Confronting the Heart
of Darkness
Reverend Patti Nakai
SUMMER 2017 tricycle
It is only when we confront and accept the
heart of darkness within ourselves that we can shatter the walls of
ego that divides us from others.
In the mid-1980s my Otani University adviser,
Professor Shunsho Terakawa, gave a public lecture after an old
friend and schoolmate of his died of cancer. The two had attended a
school together outside the city of Hiroshima, and on a rare day
off from classes, August 6, 1945, they decided to take a bus into
the city to hang out there. The 8 o’clock bus was packed, so they
waited for the next bus. Then, at about the time the first bus
would have arrived in the city, they heard and felt the impact of
the atomic bomb and saw its mushroom cloud. Wanting to know what
had happened, they started walking toward the city. What they found
was utter destruction: overwhelming numbers of people for blocks
and blocks lay dead and dying. Professor Terakawa described the
people walking out of the city as frightening sights: some had
swatches of burned skin hanging off their bodies and eyeballs
falling out of their sockets. He and his friend were totally
helpless, knowing there was nothing they could do for any of the
people crying out in pain and fear. It was too much for him to
process as a teenager, but the memories of that day later shaped
the direction and depth of his religious studies.
I remember that the title of his public
lecture was Ningen no mumyo, which translates as “The Darkness
(mumyo) of (no) Humanity (ningen).” He spoke of the atomic bombings
not as the doing of one particular country against another but as
the vicious actions of human beings upon our fellow human beings.
In this way, Professor Terakawa had entered the mind of Prince
Siddhartha sitting under the Bodhi tree. In the prince’s
self-examination, he was forced to confront himself as the cruel
warrior, no different from his father and all the kings before and
after him, kings who commanded their armies to rain destruction on
any clan, village, or kingdom that posed a threat to their
prosperity. According to the Japanese Shin Buddhist teacher Haya
Akegarasu’s retelling of the Agamas (early Buddhist scriptures),
when the prince recognized this bloodthirsty horror in the depth of
his being, he shouted, “Avidya!” Though what Buddhists call “the
awakening” arose with that shout, there are different
interpretations of what the word meant.
If we accept the usual English translation of
the Sanskrit word avidya as “ignorance,” it follows that Siddhartha
awoke to the fact he was not-knowing (a-vidya) reality correctly.
Vidya can indicate the concept of “knowing” but that meaning comes
out of “seeing, understanding” (i.e., making sense of what you
see). When avidya was translated into Chinese, it became two
characters: wu (not) and ming (seen clearly, brightness). This is
mu-myo in Japanese pronunciation. This understanding of avidya as
not-bright, or not-seen-clearly, has a different connotation from
the typical English translation of “ignorance.” It became a
tradition in East Asian Buddhism to define Siddhartha’s awakening
not by the dispelling of his previous ignorance but by the direct
confrontation with what was “not-bright” (mumyo) deep within
himself—the visceral realization of his ability to inflict pain on
others. Prince Siddhartha became the awakened Buddha when he saw
his own avidya, his own dark heart and mind (mumyo), rather than
merely his “ignorance.”
In Jodo Shinshu (“Pure Land True Essence”), or
Shin Buddhism, this radical stance is emphasized. Whereas other
paths say that you can practice your way out of the heart of
darkness, Shin Buddhists aspire to come to grips with our own
warrior nature. We aspire to keep investigating all the ways we use
to separate ourselves from others and dismiss the worth of their
lives. We aspire to “own” all evils, so that we cannot use morality
as a yardstick to justify our condemnation of other living beings.
In the Tannisho, Shinran (1172–1263), our tradition’s founder, is
recorded as saying, “Given karmic conditions, I could do anything.”
In 20th-century terms, what he meant was, “I could be Adolf
Hitler.” In study sessions with my students, I used to ask, “Can
you see Hitler being born in the Pure Land?” Now I realize the real
issue is this: only when I can see myself as Hitler will I truly be
born in the Pure Land. “Namu Amida Butsu” [a chant also known as
the nembutsu, Shin Buddhism’s central practice] is a call for me to
come just as I am, with my heart of mumyo, darkness.
It is only when one identifies totally with
mumyo, the heart of darkness, that the walls of the proud ego-self
are shattered and the true light of wisdom can shine through in
one’s actions. In the Pure Land tradition we find inspiration and
guidance in the lives of those, known and unknown, who have treated
all people—including the common folk as well as criminals and
outcasts—with respect.