‘Something Changed Within Me on the Nembutsu Path’

I was recently reminded of a conversation I had during my Tokudo ordination training session in 2004. 

I was in my early 30s and studying at Ryukoku University in Kyoto after graduation from the Institute of Buddhist Studies (IBS) in Berkeley, California. Most of my roommates were in their 20s and were from temple families. It was a few days into the 10-day session and we had been gradually getting to know each other. They found out that I had been a musician, but left to study Buddhism and become a minister. Several of them were wondering what I was thinking because they had to become ministers, but wanted to do other things!

I don’t think I had a good answer at the time. But thinking about it now, it makes me think back even further to 1995 — 30 years ago. 

I was still living in Massachusetts and, at some point over the summer, I decided to quit my band Jiggle the Handle and move to California to attend IBS. It didn’t happen in a vacuum, of course. The band wasn’t doing too well — we had difficulty finding the right drummer and not so many people were coming to the shows. But my interest in Buddhism was also deepening. 

As I mentioned in my “Coffee Dharma” article in the November 2023 Wheel of Dharma, I had spent a couple of years scouring bookstores (both new and used) for books on Buddhism. 

I remember one gig, in particular, at a club called the Living Room in Providence, Rhode Island. If you were in a band, you had to arrive around 7 p.m. to load in your equipment, then do a soundcheck (if you were lucky), then wait another couple of hours until showtime, which was never earlier than 10 p.m. and often later. 

I had been to a bookstore earlier in the day and could hardly wait for my soundcheck to end so I could go back to the car and sit and read my new book. 

I used to live to play music. Now, I lived to investigate and explore Buddhism. I remember mentioning to my guitarist later that night that I was thinking about leaving the band and he understood — he could see a change in me. 

So what changed? Obviously, my priorities had changed. Music was the only thing that I had really loved ever since childhood and, in a way, I was living my dream playing in a band. 

But the dream changed. As much as I loved music and playing, I was also very insecure. I was almost completely self-taught and I knew that there was a lot about music that I didn’t know. I also realized that I was just playing other people’s music. I had never written a complete song by myself. But Buddhism was something interesting — fascinating — that I could study and learn about. And the learning wasn’t just intellectual, it was about life and how to live it.

I actually had a non-band related experience around the same time: I remember sitting on my parents’ bed with a copy of the Pacific World, the journal of the Institute of Buddhist Studies that a friend’s mother had given me a few years earlier when I first got interested. 

At that time, the articles were too difficult for me, but this time, I opened to the inside cover and read a description of the IBS. The first line I read said something about IBS being a graduate school for studying Buddhism and I thought, “That’s what grad school is for! It’s to study stuff you are interested in from teachers that know about the subject. That’s what I want to do — go to grad school and study Buddhism!” 

I kept reading and saw that it was also a seminary for ministry, and I realized, “That’s what I want to do — I don’t want to be a professor, I want to be a minister!” 

I remember not just the thoughts, but an almost physical feeling inside myself like something turning inside me. It actually happened twice, once for each realization. 

Looking back at these experiences, it makes me wish I could make similar things happen to other people. But I can’t. Because, first, everyone is different. We each have our own circumstances, our own experiences and dare I say it, our own karma. The way I got into Buddhism is only one of myriad possibilities. 

Second, we aren’t supposed to fit some mold coming from a certain background and becoming some single, easily defined ideal. Instead, in Shin Buddhism, we become our foolish selves. We don’t have to try and be something we are not. 

And, third, I didn’t make it happen to myself. It was something much bigger than myself. It was my friend and his mother who helped ignite my initial interest. It was the Institute of Buddhist Studies and everyone involved that resulted in that journal being read and that shift happening inside me. 

It was even my band — seemingly unrelated and yet such a huge part of my life and a part of the process of my embarkation on the Nembutsu path. Looking back now, I can see that ultimately it was Amida Buddha — perfect Wisdom and Compassion — acting on me through the Vow and the Nembutsu — even if I didn’t know it at the time. 

Thinking back to my Tokudo roommate’s question, maybe I could have answered in this way. But I wasn’t aware of it at the time. And would he have listened? 

If you have read this far, then maybe I was able to draw you in with my story. But it isn’t my story that’s important. It is that each of us has our own story and we can engage with the Buddha-Dharma through that story — your story.