance has no bounds; it is immeasurable. We have glimpsed immeasurable life, which Rev. Harada, a student of Rev. Gyomay Kubose, refers to as “the life beyond ego.”
At that moment we are connected to our teacher, and his teacher, and his teacher ... And the Tathagata bringing the Dharma, bringing the world of suchness, the ultimate spiritual world into the mundane world through us. It is, as David Brazier says, a leaking or descending of the nectar of the eternal, spiritual world into our mundane world, and into us. And we are, as he explains, “under the Tathagata's spell.”
Under the spell of the Buddha, our lives are full of meaning, because we have become one with the Buddha and the Buddha nature that is our birthright. We can now, without hesitation live as our true selves, through the help of the Tathagata who has opened a clear channel into our hearts and minds. With that channel open, our doubts will disperse and we can pursue our innermost aspiration with a faith given to us in grace, through a field of influence, the Pure Land that the Buddha has shown to us through our teachers.
We can now live a life of meaning; a life of no regret.
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