If you consider the question to have been asked after receiving shinjin, then you must take the position that even though doubt presently exists, that cannot be considered the basis of doubt regarding birth in the Pure Land. I believe that is one interpretation that can be made. But the Venerable Master’s reply to Yuien-bo’s lament was:

If we reflect deeply upon the matter, we should realize that our Birth in the Pure Land is all the more assured because we cannot rejoice at what we ought to so much as to dance in heaven and on earth.

Further, in response to Yuien-bo’s doubt expressed as, “... I do not have the mind to be born in the Pure Land in haste,” the Venerable Master replied:

Amida Buddha is especially merciful to those who do not desire to go to the Pure Land in all haste. That is why we trust the Great Compassion and the Great Vow, and that causes us to realize all the more that our Birth is assured.

Through passages such as, “realize all the more that our Birth (in the Pure Land) is assured,” and “realize that our birth is assured,” the Venerable Master tells us that there is no mistaking the fact that we will be born in the Pure Land. I believe the correct interpretation of the doubt implied in Yuien-bo’squestion is doubt regarding birth in the Pure Land. Accordingly, I believe the Venerable Master’s reply should be understood to mean that he had the same sort of doubt in the past.

What is considered to be the source of the Venerable Master’s “doubt regarding birth in the Pure Land” (gishin ojo) is the passage: “I, Shinran, have also had the same question...” But considering this to be a statement regarding doubt that the Venerable Master still has, is a great mistake.

Another passage that is often quoted as the foundation for “an undetermined life,” is the following passage in the Chapter on Faith in the Kyogyoshinsho:

How sad that I, Gutoku Ran, sunk in the vast sea of lust and lost in the great mountain of desire for fame and profit, do not rejoice in joining the “rightlyestablished group,” nor take joy in approaching the “true enlightenment.” How shumeful! How sorrowful!

Another is the following passage from the Ichinen Tanen Mon’i :

The term “bombu” refers to being filled with ignorance and blind passions. Our desires are countless. Anger, wrath, jealousy and envy arise within us without pause, overwhelming us. They do not cease, disappear or exhaust themselves until the very last moment of life.

The first of the above passages, the one from the Kyogyoshinsho that starts with, “How sad that I, Gutoku Ran...” is in the section devoted to commenting on true disciples of the Buddha:

The word “true” in the term “true disciples of Buddhas” is used in contrast to “false” and “temporary.” “Disciples” refer to the disciples of Shakyamuni and other Buddhas. “True disciples of Buddhas” are “doers (of the Nembutsu)” (gyonin) with the “diamond-hard mind.” By virtue of this “faith and practice” (shingyo), they will unfailingly realize the Great Nirvana; hence the term, “true disciples of Buddhas.’”