Surrender and Grace Too

                                                                                                                                                                                                          When we talk about the spiritual aspects of “surrender”, does it mean that nothing is left to be done? I tried this thought experiment before the group meditation practice tonight. I asked myself: what would it feel like right now if there was absolutely nothing I needed to do to somehow improve myself emotionally? What if, I am ‘already there’ by virtue of grace? Does it mean that there is nothing more to do? When I entertained this thought, I at first felt a certain kind of relief that was very distinct and freeing. It even allowed me to move freely and enjoy what is happening around me, knowing that it does not affect what happens to me. But then later, during the moving meditation, it almost felt as though I had let go of the principle too quickly, and frivolous thoughts started to arise. I went from being too strict to being too loose in terms of the functioning of mind. So where is this ‘sweet middle’, and where does it fit into a spirituality of grace/surrender where it is assumed that one surrenders one’s ‘self power’ to ‘other power’?

               When we talk about faith, I think there needs to be faith in something, and that something ends up sustaining the faith. In the case of Pure Land Buddhism, the faith relates to the infinite compassion of Buddha’s vows. This seems to be very important, because without a strong direction toward an all-embracing compassion, it can devolve into a kind of stage-view of practice. I have heard many people suggest that the Pure Land is a temporary place which is comfortable enough for someone to attain enlightenment. But from a practical point of view, what does this mean? I think again, it means that a person uses the all embracing compassion of Buddha’s vows to direct the mind toward its own nature. Without this practice of directing the mind to itself, the compassion can be interpreted as a kind of comforting feeling. But does compassion really mean a comfortable feeling? Certainly one aspect of compassion is to fully relax, but there has to be something besides this and beyond this relaxed state. It seems that the Pure Land is a kind of place where one can then fully practice wholeheartedly.

        To put it into a different context: if someone who has infinite compassion and vows had said to me “I will not achieve liberation until every being becomes liberated by reciting my name”, I would first of all feel the relief of a compassionate being. But something else would also happen. I would start to value compassion so much that it would start to become the direction of life. It’s not only that I would want to enjoy the compassion of someone else, but I would also be so touched by that compassion that I would want to embody that relationship of compassion. That is, I would even start to imitate the Buddha’s compassion in some small way. Otherwise, the compassion would become a kind of dead-end feeling of comfort, and even the heaven would become a bit stifling. Another way of saying this is that because compassion stresses the inseparability of “me” and “you” (and their mutual interpenetration), I would no longer be content to live the life of just receiving the compassion of someone else. That is because such a view remains locked in a stifling dualism, and the very act of receiving compassion already entails opening up to a very different way of being, which does not entail separation or isolated beings.

         I think that if someone were truly practicing Pure Land, perhaps two things would be evident. One is that Pure Land is not something ‘out there’ to be desired after one’s physical death, but is rather a way of being ‘here’ in the world, where one is not caught in vexations or attachments. The other is that a person wouldn’t be locked in a state of just receiving or enjoying compassion. Rather, the act of receiving boundless compassion would be an invitation to look into the boundless aspect of one’s experiences. I think this is where the true power of Pure Land comes from: a kind of opening or broadening of one’s inner horizons to accommodate a no-self or a space where there is no need for a separate sense of self. That is, when one realizes she is fully and unconditionally loved, there is no need to make plans only for this one limited concept of self. And it would then be easy to be so grateful for this gift that one would use it to try to investigate, in every moment, the who of the moment: who has this experience. And this would be the ultimate compassion that any being could provide to us—the insight that we are not really separate, cut off selves, and we are not in danger from other selves, as such. Is not the universe itself compassionate by virtue of having this empty quality to it? Then it would become very easy to go into huatou, because one has this grace, this sense of not having a separate self to fend for itself.