Tricycle: Do you think that American Buddhists overemphasize meditation? Gradually, my views are displaced by the views that enlightened Buddhist teachers have cultivated for 2,500 years. I have my own views of things, and Buddhism presents its views. Taitetsu Unno: In Shin, the Pure Land tradition, it comes down to listening to the teaching. Tricycle: But how can we learn to let go like that more often? I know I can get there in unusual circumstances, but not ordinarily. As long as I think I can do it myself, it’s not going to work. This is “other-power” working through “self-power.” But this requires a tremendous struggle.

That’s why the Buddha Amida’s compassion says, “Tai, you don’t have to surrender.” When I hear that, when I understand that I can’t do it because it’s not my nature-that it’s like saying, “Fly to the sky”-then I realize that I don’t have to surrender, yet, naturally and spontaneously, the surrender takes place by virtue of true compassion. Resistance comes from the deepest center of our karmic selves. Taitetsu Unno: In the Shin Buddhist tradition, as we listen to the teaching we are made to realize that we can never surrender ourselves. Tricycle: But how can we learn to surrender the ego-self voluntarily? The core of faith is surrender, the giving up of the small-minded ego-self. For example, recently I read an article in which an American Zen Buddhist described visiting Japan, and I realized that American Buddhism is “psychotherapeutic” Buddhism, whereas in Japan, Buddhism is “faith” Buddhism. I find the same problem in American Buddhism. That’s very hard for people to understand. In this country, martial arts are described as “self-defense.” In the martial arts in East Asia, the aim is to train oneself to such an extent that there is no “self” to defend. Here there is a cultural difference-I can use the example of the martial arts. In Buddhism, surrender is at the core of giving up the ego-self but we don’t use a special term for it, because the whole thrust of Buddhist life revolves around surrender, giving up the ego.

Taitetsu Unno: In the first place, surrender is a Western religious category.

Tricycle: Can you talk a little bit about how you understand surrender in Buddhist practice?

Shin Buddhism by Taitetsu Unno