Jizo Bodhisattva

by Jan Chozen Bays

  Jizo

  Bodhisattva

  Modern Healing & Traditional Buddhist Practice

  Jizo Bodhisattva seated on a lotus, holding a ring staff and cintamani jewel. An offering to the Three Treasures by a Taiwanese artist.

  First published in 2002 by Tuttle Publishing, an imprint of Periplus Editions (HK) Ltd, with editorial offices at 364 Innovation Drive, North Clarendon, VT 05759 U.S.A.

  Copyright © 2002 Jan Chozen Bays

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without prior written permission from Tuttle Publishing.

  Permission acknowledgments for use of previously published material are set out on page 279.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Bays, Jan Chozen.

  Jizo Bodhisattva: modern healing and traditional Buddhist practice / by Jan

  Chozen Bays.- 1st ed.

  p.cm.

  Includes bibliographical references.

  ISBN 0-8048-3189-0; ISBN 978-1-4629-1805-8 (ebook)

  1. Ksitigarbha (Buddhist deity)-Cult. I. Title.

  BQ4710.K73 B39 2001

  2943'431-dc21 2001035136

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  At the time of his death the Buddha said, “I have worked hard for many kalpas to liberate obstinate living beings. Those who have not yet understood the Dharma will surely fall into states of suffering.”

  Kshitigarbha Bodhisattva said, “Even if their good deeds are as little as a hair, a drop of water, a grain of sand, a mote of dust, or a bit of down, I shall gradually help living beings to liberation. World Honored One, do not feel distressed over beings in generations to come.” He repeated this vow three times.

  Shakyamuni Buddha was delighted and said, “My blessings. I appreciate your strong vows and praise you for your efforts to heal the human world. When you fulfill this great vow after many kalpas, you will become a Buddha.”

  From the Sutra of the Past Vows of Earth Store Bodhisattva

  Dedication

  This book is dedicated to every reader. May your practice with Jizo Bodhisattva become a strong staff to support you in your pilgrimage through this life. May you awaken to the pure bright mind and open benevolent heart that have been yours since before you were born. May the benefit of your practice radiate to all whom you meet. May you live in happiness and at ease.

  Contents

  Foreword by the Reverend Heng Sure

  Preface

  Introduction

  One:

  Jizo in America

  Two:

  Jizo in Japan

  Three:

  The Water-Baby Jizo

  Four:

  Jizo Bodhisattva, Protector of Children

  Five:

  The Stone Woman Dances

  Six:

  The Pilgrimage of Jizo Bodhisattva

  Seven:

  Jizo Bodhisattva and the Path of Pilgrimage

  Eight:

  The Ring Staff

  Nine:

  The Cintamani Jewel

  Ten:

  The Six Rings and the Six Realms

  Eleven:

  Earth Store Bodhisattva

  Twelve:

  Practicing with Jizo Bodhisattva

  Thirteen:

  A Simple Ceremony of Remembrance for Children Who Have Died

  Appendix

  References by Chapter

  Glossary

  Acknowledgments

  Index

  Permissions

  About the Author

  Foreword

  THE Earth Store Sutra

  Japanese Buddhist pilgrims, as Roshi Chozen Bays tells us in her remarkable book, brought Jizo Bosatsu, with his compassion and saving graces, back to Japan from China. Chinese Empress Wu Zetien (624-705), despite her reputation for ambition and ruthlessness, was nonetheless a devout Buddhist laywoman. Monks visiting the Tang Court from India spoke of a longer edition of a popular scripture, the Flower Adornment (Avatamsaka) Sutra, and she wanted to read it. She promised to reward any pilgrim who could deliver the text, in Chinese translation, into her hands. The Khotanese translator Master Shikshananda, “Joy Of Learning” (seventh century), did just that. He brought a palm-leaf manuscript of the Flower Adornment Scripture to the Tang Court where he skillfully turned the Sanskrit into Chinese. The empress assembled hundreds of scholar-monks and attended the translation sessions herself.

  Before returning to Khotan, Shikshananda brought forth from his monk’s bag a copy of the Sutra on the Past Vows of Earth Store Bodhisattva and asked permission to translate it as well. The stories of Earth Store (Jizo) Bodhisattva began in China with that text.

  The narratives tell of great vows by heroic women; adventures of courageous children who make fearless sacrifices to repay their debt of kindness to their parents; graphic, gory accounts of the hells and sublime tales of the heavens. We find practical advice for the spiritual aspects of childbirth, interpretation of dreams, and guidelines for avoiding rebirth in the evil destinies of animals, ghosts, and the hells.

  Now Jizo Bosatsu, along with this timeless epic narrative, has come to the West.

  The Bodhisattva with the Greatest Vows

  His name in Sanskrit is Kshitigarbha. The name “Earth Store” could also be translated into English as “Earth Treasury,” or “Earth Storehouse.” Earth Store, like its Japanese equivalent, Jizo, and the Chinese Ti-tsang, is a quick two syllables, easy to chant in one breath, and easy to remember.

  Earth Store, one of the four great bodhisattvas of the Mahayana, is known as “the bodhisattva with the greatest vows.” His two unforgettable vows are

  “Only after the Hells are empty will I become a Buddha” and

  “Only after all beings are taken across to Enlightenment will I myself realize Bodhi.”

  Implied in these vows is the assertion that although Earth Store has the wisdom and the virtue necessary to become a Buddha, he chooses instead to postpone his own liberation until all beings have been safely rescued from the evil destinies. Only when they reach nirvana, will Earth Store fulfill his vows. Since living beings are busy creating offenses nonstop, Earth Store’s duties in the hells are likely to extend into the infinite future. Such unimaginable courage and compassion are what makes his vows particularly great.

  Women’s Relationships with Their Mothers

  I was a graduate student when I first heard stories of Buddhist women heroes in the Mahayana tradition. I read the story of Gangadevi, “The Goddess of the Ganges,” a Buddhist female saint. G
angadevi, like Kuan-yin Bodhisattva in the Lotus Sutra, had made a rich offering to the Buddha and in turn had received a prediction to enlightenment. Predictions to enlightenment mark a major turning point in one’s cultivation of the bodhisattva path.

  Gangadevi’s prediction caused some of the less-accomplished Arhat disciples to grumble. “How could a mere maiden win the most sublime prize: a prediction to Buddhahood, when that goal has eluded us, the real disciples, for so long?” they complained.

  The Buddha’s “field of blessings,” however, is impartial, compassionate, and nonjudgmental. He explained to the Arhats that whoever makes offerings to the Triple Jewel with a pure heart, seeking nothing from the act, gains a corresponding reward, regardless of gender, race, age, or social status. If the grumpy Arhats had made a similar offering with Gangadevi’s sincerity, they too, along with the Goddess of the Ganges, might have gained their predictions to enlightenment.

  Two of Earth Store Bodhisattva’s epiphanies as a bodhisattva, came in the form of women: “the Brahmin Woman” and “Bright Eyes.” Both women had found their strength by tapping into the roots of their lives; they were “filial daughters.” While their mothers were alive, both women related to them with gratitude and honor. After their mothers died, the daughters extended their concern past the grave.

  They sought the Buddha’s instruction on how they might continue to care for their mothers into their next rebirth. The first time I read this account, I reflected on how shallowly I had explored my own relationship with my parents. Although the sutra was originally spoken in India of the sixth century B.C.E., it spoke directly to my present situation. I believe it will do so for others too; hence, this welcome new contribution by Roshi Chozen Bays.

  Seeing into the Shadow Side of Life

  But Earth Store also talks of hells in nightmarish proportions. This is Buddhism with its eyes open, a religion that takes faith off the meditation cushion into the night of the soul, wide-eyed and open-handed into humanity’s griefs, mistakes, broken hearts, and hurting wounds.

  Earth Store’s sutra takes us into the darker side of life’s hidden but vital aspects. He reveals the tormented minds and spirits of beings who have lost the Way, and with therapeutic precision explains the causes for their grief. But the journey to the dark underside has a compassionate purpose: to light the way out. Earth Store extends a hand to pull us out of the cycle of negative karma driven by delusion that leads to more harmful deeds and even further painful retribution.

  Anybody who criticizes Buddhism as an escapist religion for people who want to avoid reality simply hasn’t heard about Jizo. The Buddha, in telling the story of Earth Store, paints humankind in its full spectrum of colors, from radiant to occluded. But this is not dour for dour’s sake, nor is it intended to leave us with a one-sided description of an ugly reality. It serves a healing purpose. The Buddha Dharma, with its holistic vision, gives methods for transforming negative emotion, wrong perceptions, and harmful states of mind into wholesome views, kindness, and deep wisdom.

  In the end, the Earth Store Sutra empowers us to fundamentally change our actions, words, and thoughts, and in so doing take charge of our lives. Thus, Jizo is in every way an epic hero.

  We live in an age and a culture alienated from our roots as never before. In a time of broken families and when children turn guns on classmates, this sutra’s wisdom has, though sadly, never been more relevant. Earth Store is medicine for the soul. It reminds us that our narrow focus on material things and sensory stimulation blinds us to the joy and satisfaction available on every side. A fullness of blessings lies beneath our feet and before our eyes, if only we take the time to look.

  This scripture appeals to the rare individual who understands that the beauty of a rose depends entirely on the “invisible” parts: the stem, the leaves, the thorns, the stalk, the roots and the fertilizer, rain, sun, and the effort of the gardener. Our later years comprise the longer half of life; and in many ways the most valuable. Few, however, see anything but the blossom when they look at a rose. Our culture is fixated on youth. We neglect our elders like things stored in the attic and dread our own aging as a curse. Earth Store once again reminds us of the treasure trove right beneath our feet, right before our eyes.

  I once asked my teacher in religion, Master Hsuan Hua, the monk who expounded Earth Store’s Dharma to the West in 1971, this question: “If somebody wanted to repay parents’ kindness while they are still in the world, what would be the best way to do it?”

  Without skipping a beat Master Hua replied, “Explain the Earth Store Sutra for your mother. That would pretty much repay her kindness in raising you.”

  Enlightened Ch’an Masters Look for Their Parents

  After years of perusing biographies of Buddhist masters and adepts, it has dawned on me how in the Chinese tradition, most Ch’an masters report that immediately after their experience of awakening, the first thing they did was find a way to repay their parents’ kindness. From Mahamaudgalyayana (Moggalana), the Buddha’s disciple who was foremost in psychic powers, to Ming dynasty Master Han Shan, all share a common thread: to repay the kindness of parents. Coming to terms with this the most fundamental of relationships seems to be a pressing priority for Ch’an masters when they view things through their newly enlightened eyes. The conclusion is inescapable: the child/parent relationship is in some crucial way essential to our spiritual journey.

  Earth Store is the bodhisattva with the greatest filial regard. When he was born as a woman she valued her first relationship, her root connection with her mother and father. She thought to repay that debt of kindness for bringing her into the world and giving her start as a human. Now such sentiments seem hopelessly out of sync and unhip. To stay home with the folks, to ask after their contentment, and to work for their comfort, at best becomes duty, at worst a burden. One must wonder: why did the great Ch’an masters, enlightened monks and nuns, immediately upon awakening from ignorance and attachment, look for their parents, to see into which realm they had been reborn? What lessons are we to learn from them when they state, as they do in so many stories, that their purpose was to “repay the kindness of their parents for making it possible for them to hear the Dharma and realize liberation from lifetimes of birth and death?” I think it’s more than metaphor.

  Sue Ellen’s Reunion with Her Mom and Its Impact on Her Meditation.

  I proposed a project with the Vipassana group that meets each week at the Berkeley Monastery. I suggested that the eighty or so regular meditators were to spend three visits with a “significant elder” of their choice-either a parent, grandparent, teacher, neighbor, the closest elder in their life. The task was to ask the elder to speak on their wisdom regarding the “next step in the journey.” I suggested that they say, “I’m aging, too, and I could use some good words from your current perspective about the journey into elder status. Would you please tell me how your spiritual path has developed?”

  I said, “Visit them three times and listen carefully to the concerns and the advice the elder provides.”

  Three weeks later we gathered to hear the stories. One of the meditators, we’ll call her Sue Ellen, explained her background:

  I hadn’t talked with my mother for seven years. She and I always disagreed about my life and she had given me up as a lost cause. Something about this project you gave us hit the right spot at just at the right time. Since I’ve been meditating for six years, maybe I’ve gained a bit of stillness and composure. Anyway I called my mother after I got home from class and she started right in on me.

  I said, “Mom, you never change and I love you for it. I’m coming right over.” I walked in her house, gave her a hug, and we didn’t stop talking for eight hours. The next morning she asked me to teach her to meditate.

  Boy, was I ready to reconnect with my mother. And the strangest thing, this week when I went to meditate I discovered that my entire chest area from waist to shoulders was warm and flexible. Who would have thought that my estr
anged relationship with my mother had frozen my heart? I had been meditating with a block of ice in my chest. Now my sitting has come alive and I’m warm from toe to crown.

  The urgings of Earth Store Bodhisattva, Jizo Bosatsu, to reconnect with our parents, still rings true and taps into our spiritual well-springs. The ancients continue to remind us: the Tao is here in the world, in the careful and tender treatment of the things and people closest to us. Grafting our lives back into the network of humanity pumps tap water through our tree of wisdom. Read with joy and delight in this timeless story.

  The Reverend Heng Sure

  American Buddhist Bhikshu

  Director, Berkeley Buddhist Monastery

  Preface

  Writing this book has been an activity of faith and thus of spiritual practice. It began when Michael Kerber of Tuttle Publishing called to say he had heard I made statues of Jizo Bodhisattva. Would I write a book about Jizo? His request caused a turning. I had always thought, no more books. Bookstores are full of Buddhist books; there are too many words already, like muddy boot prints all over the simple truth of the Dharma. But I answered yes. Why? Not because the book was needed by anyone else, but because it was an invitation for me to know Jizo more intimately.

  Jizo Bodhisattva has appeared and disappeared many times during my twenty-five years of Zen training. I first encountered Jizo when I started Zen practice in the 1970s at the Zen Center of Los Angeles. My teacher Maezumi Roshi had placed a stone statue of Jizo next to the path leading to the zendo, under a small lemon tree. I was unexpectedly attracted to this statue and rose early each morning to place a stick of incense in the dirt in front of it and chant the Jizo mantra. I planted a small garden of moss around the statue. While watering the moss to keep it alive in the Los Angeles heat, I poured water over the statue as I had seen memorial stones washed in Japanese cemeteries.