What is it like to be enlightened? How does one get to that state? These may seem like weighty questions requiring complex, abstract discourse, but at the Maida Center Summer Seminar, we were given some very concrete answers as we studied the life of Haya Akegarasu.
The Maida Center is the newly formed Buddhist study organization headed by Dr. Nobuo Haneda in Berkeley. The Center is dedicated to studying the works of Shuichi Maida (1906-1967) as well as Maida's teacher, Haya Akegarasu (1877-1954) and Akegarasu's teacher, Manshi Kiyozawa (1863-1903).
The Summer Seminar took place over three days, July 31 to August 2. On Friday evening, Dr. Haneda gave an overview of Akegarasu's life. As in Shakamuni Buddha's last words, "Rely on the Dharma, not on the person," Dr. Haneda made the point that when we study a particular teacher, we should not get fixated on (attracted to or repulsed by) their personality traits but we are to appreciate them as a segment of the "pipeline," that is, the transmission of the Dharma to us here and now. The finger is important, not for its own appearance, but for its function of pointing to the moon.
On Saturday morning and afternoon, Rev. Gyoko Saito and Mr. Kingo Harada told us about their personal experiences of studying directly under Akegarasu. Rev. Saito gave the more organized talk, exploring the concepts involved in Akegarasu's spiritual development. Mr. Harada, a lay person, had many insights to offer about the "sensation of truth" (shinjitsu no kan) that struck him when Akegarasu and Maida spoke.
In his Saturday evening lecture, Dr. Haneda, by examining the events in Akegarasu's life, was actually presenting us with the process of attaining enlightenment. As in the story of Prince Siddhartha and the Four Gates, Akegarasu met first with the negative aspect of impermanence--that life cannot be what we want it to be. There are old age, sickness and death, as well as struggles and disappointments. Then in the same way that Siddhartha was inspired by the sight from the fourth gate of the monk with the bright, serene face, Akegarasu at age 16, was amazed to meet Manshi Kiyozawa, appearing ironically as the instructor of his least favorite class, English. Kiyozawa, as a vivid contrast to all the complacent priests blindly following centuries of tradition, represented the positive aspect of impermanence--the freedom and creativity of the seeker for whom life is ever-fresh and constantly flowing.
This meeting with impermanence, both its negative and positive aspects, is the essential beginning of the path to enlightenment. After Kiyozawa's death, Akegarasu began losing touch with the truth of constant change as he became settled in the role of a respected religious leader. He headed the group which was continuing Kiyozawa's work of modernizing Buddhism, particularly through the popularization of the Tannisho (collection of Shinran's sayings). Then at age 36, Akegarasu's world was completely destroyed by his wife's death and the flare-up of a scandal. Being hit so hard by the negative aspect of impermanence, Akegarasu was ready to give up totally on life as the words of the Tannisho and other teachings failed to console him.
Fortunately, Akegarasu kept reading through the teachings until the positive aspect of impermanence came to him in the Eternal Life Sutra (also known as the Larger Sukhavativyuha Sutra), the story Shakamuni tells of the seeker Dharmakara who comes to be named "Namu Amida Butsu." In essence, Akegarasu realized he had been clinging to Buddhism as a fixed set of concepts to "save" (that is, enhance) himself so he could be a Teacher. The Eternal Life Sutra put him once again in contact with Kiyozawa, the embodiment of the constantly seeking student of the Dharma.
Akegarasu's story shows us that the process of enlightenment is not such a complicated or mystical thing, but is mainly a matter of our encounters with impermanence. We don't have to be subjected to great losses and scandals, since any one of us can feel the suffering that comes from not having our own way. But to be shaken out of our fixed ideas and opened up to the free and creative life of impermanence is something we don't experience often. In fact, much of what is labeled Buddhism has the opposite effect, giving us reason to feel smug and superior, that we are the Teacher who knows how things are supposed to be.
On Sunday morning, we were given a glimpse into the mind of enlightenment as we read Akegarasu's piece, "The Last Person Remaining." In the stereotypical Western idea, "enlightenment" is some special state of bliss where one is above and beyond the grubby masses of this world. But in Akegarasu's description, the person who is completely free of ego-attachment is able to see the whole world of beings as his teachers, as Buddhas full of brilliant qualities. He considers himself the only deluded one, the sole dweller of hell, because to think otherwise is to throw up a barrier of conceit between himself and the rest of the world. Shuichi Maida gave Akegarasu's last book the title, "Together With This World, Transcend the World!" (Yo to tomo ni, yo o koen). The title could also apply to the seminar, since we learned that true enlightenment (transcending the ego) can occur only when one is completely reverent towards all beings (together in oneness).
I hope those of you in the Higashi Honganji North America District will have the chance to attend a future seminar or one of the classes at the Maida Center. Due to various karmic circumstances, someone like Akegarasu could not have come out of Nishi Honganji, the other Shinshu denominations or even out of the Zen sects. Listening to Rev. Saito talk about his teacher, I can't help but appreciate Higashi Honganji's particular history, which took quite a different path from Nishi's during the Meiji era (1868-1912). I feel that members of Higashi in America should treasure the legacy of Kiyozawa-Akegarasu-Maida. Ironically, even though the Maida Center is non-sectarian, most of the people attending the seminars and classes are members of the Buddhist Churches of America (Nishi Honganji).