Theology
1173 to 1263 CE, Kamakura-era Japan
A Pure Land path for the age of Dharma-decline, where liberation is Amida’s gift received in the Name and lived in gratitude, open to ordinary people who are neither monk nor layman.
Start learning Shinran →How Shinran left twenty years of Tendai discipline on Mount Hiei, became Honen’s disciple, and built in his masterwork the Kyogyoshinsho a new Pure Land path meant for the age of mappo , the decline of the Dharma.
What it means to say Namu-amida-butsu - and Shinran’s decisive shift from the nembutsu as a meritorious practice the believer performs to the Name as Amida’s own gift, working through the person who utters it.
The story of the monk Dharmakara, who vowed not to become a Buddha unless all who called on him could be saved - and how this mythic narrative of the Primal Vow carries Shinran’s theology of unconditional compassion.
Shinran’s late idea of jinen honi - Amida’s working as ‘made to become so of itself’ - and the transformed life that follows: no longer petition or bargaining, but a nembutsu of pure thankfulness.
Shinran’s public marriage, his eating of meat, and his self-name ‘Gutoku’ - his deliberate rejection of the monk-versus-layman divide, and the radical this-worldly accessibility of a path meant for ordinary people.
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