Prologue 67, 31, 45

Prologue 67

The heart of Jodo Shinshu is the “Original Vow” of Amida Nyorai; the Original Vow is Amida’s true wisdom of great compassion of no-self and non-discrimination, it is concomitantly the manifestation of Amida’s virtue. This original vow is thus called ‘Namu-amida-butsu’.

On hearing the Original Vow we spontaneously are mindful of Amida’s ‘Great Compassion of No-self”; on hearing Namu-amida-butsu we thus know the ‘Great wisdom of non-discrimination”. We rely on the virtue-power of the great compassion and wisdom of Nyorai –‘Namu-amida-butsu’ to attain birth, and thus this is also called ‘the autonomy of Namu-amida-butsu”.

Shinran Shonin remarked in his Wasan:

The all-complete self-benefiting and benefiting others

I take refuge in the expedient and skillful adornments (Namu-amida-butsu)

Extinguish all thoughts and speeches

I take refuge in the Tathagata of inconceivability

Therefore, why do we lament that we are ‘unable to attain peace of mind (anjin)”?

The ‘great anjin’ goes beyond ‘anjin’ and ‘not having anjin’; this can be realized within Namu-amida-butsu.

Prologue 31

‘Chapter on True Buddha Land’: ‘All sentient beings are truly ignorant of the mind of the Nyorai.’

Seeing the body of the Buddha (Amida’s body) is seeing the Buddha’s mind (Amida’s mind), the Buddha’s mind is itself the Great Compassion, Buddha has such an unfathomable virtue.

Bombu though unable to see the body of the Buddha with the naked eye, can rely on the Nyorai’s Original Vow; bombu can ‘hear’ the Buddha’s mind, this is: ‘hearing the Name and having joy in faith even once’.

Amida Nyorai transformed all His virtue into the spoken virtue of Namu-amida-butsu. Namu-amida-butsu thus is the spoken virtue of Nyorai. Therefore, it is not that bombu say the name and attain birth, but they ‘hear (and accept in) faith to attain birth’  (Birth through hearing is faith)

“Hearing is faith” is Nyorai’s virtue; it is the working of the Original Vow.

Prologue 45

‘The great compassion of no self’ and ‘the great wisdom of non-discrimination’ is the ultimate reality of the Dharma realm. Hearing the ‘ultimate reality’ is when hearing Namu-amida-butsu with deep faith, and this is called the cause of birth, Jodo Shinshu is nothing other than that.

How to hear Namu-amida-butsu? That simply is ‘the original vow is truly inconceivable’, this is hearing-faith (*hearing and accepting in faith).

How to do the nembutsu? That is ‘Namu-amida-butsu is truly inconceivable’, this is the nembutsu.

The faith-practice other than this is the faith-practice of self-power.

When we listen to people explain about self-power and other-power, we usually have the thought of ‘I understand it now’ in fact this is the self-power. Without understanding the ‘deep reverence and honoring of the Buddha’ it remains self-power. The mentality after having deep understanding about the Buddha is Other-power. The nembutsu that ensues after having deep understanding about this view is Other-power.