Shinran (1173–1262). The founder of the Jōdo Shinshū (True Pure Land school), the largest of Japan's schools of Buddhism. Shinran was the son of a minor government bureaucrat. It seems that his family had fallen out of favour with the government due to some doings of his grandfather's, and so his own chances for a good career appeared slight. For this and possibly other reasons, he joined the monastic order at the age of 9. Shortly after ordination, he went to Mt. Hiei, and became a dōsō, a monk who practises the perpetual nembutsu, a practice whereby one undertook strenuous 90-day retreat periods in which one circumambulated an image of Amitābha while reciting the nembutsu without respite. He kept this up until he was 29 years old, and then left Mt. Hiei to join Hōnen's movement in 1201 and remained with him until both were exiled from the capital to different areas in 1207. The two men never met again, and throughout the remainder of his life Shinran claimed he was merely transmitting his master's teachings without innovation. Shinran's exile proved to be a decisive moment for the formation of his teachings. He was 35 years old at the time, and from the age of 9 had known no other life than that of a monk. Now defrocked, he was free from government monastic regulations and duties, and yet he had not freely chosen the lay life for himself. He felt like he was neither here nor there, and called his lifestyle ‘hisō hizoku’, ‘neither monk nor layman’. He also married during this time, another act which was to have profound consequences for the future of his movement. The school to which he gave rise is the only one whose authority centres on a direct blood line from its founder.

Shinran was pardoned in 1211, and in 1214 moved to the Kantō area where he had a major religious experience. He had taken a vow to chant the three sūtras of the Pure Land school 1,000 times for the benefit of sentient beings. But after only four or five days of this, he gave up. It had suddenly struck him how presumptuous it was of him to think that he could do anything at all to help sentient beings in their suffering. He came to realize that one single recitation of the nembutsu was enough, if it was done in faith. While still living in the Kantō region, he began to work out his theology in a more systematic manner, which led to the completion of his major statement in 1224, a book called the Kyōgyōshinshō, or ‘Teaching, Practice, Faith, and Attainment’. This was mostly a compendium of passages from earlier Buddhist literature arranged topically for reference, and sometimes Shinran added his own comments to them. He worked on this for 30 years, constantly adding to it and refining it. With new confidence now, he moved among the masses, teaching them to put their trust in Amida Buddha for their salvation, reciting the nembutsu with the three states of mind listed in the Longer Sukhāvatī-vyūha Sūtra: sincerity, faith, and the aspiration for rebirth in the Pure Land. He propagated his teaching by establishing local congregations in private homes known as ‘nembutsu dōjō’, or ‘Buddha-recitation halls’. He never formally took any followers, and indeed did not claim any special knowledge or privilege not shared by any other believer. By repudiating any of the traditional honours normally accorded by disciples to their master, he set up one of the most egalitarian movements in east Asian Buddhist history. Eventually, this method of organization began to work against Shinran, especially when he left the Kantō region and returned to Kyoto. Since each congregation was autonomous, and there was no centralized authority to maintain control and standards, the only thing holding the movement together was Shinran's own personality. Since he was now far away from his congregations in Kantō, problems developed as some local leaders became authoritarian, or began mis-spending funds, or propagating doctrines of their own, or simply fell into the common trap of believing that the saving grace of Amitābha made conventional morality superfluous (a heresy called ‘licensed evil’). He wrote letters and essays deploring these abuses, which were later collected into an anthology called the Tannishō (Lamenting the Deviations). In one of the most painful experiences of his life, Shinran was even forced to disown his own son, Zenran. He had dispatched Zenran to Kantō to settle some of these disputes, but while there, Zenran began proclaiming that his father had given him secret teachings, and tried to set himself up in the very master–disciple relationships with them that Shinran himself had rejected. After much correspondence back and forth, it soon became obvious that he had to take the drastic step of disowning Zenran in order to bring the misunderstandings to a definitive conclusion. Shinran died at the age of 90 not long afterwards.

Shinran

The Japanese Buddhist monk Shinran (1173-1262) was the founder of the True Pure Land sect, or jodoshin shu. He was the most famous disciple of Honen and was active in developing and transforming Amidist beliefs in Japan.

The son of a court noble, Shinran entered the Tendai monastery on Mt. Hiei in 1182. But he found Tendai teachings inadequate. He is said to have turned to belief in Amida as the result of a dream in which he was so instructed by the bodhisattva Kwannon.

In 1207 Shinran was exiled to Echigo in the north at the same time as his master Honen, returning to the capital with him in 1211. The reason for Shinran's banishment was that he had taken a wife, thus defying the vow of celibacy. The woman was alleged to be a daughter of the Fujiwara regent Kanezane, and Honen was said to have commanded the marriage.

Although there is some doubt about the identity of Shinran's wife, there is none at all that he wished to show by this act that monastic discipline was not necessary for salvation if one put oneself completely at the mercy of the Buddha Amida as Honen required. He further wished to demonstrate that the family should be the center of religious life. Shinran felt that he was merely carrying to its logical conclusion Honen's idea that if salvation meant consigning oneself completely to Amida's grace other religious practices were superfluous.

It was Shinran's belief that he should exert himself to the utmost to propagate belief in Amida among the simple people. He was himself obliged to live among the people, in a sense a social outcast. And he thought of himself as a lost soul. He even went so far as to claim that the wicked had more chance for salvation than the good, for the former relied more on Amida's grace than the latter, who counted too much on their good works. "If even good people can be reborn in the Pure Land, how much more the wicked man!"

Certain more conservative followers of Honen claimed that the continual calling of the Buddha's name, the nembutsu, was a most desirable religious act. Honen himself is said to have recommended multiple invocation. Shinran, however, believed that quantity had little to do with the Buddha's grace and that a single repetition of his name was all that was necessary. Multiple repetition seemed to him to be, in fact, a practice through which one strove to attain salvation other than by complete reliance on Amida's mercy.

Shinran's innovation in Japanese Amidism was the abolishment of monasticism and the authorization of a married priesthood. He himself was a shami, a person who leads a religious life but does not follow the monastic discipline.

Further Reading

An account of Shinran's life and excerpts from his writings are in Ryusaku Tsunoda and others, eds., Sources of the Japanese Tradition (1958), and a detailed discussion of Shinran's beliefs is in Alfred Bloom, Shinran's Gospel of Pure Grace (1965). □

Shinran ( Shōnin Shinran; 1173–1262). Founder of Jōdo-shin-shū, a major school of Japanese Buddhism, a pupil of Hōnen. When Hōnen was exiled in 1207, Shinran rejected the necessity of monastic rules and residence. He married and fathered children. He was pardoned in 1211, and began to establish a community of followers. His belief that the buddhas and bodhisattvas fulfil their commitments and vows to help all in need led him to reject all ‘ways of effort’ (jiriki) and to rely on ‘the power of the other’ (tariki; see JIRIKI), concentrated on the Buddha Amida. Not even repeated calling on Amida's name (nembutsu) was strictly necessary: one plea sincerely meant will bring Amida's help. He spent the remainder of his life working on his Kyogyo-Shinshō (True Teaching, Practice and Realization of the Way).