Los Angeles Koyasan Betsuin : Goma

The Goma Fire Ritual

By Bishop EmeritusTaisen Miyata

After returning from China in 806 A.D., Kobo-Daishi Kukai, the founder of Japanese Buddhism in the 9th century, opened the level of mysterious essence of the Shingon Esoteric Buddhist tradition and initiated the Buddhist mission in Japan. He also introduced numerous ritual texts and formulas of Esoteric Buddhism originated in India to the Japanese people through ritual performances.

The most popular ritual that Kukai brought back from China was the “Goma Fire Rite”, which was used for the purpose of national safety, avoidance of calamities, recovery from illness, growth in farming, and success in missions.

The word “Goma” is the Chinese pronunciation of the Sanskrit term “Homa” and it refers to the ritual worship to a chief deity (“Agni”) by offering grains into the hearth (Kunda) of the fire and chanting a mantra or prayer. According to the history of Hindu tradition, the “Homa” rite or fire ceremony, was originated in India sometime five thousand years ago in the time of the Vedic period by Aryan people. The ancient Hindu priests performed the fire rite to the deity “Agni” to fulfill wishes by offering milk, oil, rice, and grains into the fire. Their primary purpose was to gain war victories, ward off ill-fated fortunes, bring physical protection, and remove obstacles.

According to the Buddhist Goma ritual tradition, there were two types of fire in our phenomenal world, namely, “Geka”, the external fire, and “Naika”, the internal fire. The “Geka” fire refers to the ordinary fire that physically produces heat, color, light, smoke, and flames, and destroys objective materials.

The other type of fire, “Naika”, refers to the mental fire that is hidden in our minds. It destroys the spiritual growth toward enlightenment. The “Naika”, internal fire, is traditionally called the “Three Poisons” in the Buddhist term; namely greed, anger, and stupidity. These mental poisons are known as the real cause of misleading karma, directing toward misfortune or total destruction; and should be abolished symbolically through the Goma ritual sacrifice according to the Shingon Buddhist tradition.

The fire of the Goma rite in Buddhism is traditionally called the “Fire of Great Wisdom” (Dai-chika) and leads us toward emancipation. It removes the darkness of ignorance and brings us the light of enlightenment through the ritual performance.

According to Shingon ritual description, there are also two kinds of Goma ritual performances: “Gegoma” and “Naigoma”. The “Gegoma” refers to the physical ritual performance in which a practitioner, chief deity (Honzon) “Fudo-myoo”, and the hearth of the fire are physically observed and united through vocal chanting of certain mantras. An officiator of the ritual service, the chief deity, and the assembled congregation are inseparably and physically unified.

Secondly, the “Naigoma” refers to the mental performance of the rite through which one technically burns his own misleading karma and sows the seed of enlightenment by the “Fire of Great Wisdom”. This spiritual performance and its technique are phenomenally correlated to the physical performance of current “Gegoma”.

Through both ritual Goma performances, one identifies oneself with the Honzon and transforms one’s human condition to inhuman, sorrow to joy, earth to life and war to peace. Thus the significance of the traditional Goma in Shingon Buddhist tradition lies not simply in gaining physical merits/benefits, but enhancing or magnifying the scope of one’s mind toward the enlightenment.

The final goal that the Goma service aims at is everlasting peace through physical and spiritual ritual acts. It is the way of discovering peace of mind by which one could transcend one’s life situation to be one with the universal mode of being.

Los Angeles Koyasan Betsuin holds the monthly Goma Service on the last Sunday of the month at the Temple’s Main Hall from 1:30 p.m. (see Calendar/Events).