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The character nen (or nem) originally referred to "thought," to "thinking of." Concretely, it was translated as "thinking with the body," which in turn was translated as "calling" and thus the Nembutsu has come to be translated as "calling of the Buddha name. " This was the way opened by Honen, a way embracing all the original and translated meanings of this character nen. In the thought, and in the calling also, there is really an encounter, or at least a yearning of encounter with the Buddha. That yearning points me toward the Buddha Way.
D.T. Suzuki's translation of gyo (practice) as "living" is a more precise expression of the union of shin plus gyo which Honen teaches. This practice of Nembutsu is expressed in our daily life as we place our hands in gassho (palms together in an attitude of reverence) in front of the household altar, Nembutsu permeates our lives as we live daily activities with awareness of the "thought of Amida Buddha," of the reality of Amida, of the reality of myself. For Honen, this was senjaku - nembutsu , the nembutsu as the "selected" practice of one's life, and so it became for Shinran.
Senjaku-"selecting"-has both the aspect of "to take or receive" and, at the same time, the aspect of "to throw away." Honen says that uttering nembutsu is the only treasure, the only virtue in life. Throw away your reliance on worldly treasures and possessions for only the Nembutsu is true and real. Only it can usher you with peaceful heart through the gates of death.
When you die, you cannot take your money, your family, your fame, with you. When you die, you die just as you were born: stripped, naked, alone. The reality of my life is that everything I have now is borrowed. There is an ultimate aloneness in my life. Only Nembutsu sustains me. I must throw away these attachments to my possessions, my family, fame,- not throw them away but throw away my dependent clinging, my reliance, my attachment to them in order to see the compassion that envelops my life.
Honen said, "If you can recite the nembutsu better by getting married, then get married. But if marriage becomes an obstacle, then get rid of the marriage." Whatever the conditions of your life, live in a way that you can say the nembutsu and say it thoroughly. Nembutsu then becomes your only treasure in life, and becomes real in and through you,
Shinran's view extending this "selected nembutsu" as the sole real treasure is expressed in Tannisho as "All things in this life are vain and empty, only the Nembutsu is real." Really, what Honen's teaching allowed Shinran was to be him self, see himself, to become aware as a bombu-a foolish, ignorant being embraced by Amida's Vow. Shinran married, had a full family life-six children and later grandchildren. In that warm full environment he said, "Only the Nembutsu is real!"
This was his point of definite choice. In spite of his deep relationship with his wife Eshinni, with the children-facing the temporariness of all such relationships, he selected nembutsu as the only dependable reality, as the expression of his relationship as a human being with Amida Buddha.
For me, there was a period in which I both rejected and, at the same time, was drawn to the Nembutsu that had come from my mother's mouth as she lay dying. When she died, the winter of my thirteenth year, all the family was there watching her die. She had long been ill. All through my childhood, my only recollection is of her being in a dark room at the back of the house. Shortly before her death, she had asked to see me, but when I came home from school, she had lost consciousness. She did not respond to my anguished call, "Mother! Mother! "
In the moment of regaining consciousness as she died, she spoke not my name-which I yearned to hear her say-but she uttered the nembutsu and died. This is not to say my mother was a person of deep faith, but as all around her were reciting nembutsu, so she too-perhaps as a response. In my teenage years I often thought, if my mother had been waiting for me to return to her deathbed, why didn't she call my name rather than that of the Buddha's for I yearned to have heard her recognize me one last time. Yet through this nembutsu that had been my mother's dying utterance, I came closer to the Dharma and was able to learn the teachings. Thus it was through my mother that the meaning of the reality of the nembutsu filtered into my life. I reflected then. Had my mother held my hand and said my name at death-truly what could I have done? Instead, her dying utterance of nembutsu gave me the understanding that she must cast me aside as she dies. Somehow, I became able to see through this lesson of her death, able to see that the nembutsu is true, that she is all right as she is now.
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