Embraced, Never To Be Forsaken
Here is more of Professor Eiken Kobai’s accurate transmission of Shinran’s teaching, in detail, with lots of references. As you read it, you’ll see that for Shinran, it’s all about becoming a person of SHINJIN - TRUE ENTRUSTING.
For an uneducated person like me, it is a great gift to have access to Kobai’s work, as I attempt to explain this most powerful and effective path to the END of suffering to others.
Shinran Shonin stated that the salvation of “being embraced, never to be forsaken” (sesshu fusha) comes from being in the “rightly-established state” (shojoju).
He emphasized that the firm conviction that we will be born in the Pure Land without fail comes at the moment we receive shinjin, and not when Amida buddha welcomes us nor the proper metal attitude at the moment of death.
He thus denied that Amida Buddha comes to welcome us to the Pure Land at the moment of death, and emphasized shinjin that we receive in the present.
In connection with Amida Buddha welcoming us to his Pure Land at death, in Letter 6 of the Mattosho, it states:
How sad that so many people, young and old, male and female, have died this year. We should not, however, be distressed about this because Amida Buddha teaches the transiency of birth and death.
I (Zenran = Shinran Shonin) do not attach any significance to a person’s last moments, good or bad, because those whose shinjin is settled have no doubt, and so “abide in the truly settled” (shojoju).
That is why the end of even the foolish and ignorant is a time for celebration.
This letter is dated the 13th day of the 11th month during the first year of Bun’ (1260 CE). Famine and plague haunted all the provinces of Japan then, and it is said that the number of dead was very large. Very likely, among those who died, were those who died after suffering a great deal, and died in a grotesque way.
I believe this letter was written in response to a question regarding birth in the Pure Land by those who could not have had the “proper mental attitude” (shonen) at the moment of death.
As he wrote, “… do not attach any significance to a person’s last moments, good or bad,” Shinran Shonin held that regardless of the way in which the last moments were passed, it didn’t have any connection with birth in the Pure Land.
As long as your shinjin was determined and you were in the “group of those truly assured,” no matter how much you suffered during your last moments, regardless of how agitated you were, there is absolutely no doubt that you will be born in the Pure Land because the cause of birth is solely due to the Buddha’s (Amida Buddha’s) power.
Shinran Shonin stressed the determination of whether we will be born in the Pure Land is settled during our “ordinary” (heizei) or every day as a result of shinjin, and not at the moment of death when Amida Buddha does or does not come to welcome us to the Pure Land, and thus stressed that our salvation is from the present.
For those who have read Jessie Checks In, about the suicide of my daughter, and what happened AFTER that - Shinran’s words above, and Kobai’s teaching, provide the best possible explanation of how someone who dies such a terrible death can escape entirely what most Buddhists would see as the unavoidable karmic circumstances.
Truly, this Path of the Pure Land is wonderful - and mysterious - beyond anything that I can possibly understand. All that remains, really, is great gratitude that none of us need reap such Great Negative Karma ever again.
Buddhahood awaits us all. It awaits you. It awaits at the end of this life - or at the end of countless additional lives of endless rebirth in the six realms in which suffering and death is inescapable.
Me, I’ve really and truly had enough of suffering. I have zero desire to “do-it-myself” when it comes to ending my endless lives of non-buddhahood.
I have zero desire to go back into the karmic cement mixer and be spun out into another life as a non-buddha.
I have zero desire to prove anything to anybody (including myself) about how able I am to sustain a Buddha’s attitude, or a Buddha’s view.
The fact is I just cannot. Pretending otherwise is simply too painful, and too futile, in too many ways. End of story.
So - the next major piece I’m going to be writing is on Part 3 of the Easy Path to Buddhahood. It may take me a few days - so bear with me, if indeed you are reading with any interest at all…ok?