The Power of Other

Hands in gassho with text that reads “Rather than emphasizing what practices we are doing, we can now focus on how they are being practiced.”

There is a Japanese kanji character that is written as 力. It can be pronounced RIKI and translated into English as power. This character, 力, can also be found tattooed onto many shoulders in the U.S. as a symbol of power. It can also be combined with other kanji characters to represent physical strength or energy, mental power or motivation, and financial power.

Riki tattoo on shoulder

This character, 力, is also used in two terms that are specific to Shin Buddhism. The first is Self-Power, and the second is Other-Power. Self-Power is the translation of 自力 (JI RIKI), and Other-Power is the translation of 他力 (TA RIKI). Independently, these kanji are all translated correctly: 自 (JI) for self, 他 (TA) for other, and 力 (RIKI) for power.

When I first heard these terms, I thought Self-Power meant “to try” or “to make an effort,” and that Other-Power referred to some sort of higher power. Neither of these interpretations is correct, but they reveal the difficulty of translating two-character kanji compounds from Japanese into English. The meaning of these compounds is much more than the sum of their parts. Together, they express something quite different from the literal translation of each character.

Text with the latin word “Finis”

It takes some thought, but we can also see examples of this in English. For example, the word bookend does not mean “the end of a book,” as it might seem if we were to translate book and end independently. Instead, a bookend is a weighted object that keeps a set of books standing upright together.

Books surrounded by bookends on a shelf

So rather than merely gluing the parts together as Self-Power and Other-Power, we can instead examine what these terms mean as a unit—without pulling the compound apart. In the Shin Buddhist tradition, Self-Power carries the meaning of doing things in a calculated way. We might even use the Latin phrase quid pro quo, which describes some sort of exchange where a favor or benefit is given in return for a service or action. We might also say “something for something” or “this for that.”

Other-Power would then be the opposite of that. We would engage in activities not for something else, but for the experience itself. Rather than chasing after another “something,” we would instead allow things to come to us of their own accord. In the modern era, these two terms have been associated with two different ways of walking the Buddhist path. They have both been used as nouns: there are Self-Power practices, like meditation, and Other-Power practices, like the Nembutsu. There are Self-Power schools of Buddhism, like Zen Buddhism, and Other-Power schools, like Shin Buddhism.

But recently, Mark Blum, a professor of Buddhist Studies at UC Berkeley, explained that in pre-modern times, the terms Self-Power and Other-Power were not used as nouns but as adjectives. They described how a practice was being conceived of—its intention. This gives the terms a whole new interpretation. Instead of meditation being solely Self-Power and Nembutsu being solely Other-Power, we could have Other-Power Meditation and Self-Power Nembutsu.

Rather than emphasizing what practices we are doing, we can now focus on how they are being practiced. Are these practices done in order to receive a specific benefit, or are they done without effort? For example, if we are chasing a pose in yoga, then we are practicing Self-Power Yoga. Or are we practicing Other-Power Yoga, where we are effortlessly transformed by the mere experience of the pose?

Thus, Self-Power and Other-Power are not naming the practice, but describing how we conceive of it—how we approach it. Do we say Namoamidabutsu for our own benefit, or are we compelled to say it as a response to the light of wisdom that embraces us, rather than as a down payment on our future awakening?

Namoamidabutsu, Jon Turner Sensei