To wax long about Emptiness, I would have to abandon the Pure Land Way.
Since Nembutsu is the Buddha Amida calling, why would I want to spout flowery words about Emptiness?
Since Nembutsu is also the Buddha-dharma of Amida, why would I want to distract myself by musing endlessly about Emptiness?
For the Pure Land devotee's goal is not only to prepare himself for the Pure Land after death; it also is to affirm faith in Amida's Primal Vow.
In establishing faith in the Primal Vow, I have come to realize that the Pure Land of Bliss may exist both as a state of mind and as a spiritual place in my heart.
(Yet both the heart and the mind are as one in spirit. Hence, the heart and mind become one as the heart-mind.)
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Furthermore, the Nembutsu establishes faith in life after death.
Although it would be incorrect to state that a soul goes to the Pure Land after death, I can clearly affirm that rebirth in the Pure Land may another way of stating that the spiritual essence - the True Self - returns to the Absolute.
Actually, no returning of a soul to the Pure Land occurs at all when a person dies.
The body merely dies, and self (ego) dies with it.
When a Pure Land devotee dies, she is reborn as a bodhisattva in the Pure Land of Bliss dependent on her faith.
For the bodhisattva reborn in the Pure Land represents the spiritual essence which is thought of as "the soul".
I consider this concept of bodhisattva in this way:
With every sincere recitation of the Nembutsu and earnest study of the Pure Land sutra comes the desire to be reborn as a bodhisattva in the Pure Land.
Thus, all my recitations of Nembutsu are like offerings to the bodhisattva who represents my sincere desire to be reborn in the Pure Land of Bliss.
Were I not to recite the Nembutsu for one day, my rebirth would still occur.
Why would my rebirth still occur? Because my sincere desire to be reborn there was affirmed by even one uttering of the Nembutsu many times in the past.
In uttering the Nembutsu, I abandon all thought about Emptiness. Each syllable of the Name-that-calls brings me closer to the Pure Land. Namu Amida Butsu!
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