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Shinran speaks of awakening to shinjin through experiences of this ultimate truth. The person of shinjin, although he is still a being creating karma that destines him for hell, has a true mind that results in his already living in the Pure Land, for in the experience of shinjin, one receives truth. One receives the Buddha's life into one's own life. It is in this way we say a new life is born to the person of shinjin. In essence, the old self dies and a new self is born. The life I received through my parents dies and the life of Amida-my spiritual parent-takes over my life. This is eloquently expressed in myokonin Saichi's description of experiencing shinjin. "My funeral is now over! " By this he means that his life is now rooted in the Buddha's life. It is in this dimension that "let's meet again" becomes so meaningful.
Shomatsu, a myokonin who lived 150 years ago on the island of Shikoku, was returning from a pilgrimage to Kyoto, when a violent storm came up, endangering the boat on which he was traveling. Shomatsu slept through the storm. His worried friends finally found him asleep in the hold and shook him awake. When they did so, his first words to them were:"Are we still in the world of illusion?" This kind of attitude comes only from the reality of living the life of Suchness. How to attain this for my own life is the question.
Another myokonin, Oseki, a woman who also lived about 1 50 years ago, was spiritually nurtured by a priest, Tokuryu. One day, as she was serving him tea, he asked, "How is your ojo? If you should die now, are you ready to be born in the Pure Land?"
As she held out the tea to him she simply said, "Yes, Just like this. Just as I am!"
Tokuryu replied, "Oseki! Oseki! That's wonderful!"
Thus, in Shin Buddhism, in the experiencing of shinjin , our salvation is established , a salvation one hundred per cent in this life. Nothing is withheld. Nothing is conditional. No thing is postponed until after death. We have total assurance of our birth in the Buddha Land and that assurance is confirmed by the experience of shinjin being accompanied by the experience of a new life, an utter transformation of oneself.
In that transformation, we simply live in truth as such. It is this kind of life-the kind of life lived by Saichi and Oseki that Shinran taught and that his teachings make possible for each one of us. In order to meet the Vow Power moving towards us, we need to be moving on the Buddha Path. Anyone can walk that path. And for the person who does so, he or she must walk it personally, alone. Whether one awakens to this or not is the problem. Shinjin is not like a ticket with which you reach your destination. Shinjin is the destination.
The person who has not awakened to shinjin is not saved. Ketsu-jo-the settledness of shinjin implies that one "knows" from the deepest part of one's life, a "knowing" which is expressed from the body, for in shinjin we receive truth as it is and simultaneously that truth becomes our salvation. Therefore, "birth into the Pure Land at the moment of our death" means the Pure Land begins within this here and now in which we live. With regard to salvation, Shinran doesn't talk about the kind of happiness you get after you die. His emphasis is solely on the experience of shinjin in this life.
I don't really know about the after-life. While I live, there is nothing to be concerned about except meeting the Buddha in my present life, encountering the teachings in my present life. What happens to me after death? I feel I can leave that up to the Buddha.
When salvation takes root in our lives, whether the Pure Land is going to be there at the end or not-all this we leave up to the Buddha to do what is best for us. This is the essence of faith that expresses itself as Amida's faith in me being realized by me with tears of contrition and a smile of gratitude. The process of our life and death occurs in the heart of the Buddha's life itself. To me, this is the meaning of being saved by the Buddha. It is a salvation here and now, right this moment, in the present.
But then, if this is so, why didn't Shinran designate the person of faith as Buddha, and this life as the Pure Land? Dogen, Nichiren, Eisai(founder of Rinzai Zen) all proclaim one does become a Buddha in this life, and that one who is able to see with the eyes of the Buddha is already in the Pure Land. The reason Shinran did not say this is because of his hardships, his struggles in life treading the Buddha path for nearly ninety years. Through his experience, his perception of his own inner life was more truthful. He was honest in regard to his real existential condition. Thus the stark severity of his teaching.
In Buddhist tradition, Shinran was one who focused on bonno, the defilements of the body. The ego which is rooted in this body of ours, no matter how old we get, simply cannot be set aside, for it is rooted in these defilements. It is because of this that Shinran came to the realization he was a common ordinary being, unable to escape from his ego which is rooted in his cravings and attachments. In Buddhism, human beings are not viewed as different from other living beings. The word used in Japanese is shujo: shu meaning "many" or "numerous" and jo meaning "those with consciousness. " The Sanskrit word for this is sattva. This is basically similar to, and yet different from Darwin's theory of evolution. Scientific study looks objectively at the history of mankind through archeological finds. The Buddhist view of shujo is not a reality objectively validated by science but an insight that within the depths of our hearts we lead a life that corresponds to the most fearsome and repulsive of animals.
It was in this light that Shinran says, "My heart is like the scorpion and the snake." Outwardly, we are human beings who control our lives moralistically and ethically, but deep within each of us is an uncontrollable unconsciousness identical to the most savage primitive animals. Our ego-centered lives are rooted in such instincts and urges. The deep truth is that we are all-out for ourselves.
As he came to realize this, Shinran saw himself as nothing great, a common ordinary being, and so named himself Gu-toku-Ran, literally, Shinran, the foolish, bald-headed one. With his keen eyes seeing into the depths of his own heart, Shinran was aware he was embraced in the compassion of the Buddha even as he was creating his own karmic hell. Yet he could also see that embraced as he was, he was not a Buddha and that his world was not the Pure Land. My thoughts are that Shinran had to carry a burden of worry and sorrow to the moment of his death-the effect of karma in his life. At his death, he was born into the Pure Land. This is my imagining, my opinion as I reflect on Shinran's death at the age of eighty-nine.
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