Stop Reflecting Knowingly on One's Evil Heart

I would like to further ponder on the words of Master Shinran as quoted by Rev George from the Notes of Essentials of Faith Alone as I feel it is worth to be further discussed here. The words are found in the following paragraphs:

"To abandon the mind of self-power" admonishes the various and diverse kinds of people - master of Hinayana or Mahayana, ignorant beings good or evil - to abandon the conviction that one is good, to cease relying on the self; to stop reflecting knowingly on one's evil heart, and further to abandon the judging of people as good and bad.

When such shackled foolish beings - the lowly who are hunters and peddlers - thus wholly entrust themselves to the Name embodying great wisdom, the inconceivable Vow of the Buddha of unhindered light, then while burdened as they are with blind passion, they all attain supreme nirvana.

"Shackled" describes us, who are bound by all our various blind passions. Blind passions refers to pains which torment the body and afflictions which distress the heart and mind. The hunter is one who slaughters many kinds of living things; this is the huntsman. The peddler is one who buys and sells things; this is the trader. They are called "low." Such peddlers, hunters, and others are none other than we, who are like stones and tiles and pebbles.

I undertand from Master Shinran that when we receive shinjin that is when we entrusted entirely to Amida Buddha for salvation. When we come to accept Amida's offer of salvation, we no more worry about our dark mind which is our prevalent evil nature. We don't bother about the behaviour of this mind anymore and we leave it to the light of Amida Buddha to take care of. The mind itself has find a home in the Name. Yes, we don't reflect on this evil mind anymore, when I say evil, it means a mind that is either good or bad, wise or stupid as the mind in itself is just ephemeral, changing and impermanent in nature. Only the Nembutsu, the Name is the permanent nature that we can't part from.

Though we don't reflect on this evil nature 'knowingly' which is like exercising self-power, we are made aware of our nature through the light of wisdom of Amida. The evil nature is likened to a shadow of a tree casted by the light of the sun. The sun is the Vow Power of Amida which is always shining on us making us aware of our dark sides. We don't contemplate the mind but Amida's light reveals our nature and shows us how we like. This awareness all come from the wisdom of Amida through His unhindered light that penetrates to the bottom of our mind. All is done 'unknowingly' through the magic of Other Power as we don't bother anymore about the 'working' of the mind. However, we still aware of the dark sides of us in the presence of Other power. For instance, when we look up into the sky for the sunlight, it is the sunlight that makes us turn to it and not the other way round. The sun directs us to its direction. This is Other Power.

Melvin