I am such that I do not know right and wrong
And cannot distinguish false and true;
I lack even small love and small compassion,
And yet, for fame and profit, enjoy teaching others.
—The Collected Works of Shinran
WHILE AT FIRST GLANCE this might not seem much of a consolation, according to Shinran (1173–1263), the founder of the Jodo Shinshu or True Pure Land School in Japan, an honest assessment of our own limitedness is the beginning of a more sincere relationship to dharma practice, to oneself, and to others. That honesty is the catalyst for a metanoia, a “change of mind” or conversion. Once we learn to recognize that our ego-directed effort is ultimately futile in the pursuit of spiritual liberation, we can begin to live in a way that more fully honors how things are.
I was not trained in the Shin, or Pure Land, tradition. When I first encountered Shinran’s teachings, I felt as though I had been given permission to put down an enormous burden that was crushing me. Shinran confirmed that my ego-directed efforts would only serve to enmesh me further in samsara, like a coyote caught in a snare, every attempt to free myself just tightening the noose, and redoubling my suffering and hopelessness.
Based on his awakening to his own spiritual fraudulence, Shinran came to realize that he could never be the agent of his own liberation because his very aspiration to do so was tainted by his incorrigible greed, hatred, and delusion. There was no advancing, no smooth ascent; all such ideas are nothing more than ways to inflate the fragile ego, which reality must inevitably puncture. Such ideas, he came to realize, had nothing to do with what the Buddhist life is really about, since what is required is not the culmination of the egocentric vision but rather its transcendence. In other words, what is called for is the renunciation of the quixotic attempt by the ego to liberate itself, an attempt inherently doomed to fail.
This misguided project is known in more technical terms as the “self-power” (jiriki) approach to spiritual freedom. Shinran came to place his confidence not in his self-power but rather in other-power, or tariki. Other-power turns out to be Amida or Amitabha (“infinite light”), a cosmic buddha whose legend is told in a group of texts known as the three Pure Land scriptures. Eons ago, Amida made a series of vows, which they then fulfilled on the arduous path toward awakening (here and elsewhere, I use the gender-neutral pronoun to refer to Amida).
According to Amida’s vows, we are basically guaranteed awakening if we just invoke Amida’s name sincerely. That’s right; all we need do is call Amida’s, Homage to Amida Buddha. That’s all. It sounds too easy, doesn’t it?
