Beyond Calculation

The so called "beast from the east" is now disturbing our English spring - possibly all part of global warming - so I shall compose a blog and waffle and ramble. 

The "beast from the east"

This morning I was reflecting upon the nature of "no calculation". Perhaps this could be seen as seeking to calculate but let me not drift too far away from the subject in hand. Here is the entry on "calculation" (hakarai) from the "Glossary of Pure Land Terms" to be found in the "Complete Works of Shinran":-

Hakarai is the noun form of a verb meaning to deliberate, analyze, and determine a course of action. It further means to arrange or manage, to work out a problem, to bring a plan to conclusion. In Shinran’s more common usage, as a synonym for self-power, it refers to all acts of intellect and will aimed at achieving liberation. Specifically, it is the Shin practicer’s efforts to make himself worthy of Amida’s compassion in his own eyes and his clinging to his judgments and designs, predicated on his own goodness, for attaining religious awakening.

For Shinran, salvation lies rather in the complete entrusting of oneself to the Primal Vow, which works to bring about “the attainment of Buddhahood by the person of evil”. This working is Amida’s hakarai. Hakarai, then, possesses two opposed meanings, as a synonym for both self-power and Other Power, and its usage reflects the core of Shinran’s religious thought, where one’s calculative thinking and Amida’s working are experienced as mutually exclusive. Great compassion illumines everyone at all times, but any contrivance to attain enlightenment by cultivating one’s own virtues or capabilities – whether through moral action or religious practice – will blind one to it, making sincere trust (shinjin) impossible. Only when a person realizes his or her true nature as a foolish being (bombu), all of whose acts and thoughts arise from blind passions, does he awaken to the great compassion that grasps him just as he is. To know oneself and to know Amida’s compassion are, in fact, inseparable aspects of the same realization, and one awakens to them simultaneously. In this awakening, one’s own hakarai disappears and entrusting oneself to Amida’s Vow actually comes about for the first time. Thus Shinran states, “No working (practicer’s hakarai) is true working (Amida’s hakarai).”

As true entrusting arises wholly from Other Power, the practicer is completely passive. Even seeking to know oneself as evil or to rid oneself of hakarai in order to accord with the Primal Vow is itself hakarai, and all such effort is futile and self-defeating. This is the paradox the Shin practicer faces. The admonition against hakarai does not mean, however, that one must renounce the aspiration for enlightenment and do nothing at all. It may be said that the desire for birth arises truly only with shinjin and that prior to realization of shinjin it is overshadowed by attachment to this world. Nevertheless, aspiration even prior to realization of shinjin leads one to listen to the teaching in earnest confrontation of the problem of emancipation. Such listening will at some point be transformed into hearing (mon), which Shinran explains:

“To hear” means to hear the Primal Vow and be free of doubt (i.e., hakarai). Further, it indicates shinjin. 

This hearing, which is the realization of shinjin, is not simply to receive the verbal teaching, but to experience with one’s entire being the very reality of the Primal Vow. When great compassion wakens one to its working, one is freed from the bonds of one’s own hakarai. Conversely, when one’s calculative thinking is made to fall away, all is seen to have been Amida’s working.

Maybe after wading through that lot some will much prefer the far more abbreviated verse to be found in Romans 8:28, "And we know that all things work to the good for those who love God, to them who are called according to his purpose." But for me, the dualistic language of Romans, of a God who himself calculates, of those who "love God" (and those who do not?), of those who are "called" (and those who are not?)..........well, each to their own. Anyway, as I was thinking this morning, my mind drifted to the words of children, who rarely seem to calculate. 

For various reasons I'm not really with Wordsworth, with his:-

trailing clouds of glory do we come, 

from God who is our home

(lines from "Intimations of Immortality") 

Perhaps trailing eons of karma? Maybe, but let me not calculate. Back to children and their words. Time for waffle. Once, when my own daughter was young, we were walking across a rather large field. Right in the middle I asked her if she wanted to play any games. Indeed she did. "Hide and Seek"!! "Where on earth can you hide here?" I asked, to which she sank down and pulled her coat over her head.

Anyone for "Hide and Seek"?

 So it is with children. Another time, during our "pre-go to sleep" chat, she suddenly said to me:- "When people die they go to shops", which astonished me for a moment, before remembering a visit to a museum the day before when we had taken time to look at some to the exhibits on display of stuffed animals. Putting two and two together and getting five, my little one had come up with a complete pile of nonsense - which just might have much to say of our own calculations, but let us not go there. "Oh no" I cried, "the people in shop windows are dummies, they have never been real." Responding, she then asked:- "Then why do they wear clothes?" This was now putting great demands upon my wisdom......"Its so the shop can display what they have for us to buy" I said. "Oh" she said, "so if you want something they take it off of the dummy and give it to you." Well, eventually I managed to explain about the shop having stock of various sizes inside, and at last my daughter was off to the land of nod. 

Dead or Alive?

Rambling on, last year my daughter got herself married. Not a moment too soon I thought as she now had two children of her own - even Pure Land Buddhists have standards. When I first heard of the intended nuptials I realised with terror that a speech would be demanded of me. I dreaded it. Mrs Dookie made light of the whole affair, just suggesting that I offered a few anecdotes of our daughter when young and then thank the staff and whatnot. The suggestion of anecdotes got me thinking and one popped into my head, one I had in fact never shared with family, one I had always kept close to my heart. This one took place during the days of Band Aid and Bob Geldof, when every night we heard news and saw pictures of the terrible famines in Ethiopia. 

Sir Bob Geldof - bodhisattvas come in all shapes and sizes

I was walking our six year old to school. She happened to look up at the sky and said:- "I wonder if God is up there behind that cloud". 

Time for a father's wisdom! "Oh, God is not like that, God is everywhere".

"Cor, he must be a fat bloke" she said.

 We walked on a little, then:-"Why did God create wasps?" 

Immediately I got the drift. A couple of days before, eating jam sandwiches in the garden, a wasp had dive-bombed proceedings causing mayhem and fear. Time again for the wisdom of age:- "Oh, we shouldn't judge the worth of anything just by whether we like them or not. There's a reason why everything has been created." 

This time we walked on for a minute or two and then my little one, just six, asked:- "Why did God create the people of Ethiopia?" Her question still has the power to break my heart; still I am totally unable to remember exactly what I said, but really, no wisdom on earth could have given an answer - not, that is, if it issues from "calculation". 

Well, I told the anecdote at the wedding, with all the guests settling in for a four course nosh. I'm told it went well. 

Time for a anecdote on famine?

Well, just to finish, a couple of anecdotes from our grandchildren. The generations come and go, children remain children. Playing in the park with my grandson, then four, we both lept into a wooden play boat. Me, in my very best "pirate" voice cried out:- "Ah ha me hearties!!" to which the little lad said:- "There's only one hearty"! Indeed there was. 

Anyone for a breadstick?

And just to even things up, one from our grandaughter, then three. We would often give her pizza for tea and our daughter told us that she often liked a breadstick with her meal. So we offered her the packet, she took three, ate them, then left most of her pizza. "Next time we'll hide the breadsticks" said a stern Mrs Dookie. A few days later it was pizza again. In her very best "this is for adults only" voice Mrs Dookie said to me:- "I've hidden the breadsticks right out of sight" to which the little girl said:- "They're NOT out of sight, they're in that cupboard over there"

Our two little grandchildren

Related Quotes:-

 "The spirit of this time would like to hear of use and value. I also thought this way, and my humanity still thinks this way. But that other spirit forces me nevertheless to speak, beyond justification, use, and meaning."

(From "The Red Book", C G Jung)



I wander thro' each charter'd street,
Near where the charter'd Thames does flow
And mark in every face I meet
Marks of weakness, marks of woe.

In every cry of every man,
In every infants cry of fear,
In every voice, in every ban,
The mind forg'd manacles I hear

How the Chimney-sweepers cry
Every blackning Church appalls,
And the hapless Soldiers sigh
Runs in blood down Palace walls

But most thro' midnight streets I hear
How the youthful Harlets curse
Blasts the new-born Infants tear
And blights with plagues the marriage hearse.

(William Blake, "London")