Amida Buddha in Jodo Shinshu

Recently I had talked about Rennyo and his famous letters, also known as the gobunsho (御文書). These letters are sometimes overlooked by Western Jodo Shinshu Buddhists, but are a core part of the tradition.

6. On Norms of Conduct

If there are any of you who have heard the meaning of our tradition’s other-power faith and become decisively settled, you must store the truth of that faith in the bottom of your hearts; do not talk about it with those of other sects or others [not of our tradition]. Furthermore, you must not praise it openly [in the presence of such people] on byways and main roads and in the villages where you live. Next, do not slight the provincial military governors and local land stewards, claiming that you have attained faith; meet your public obligations in full without fail. Further, do not belittle the various kami and buddhas and bodhisattvas, for they are all encompassed within the six characters na-mu-a-mi-da-butsu [the nembutsu]. Besides this, in particular, take the laws of the state as your outer aspect, store other-power faith deep in your hearts, and take [the principles of] humanity and justice as essential. Bear in mind that these are the rules of conduct that have been established within our tradition.

Respectfully.

Written on the seventeenth day of the second month of Bunmei 6 (1474). [i.e. the 6th year of the Bunmei era]

Source: https://www.georgegatenby.id.au/pdf/gobunsho.pdf

There are three aspects of this letter that I find interesting:

First, is Rennyo’s advice about daily life. Because Rennyo is writing to lay poeple, not monastic renunciants, the advice is simple: be socially responsible, and don’t use your religious faith as an excuse to misbehave. “Render unto Caeser, that which is Caesar’s” in other words. This seems kind of obvious, but the Pure Land movement originally had a number offshoots and communities, and some tended to flout convention on the belief that they were saved by Amida Buddha anyway. In other words: antinomianism.

Second, Rennyo stresses the importance about not bragging about one’s faith. Jodo Shinshu was (comparatively speaking) novel and new within Japanese Buddhism, and somewhat unorthodox due to its entirely lay community. Rennyo’s warning is to avoid taking pride in this, since there was nothing worth bragging about. It was all due to Amida Buddha’s compassion, and not any accomplishment by the disciple.

Finally, Rennyo makes an interesting point about the Amida Buddha in relation to other buddhas, bodhisattvas, and the kami of Shinto. Rather than treating Amida as yet another buddha within the larger Mahayana Buddhist pantheon, Rennyo describes Amida as the source of all such divinities. His ancestor, Shinran, had also hinted at a similar view toward Amida Buddha, and indeed when we look at another buddha named Vairocana, we see that this concept is not new. They are just different names for the same concept.

But it’s interesting to hear that Rennyo, generations later, is reiterating this point: in the Jodo Shinshu interpretation of Amida Buddha, Amida isn’t just another deity, it embodies the Dharma, and all contained within it.

Namu Amida Butsu