822 donald drummond
Dharma did not lie with its decline or the passage of time. According
to Kūkai, performance of esoteric practices could lead to enlighten-
ment in this very body no matter how severe the practitioner’s offenses
had been in the past or what one’s capacity for practice (kikon) might
be as a result of past actions (van der Veere 2000, 68). From the Shin-
gon perspective, jōbutsu (becoming a buddha)—that is, awak-
ening to reality—was the outcome of empowerment/unification (kaji
) through the three mysteries of Dainichi Nyorai that parallel the
practitioner’s three actions of body (shin , mudrā, gestures), speech
(ku , mantra), and mind (i , yogic meditation) that occurred
within the practitioner’s present form (sokushin jōbutsu). This was
Kakuban’s understanding as well. Yet he was also influenced by a
Shingon interpretation of the Amidist vision of rebirth into nine levels
of the Pure Land (kuhon ōjō ), whereby one’s apprehension
of and proximity to Amida Buddha was based on the practitioner’s
karmic capacity.
Saisen, a Shingon monk and close associate of Kanjo, had a per-
sonal desire to dwell in the realm of future Buddha Maitreya while
awaiting his appearance in this domain. Subsequently, this gave way
to an Amida-centered focus. For Saisen, however, neither dwelling
in Maitreya’s Tusita Heaven nor rebirth in Amida’s Pure Land was ̣
anything other than jōbutsu within the Shingon context. The vow to
seek to dwell in Maitreya’s heaven was the buddha-mind (busshin
). All that was apprehended by the buddha-mind was none other
than that which was encompassed within the “Dharma-realm palace”
of Dainichi Nyorai’s enlightenment. Jōbutsu in Shingon doctrine was
the great awakening to enlightenment in the living form given by one’s
parents (sokushin jōbutsu). For Saisen, rebirth in Amida’s Pure Land
was actually to manifest the Pure Land within this realm, as it is, and
to deny the abandonment of this realm for a separate, other realm
(Kushida 1979, 75–78).
Likewise for Kakuban, sokushin jōbutsu was the goal of esoteric
practice. Using the popular terminology of rebirth (ōjō), he wrote that
the goal of rebirth in Shingon esotericism was Dainichi Nyorai’s Pure
Land (Mitsugon Jōdo ), the “pure land adorned with Dain-
ichi’s mysteries,” namely his enlightenment. It was not to be sought
had become the standard (Hayami 1987, 16–20, 236–39; 1998, 2–7; Matsunaga and
Matsunaga 1974, 218–23).