Shin Ugly Blog

RETURN TO THE TRUE TEACHING OF SHINRAN, OUR TRUE TEACHER.

I call this “The SHINRAN Manifesto” - but in fact it is no more, and no less, than the summation of the life and work of the second major teacher of Shin Buddhism (after Shinran himself) - Rennyo the Restorer.

In fact, he is called “The Venerable Shonin who revived the Teachings of Shinran Shonin”.

I’ve included an online collection of Rennyo’s letters in the resources section of the Shin Ugly Blog links. If you actually go and read them, you will see that their message about the True Teaching and the message of the SHIN UGLY Blog are one and the same.

Indeed, if you find that they are NOT the same message, I would consider it a favor to be corrected in an email or a comment to the blog. Shinran (and by extension Rennyo) are the PLUMBLINE for understanding the True Teaching - certainly not me - or anyone else, either.

I’ve included two pieces in this blog post:

• The introduction to Rennyo’s letters (from the Buddhist Church of America collection).
• A selection from one of Rennyo’s letters, which gives a clear window into his own bedrock belief concerning the personhood of Amida Buddha

Here’s the Buddhist Churches of America Introduction:

The venerable Rennyo Shonin (1415-1499), the eighth abbot (Monshu) of Honpa-Hongwanji, wrote untold numbers of letters to the simple ordinary people throughout Japan explaining the true purport of the Nembutsu, “Namo-Amida-Butsu.”

When Rennyo assumed the abbotship at the age of 43, he found the position of the Hongwanji (as a religious sect) in a state of deterioration and stagnation.

This decline had become assertive following the death of Shinran Shonin and was the result of ineffective and inept leadership from within the sect and the socio-political pressures from without.

The immediate acceptance by the common people of these simply-written letters triggered an exceedingly powerful resurgent movement of the Jodo Shinshu sect and has since enjoyed down through the centuries to these modern times.

It is most fitting, therefore, that he is affectionately called, ‘The Venerable Shonin who revived the Teachings of Shinran Shonin.’

Twenty-two years following Rennyo Shonin’s death in 1499, his grandson Ennyo collected as many of these letters as was possible from the recipient families and temples. Less the exact duplications, it is said that he was able to consolidate 265 seperate letters. Ennyo selected 80 from these and combined them into one book which was divided into five groups or volumes.

This book is known as the Gobun-sho and is commonly translated by the English-speaking Sangha as the ‘Epistles.’ Further, Ennyo combined five other letters into another book called ‘Ge-no-Ofumi’ or ‘Letters of Summer’; the fifth letter in this latter book is known as ‘Go-Zoku-Sho’ or ‘A Biographical Letter on Shinran Shonin.’

(copyright 1978 Buddhist Churches of America)

Because it’s easy to hear superficially, but hard to hear deeply, here’s my own restatement of the points made in the BCA Introduction, to make their meaning as clear as can be:

1. Rennyo wrote letters to the simple ordinary people throughout Japan explaining the true meaning of the Nembutsu. His teaching was plain talk, for plain people - what I call SHIN UGLY - about suffering and the end of suffering.
2. When he first began communicating, the Shin Buddhist community was in a state of confusion and decline. Why? Because the leadership - the clerics and scholars of the Shin Buddhist community - were not effective in doing their job of preserving and transmitting the TRUE teachings of Shinran.
3. The plain people - the people of little or no learning or sophistication - received Rennyo’s Shin Ugly teaching with joy - with many coming to experience the same SHINJIN (true entrusting) as Rennyo and Shinran. This caused a tremendous re-vitalization of the moribund Shin Buddhist community.
4. Rennyo’s influence was so profound that it has been felt down through modern times. Both his strategy and his tactical approach have much to say to us today.
5. Rennyo is recognized by people of the same SHINJIN (true entrusting) as the man who revived the Shin Buddhist community - turning it from a moribund religious organization to a true Sangha - doing what a true Sangha does: spreading the Dharma that teaches hungry hearts how to become a Buddha.

Here’s an extract from one of Rennyo’s letters, Chapter on the Perfect Practice of the Dharma. In it, Rennyo’s recognition of the personhood of Amida Buddha is unambiguous:

Although the beliefs of the various schools of Buddhism differ individually, each is in truth a commendable teaching because, in the final analysis, they all have derived from the sermons of Sakyamuni during his lifetime. Therefore, it is absolutely no doubt that those who practice the Teachings without deviation shall gain the Way and attain Enlightenment.

However, we are in a period where very, very few can accomplish the perfect practice of the Teachings because sentient beings of the Closing Third Era are most inferior in their capacities.

• At this juncture, (the phrase) “by the Primal Vow of the Other-Power of Amida Tathagata” is meant “the concern (of Amida Buddha) to deliver primarily all sentient beings of this Present Era”.
• Towards this goal Amida thoughtfully meditated for five kalpas (long ages) and performed the perfect practices over innumerable kalpas to fulfill His Vow.
• He then promised that He would not take the Great Enlightenment unless He delivered all the evil-prone and virtueless sentient beings.
• He is the Buddha that completely fulfilled His Vow and then became Amida Buddha.

For sentient beings of this present Third Era there is no hope of receiving Buddhahood unless they depend exclusively upon the Primal Vow of this Buddha and place reliance on Amida.

Once again, for the sake of listening deeply, I want to re-state in a point-by-point way what Rennyo has just said:

1. All the teachings of Buddhism are excellent - because they all will lead to the end of suffering - TRUE Buddhahood - if they are practiced to perfection.
2. But we have a terrible problem in this age of Dharma Decline: none of us have the ability to do that kind of perfect practice.
3. Therefore the many and varied self-power practices on the Path of the Sages simply won’t work for any of us - in terms of accomplishing our aspiration towards Buddhahood.
4. Therefore, the Buddha we know as AMIDA was greatly concerned on our behalf.
5. Before he attained Buddhahood, he made a 48 Vows (as the Larger Pure Land Sutra teaches) to save us who could not save ourselves.
6. He meditated for five long ages and performed perfect practices on our behalf - to fulfill his vows so that we might be freed from endless lives of rebirth, suffering and death (as the Larger Pure Land Sutra teaches).
7. He was so committed to us all, that he would not accept final enlightenment - the transformation from a Bodhisattva to a Buddha - unless he was able to set up his Pure Land and provide deliverance for all of us who are hopelessly lost in our blind passion, our ineradicable egotism, our endless cravings and aversions.
8. In this current age, the Age of Dharma Decline, there is simply no hope for our deliverance from suffering in any other way.
9. Our only hope for deliverance is to depend on the Vows that Amida Buddha made and fulfilled - all summed up in the Primal Vow (the 18th).
10. Only by relying entirely and exclusively on Amida Buddha can we experience final deliverance from endless suffering lives of ignorance, and transformation to True Buddhahood at last.

This was Rennyo - a TRUE teacher of the TRUE teaching of Shinran.

This - no more and no less - is the true teaching we need today.

• Not new-age metaphysical mush where content is unimportant.
• Not modern or post-modern Shin Semiotics, where Amida is reduced to nothing more than mythos and symbol.
• Not hybrids that mix the Shin Ugly plain teaching of Shinran with the many and varied self-power teachings - not Zen-Shin, nor Yoga-Shin, nor Wicca Shin, nor Unitarian-Universalist Shin, either.

None of those will work, to end our suffering at last, and bring us to TRUE Buddhahood.

What WILL work is the TRUE Teaching of Shinran, once again - on every website, in every temple, for everybody. That teaching - and only that teaching - will make the path to SHINJIN perfectly clear, for clerics, scholars and laypeople alike.

Same as it ever was.

Namu-Amida-Butsu.

PS: I realize that I had promised in this post to detail the kinds of false teachings being promulgated today. That’s still coming up.

But upon reflection after my last post, I felt it important to really, really make clear what the TRUE teaching about the Personhood of Amida Buddha is, when spoken by someone who is committed ONLY to Shinran’s True Teaching - and not divergences based on personal views.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, March 22nd, 2005 at 11:35 am and is filed under True Teaching and True Teachers, The SHINRAN Manifesto. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.