Notes:

Shinran (1173-1262) and Shin Buddhism (cont.)

Key Points:

blind passion            boundless compassion

foolish being             Amida Buddha

Namu Amida Butsu

Two-fold truth of form and emptiness, words and beyond words

personal and impersonal: 

foolish being/Amida; blind passion, formless buddha

neither personal and impersonal

The Name as No Meaning

Tannisho: A Shin Buddhist Classic (pdf excerpt - online syllabus)

Compiled posthumously by Yuien, follower of Shinran
Section I: Amida's Primal vow does not discriminate between young and old, good and evil

Section X: “no self working is true working” 無 義を以て義とす。
            “no meaning is the meaning” (two-fold truth)
Section III: Even a good person attains the realization of the the Pure Land, how much more so the evil person.

Reading a religious text:

Historical, philosophical, individual

(historical circumstance, philosophical meaning, individual subjectivity)

“neither monk nor layman”　非僧非俗

Metaphors/Views of awakening

Zen: “Seeing” into one’s own true nature (bodhi, awakening)

Shin: “Hearing” - deep listening, deep hearing

Zen: Monastic - top-down
Shin: Lay - bottom-up