I like to listen to music when I do work on the computer. I often watch and listen to music videos on YouTube. I listen to a wide genre of music and one day I happened to see a video by Yo-Yo Ma, the amazing cellist, which was a trailer to advertise a “MasterClass” that he was teaching.
It was a wonderful, short video that connected so much to Buddhism. He was talking about how music to him was less about perfection and more about expression. One statement in the video really struck me. He said that as a musician, he strives to “transmit something, so that it lives in somebody else.” To transmit something, so that it lives in somebody else.
I thought, “Isn’t that what we are trying to do in Buddhism as well?” We are trying to transmit the Dharma, the teachings, so that it lives on in somebody else. What a beautiful way of expressing what we strive to do in sharing the Dharma.
When Shakyamuni Buddha attained enlightenment under the Bodhi tree over 2,500 years ago, he, at first, hesitated to share his insight. He thought that nobody would understand what he had experienced. Maybe he also thought, “How can I transmit and communicate this profound realization? It is beyond words. It is beyond description.”
But Buddhist legend says that a divine spirit pleaded with the Buddha to share his insight for all of humanity for the future. From that encouragement, the Buddha shared his first Dharma message with the monks that he had been practicing asceticism with.
They had called him a “quitter” and looked down on him, but once they saw him after his enlightenment, they immediately became his followers and his first disciples. That first message was the turning of the Wheel of the Dharma. It was the first time that the Buddha transmitted something that lived on in somebody else. For the next 40 years, the Buddha continued to transmit something that lived on in each and every person that he encountered and who listened to him.
Shinran Shonin’s life could be characterized in the same manner. After his long spiritual search and years of arduous practice on Mount Hiei, he encountered a true teacher and a teaching that resonated deep within him. From Honen, he received the Nembutsu as a profound truth, as the heart of the Buddha, great wisdom and great compassion.
He first received something from his teacher and from the ultimate source of realization, truth itself, and it lived on in him. From that point on in his life, he shared the Nembutsu with people in Echigo, then with others in the Kanto region, then in his later years, back in the Kyoto area. He shared it verbally and through his writings.
We might have had the great privilege of meeting with teachers and teachings and received something that lives on in us. Even if we haven’t, there are teachers and teachings widely available to us, if we have the seeking mind and a heart to listen.
As Yo-Yo Ma expresses, what is transmitted “lives on” in somebody else. The Dharma that we receive and transmit to others is a “living” thing.
It is not an abstract teaching, a conceptual teaching or an academic teaching. It is a living teaching, transmitted to us from “living” teachers and teachings. Sometimes that living teaching is transmitted to us from books, texts and writings. We can receive “living” teachings from the sutras and Shinran Shonin’s writings. That is how we can receive the direct teachings from the Buddha or from Shinran Shonin, through their writings, and it lives on in us.
May we come to receive the teachings, the Nembutsu, and then transmit it, so that it lives on in somebody else.
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