Theology

Shinran

1173 to 1263 CE, Kamakura-era Japan

Other Power and the entrusting heart: liberation not as an achievement but as a gift, reaching furthest to those who can do least.

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Lessons

Other Power

Shinran's great reversal: in an age when beings are too weak and self-deceived to save themselves by their own effort, liberation comes not by self-power ( jiriki ) but by Other Power ( tariki ) - the working of Amida's…

The Entrusting Heart

At the centre of Shinran's teaching is shinjin - the entrusting heart - which he insists is not our faith offered to the Buddha but the Buddha's own mind awakened in us: a gift, not an achievement, and the whole of what…

The Evil Person's Hope

Shinran's most startling teaching, from the Tannisho : ‘Even the good person is born in the Pure Land - how much more the evil person.’ Grace reaches furthest not to the virtuous but to those who know they c…

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