Some Thoughts on Unit 21

I have re-looked into some aspects in the translated piece of Unit 21 worrying that some might get the message of Zuiken Sensei wrong. I was told by Rev George Genteby that Sensei seemed to suggest the idea of mi-anjin or i-anjin or kinageki anjin which is the idea of looking at one's evil mind is. He found especially in one of the paragraphs to suggest the idea that we should exercise our self-power in self-examination.

Before talking about ‘shinjin’ ‘nembutsu’, please look carefully at the ‘pitch-blackness’. Before talking about 'the wish to acquire shinjin’, please get to know carefully the ‘pitch-blackness’. If you know the ‘pitch-blackness’ well, the mind of ‘the wish to acquire shinjin, anjin thereafter to seek birth’ will naturally be sorted out.

According to Rev. George, this is not in keeping with Shinran's thought. In the Notes on Essentials of Faith Alone, Shinran Shonin says: 'to abandon the mind of self-power is ... to stop reflecting knowingly on one's evil heart.' CWS p. 459.

I wish to share my bombu's shallow idea on what I understand from Sensei's intent in this passage. Please correct my thoughts if what I am saying is not in accordance with Shinran's thoughts.

In my opinion, Sensei did not intend to suggest that we shall entertain our darkness of mind, however he was trying to elucidate the fact that one will ‘see’, 'aware’ of and heed the ‘white path’ when he aware of his 'religious impasse’. This religious deadlock is well represented or explained in the ‘two-fold faith’ which sounds 'the belief of one as wicked and sinful being floundered through the cycle of birth-and-death for immeasurable kalpas of life without chances of deliverance’.   For if he could realize this fact (on one extreme), he would naturally be able to heed the fact that ‘Amida’s presence is just for his salvation, for wicked and hopeless beings like him’ (on the other extreme). For the two-fold faith, if one could not confess his ‘powerless’ existence in the path of salvation, he would not be able to submit himself fully to the white path or the white path would simply conceal before him as he is too egotistical of his ‘self-power’.

From my understanding, the two-fold faith is an emblem of shinjin that contains two aspects that intersect. The two aspects are one as like a coin with two sides. People ‘seek’ and ‘look for’ shinjin as a subject other than the Vow-Power itself. In fact with the illuminating power of the Vow, we are made aware of our ugly and wicked selves as how Master Shinran saw himself as one, and when he looked up to Amida Buddha and his Vow-Power, he knew he was immediately grasped in the non-forsaken light of Amida. Shinjin is the self-awareness of our religious impossibility BUT on the same facet knowing that Amida Buddha makes ALL NOT POSSIBLE POSSIBLE!

The last paragraph very well explains the intention of Zuiken Sensei that we as foolish beings can never understand the working of Amida’s inconceivable Vow Power.  We remain foolish as we go along in life ‘living in the blackness’ (a life besmeared with three poisons) knowingly, but taking no heed to our ‘judgments’, we live the life of real shinjin, a life of salvation bestowed by Amida.

Melvin