Citation

Kiyozawa, Manshi. “Peace beyond Ethics.” December Fan: The Buddhist Essays of Manshi Kiyozawa, translated by Nobuo Haneda, Shinshu Center of America, 2014, pp. 33–39.

Quotes

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I, Shinran, am totally ignorant of good and evil.

— Tannishō, Postscript

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Picture a little boy carrying food on a tray for a guest. His mother is worried that he might stumble, so she follows closely behind, supporting the tray. Although the boy is convinced that he is carrying the tray by himself, he happens to look back. He discovers that it is actually his mother that has been supporting the tray. When he is not aware of his mother's help and thinks that he is the only one carrying the tray, he is worried about dropping it. He feels a sense of responsibility. But when he discovers that his mother is helping, he can forget about his self and his responsibility, and leave everything up to her.

Collations

• There is a spiritual basis that goes beyond ethics. This spiritual basis allows us to be present and gain a great peace of mind in any given situation.
• You are not capable of bearing personally responsibility for every event in the universe. You have to leave these matters to Tathāgata.
• Because there is no self, there is no self-responsibility. There is only the working of Tathāgata.
• To attain great peace of mind, stop stealing the work of Tathāgata. Leave everything into it and simply follow.
• When you abandon the self and leave everything to Tathāgata, you simply witness its work and stop discriminating between right and wrong, good and evil.
• To rely entirely on Tathāgata does not justify doing wrong and getting away from doing it. Thinking this way is still a manifestation of ego and not true selflessness and faith.
• Actions in the universe fall into two categories: first, actions that Tathāgata makes us perform and second, actions that we perform in the realm of the self.
• True faith on Tathāgata means not differentiating between its workings and the ego's workings.
• "we cannot experience an act as both Tathāgata's and ours"
• When we return to the realm of the self, we bear responsibility for our actions and sink into suffering.
• Failure does not have an objective reality. It is simply a concoction of our mind.
• When we believe that we are guided by Tathāgata, there are only things that encourage or instruct us but nothing that makes us fail.
• What we initially see as our responsibility or transgression could be transformed into the working of the Infinite.

Literature notes

This is the connection of amoralism and Jōdo Shinshū: When you put your entire faith to other power, you destroy the self and transfer responsibility to it. Morality stops. Jodo Shinshu achieves through faith what amoralism has reached through error theory.

Prompts