The Agon Shu Buddhist Temple holds a series of religious events that revolve around the theme of 'karmic liberation' and 'soul salvation.' For example, the annual Hoshimatsuri Star Festivals, known for its two greatest sacred fires in Japan, are held in the critical moment of the year transition to change the yearly fate of the world for good, by summoning Buddhas and serving the departed via memorial gomagi prayer sticks. The annual Memorial Lantern Rites are held for people to dedicate and save their ancestries by lighting the memorial lanterns in the sacred temple. Additionally, the Agon Shu practitioners commit themselves to ancestral dedication every day and apply for special ancestral prayer services. Agon Shu Buddhism puts a tremendous amount of effort into saving souls.
When realizing this fact, one may wonder how and why the aftercare for the departed souls is undertaken and emphasized at this level if Buddhism is "simply to be practiced to attain enlightenment." This blog post explores the implications and the reasons for 'soul salvation' through the following topics:
The Method of Soul Salvation
The Bussharison
Why Soul Salvation Is Necessary
The Significance of Soul Salvation
The Method of Soul Salvation for the Living
The Miraculous Results of the Path to Soul Salvation
Through this post, you may understand why the departed demand dedication and care from the living, how soul salvation changes the life of the living, and why such life changes can only be brought from 'soul salvation.'
The Method of Soul Salvation
To grasp the technicality of the method of soul salvation, one must first understand the state of spirits in their afterlife and what it means for a spirit to be saved.
On most occasions, human souls remain in a state of suffering in their afterlife for two reasons:
They have accumulated negative karma during their lives on Earth
They have been living with and passed away with strong negative emotions of attachment, sorrow, or grudge.
These factors chain those souls into our world and impede them from ascending to a restful realm, namely Reikai, thus remaining in a state of suffering for an extremely long period of time.
To save the spirits is thus to cleanse the factors of their suffering: their negative karma and their negative emotions. Through this logic, one must come to the conclusion that the salvation of these souls demands one enlightening "power." It is that which can cleanse away karma and resolve absolutely any attachment, sorrow, and grudge: The Dharmic Power. Nothing but only the Dharmic Power is capable of fulfilling these necessities, thus saving the unrested spirits from posthumous pains.
The Bussharison
The Dharmic Power is what Sakyamuni Buddha attained. It is the ultimate power of wisdom derived from the genuine understanding and the complete accomplishment of 空 (ku-), the Infinite Light, that permeates everything, transcends space and time, and belongs to the world opposite to that of karma and dualism. The attainment of such power allows one to finally be considered the enlightened one, the Buddha.
This holy power ran through the veins of Buddha, and even after His passing to Nirvana, this enlightening power remained in his sacred relics. What encased these relics was known as the Sacred Stupa. This sacred monument, then, became the first object of Buddhist worship after Buddha's passing and gathered the faith and dedication of His fellow disciples as it served as a proxy to which the Lord Buddha can extend His consciousness and liberating power to the greatest extent, allowing it to be worthy of receiving the title of "The Living Buddha."
In 1986, for Master Seiyu Kiriyama's astounding effort on his mission to bring the long-disregarded original teachings of Buddha inscribed in the Agama Scripture to light and glory, Agon Shu gained official recognition from the government of Sri Lanka as a highly esteemed Buddhist religion and received the true Sacred Stupa from the country. This was the moment in history when Buddha's relics were reunited with his original teachings and brought to Japan.
Through Agon Shu's receipt of the Sacred Stupa, its Buddhist practices and rites were established and finally attained their perfect forms with the highest efficiency.
It is only through the enshrinement of the Sacred Stupa, the Bussharison, as the main votive monument, that Agon Shu Temple efficiently conducts multiple religious rites in its mission of soul salvation and karmic liberation to this day.
Why Soul Salvation Is Necessary
If one possesses compassion, the fact that the unrested spirits linger in our realm in a state of suffering is already a reason to save them. However, there is another reason why we must save those souls.
The foul energy of the dead’s negative emotions influences and affects the deep unconscious of the living, thus shaping their destiny.
This principle can be found in the mechanism of ancestral karma and that of the land.
Ancestral Karma
Ancestors, like any other spirits, also remain in a woeful state of suffering after their death due to their karma and unresolved feelings. And, their attachments, grudges, and sorrows affect the deep unconscious of their descendants, resulting in the unconscious repetition of ancestral life events in the descendants' lives.
This explains that not only do we inherit ancestral characteristics but also their karma as a result of their posthumous suffering. Therefore, negative emotions of ancestors are the manifestation of one's ancestral karma.
The Karma of the Land
The attachments and grudges of unrested spirits unrelated by blood but in high physical proximity or sharing the same land, neighbourhood, city, region or even the country also affect the unconscious of the living, thus shaping their unconscious actions and fate.
This influence overpowers ancestral karma since it equally dictates the fate of anyone within a certain spatial range. For example, spirits who lost their lives in a certain location due to a fire accident remain unrested in the same place with cursed feelings, which become the spiritual cause for the subsequent repetition of fire hazards and deaths in the same place. The same principle can be applied to conditions of greater scales, like social affairs, economic states, natural disasters, tyrannies, starvation, and even wars, since everyone within a place would be equally affected by local circumstances brought by local spiritual karmic influences. This is the Karma of the Land in action. The Karma of the Land can also be referred to as Societal Karma or National Karma, depending on the context.
The aggregate of grudges and resentments of the unsaved spirits lingering within a land is the manifestation of the Karma of the Land.
Below is a quote from one of the Master Seiyu Kiriyama's books regarding the power of karma, which, according to him, has already covered the globe:
"The world is headed down towards destruction because there is no religion that can resolve the resentful and grudging feelings of the dead which have overfilled the globe. Just how many people have been murdered already in this century? The unspeakable feelings of those who lost their lives with intense resentment and sorrow have been lingering, accumulated, intensified, and have now taken over the sky. If there is a true saint, he must perceive and grieve for their mourns and cries that now cover our planet.
The gigantic resentful feelings of the dead radiate an immense negative vibration which ends up controlling the deep unconscious of all, (thus controlling the actions of all). (...)
The grudge of the dead has now reached its maximum intensity, and as a result, humanity is turning more impulsive, aggressive, and antimoral. The final destination of this pattern is humanity's self-annihilation. The process of human destruction has already begun with family destruction. (...)
If the dead do not find peace, the living shall never find peace. There is no religion in our world that possesses the method capable of resolving the sorrows and resentments of the dead other than Buddhism."
Whether from ancestral or local spirits, the radiation of the dead's curses completely controls the deep unconscious of the living and transforms them into impulsive, aggressive, and immoral beings and leads them to human self-annihilation.
The fact that the dead's negative emotions dominate and take full control over people's actions and decisions on every scale, from family, social, to national levels, and cast people under a spell of karmic chain toward a terrible destiny should compel one to resolve the feelings of the dead and save them.
The Significance of Soul Salvation
For Agon Shu’s extraordinary emphasis on 'soul salvation,' one may raise doubts about Agon Shu’s religious significance since its religious activities only seem to be dedicated to the dead’s salvation and unconcerned about the living.
This question arises from a lack of fundamental understanding of our nature.
We, either dead or alive, are all souls. The only difference between the dead and the living is whether or not they possess physical bodies. For this reason, if we cannot save the dead, we can neither save the living. The method of soul salvation is thus indispensable for humanity.
The Method of Soul Salvation For The Living
Agon Shu is not only dedicated to saving the dead but also guiding living beings to salvation via Buddhist practices based on the Method of Soul Salvation because the living and the dead are essentially both souls. Nevertheless, there is a difference of meaning between the salvation of the dead and the living.
The salvation of the dead signifies the liberation from karmic burdens and negative emotional sentiments and their ascension to the restful realm of Reikai before the next reincarnation.
However, the salvation of the living refers to something far more hopeful and brilliant. That is forging the path toward enlightenment and karmic liberation (also known as the practice for attaining Buddhahood), which essentially is the true objective of life on Earth. That is what humans are born for. Living individuals, regardless of life conditions, are blessed with the opportunity to create an escape route from the endless cycle of suffering, which is a privilege that the dead crave and regret not taking while alive. The dead, regardless of their will, can only wait for someone to serve and save them before finally reincarnating, but nothing can guarantee they will remember their objective once being born.
Because of unnecessary attachments, ego, rage, ignorance, and a series of accumulated karma, our souls endlessly roam in the relentless cycle of suffering and reincarnation, the karmic cycle. The Soul Salvation for the living is exactly the process of liberation from this cycle itself. And, its method is the Buddhist practice that Sakyamuni Buddha once taught and what Agon Shu Buddhism restored and exactly puts into practice.
In Agon Shu Buddhism, practitioners worship their Bussharison (the Stupa) daily with mantra chanting. The main objective of this daily practice is to receive the Dharmic Power embedded within the Bussharison.
By successfully embracing the radiant light of Dharmic Power, also known as Buddha's Light of Salvation, it will seep into and cleanse one's unconsciousness and change the direction of the practitioners' souls from walking the vicious cycle of karma, ignorance, and inessential desires to forging the wholesome path to karmic liberation and enlightenment.
However, it must be known that the reception of Buddha's Dharmic Power is merely a framework or prerequisite for the official practice toward karmic liberation and enlightenment as if receiving an oar to set sail. The Dharmic Power is bestowed upon oneself to fulfill its purposes.
One can neither attain true enlightenment nor karmic liberation if he or she does not sever the source of cause and effect derived from the ancestral influence that weaves the reality and forces oneself to remain in the cycle of suffering, the ancestral karma. Through daily stupa worship, one must direct the Dharmic Power to one's ancestral lines, resulting in a slow yet progressive ancestral healing and purification which, in turn, removes the spiritual obstacles derived from ancestral traumas that disrupt one's life successes and true spiritual awakening.
Secondly, through Dharmic Power, one must engage in a vital process that most Buddhists fail to recognize, a process most ardently yearned by the dead. That is the accumulation of Dharmic Merits. "Enlightenment" or a realization of Truth that occurs solely through the work of the mind does not correspond to true liberation and enlightenment because it does not eliminate one's personal karma. It is clearly obvious that a serial murderer, for example, cannot be free from his karmic debts solely by attaining a mind-level "enlightenment." One has to eliminate personal karma one by one by accumulating Dharmic Merits. For this, one requires assistance from Buddha and the full determination, based on compassion, to embark on a course of Dharmic action, not just mindfulness.
Through a good deed, one accumulates good karma. However, the positive and negative karmas cannot balance each other out but only be stacked separately. Only by making a defining and resounding deed of saving others from their karma and dedicating oneself to Buddha and His mission, can one accumulate Dharmic Merits and use them to nullify his or her personal karma. Dharmic Power is what defies karma, so one has to be blessed with it to engage in this humanitarian mission of karmic liberation.
The Miraculous Results of the Path to Soul Salvation
As the Bussharison is the extension of the Lord Buddha, the Buddhist practices done under his mighty presence should fully cover every aspect of the path toward enlightenment and karmic liberation. If connected with Buddha, He will assist and guide one to tackle every single obstruction that impedes one's enlightenment and karmic liberation, from ego, attachment, and the Three Poisons, to karma.
By correctly putting Agon Shu Buddhist teachings and disciplines into practice, the practitioner would encounter one life event after another that serves as the reason for small sparks of realization, which upon accumulation, will enable oneself to unconsciously and naturally let go of worldly desires, ego, attachments, and the Three Poisons, and understand the ineffable core teaching of Buddha, thus bringing one closer and closer to Enlightenment. This will happen as if the petals of a lotus open on their own. The correct and flawless practice should allow one to, instead of learning through literary means, hold on to intuitive opinions that later match the Truths spoken by Buddha. Even a young illiterate child could preach Dharma and effortlessly enlighten the corrupted minds of adults if practiced with a sincere and pure heart and mind.
By cleansing the ancestral and personal karma as instructed in Agon Shu Buddhist teachings, one's life will undoubtedly transform in kind, from that of suffering to that of true happiness. This shift will not happen solely in the 'realm of the mind' but in real-life conditions. This is because reality, or fate, is constructed by the combination of karma. By nullifying negative karma, one's fate changes for the good, and the reality will take a good if not the best turn. Many dedicated practitioners attest to this fact because they have witnessed clear life-changing miracles, smoothness in overcoming life struggles, and even unplanned escape from disasters thanks to the practice. Those who do not possess or have already overcome a karma will never need to suffer its retribution. If there is no cause, there is no effect.
Since the Buddhist practice that Agon Shu encourages is the one that resolves every facet of the path toward Enlightenment and Liberation with direct guidance and assistance from the Lord Buddha, it will enable one to make a dramatic advancement toward the exit of the cycle of suffering and reincarnation. This practice is based on the original words of Buddha in Agama Scripture and involves the presence of Buddha's true sacred relics. It is unquestionable that this practice is the definite way towards salvation and liberation. By practicing Agon Shu Buddhism correctly, one will make a great ascension in spirituality, shortening the number of necessary future reincarnations, and, thanks to the linkage with the Lord Buddha built by Bussharison worship, one will spontaneously find himself or herself continuing the Buddhist path in the next reincarnations before finally graduating from Samsara, the cycle of suffering.
Closing Remarks
As you might have already perceived in your life, regardless of life conditions, whether or not possessing abundant wealth and power, and regardless of how much one tries to satisfy inessential desires, people are bound to suffer. The only way out of it and to true happiness is by surging oneself toward Enlightenment and by eliminating bad karma through merit cultivation. Those who have passed away deeply regret not realizing the truth sooner and forging the path toward salvation since only with the possession of physical bodies can souls partake in this process.
Life is too short and no one knows if you will find your true objective and such an opportunity to engage it in the next reincarnations. Given that not only you but everyone, dead or alive, is suffering, why not be the first to take the "sword" that your soul yearns for and cleave a shining path, not just for yourself but for everyone, with joined hands and connected hearts, to attain liberation, salvation, and happiness, together, that last forever?
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