Some more questions from a Westerner and student on the Vow22 programme

[Susthama]

1. What does our community understand by 'Other Power'?

2. Where does this unconditional love come from?

3. Who is Amida?

4. What is Amida?

5. Where is Amida?

[Susthama]

I guess I should mention that these aren't my questions but have been sent to me and I thought it might be a good idea to post them here and see what other answers there are out there.

My initial thought was to let Dharmavidya answer these questions - after all he is the head of the Amida Order and the spiritual guide of the Amida-shu. However, I think as an exercise to try and separate out the doctrinal points from my own ideas or rather feelings of the who, what, and where of Amida Buddhism would be a good thing to do. And I guess I hope that they are in line with my teacher's teachings.

These can be taken as academic questions - let's get the facts from the source itself which I suppose would be the Larger Pureland Sutras, teachings, sayings, and writings from the Pureland masters and perhaps even look at what is in the Pali Canon. Or these can be taken as a spiritual exercise where one contemplates on the world around us and seeks to understand life using these terms. And so the answer is based on one's experience or intuitive sense of something mysterious, something infinite, something wonderful, something undefinable. And when it comes to the feelings that are evoked and a sense of what these things are - then I imagine we'll find that each and everyone of us who attempt to answer these questions will have a different definition, concept or idea in mind.

So, what do I understand by Other Power? The easiest place for me to start is to say what it is not. It is not self-power. It is not something that I have control over, and it is not influenced by my actions, my thoughts, my feelings, nor my mind. It is not something that I can possess, own or appropriate. It is not the ego, nor the self. But I am here, I exist, and my life is supported by Other Power. In other words, it is another way of talking about Dependent Origination.

2. Is that sort of like asking 'is there an agent involved?' When it rains, what is raining? This is difficult to answer, and so we are better off talking about it philosophically, and if we do enquire into the unconditional we need to abstract oneself from time, from the process of our life, so that we can rise to that perspective and see the order in things. The Dharma realm is a realm that is eternally true, and embued with unconditional love and it comes to us - it has a way of breaking through to us when we least expect it - naturally for it is unconditional, there are no conditions upon which it exists, there is no practice, no deed, no condition to create this love. Isn't that amazing!!!

3. According to the Larger Pureland Sutra (LPS), a monk called Dharmakara made 48 great vows and so became the Buddha of the Western Pureland, known to us as Amida Buddha.

4. We can break the Amida down etymologically. A in Sanskrit means 'without' and 'mida' is very close to the word meter and so it means without measure. Amida does not measure. Amida is also measureless and therefore infinite and thus impossible for us to get our heads around and impossible to reduce to something finite.

5. According to the LPS Amida is in the Western Pureland beyond the setting sun. Amida is by the horizon and found on the horizontal plane. But in terms of one's experience, Amida is holding and supporting us, keeping us warm, and guiding us to live in a place where suffering is dealt with in a loving way.

There is alot more one could say but I'd be interested hearing other answers.

Namo Amida Bu,
Susthama

[Tan Jit Kiat]

1. 'Other power' refers to the vow power of Amida Buddha within the dharma realm
2. It exists in everyone of us, it just needs to be realized
4. Immeasurable Light (no space barrier), Immeasurable Life (no time barrier)

[Ben Ross]

I just want to express my appreciation for these explanations. They present such a beautiful and just vision of the universe and our place within it. I'm drawn to the poems of Saichi, where he expresses at times that he is himself Amida, longing for Saichi, or that his saying of the nembutsu is actually Amida saying the nembutsu. This breaks down my usual sense of Other Power as something outside myself that I must work to get access to in some way. I'm guessing Saichi doesn't mean that his ego is Amida, but that Amida is within all of us as well as outside of us, in our longing itself?