Tenrikyo Ofudesaki - Causality, Fate, Predestination "Innen"
I shall teach you the original cause of all things.
When we look across the entire span of human history, through all cultures and ages, we find evidence through examinations of burial practices, grave goods, monumental structures and written records that show that human beings have pretty much always speculated on the causes and meaning of illness, weakening, curses and death and have, in a variety of ways, sincerely expressed hopes or expectations of such occurrences as the realization of miraculous and magical cures as well as the sincere desire to continue one's personal identity from this life to a life or lives after death.
In most, if not all, cultures and societies such speculation has become the subject of specialized fields of knowledge and ritual. Some of those fields of specialization include established societal roles played by prognosticators, fortune tellers, future forecasters, astrologers, witch doctors, shamans, priests, academics, philosophers and scientists. Though there are then numerous specialized schools of ideas and areas of speculation that we are able to subscribe to, since we all experience at least one of the above mentioned concerns, namely death, it is also not surprisingly the case that the average person has also formed some opinions, beliefs or truths of the world concerning some of those topics.
That being the case, speculation concerning the causes of illness, weakening and death are said to be common in the world and because in many cases those opinions and speculations run deeply in our cultural heritage the opinions of the various schools can be described as teachings ethical and ancient
In many cases those teachings both ethical and ancient provide speculations that reasonably extend to ideas and common truths of the world concerning causality, fate, predestination, karma and "innen" as well as truths that are concerned with the origin of all life and extension, among many, to the existence of magic, curses and lives both past and future as well. Taken together, in one way or another, for most of the minds of the world, these kinds of speculations form the foundations of various common truths of the world.
but there has been no one who knows the origin.
Throughout the world, I have begun what is known as sermons.
When they are delivered, you may go and hear them.
Whatever may be said about things already seen,
unless the origin is known, there can be no understanding.
As concerns the teaching that hastens the return of the human self-centered imagination to its origin, the use of the Japanese language word "innen" appears in six of the seventeen books of the poems collected as the "Tip of the Writing Brush". In each case, though the word was ordinarily used to impart the common meaning of "innen" as "cause", "causality" or karma; in these Poems the word is qualified by being given the uncommon intended meaning of "original cause of all things in detail", "moto no innen".
It is an interesting feature of the teaching that is the "Reason or Truth of Heaven" that we are invited to go and listen to all of the various speculations and truths of the world concerning these topics and concerns and then compare them with the teaching that is primarily concerned with teaching the way to reveal the original cause of all things, the "moto no innen". That said, there are already lots of speculations and ideas in the world concerning the original cause of all things; what makes this teaching uncommon and differentiates it is that ultimately it does not contain or attempt to establish or reinforce any speculative ideas, beliefs or truths of the world. Instead of speculative ideas and concepts to be believed, this teaching promises to deliver tested and proven certainty.
The original cause of all things in detail is not found to be any ideas, persons, places or things; instead it is to found where it resides at the very "heart" and "core" of every human mind. Thus the original cause of all things in detail "moto no innen" is native to everybody and everybody has an equal affinity to it. To prove that assertion to be true we are invited to calm and settle our self-centered imaginings and awaken to the existence of the original consciousness that remains. Nothing has ever been known by anyone without that original consciousness.
The fact that this true origin of the mind is native and that all human beings have an equal affinity to it contrasts with the ordinary speculative ideas and truths of the world that assume that concepts like causality, fate, predestination and "innen" are personal matters; that is to say that they are pondered and reasoned from a self-centered point of view. The point of view of being a separate body in relation to other bodies or objects.
Reasonably it would appear that the Ofudesaki poems also contain references to older established truths of the world that were and are specific to Japanese or broader Asian cultural traditions. How are those supposed to be understood? From the beginning of this teaching sincere efforts have been made to make it conform to the kinds of expectations that flow from interpreting this teaching from the point of view of established common truths of the world; some of which have ancient foundations and some of which were manufactured in an effort to capture more contemporary imagined truths; all such efforts are however situated on changeable ideas or unstable self-centered foundations. From the point of view of a mind that has returned to its original pristine condition these speculations are viewed as "pondering dust" (ideas that sit on a self-centered foundation based on the idea of being a body separated from the rest of the universe).
The poems of the "Tip of the Writing Brush" employ poetic metaphors that are easily recognized by any human being in any time and place. We all see the same Sun and Moon, just as we all know what water, dust, mud and debris are and can all, if we want to, tell the difference between water that is clear and water that is muddy or full of debris.
Be enlightened by the words "clear" and "muddy".
high mountain, yet at its spout, it is mixed with mud.
When you calm your mind step by step and ponder,
it will change into clear water.
I shall go into the water in the high mountains and make it clear,
whatever kind of water it may be.
It is this ability to "test" the worldly common truths that inhabit and define the truths of our world that gives this teaching the power to promise a quick awakening to any mind, regardless of time, place or maturity; that is to any mind that sincerely settles and returns to its original pristine state. When we ponder the truths of our world concerned with causality, fate, predestination, karma and "innen" as well as truths that are concerned with the origin of all life, the existence of magic, curses and lives both past and future we would be well served to take a moment and determine if those truths are strictly personal truths, the existence of which are dependent upon human thought or imagination; by testing and seeing whether they remain when the self-centered imagination is returned and settled in its original residence of pristine consciousness.
The bottom line then is that all of the "Innen" causality in the universe flows from and belongs to the one conscious original cause. By claiming it as our own, as something personal, we go on a dream ride that can, because of the unintended glitch that is bottomless greed, turn into a nightmare. From the point of view of the original one there is no such thing as illness. Think of the story of the creation of human beings. We do not ordinarily think of the now understood continuing process of evolution and the ongoing mutations that marked the appearance of our species as an illness. The appearance of free and unlimited change is constantly illuminated and reflected in the immortal mind of Moonsun.
They are none other than the hastening and guidance of God.