Jizo Bodhisattva

by Jan Chozen Bays

  They say things like, “I want to do it myself. I’ll tell them to change the schedule. I sit best at night. The mornings are terrible for me. I’m lonely when we all sit in silence. I want someone to talk to me. We should get up later and sit late at night. Next time I’ll just stay home and do my own retreat, my way.”

  Right. Sure you will.

  You’ll convince yourself to sit a whole week, eight hours a day. No cheating, no skimping. Push yourself beyond your limits. No way. This is why we need sangha, good companions, on this pilgrimage. To make vows to. To hear our vows. To help us uphold vows.

  How do we transform the stubborn “I do it myself!” aspect of mind? Take away what is extra, the childish, self-aggrandizing part, and it becomes the voice of the Buddha who told us not to believe anything simply because “the monk said it is so.” This is the mandate of our practice. Not to accept at face value the words of anyone, the Buddha, the Dalai Lama, Christ, our mother or father. The voice that insists, “I want to do it myself!” is right. It is the only way it can be done. The voice is crying out desperately, “I won’t be satisfied until I know it, experience it myself, in every corner of my existence. I want to be able to say, “The depths and shallows of the world are all in my grasp, are all myself.”

  There is a difference between childish and childlike. Our practice enables us not just to unfold the qualities of a child, but to manifest them in a truly adult body, a body of stability and wisdom, with a mind that is not just aware of our own suffering and the suffering of all beings, but has experience, and thus confidence, in the way to end that suffering. This, the rediscovery of our beginner’s heart and our ageless mind, brings us happiness. Their merging makes us inwardly comfortable, truly at home in the full possession of all of our faculties.

  Children as Spiritual Pilgrims

  In a practice group we asked the question, “When did my spiritual life begin?” Everyone remembered the beginnings in childhood. One college student said, “When I was about six or seven I found a dead bird on our front lawn. I suddenly realized that everyone, my parents, my favorite uncle, my cousins and I, all were going to die. What then was life about, if everyone was just born, lived a little while, and then died? It was all a trap. I began crying without stopping and my parents couldn’t help me.” This question never left him and now has propelled him into full-time Zen training. I asked my mother, still a spiritual seeker at age eighty, this question, and instantly she said, “Of course I remember. I was two or three years old. My mother would let me ride on her Hoover upright while she was vacuuming the house. As we passed a bookcase I saw my reflection in the glass doors and suddenly realized that I was unique, different from everyone else in the world. I began to wonder how this could be.”

  It is fortunate to be born to parents who know they are seekers. If we were born to parents who were “lost on the dark paths,” at some point we realized they were not going to be much help. If I’m going to figure it out, I’ll have to do it myself. The advantage of that particular karmic situation is we can embark on home-leaving early. We know the truth earlier than most people, that each one journeys alone. We set out like small but erect pilgrims. The great Zen teacher Dōgen Zenji began the journey early. His father died when he was two and his mother when he was seven. He began studying sutras at age eight and became ordained at age eleven. Unsupported but determined children find other ways to keep the spiritual doors open despite their inhospitable surroundings, through music, art, or nature.

  Looking back at how we started out, child pilgrims all, squaring our shoulders as we faced the travails of life, taking up any kind of staff that offered support, it’s very touching. We are like Christopher Robin determinedly setting out to find the North Pole that Pooh and Piglet have decided is lost and must be found. This is a true representation of something lost or missing that must be found and a quest that does begin in childhood.

  I once evaluated a ten-year-old boy whom police brought to the child-abuse program after he had called 911 because his schizophrenic mother was climbing on top of him nude and touching his private parts. His father was retarded. The boy was quite bright, but no one had ever spoken to him about his parents’ conditions. The boy was very worried about being taken away from home and denied to me that his mother had done any touching. I soon dropped any questions about abuse and moved on to what seemed more important. I asked if his mother or father ever did or said things that didn’t make sense. It poured out of him, his frustration at being born to and loving, but being unsupported by, these two peculiar adults. I explained briefly what mental illness was. He seemed relieved to know it could be treated and that we would try to help.

  After finishing his exam I left the room to let him get dressed in private. When I returned I asked my standard question for wrapping things up, “Do you have any questions you want to ask me?” Most children have no questions, and jump down from the exam table in relief, scooting out the door before we think of something else to do with them. But this boy didn’t move. He had a question.

  “Do you know the meaning of life?” he asked me very seriously. Halfway out the door myself, I stopped. Whoah. I sat down and asked him, “What do you think the meaning of life is?” He said, “I wonder if God is hiding.” What a wonderful koan, I thought. We had a long discussion, touching on his worries that he would go to hell because he hadn’t kept a small promise, and many other questions. We both left the room smiling. Age and circumstance do not matter. A pilgrim recognizes a pilgrim.

  The following passage is from the diary of a seven-year-old girl named Opal who lived in a logging town in Oregon in the late 1800s. She was a bright child who was not only in love with the world but who was able, because of her intelligence and sensitivity, to write about her natural joy and innate spirituality in a unique way, a way that opens the door of time and invokes our own child-heart of pure love and flowing gratitude for all existence.

  Today the grandpa dug potatoes in the filed. Too, the chore boy did dig potatoes in the field. I did follow along after. My work was to pick up the potatoes they got out of the ground. I picked them up and piled them in piles. Some of them were very plump. Some of them were not big. All of them wore brown dresses.

  When they were in piles I did stop to take looks at them. I walked up close; I looked them all over. I walked off and took long looks at them. Potatoes are very interesting folks. I think they must see a lot of what is going on in the earth—they have so many eyes. And after I did look those looks as I did go along, I did count the eyes that every potato did have, and their numbers were in blessings.

  And all the time I was picking up potatoes, I did have conversations with them. Too, I did have thinks of all their growing days there in the ground, and all the things they did hear. Earth-voices are glad voices, and earth songs come up from the ground through the plants; and in their flowering . . . they do tell the earth songs to the wind. And the wind in her goings does whisper them to folks to print for other folks, so other folks do have knowing of the earth’s songs. When I grow up, I am going to write for children—and the grownups that haven’t grown up too much—all the earth songs I now do hear.

  I have thinks these potatoes growing here did have knowings of star-songs. I have kept watch in the field at night, and I have seen the stars look kindness upon them. And I have walked between the rows of potatoes and I have watched the star-gleams on their leaves. . . . And as the wind did go walking in the field talking to the earth-voices there, I did follow her down the rows. I did have feels of her presence near. And her goings-by made ripples on my nightgown.

  On the afternoon of today, when I did have a goodly number of potatoes in piles, I did have thinks of how this was the going-away day of Saint Francois of Assisi, and the homing day of Jean Francois Millet—so I did take as many potatoes as they years did dwell upon the earth. Forty four potatoes I so took for Saint Francois of Assisi, for his years were near unto forty-four. Sixty potatoes I so took for Jean Francois M
illet, for his years were sixty. All these potatoes I did lay in two rows.

  And as I had seeing of them all there, I did have thinks to have a choir. First I did sing, “Sanctus, sanctus, sanctus, Dominus Deus.” . . . And the choir, there was a goodly number of folks in it, all potato folks wearing brown robes. Then I did sing one “Ave Maria.”

  After we had prayers, I did sing one more “Ave Maria.” I was just going to sing the all of it. I did not so. I so did not, because the chore boy did have steps behind me. He gave me three shoulder shakes, and he did tell me to get a hurry on me and get those potatoes picked up. I so did in a most quick way.

  Just as the chore boy stopped Opal’s song so she could finish her work, a necessary aspect of our growth is to assume responsibility and, with it, the anxieties of heart and mind that cover our original nature. As young children we all naturally possessed many of qualities that are manifested by the enlightened. These have not been lost, only obscured. Through practice we are able to open this kind of awareness again. Then impermanence and not-knowing no longer make us afraid. They become a source of continual wonder and delight. It is said that Jizo Bodhisattva likes to stand at crossroads because he is curious and wants to be able to learn about new things. Out of this childlike curiosity flows an ever-fresh intelligence, the experience of a warm and ever-spreading web of connection to all that exists.

  When these qualities of Jizo become our own, then, like Opal, we do not know boredom and loneliness. We are always accompanied. I accompany myself. I as the myriad living beings, grass blades, scurrying mice, swooping bats, dropping lichen, flittering tree spirits. I as multitude accompany I as temporary warm spot, padding and crunching along the path. Never alone, never ignored, never useless, never disconnected, never unsupported, never outside the vast web of loving-kindness extended by all beings.

  There are ancient legends from many countries—including India, Greece, China, and Tibet—of a river like the Styx that must be crossed by those who have died. The story of the Jizo and the children on the banks of the Sai undoubtedly arose from a combination of imported and indigenous sources. It is the universal story of human existence. Each of us is born helpless and naked, stripped of whatever had been accomplished in past lifetimes (whether we believe them to be our own past lives or that of our ancestors). We set out to achieve and make a mark upon the world, but all our creations are built upon the shifting sands of impermanence. The demons of karma inevitably emerge to help us understand that actions based upon worldly ambition and selfish desires cannot bring us happiness. Jizo appears as a symbol of our only true refuge, the shining, eternal, mysterious beauty of the selfless Dharma. If we are able to surrender our fear to this truth, to live with a simple, childlike faith in the mystery that is beyond our childish understanding, we will find ourselves at ease, sheltered within the very Source of everlasting lasting peace and comfort.

  Resting in that Unborn Mind, we look out and can clearly see the child, frightened, barely daring to hope, hidden in the heart of every angry and disordered person. The parental mind embodied by Jizo Bodhisattva naturally opens within us and embraces every being as our child. We accept our duty to protect and nourish all children so that they are able realize their full spiritual potential. We are moved to join the task of Jizo, extending our support and protection to every being born in ignorance and struggling toward freedom.

  chapter five

  The Stone Woman Dances

  Long ago, a pretty girl lived next door:

  She used to pick mulberries in a distant grove,

  Returning with her white arms full of gold and silver branches.

  She sang with a heart rending voice

  And sparkled with life.

  Young farmers put aside their hoes when they saw her,

  And many forgot to return home when she was around.

  Now she is just a white-haired granny,

  Burdened with the aches and pains of old age.

  Ryōkan

  The Feminine Origins of Jizo Bodhisattva: Historical Aspects

  Jizo Bodhisattva and Kannon (Kuan-yin) are the two most revered bodhisattvas in China, Korea, and Japan. Both Jizo and Kannon have feminine as well as masculine aspects. Some authors postulate that Jizo’s ancestor in India, Kshitigarbha, was a Buddhist transformation/assimilation of Prithivi, a Vedic earth goddess. This is congruent with the Sanskrit name of Jizo, Kshitigarbha, which can be translated as “Womb of the Earth” or “Earth Womb Receptacle.” There are four stories of the genesis of Kshitigarbha in the Sutra of the Original Vow of Earth Store Bodhisattva. The longest and most detailed stories are of two women whose sincere vows and devoted practice led them to become Kshitigarbha (see chapter eleven).

  There also is a Japanese legend ascribing a mixed feminine and masculine origin to Jizo. A devout priest named Myogwan prayed for several nights to see a living Jizo. A woman appeared in a dream and pointed the way to Mount Iwafune. There he met an old priest who transformed into a golden Jizo and then appeared again as an ordinary monk. He gave Myogwan miraculous rice that radiated light. If a few grains were cooked they filled an entire pot, enabling Myogwan to feed many starving people during a famine. Both the woman and old priest were declared to be manifestations of Jizo.

  After Jizo was introduced into Japan he gradually became known as a protector of women and children. As Jizo worship was taken up by the aristocracy, a number of shoguns and their consorts adopted Jizo as a tutelary deity. Masako, daughter of Hojo Tokimasa and consort of Yoritomo, had a picture of Jizo dedicated in her private chapel in 1223 on the twenty-fourth day of the month, the day dedicated to the bodhisattva. After the death of her lord, Masako became a nun, and, while reigning in the place of her sons, was called Ama-Shogun or “Nun Shogun.”

  Nude Jizos

  Hojo Tokiyori (1226-1263) and his consort were devout worshipers of Jizo. One day as this couple played at a dice game similar to backgammon they decided that the loser would have to disrobe. The consort lost the match, but she was ashamed to undress and prayed to an image of Jizo to rescue her. Suddenly the little Jizo statue disappeared, reappearing as a naked woman standing on the game board. This image was enshrined in Kamakura at Emmyō-ji, Temple of Long Life. It was dressed in robes sewn of cloth and stood on a backgammon board instead of a lotus pedestal. When pilgrims came the image was sometimes taken out and its robes parted to reveal that this Jizo had female pudenda. Because it substituted its own body to protect the modesty of the consort, it is called a Migawari (Substitute or Surrogate) Jizo. It is also called a Hadaka or “Naked Jizo” because, unlike most statues that had robes carved of wood as part of the statue and decorated with paint, this Jizo was carved as a nude image and was later dressed in clothing made as miniatures of actual priests’ robes.

  There are other “nude” Jizos in Japan. Two are in the city of Nara, one now found at Shinyakushi-ji Temple and another at Denkō-ji Temple. Both of these Jizos have genitalia that are neither clearly feminine nor masculine. The Shinyakushi Jizo has a simple lump in groin and the Denkō-ji Jizo has only a line carved in a corkscrew shape. There is speculation that these are representations of the “sheathed” or “retractable” penis, one of the distinguishing marks of a Buddha. The ambiguous genitalia of these Jizos also may reflect the dual male and female origin and attributes of Jizo Bodhisattva.

  “Nude” Jizos are not displayed naked. They wear priests’ robes and o-kesa, a pieced rectangle made like the Buddha’s original patchwork robe, that are sewn by women as a devotional practice. The priest’s wife at Denkō-ji told me that she and other women of the temple make by hand an entirely new set of clothing for the Jizo each year, including underwear, kimono, robe, and o-kesa. During the August Jizo-bon festival the statue is dressed in its new clothes.

  The “nude”Jizo at Denkō-ji Temple in Nara. Once a year, the women in the congregation dress it in new robes, which they sew themselves.

  Accounts from the tenth and twelfth centuries tell of women of
the Japanese nobility sewing clothing and ceremonially dressing religious statues. This custom has ancient origins. From the time of the Buddha, lay people have offered robes or robe-making material to monks and nuns along with food, soap, and other necessities. The Earth Store Bodhisattva Sutra tells of the merits of offering “scented flowers, clothing, food and drink” to Kshitigarbha. The recommendation in the sutra (along with the fun of dressing small beings like children, pets, and dolls) may have given rise to the devotional practice of making priest’s clothing for Jizo images. This practice, in turn, may have been the origin of the modern custom of making capes, hats, and bibs for Jizo. You can see small items of clothing on most Jizo statues or any upright rock that is even vaguely human shaped all over Japan. Some old Jizos even have fresh “makeup” on their stone faces, bright red lips, white cheeks, and blue eyeshadow.

  When the nude Jizo at Denkō-ji Jizo was taken apart for restoration in 1950, the curators were surprised to find it was hollow. In a cavity in the thigh they found a Kannon Bodhisattva holding a monks’s staff in the left hand and a lotus in the right. Inside the head of the Jizo was a small blue glass vessel of fifth-century Chinese origin that contained a diminutive sandalwood statue of Yakushi nyo-rai (the healing or medicine Buddha) and three tiny fragments believed to be relics of the historical Buddha. The Denkō-ji Jizo likely was fashioned in 1228 under a joint commission by three women. The torso of the Jizo was filled with scrolls of Buddhist sutras. Two women, one a nun of 83 years, had written dedications in classical Chinese, offering the merit of the statue for the salvation of their parents. A third woman, also a nun, included prayers to Jizo Bodhisattva asking to be reborn as a man.