Full Surrender

  This past weekend, I managed to find a copy of Selected Works of D.T. Suzuki, Volume II: Pure Land. In fact, I had been meaning to read this book for some time, since I have always had an interest in Pure Land Buddhism, but it's only been this last little while that I have been able to look at it. It seems that this book and Kierkegaard's Works of Love complement each other, especially in the sense that they deal with themes of salvation via faith, as well as the role of grace in spiritual life. And lately, I am beginning to try to understand it more from a psychological perspective than from trying to figure out which spiritual path is the 'true' path of grace.
    Lately, I have also been thinking that grace is a state of mind. I would even go so far as to say that this state of mind doesn't come from outside, but can actually be induced in some way. This is a rather controversial statement in itself, and it's not the one that religious views like the Shin sect would adhere to. According to the Shin sect of Pure Land Buddhism, it is entirely 'other power' (tariki) and not 'self power' (jiriki) which determines whether one is saved or not (or at least brought to a state of grace in this world). Not even prayers or petitions (see Suzuki, p.112) are sufficient to control or influence the ways of grace. One must completely surrender the ego in favor of a complete abandonment to the saving and vow-generating power of Amida Buddha.
     Now, I am not so sure whether the West, with its focus on individualism and free will, is quite ready to embrace a psychology of surrender. There are times when transcendental philosophers can talk about it, but it is couched in such a way that the surrender is about a temporary experience. We even say 'surrender to the moment', and this safely protects a person from having to surrender to every moment or even eternity. What is it about this attitude of surrendering to other power that makes sense, and what part seems problematic or challenging? I think the most challenging aspect is that choosing to surrender to some higher power or being is still a choice that has to be cultivated by a self, or through an act of will. This is where I think the idea of tariki can get challenging fast, because it raises the question of what acts of will, if any, are going to bring a person to such a state of surrender, or whether surrender completely relies on the other. In fact, there is a mystery to this state of things, and Suzuki rightly warns his readers not to succumb to a dualistic thinking on the Pure Land doctrine. After all, the prayer and the prayed-to are not that much different: they are both aspects of oneself. If I don't accept that Amida is not a part of this very mind, then I succumb to debates about 'who' surrenders and 'who' really wills the surrender to happen. And these tensions only become impossible when a person is committed to dualistic thinking.
     The way I believe it might be working is that the mind uses a form to channel the compassionate vow to deliver all sentient beings. But it also uses this formality as a platform through which there is no room for the self to take credit or 'elevate' itself in some illusory way. This is very tricky, because a lot of times what a person is really channeling is an enlarged view of the self when they are looking toward a divine or spiritually awakened being for help. How, then, can I really know that my surrender is genuine and when it is only surrendering to a false sense of self or hope? I think that one has to really be honest about this and look to the actual experience of surrender itself. If the sense of surrender is freeing a person from a desire to 'advance' oneself in some way, or gain advantage over a previous way of being, then this is not quite a full surrender of tariki. There is still a self that thinks to affirm itself through an act of worshipping its own projection. I am thinking about all those 'get rich' schemes on TV where the motivational speaker promises to make you into a "new you" after you pay large sums of money for the product or service being advertised. Here, the same thing arises: I see someone who has 'made it' in some way that reflects my understanding of success, and then I see 'myself' in that person, projected into the future. This is one form of surrender, but the surrender is not really a surrendering of the self or the ego.
     A second kind of surrender feels different. I think it can be characterized as completely giving up the hope that one has the power to 'make it' in an enduring way that will address all the existential suffering of one's heart and world. What's left after giving up the hope is a kind of compassionate longing for all beings to be released from the struggle to 'make it' in an unreal or false way. It's only when a person has reached that full surrender that they can truly see how painful and hard it is to suffer under the delusion that "making it is just around the corner". That desire to be ultimately successful in one's life has such a tremendous pull on a person that it can create a pretty enduring and stable sense of anxiety throughout one's life; the anxiety of not living up to one's expectations of what they should be or what life should be.
      Again, this latter type of surrender would not likely be a hit in places where success is defined according to one's visible accomplishments, actions, wealth, etc. In fact, this surrender would allow me to continue to play the game of accomplishment and success, but it would give me the calm of knowing that I don't need to rely on such accomplishments for my own inner being. This is because with tariki, the self has already been delivered by a compassionate being whose vows are infinitely embracing all beings. And to have faith in this unconditional. powerful compassion can go a long way in easing the desire to continually 'better' oneself.

Suzuki, D.T. (ed. James C. Dobbins), Selected Works of D.T. Suzuki, Volume II: Pure Land. Oakland, CA: University of California Press.