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Historically, before Shinran, there are descriptions of the Buddha Way expounded in the sutras based on the original teachings of Sakyamuni: the Four Noble Truths and the Eightfold Path. The Four Noble Truths describe four truths that are inherent in reality. The first two describe our delusory condition, our real condition as it is: samsara. Human life in its illusory condition is described as the result or responsibility of my karma creating the delusions and suffering in my world, By this I mean not my family, not my social environment, etc., but my personal karma. Samsara has this direct personal meaning.
The content of the third truth points to the urgency for us to attain enlightenment to realize the ideal condition in our life. The fourth truth also deals with us. Thus the four truths express the real condition of our daily lives: suffering, joy, sorrow, and the way to true happiness which is what we foolish beings seek. The Buddha Way, as Sakyamuni preached over and over again, is the way of the Eightfold Path, the way by which a common ordinary being can become enlightened. Within it is right speech (verbal action) ; right action (bodily expression, right karma); right thought (our own mental process). These form the totality of our human existence. To direct this totality of ourselves toward Buddhahood is the thrust of the Buddha's teaching through this path. This is primary, but in the sutras there are also preached many other ways, In the Larger Sukhavati sutra there are described three ways in which one can become a Buddha. One is the way by which monks can attain the Pure Land. Second is the way in which the ordinary man or woman can attain the Pure Land. Within this second way are two possibilities: the first of which is offerings by those who can give them and thus accumulate merit. But for those poor both in wealth and poor psychologically, spiritually, there is the way of the Original Vow, whereby the ordinary being, carrying heavy karmic burdens of evil, simply by saying the nembutsu, listening to the Buddha's name, becomes a Buddha. This is the original Shin Buddhist way.
Concerning this nembutsu path, Shinran says in Tannisho: "Even if I should be misled by Honen and fall into the depths of hell [ will have no regrets"-but at the same time, he relied implicitly on the teachings of Sakyamuni, and sought refuge in the power of that teaching. Thus the "belier' or "faith" which Shinran expresses as shinjin, the experience of awakening, is a world of enlightenment, of awareness, that opens only through an experiential integration of belief and practice. To emphasize once again, shinjin is taige, understanding with the body, the experience at the point where awakening occurs: a result both of belief and practice.
What you truly have to listen to is the heart of what Sakyamuni and Shinran are saying about the true and real in life, in your life. The act of doing, of practicing in our daily life is important for if we cannot connect the teaching we hear into our daily life, the effort is incomplete. Simply "believing" is not Shin Buddhism. Unless experience has been integrated into one's commitment and understanding, unless there is this sense of process, it is not Shin Buddhism.
The transmission of these teachings was neither fast nor easy. From India to China to Japan, the way was beset with hardships: the Gobi desert, tigers, rough ocean, lives lost. Similarly, difficulties accompanied the transmission of Shin Buddhist teachings from Japan to Hawaii and the mainland United States over the past hundred years. We must listen to the history which evolved out of many people's selfless, whole hearted effort to share the dharma, for it is out of these conditions we today can take the first step of listening to the teachings. This nearly 3,000-year process of transmission in order for us to meet what is difficult to meet, was all made possible by nearly 3,000 years of commitment, of believing and totally living in this Buddha Way.
Shinran expressed this historical process in hymn of True Faith, Shoshinge, wherein he praises the seven patriarchs through whom he traces his spiritual lineage. For Honen, the seventh of these patriarchs (the nembutsu practicer whom Shinran always regarded as his teacher), the Buddha Way was mind and heart plus practice (gyo) leading to ojo - birth in the Pure Land. Mind and heart corresponds to the original point of "believing." Gyo, practice, is the recitation of Nembutsu. For Honen, by believing in and relying on nembutsu, one is able to meet Amida at the point of Raigo-the "welcoming." This point, of welcoming and meeting the Buddha in one's life, is the point of experience at which one is able to be born in the Pure Land.
Honen taught Shinran that the way of nembutsu was the way of the Eighteenth Vow. Yet, among Honen's students a great problem arose-a difficulty in terms of the practice. How many callings were necessary? Honen said, "Don't get stuck on the number of times. Just throw yourself wholeheartedly into the utterance with total involvement."
After Honen's death, his various disciples began to form their own branches based on his teaching. Shinran also dealt in detail with this problem of "how many times?" Through following Honen's way , he explored the teaching of Honen and that of Sakyamuni in an academic and scholarly fashion, as his writings attest ; but most importantly, he explored their teachings by totally integrating them experientially into his life, Thus in his writings, Shinran left us both a scholastically and an existentially clear map of the path he followed.
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