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Reverend
William Briones

Thoughts on Shinjin
“In reflecting on the ocean of great shinjin, I realize that there is no discrimination between noble and humble or black-robed monks and white-clothed laity, no differentiation between man and woman, old and young. The amount of evil one has committed is not considered, the duration of any performance of religious practices is of no concern. It is a matter of neither practice nor good acts, neither sudden attainment nor gradual attainment, neither meditative practice nor no meditative practice, neither right contemplation nor wrong contemplation, neither thought nor no-thought, neither daily life nor the moment of death, neither many-calling nor once-calling. It is simply shinjin that is inconceivable, inexplicable, and indescribable. It is like the medicine that eradicates all poisons. The medicine of Tathagata’s Vow destroys the poisons of our wisdom and foolishness.”

Several weeks ago I spoke to a group of about 40 high school students studying world religions from California Polytechnic Prep School. The instructor has made this an annual field trip for his history class. Prior to my talk with the students, the instructor told me they were quite knowledgeable with Buddhism and there was no need to talk down to them. Not knowing where to begin…. I began with our beautiful murals of Shakyamuni Buddha and talked about the two major branches of Buddhism … Mahayana and Theravada Buddhism that trace their roots to the original teachings of Shakyamuni Buddha. I managed to encapsulate over 2,500 years of Buddhist history into thirty minutes and ended with a brief … a very brief explanation of Jodo Shinshu Buddhism.

Then I opened it up for questions and/or comments. Immediately the students bombarded me with questions. One of the first questions that was asked was … what do Buddhist believe in? … what is the point of Buddhism? I responded that all Buddhist share the same goal … Enlightenment. But how does one explain Enlightenment to someone whose beliefs and concepts are totally contrary from my own.

So then what is meant by Enlightenment? My understanding of Enlightenment is to awaken. But what do we awaken to? I believe we are awaken to our ignorance and thus we are liberated from our suffering. We are awaken to the interdependence and interconnectedness to all things within the universe.

Enlightenment is the Sanskrit translation of Bodhi. Enlightenment is the highest state of awareness, in which we realize our spiritual resolution.
So we can say the goal of all Buddhist is to become a Buddha.

So how does one become Enlightened?…. Well as the Shakyamuni Buddha said there are 84,000 paths to Enlightenment.

For the Theravada Buddhist of Sri Lanka, Burma, Thailand, Cambodia, or Laos, they follow the example of the life of Shakyamuni Buddha. They leave their home and families, they become monks or nuns that maintain the precepts and take strict vows. They adhere to the Eightfold path and maintain strict monastic codes. So you see the role of the monk is very important. These monks are considered to have the best chance to realize enlightenment in this life. The regular guy on the street only support the monks and hope that in some future life they will become monks.

For Mahayana Buddhist which we happen to be, along with the Buddhist of China, Korea, Mongolia, Taiwan, Tibet, Vietnam and of course Japan we believe that as house holders, regular people like you and me are unable to follow strict precepts and of course we can’t even come close in following the Eightfold path. Therefore we speak of realizing Buddha mind or Buddha nature rather than attaining total liberation like the Theravada Buddhist.

Shinran Shonin felt this was the best path for all Buddhist, especially for regular people, like you and me ….people who are unable to give up their possessions, unable to leave their families to live a life as a monk or a nun in some monastery and especially … for the self-centered, ignorant person like myself.

The reading I began with is from the third chapter of Shinran’s major work Kyogyoshinsho. It’s the chapter on Shinjin. Shinran writes “It is simply Shinjin that is inconceivable, inexplicable, and indescribable. It is like the medicine that eradicates all poisons”.

And just as Shinran stated, Shinjin is very difficult to comprehend. Worst yet …to translate it from Japanese to English is most difficult. Shinjin is often translated as “faith”, “true faith” and “serene faith” but because “faith” carries so much Christian baggage. I think it best we use it without translation.

Shinran defines “shin” in Shinjin as “truth, reality, sincerity, fullness, accomplishment, reliance, reverence, discernment, distinctness, clarity, faithfulness”.

And still these words fall short of expressing Shinjin as the dynamic force of wisdom. No single translation can do justice to the meaning of Shinjin. That’s why many of the newer publication of Jodo Shinshu works leave Shinjin un-translated.

So what is Shinjin? In a nutshell it refers to a spiritual transformation that takes place within this life, not when you die. It involves profound understanding, awareness and insight. It is an awakening to an entirely new mode of being in the world, becoming aware of one’s own limited human nature and the oneness of all beings.

Shinran equated Shinjin with the initial state of enlightenment referred to by the Theravada Buddhist as the stage of Non-retrogression. In reaching this initial state of enlightenment we become aware of Oneness, the interdependence and interconnectedness of all things in the universe … in other words we become aware the Other Power or Amida’s Primal Vow.

We become aware of all the compassion that embrace our everyday life. We become aware of everything past, present and future that supports our life. To become aware we live a life a gratitude and appreciation. And it is this awareness that manifest itself as true person of compassion.

And too …. Shinjin makes you aware of that you are a foolish, ignorant person, that you are bombu. We become aware that our greed, hatred and ignorance are deep-seeded and that there is not hope of getting rid of them though our own effort.

A person of Shinjin is awakened to how he/or she really is…. Stripped of all pretensions, defenses and self-images. The person of Shinjin is a true disciple of Buddha and yet at the same time the person of Shinjin is filled with useless self-attachments and still is burdened with human shortcomings and frailties.

This contradiction is what makes Shinjin so “inconceivable, inexplicable, and indescribable”. And this is why “Easy Paractice”, as Nagarjuna called the Pure Land path … not so easy.

In the next issue I would like to discuss how Jodo Shinshu Buddhist resolve this most difficult issue.

Namu Amida Butsu

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