The Divine Mercy in Catholicism and The Nembutsu in Japanese Mahayana Buddhism – “Jesus I Trust in You” and “Namuamidabutsu”

 

“You expired, Jesus, but the source of life gushed forth for souls, and the ocean of mercy opened up for the whole world. O Fount of Life, unfathomable Divine Mercy, envelop the whole world and empty Yourself out upon us.  O Blood and Water, which gushed forth from the Heart of Jesus as a fountain of Mercy for us, I trust in You!”

The above is the opening prayer of the Divine Mercy Chaplet, taken from St. Maria Faustina’s diary entries 1319 and 84. It was St. Faustina Kowalska of Poland , whom the risen Lord appeared to and spoke on the Divine Mercy.  It was her diary that the words of Jesus on the Divine Mercy are meticulously recorded, like the kerygma in the Gospel narrative and the Q (Quelle). 

Through our devotion to the Divine Mercy, we recite, “Jesus, I trust in you”(Diary 84), three times, in our Three O’Clock Prayer , remembering the very moment of the Divine Mercy begin gushing forth for souls to be redeemed from the Cross. Jesus expired on the Cross around 3 o’clock  in the afternoon (Matthew 27:46, Mark 15:34, Luke 23:44).

These three words – Jesus, I trust in you - are very powerful, spiritually and theologically, as well as psychologically, strengthening our relationship with God through Jesus, the Son, God incarnate.

Whenever we recite, “Jesus, I trust in you”, it is our heartfelt expression of our utmost trust in Jesus for his mercy. 

In my practice of pastoral care, especially at the hours of patients’ deaths, I have found that reciting these three words, “Jesus, I trust in you”, in the Divine Mercy 3 O’Clock Prayer  is extremely powerful. Even an extremely anxious patient becomes relieved just in time, taking his or her last breath rather peacefully, upon these three words, expressing his or her trust in Jesus’ mercy. 

“You expired, Jesus, but the source of life gushed forth for souls, and the ocean of mercy opened up for the whole world. O Fount of Life, unfathomable Divine Mercy, envelop the whole world and empty Yourself out upon us. O Blood and Water, which gushed forth from the Heart of Jesus as a fount of mercy for us, I trust in you! Jesus, I trust in you! Jesus, I trust in you! Jesus, I trust in you!”

  

With these words of the 3 O’Clock Prayer, a dying Catholic patient, Catholic patients, who are devoted to the Divine Mercy, usually find peace, being relieved from death anxiety, at the time of death. Not to mention, this gives peace to their families, as well. 

In fact, relieving anxiety by putting our full trust in a salvific being is not just limited to the Catholic Divine Mercy tradition.  I have also found that reciting the Nembutsu (Nianfo) gives the same or similar relieving effect to those who practice the Pure Land sect of Mahayana Buddhists.

In Nembutsu,  Japanese Pure Land Buddhists express their wholehearted trust in the Amitabha (Amida) Buddha’s salvific mercy, by chanting, “Namuamidabutsu”(南無阿弥陀仏), which has a connotation of, “I am submitting whole self to your immeasurable mercy, Amitabha Buddha”. 

Namu (南無) is a Japanized pronunciation of the Sinosized description of the Sanskrit word, “namo” or “namas”, expressing respect and veneration.   Perhaps, it is more like adoration in the Catholic tradition.  With this, “namu” in the Japanese Pure Land Buddhism tradition means our vow to seek a refuge in the infinite mercy of Amitabha Buddha.  

“Namu” also means to seek out the Triple Gems (三宝) of Buddhism: Buddha (仏), awakened one; Dharma (法), Buddha’s teaching of the path toward awakening (Buddhahood); Sangha (僧), community of the awakened ones, who help those who are striving to become awakened.   In Japanese, what is “namu” (南無) is understood with this Japanese Buddhist term, “kie”（帰依）, which literally means “relying or trusting and returning” – “returning with trust”. Of course, in this context, it means to return to the inexhaustible mercy of Amitabha Buddha. Thus, in the context of the Japanese Pure Land Buddhism, “namu” is an expression of our conversion, a change of our hearts, to seek out the Amitabha Buddha’s reliable and immeasurable mercy. 

The latter part of the Japanese nembutsu recitation, “amidabutsu”（阿弥陀仏）means Amitabha Buddha. Thus, reciting “namuamidabutsu”　means stating, “I am seeking a refuge in your infinite mercy,  Amitabha Buddha, as I trust in you”.  So, what reciting “namuamidabutsu”  is to the Japanese Pure Land Buddhists is like what chanting, “Jesus, I trust in you”,  is to the Catholics devoted to the Divine Mercy of Jesus Christ. 

Master Honen (法然), who founded the Japanese Pure Land School of Buddhism (浄土宗) in the 12^th century,  interpreted Nembutsu’ s “namuamidabutsu” as an expression of our desire for salvation, saying, “Merciful Amitabha Buddha, please save me(us)!”.  Master Honen also taught that reciting Nembutsu is necessary for salvation.  

A Master Hone’s disciple, Master Shinran (親鸞)  further elaborated the Honen’s teaching on Nembutsu by stating that reciting “namuamidabutsu” is not only an expression of our wholehearted desire for salvation by entrusting the Amitabha Buddha’s mercy but also an expression of our commitment to listening to a voice of Amitabha Buddha’s desire, hongan (本願),  to save us.  Amitabha Buddha expressed his desires in his 48 vows.  These are known as his primal vows,hongan. According to Master Shinran, who also initiated the Shin sect of the Japanese Pure Land Buddhism, JodoShinshu (浄土真宗), the voice of Amitabha Buddha’s desire, hongan, is to save all of us on earth, as in the primal vows.

To see a clear parallel between the Divine Mercy in the Catholic tradition and the Nembutsu in the Japanese Pure Land Buddhism, within the Mahayana Buddhism, it is also important to know that both the Divine Mercy and the Nembutsu are about saving the souls of sinners.  This is a common bottom line for the Divine Mercy teaching of Jesus, as revered to St.  Faustina, and the Nembutsu, as taught by Master Shinran. 

In the “Akuninshouki”(悪人正機) concept of Master Shinran, saving sinners’ souls is the 18^th hongan of Amitabha Buddha’s 48 hongans.  In this, Master Shinran argued that even a person considered as the worst sinner, can be saved if he or she really devote himself or herself to Nembutsu with a sincere heart, with a desire for conversion.  This teaching of Master Shinran is found in the chapter 3 of Tannisho (歎異抄), written by Yuien (唯円), a disciple of Master Shinran.  It is like how St. Faustina, as a disciple of Jesus Christ, wrote down the Jesus’ new teaching on the Divine Mercy, as he revealed to her in vision in the 1930s. Tannnisho is considered as the Jodo Shinshu’s book of lamentation, as Yuien’s motive to write this book is believed to be his response to internal conflict within the nascent Jodo Shinshu, after Master Shinran’s death. Yuien must have felt to write down Master Shinran’s teaching in a clear manner so that it will not be lost in the shuffle of the conflict on interpreting the Master Shinran’s doctrinal teaching. 

The teaching of "Akuninshouki" of Master Shinran echoes Jesus' teaching in Luke 5:30-32, about his mission to save sinners. For sinners, what it takes to be saved is to turn our hearts from sins to Christ. It is how Christians seek a refuge in Christ, in light of Psalms  91:2,  18:2, 9:9, and 46:1.

When he appeared to St. Faustina, the risen Christ took his teaching in the Gospel further, elaborating on mercy. St. Faustina recorded this teaching in these words:

Today Jesus said to me, "I desire that you know more profoundly the love that burns in My Heart for souls, and you will understand this when you meditate upon My Passion. Call upon My mercy on behalf of sinners; I desire their salvation. When you say this prayer, with a contrite heart and with faith on behalf of some sinner, I will give him the grace of conversion. This is the prayer:“O Blood and Water, which gushed forth from the Heart of Jesus as a fount of Mercy for us, I trust in You.” (Diary 186-187).

Likewise, in the18th Primal Vow (Amitabha Buddha's desire), Amitabha Buddha said:

If, when I attain Buddhahood, sentient beings in the lands of the ten quarters who sincerely and joyfully entrust themselves to me, desire to be born in my land, and call my Name, even ten times, should not be born there, may I not attain perfect Enlightenment. Excluded, however, are those who commit the five gravest offences and abuse the right Dharma. (Immeasurable Life Sutra in Larger Sutra (讃仏偈, 仏説観無量寿経)

Both Jesus Christ and Amitabha Buddha have clearly expressed their desire to save us! And, it is our response with our desire to seek a refuge in the mercy of these saviors - Jesus Christ for Christians and Amitabha Buddha for Buddhists.

 

In fact, when Master Honen and Master Shinran were teaching the importance of Nembutsu,  Japan was plagued by anxiety,  because of prolonging political and social turmoil in the transition from the aristocracy of the Heian Period into the feudal rule of the Kamakura Period.  During this transitional period, many people felt that things went upside-down, as the old value system of the aristocratic Heian period was replaced with the new value system of the feudalistic Kamakura period, with the advent of the samurai dominant period, which lasted for the next almost 700 years.  Living in constant anxiety due to uncertainty and confusions in the shuffles of this transition, many people sank into an eschatological pessimism, “mappoushisou”(末法思想).  Because of this pessimism, people began to lose their trust and hope in the Buddhism teaching of the aristocratic period. 

It was also a time of great crisis for the Buddhism in Japan.  In response to this, Master Honen started a new school of Buddhism, bringing Pure Land Buddhism.  Then, Master Honen’s disciple, Master Shinran, started a new sect, JodoShinshu, to teach a new doctrine of salvation, amidst deepening anxiety and confusion, in addition to increasing distrust in Buddhism.

Fortunately, the Master Shinran’s new teaching in Jodo Shinshu Buddhism began to gain its momentum as people started to believe that reciting Nembuts, as Master Shinran taught, could be their last straw for salvific hope.  Thus, historically, Nembuts has something to do with anxiety.  In fact, a 20^th century Jodo Shinshu Buddhism scholar, Manshi Kiyosawa (清沢満之), indicated an anxiety-relieving effect or psychospiritual stabilization effect of Nembutsu.  

Because Nembutsu was made a popular practice during an anxiety-filled period with uncertainty toward the future in Japan, reciting "namuamidabutsu" has become an effective coping mechanism for the Japanese Mahayana Buddhists, in particular, for the Jodo Shinshu sects, founded by Master Shinran. It is why Nembutsu also helps dying patients relieve their anxieties toward death.

When Jesus appeared to St. Faustina, it was a period ofcrises after crises in Europe, paving a way for World War II to break out .  A year after St. Faustina died at age 33, Nazi Germany invaded her country, Poland.  Imagine what it was like to live in Poland at a time of St. Faustina.  In regard to anxiety and confusion toward the future of that time in Europe, perhaps, there is some degree of similarity to the time of great anxiety and confusion of the late 12^th century in Japan, the time when Master Honen and Master Shinran lived.  In this historical context,  Jesus’ new teaching of the Divine Mercy, as revealed to St. Faustina in the 1930s, is God’s providence.  It is to help us steer through the pre-World-War-II anxious time and beyond through our faith in Christ, by putting absolute trust in the Divine Mercy.  

Both the Divine Mercy devotion and the Nembutsu devotion are not about dealing with difficult religious doctrines. Given the historical contexts of these, both the Divine Mercy devotion and the Nembutsu devotionare responses to anxiety and confusion of the world. But, to skeptic minds, neither the Divine Mercy reciting nor the Nembutsu chanting may seem like a nonsense act. Rather, such doubtful minds believe that only mastering difficult doctrine and perfect observation of religious laws can lead to salvation – but not simply chanting and reciting, “Jesus, I trust in you”, or “namuamidabutsu”.

To such skeptics, I recommend Morita Therapy, a Japanese psychotherapy, which puts precedence in acting to thinking.  One important clinical wisdom of Morita Therapy is that we can understand better through acting rather than thinking – especially when what we try to understand is difficult. 

In Morita Therapy, even our lack of understanding may make us anxious, we go ahead and act on what we are still anxious about and what we do not yet understand. Then, we remain mindful t of our emotional and thought processes – similar to the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius of Loyola and Zen meditation.  It is the best way to attain necessary understanding.  However, if we cannot act unless we understand, then, we must be suffering from a “Thomas symptom” , derived from John 20:25. 

It is actually through our mindfulness in our behavioral engagement or practice, as Morita Therapy tries to aim, that our eyes begin to open to what we need to know. Then, we can free ourselves from anxieties.

As a pastoral psychologist, who applies Morita Therapy principles in clinical and pastoral practice, I want to emphasize the importance of mindfulness in practicing the Divine Mercy recitation of “Jesus, I trust in you” and the Nembutsu chanting, “namuamidabutsu”.  It is not about whether we have to understand logically or we have to have a tangible evidence on why such a practice makes sense – in order to engage. 

As a pastoral psychologist, who applies Morita Therapy principles in clinical and pastoral practice, I want to emphasize the importance of mindfulness in practicing the Divine Mercy recitation of “Jesus, I trust in you” and the Nembutsu chanting, “namuamidabutsu”.  It is not about whether we have to understand logically or we have to have tangible evidence on why such a practice makes sense – in order to engage. 

Remember, a common key factor for both the Divine Mercy ‘s 3’O’Clock Prayer recitation and Nembutsu is our absolute trust – in the Divine Mercy of Jesus Christ for the Catholics, and in the immeasurable mercy of Amitabha Buddha for the Pure Land Buddhists.  It is about seeking a refuge in the inexhaustible mercy of God in Jesus Christ or Amitabha Buddha in our practice of communicating our desire for salvation and God’s or Amitabha Buddha’s desire to save us. 

Sometimes, putting logic and reason in our communication can become a stumbling block in our interpersonal relationship.  When you want to express your burning love to someone, do you express it in an A-B-C syllogistic way – or, would you rather go ahead to kiss? 

If you prefer to kiss in expressing your heart’s desire to the person you love, then, you are very fit to go ahead to recite, “Jesus, I trust in you!”, or “namuamidabutsu”, even though you may have wondered if such a practice would really work. Even though, your trust level is not perfect yet, it will become perfect as you practice. And, this is actually how faith grows. 

We all bear some degree of anxiety, which leads to stress and is resulted from stress. In fact, there is not such a life completely free from anxiety and stress.  For us to better cope with stress and anxiety, we can seek a refuge in the Divine Mercy or the Amitabha Buddha’s mercy – through our mindful practice of the Divine Mercy chaplet with the 3 O’Clock Prayer and Nembutsu. 

We do not have to wait until at the time of our own death to recite, “Jesus, I trust in you”, and “Namuamidabutsu”.

Blessed are those who trust the mercy of Jesus Christ and those who trust the mercy of Amitabha Buddha.