There is now a second book out on Pureland Buddhism as practised by Amida-shu. Dharmavidya has written an excellent introduction to the Amidist faith and has done so with reference to a highly personal and moving account of the last few weeks of his mother’s life. It is a beautiful book that I shall treasure.

Here is a short exerpt:-

I knew she was at peace with the ending of her life. My own sense of the time scale had transformed completely. I was now not sure that she would even be with us more than a day more. I knew she would now “get on with it.” Mother was like that. Once she was clear what was to be done she would get on with it. Dying would be no different. I returned her smile. It was yet another moment of mutual recognition, of which there had been so many in those few days. And with each such moment there was not just the knowledge that we understood each other, there was a deepening self-reflection on my side - perhaps also on hers, who can say? - that was sobering.

Buddhism is a matter of becoming sober. The Buddha saw that we are as if drunk. We are drunk on self-conceit. This conceit is, in large part, a psychological defence against knowledge of death and the anguish of alienation. Perhaps this would not matter so much if it were not for the fact that the anaesthetising habits with which we fill our lives are non-discriminating. Just as they dull our awareness of our finitude, so they dull awareness of the infinite glory of our world as well. In smothering our alienation they also smother our love. What does it take to sober us up? Encounter with somebody who is not as intoxicated as ourselves. Who would that be? It would be somebody who is closer to death, in the true spiritual sense of the word close.

Somebody close to death does not necessarily mean somebody who is actually dying, though it might and in this case did. However, a spiritually advanced person is somebody who is closer to death even in their physical prime. Enlightenment is an encounter with spiritual death. It is not something we achieve, however. It is a gift. It is transmitted to us.

The idea of transmission does not just apply to a mystical validation procedure whereby a Buddhist master passes his authority to an anointed successor. We receive the Dharma by transmission. The knowledge of spiritual death and its consequences is not something that an individual can attain unaided. There has to be contact.

Throughout life we are learning about death. Mostly, however, the learning opportunities pass us by. Sometimes I have sat in a group of people talking about death or talking about a person who is dying or has died. By looking around the circle you can easily see that some people are tuned in and others are tuned out. With the ones who are tuned out there is little one can do. They will remain in that mental set until something happens in their life that jolts or seduces them out of it, and generally speaking, such transitions cannot be contrived.

This is one of the difficulties of what is called Buddhist training. On the one hand, it is possible for people to follow a course of education and to participate in ceremonies and a way of life and as this rubs off on them they learn something. They may become more considerate of others, more tender and kind, less compulsive or bad tempered and so on. This is to the good. It inevitably remains fragile,  however, until it is grounded in a real awakening experience of some degree. This latter cannot be planned or achieved. It is incidental or even accidental.

The most important spiritual lessons that I have learnt from others have not come so much from what people have taught me, but from how they are. People sometimes say that all true knowledge comes from within ourselves. It is true that when one receives some true transmission it feels as though something inside oneself has been awoken and one might like to say that it was there all along, just waiting, like Sleeping Beauty waiting for the Prince. Sleeping Beauty, however, does not wake without the Prince.

Rev. Dharmavidya David Brazier