Evolving into a priest: A biography

Toki is a Buddhist priest. He is only thirty-five, but he has a wealth of experiences, more than many have in a lifetime. He belongs to the Jishu Sect, which is one dimension of Pure Land Buddhism. The founder of this branch, which is found only in Japan, was named Ippen, who lived in the late thirteenth century. He traveled hither and yon throughout Japan for sixteen years. He is called the Saint of Abandonment because by the end of his life he had relinquished everything, including the sutras, the holy teachings. They had become so much part of his soul that he no longer needed their outer support. However, inwardly he always chanted “Namu Amida Butsu”: “I surrender myself totally into the Buddha of Compassion”. That mantra was for him the only way to purify the soul completely.

730 years ago Ippen himself opened the temple where Toki lives and practices today. Toki is the forty-forth generation of priests in that particular establishment. His temple is called Senpukuji, which translates as “The Temple of Pure Happiness”. But for Toki that level of joy was not a given; it had to be earned.

For centuries many priests in Japan did not marry, more by tradition than any written rules. So for forty-one generations the temple was handed down from priest to disciple. But Toki’s great-grandfather broke that custom and married. Since then the responsibility for the temple has stayed in the family, going from one eldest son to the next.

Since priests most often inherit their positions, many of them do not have a genuine interest in or understanding of the inner dimension of their faith. For them it is a job and not much else. They wear the right robes, perform the right rituals, and chant the right mantras, but they themselves are not really very involved or aware of the esoteric meaning of the ceremonies and practices they perform.

Toki is entirely different. From a young age he started asking himself, “What is the ‘I’ that I am?” He was also interested in other people, so asked, “What is the inner ‘I’ of each person?” Those burning questions acted as a torch that led him from one life experience to next.

Not surprisingly, he was always a loner; his unusual thinking assured him of that. And when it came time to squeeze himself into the “correct” boxes to pass university entrance exams, he failed all of them: not once, but twice. So, by the age of nineteen he suffered a terrible inferiority complex and felt he would be a loser for the rest of his life.

Toki’s father, like many priests here, had to get work outside the temple in order to support his family. So, he became a professor in a university in Tokyo, even though his temple was far away in rural northern Japan. That meant Toki was born and raised in a big city. The British Council was nearby, so in his state of despair he went there to fill in time by studying English. Later he made connections with a university in the UK and his international travels began.

He was thrilled to escape the pressures of feeling a failure, but on a positive note he was eager to experience himself in a context larger than his own family and culture. “What is the ‘I’ that I am?” allowed him to see his life’s experiences as an experiment and a mirror. “The self is a mystery”, he says, “and life is the laboratory encouraging it to unfold.”

In college he met himself many times and also was touched by the hearts and minds of others. “What is it to be human?” he asked again and again; and life continually led him to a prism of answers.

After university his entire attitude shifted. He realized that up until then he had actively made choices about what he wanted to do. But then he came to see that certain things in life had chosen him. Being the only son in a temple family, for example, was something he was born into. And deep within he had always felt that pull, even though his parents never forced it upon him.

So, from that time on, he decided to be alert to what came to him and to choose his path one step at a time accordingly. Even things he hated, he realized, were there, were a given, and had a sort of purpose for him. He might not be aware of what it meant, but since it was there, it was part of his karma. He grew to believe meaning came in bits and pieces, and grew as he matured. “No one ever has the full meaning of anything”, he wisely says, “We can watch, test, explore, and evolve in an ongoing process of unfolding.”

One outer constant in Toki’s life was always to be an individual in a community of some sort. The inner constant was his quest to touch the heart of life itself. When he came to Japan for a stint, he joined a Buddhist monastery to learn whom the Buddha was. In that very closed environment he experienced firsthand the shadow side of himself and others. Greed, resentment, selfishness and hatred were alive and well there. Those monsters forced him to discriminate very clearly between what people said and did and what was in their hearts. Plus he knew he had a lot of work to do concerning his own darkness.

However, in that closely confined situation he also asked himself what, as a Buddhist priest, his responsibilities would be. In Japan most people follow a particular religion according to the situation. In general, by tradition Shinto is concerned with life. So, it attends to births and weddings, harvest festivals and blessings of new buildings. Buddhism, on the other hand, handles the arena of suffering and dying. So, Toki realized he would have to learn more about the deep mystery of death to fulfill his priestly role properly.

He went to the USA and worked in a small hospice. There he got his first real connection to Christianity. That encounter allowed him to say, “Societies are splintering everywhere with terrorism, environmental problems, and diseases. Now is not time to add to those divides. Religion and spirituality must not be used for further division of mankind. Their crucial elements can be clarified in each individual soul, according to one’s own consciousness.”

He went to London to work with a physically impaired man. The only book he took with him was that of Ippen, his temple’s founder. He read it from cover to cover many times. And since he had a lot of free time, he walked from one end of the city to another. He always chanted Ippen’s inner mantra. In so doing, this inner mantra emerged naturally, like bubbles popping up from the deep sea of his own unconsciousness. This rhythmic practice aided him tremendously in meditation. And then one day Ippen’s wisdom burst forth in the form of the famous mantra “Namu Amida Butsu.”

Later in a British Tibetan monastery he had a mystical experience. He felt pure golden light pour into him. He was flooded with tears and could only repeat the phrases, “Thank you” And “ I am sorry.” This same type of experience happened seven times until his consciousness became razor sharp and clear.

He went on a month’s solitary pilgrimage in Ireland, where the process of walking thirteen hours a day made him know deep within that stillness and motion were aspects of one phenomenon, and that there was never an absolute arrival. With that awakening, he was able to don Buddhist clothes and shave his head. Slowly his identity as a priest was congealing, enabling him to manifest it outwardly.

Life then took him to a Rudolph Steiner center in New York State, where he again worked with physically and mentally challenged people. In that place his spiritual practice deepened further. He connected to others in profound ways, while unveiling huge arenas of darkness and negativity within himself. He had the maturity to accept these aspects of his own being and to observe how they were continuously arising. That in turn led to the work of continuously transforming them. Here, too, he saw that physical food was digested downward, whereas spiritual energy worked in reverse: it was transformed as it moved upward.

Toki’s first mystical experiences involved light flooding into him, but now at this stage in his onward development, another heightened awareness occurred. And in it the reverse happened. Light began to radiate out of him. As it flowed outward, so did his beloved companion, his mantra. Both vanished and have never returned. “All practices are keys. The door is you. Let the keys go when they have served their purpose.” Even though that particular mantra dissipated, he still senses it as a silent underground stream that informs his entire being always. And later other mantras would unveil themselves to him.

He returned to Japan, planning on walking its entirety, but a chance encounter in a book caused him to change his mind. “If you can do mantra at home, stay at home. If you can’t, then travel.” He knew he could practice anywhere, so he decided to stay put. But he had no friends and no clear focus, so he fell into a very deep and intense depression.

As he gradually emerged from this very low point, he realized he needed distance to gain a perspective on what was happening. He went to India, Malaysia, Germany, and Plum Village in France. In Malaysia he met a Muslim guru who reminded him that, “Mankind is created in the image of God.” After discussing this, Toki realized the western psyche was so structured that it perceived man and God as a duality, whereas Buddhists contended that people gradually awakened to their own divinity, so there was no duality, only degrees of awakening. Both routes are of the divine, however, so both lead humanity to the inexpressible state of the spiritual awareness of soul.

Finally, at age thirty-three, he knew it was time to go home for good. Since returning, he has been active at the temple and is bringing new life to the community. He does not have clearly defined projects for improvement, but rather lets things happen naturally. Synchronicity plays a huge role in his life. When things appear, he responds. The path is shaped in the process.

He gives meditation classes, performs funerals, and does sutra readings. But he feels that now his true calling is to be a channel for energy between heaven and earth. His purpose is to be an instrument of transformation.

”What is the ‘I’ that I am?” “What is it to be human?” Since there are no questions anymore, only pure being, there are no answers”, he says. He sees the entire world as expanding consciousness. And he delights in being a part of that significant and eternal process.

* This essay was birthed into being with much help from Toki himself. Initially he gave me a five-hour interview on a very hot summer day, and later corrected what I wrote three times so that it would reflect exactly what he wanted to say. I take full responsibility for any errors that may have inadvertently slipped into the final version.