Shinran and Jodo Shinshu: True Pure Land Buddhism in Japan

Shinran (1173–1263) was a Japanese Buddhist teacher, a disciple of Honen, whose interpretation of Pure Land teaching became the basis of Jodo Shinshu, the "True Essence of the Pure Land" school, usually called Shin Buddhism. He taught that birth in Amida Buddha's Pure Land depends entirely on Amida's "Other Power" received as shinjin, entrusting faith, and that recitation of the nembutsu is an expression of gratitude rather than a means of earning salvation. Jodo Shinshu is today one of the largest Buddhist traditions in Japan.

From Mount Hiei to Honen: Shinran's Early Life§

Shinran was born in 1173 near Kyoto into the Hino family, a minor branch of the Fujiwara aristocracy. Orphaned or separated from his parents young, he was ordained at the age of nine and spent the next two decades as a monk of the Tendai school on Mount Hiei, the great monastic centre north-east of the capital, described in Shingon and Tendai esoteric Buddhism. Letters written later by his wife indicate that he served as a doso, a hall monk, probably performing the continuous nembutsu practice associated with Tendai's Pure Land halls.

By his own later account, Shinran despaired of reaching awakening through the demanding disciplines of the mountain. In 1201 he went into a hundred-day retreat at the Rokkakudo, a temple in Kyoto associated with Prince Shotoku and the bodhisattva Kannon (Avalokiteshvara). On the ninety-fifth day he had a dream-vision, after which he sought out Honen (1133–1212), who was then teaching in Kyoto that, in the degenerate age of mappo, the recitation of Namu Amida Butsu alone could bring beings to the Pure Land. Shinran became his disciple and in 1205 was permitted to copy Honen's Senchakushu and his portrait, a sign of trust. The broader background of this teaching is set out in Pure Land Buddhism.

Exile, Marriage and "Neither Monk nor Layman"§

Honen's success provoked opposition from the established schools of Nara and Mount Hiei, which accused his followers of disparaging other practices and neglecting monastic discipline. In 1207, after an incident involving court ladies who had joined the movement, the government banned the exclusive nembutsu. Four of Honen's disciples were executed, and Honen and several others were defrocked and exiled. Shinran was sent to Echigo, on the Sea of Japan coast, under a lay name.

Shinran responded by calling himself Gutoku, "foolish, bald-headed one", and describing his status as "neither monk nor layman". At some point he married Eshinni (1182–c. 1268), with whom he had several children. Clerical marriage was not unknown in Japan, but Shinran was the first major teacher to make it an open principle of religious life. Eshinni's letters, discovered in the archives of the Nishi Honganji in 1921, are among the most important sources for his life and a valuable record of a medieval Buddhist woman's faith.

Pardoned in 1211, Shinran did not return to Kyoto at once. From around 1214 he lived for some twenty years in the Kanto region, in Hitachi province, teaching farmers, warriors and merchants, who formed small congregations meeting in "practice halls" (dojo) rather than temples. Around 1235 he returned to Kyoto, where he spent his last decades writing. A painful episode came in 1256, when he disowned his eldest son Zenran for spreading teachings in the Kanto that Shinran considered false. He died in 1263 at the age of ninety.

The Kyogyoshinsho and Shinran's Writings§

Shinran's main work is the Kyogyoshinsho, "Teaching, Practice, Faith and Realization", a collection of passages from sutras and commentaries linked by his own comments. Shin tradition dates its first draft to 1224, a date sometimes treated as the founding of the school, though Shinran continued revising it into old age. It traces a lineage of seven teachers in India, China and Japan — Nagarjuna, Vasubandhu, Tanluan, Daochuo, Shandao, Genshin and Honen — through whom the teaching of Amida's vow was transmitted. Its verse section, the Shoshinge ("Hymn of True Shinjin and the Nembutsu"), is chanted daily in Shin households and temples.

Shinran also wrote hundreds of hymns (wasan) in Japanese, so that people unable to read classical Chinese could understand the teaching, as well as letters to his followers. The Tannisho ("Lamenting the Deviations"), compiled after his death, probably by his disciple Yuien, records sayings of Shinran and became, from the late nineteenth century, the most widely read Shin text.

Shinjin, Other Power and the Evil Person§

At the heart of Shinran's teaching is the contrast between self-power (jiriki), reliance on one's own efforts in meditation, morality or recitation, and Other Power (tariki), the working of Amida's Primal Vow. Honen had taught that one should recite the nembutsu, relying on Amida's eighteenth vow. Shinran went further: since beings of this degenerate age are wholly bound by passions, even their faith cannot be their own achievement. True shinjin — the entrusting mind — arises when Amida's sincere mind is given to the believer and the calculating self is let go.

From this follow several distinctive teachings. Birth in the Pure Land is settled at the moment shinjin arises, so the believer becomes one of the "truly settled" in this life, and deathbed rites are unnecessary. The nembutsu is then said in gratitude (hoon) rather than as a practice that accumulates merit. The Tannisho records the striking paradox that if even a good person can be born in the Pure Land, how much more an evil person — meaning that those who know they cannot save themselves are the primary object of Amida's compassion. Shin interpreters stress that this does not license wrongdoing, a misreading Shinran himself condemned in his letters.

Shinran also rejected practices he saw as forms of self-power or superstition: the worship of kami for worldly benefits, divination, the choosing of auspicious days and the use of protective charms. This made Shin unusual in Japanese religion, where such practices were widespread, a contrast worth noting alongside the Mahayana background shared with other schools.

Rennyo, the Honganji and the Ikko Uprisings§

After Shinran's death, his followers built a memorial chapel over his grave in Kyoto, which his descendant Kakunyo (1270–1351) developed into the Honganji ("Temple of the Primal Vow"), headed by Shinran's family. The Honganji was at first a small institution among several Shin branches. Its transformation was the work of Rennyo (1415–1499), its eighth head, who spread the teaching through simple pastoral letters (ofumi), organised village congregations and built a temple complex at Yamashina near Kyoto.

The growing network of Shin congregations, known to outsiders as the Ikko ("single-minded") sect, became a political force. In 1488 Ikko leagues overthrew the military governor of Kaga province and governed it for nearly a century. The fortified Ishiyama Honganji in Osaka withstood a ten-year siege by the warlord Oda Nobunaga before surrendering in 1580. In 1602 the Tokugawa shogunate recognised a division of the Honganji into two branches, the Nishi (West) and Higashi (East) Honganji, which remain the two largest Shin organisations.

Jodo Shinshu Practice and Its Modern Spread§

Shin practice is simple and congregational: chanting the Shoshinge and Shinran's hymns, listening to sermons, reciting the nembutsu before a home altar with an image or written name of Amida, and observing memorial services, above all the annual Ho-onko in honour of Shinran. Temples are typically served by married priests and passed down within families.

In the modern era, reformers such as Kiyozawa Manshi (1863–1903) reinterpreted Shin faith in terms of personal religious experience, and Shinran attracted the interest of Japanese philosophers. Japanese emigrants carried Shin Buddhism to Hawaii from 1889 and to the American mainland in 1899; the Buddhist Mission of North America became the Buddhist Churches of America in 1944, after many of its members had been interned during the Second World War. This history is part of the story of Buddhism in the West. Western scholars have often compared Shinran with Martin Luther because both stressed grace over works, a comparison Shin thinkers have found suggestive but incomplete.

Frequently asked questions§

What is the difference between Jodo Shu and Jodo Shinshu?§

Jodo Shu, founded by Honen, teaches that the recitation of Amida's name, repeated with faith, leads to birth in the Pure Land. Jodo Shinshu, from Shinran's teaching, holds that birth is settled by shinjin given through Amida's Other Power, so that the nembutsu is an expression of gratitude. Shin clergy also marry, a practice that became more common in other schools only in the modern period.

What does "tariki" mean?§

Tariki, "Other Power", is the saving power of Amida Buddha's vows, contrasted with jiriki, "self-power", the effort to reach awakening through one's own practice. For Shinran, complete reliance on Other Power is the only path open to ordinary people in the present age.

Why did Shinran marry?§

Shinran married after being defrocked and exiled in 1207, and he regarded himself as "neither monk nor layman". His marriage expressed his conviction that Amida's compassion does not depend on monastic purity, and it established the tradition of married clergy in Jodo Shinshu.

Sources and further reading§

• The Collected Works of Shinran — Dennis Hirota et al. (trans.), 1997
• Shinran: An Introduction to His Thought — Yoshifumi Ueda and Dennis Hirota, 1989
• Tannisho: A Shin Buddhist Classic — Taitetsu Unno, 1984
• Shin Buddhism: Bits of Rubble Turn into Gold — Taitetsu Unno, 2002
• Jodo Shinshu: Shin Buddhism in Medieval Japan — James C. Dobbins, 1989
• Letters of the Nun Eshinni: Images of Pure Land Buddhism in Medieval Japan — James C. Dobbins, 2004
• Shinran's Gospel of Pure Grace — Alfred Bloom, 1965