As is clear from the Special Preface of his Chapter on Faith of his Kyogyoshinsho, the Venerable Master accepted Master Honen’s position expressed above and clearly rejected the concepts of “one’s true nature is Buddha” and “the “Pure Land exists in our mind.” Since the Venerable Master rejected this Path-of-Sages position, it follows that there was nothing about “birth in the Pure Land in the present,” nor “becoming a Buddha in this world” in his thinking either. This raises the question of why people assert things that the Venerable Master did not say. I believe the reason is a desire to emphasize salvation in this present world. However, as I pointed out in the section, “Salvation in the Present,” the Venerable Master emphasized salvation in the present world as a result of being in the “rightly-established group” at the moment we receive shinjin. Being in the “rightly-established group” is the great benefit. Moreover, we are blessed while, or as, an “ignorant being filled with base passions.”

When we do not reflect on the sort of beings we truly are, I believe we tend to consider ourselves to not be especially bad. When we do reflect, however, and the more we do so, the more we become aware that we are filled with base passions and have not changed in the least. Only because we are “saved” with all our base passions, can we be “saved.” This is an extremely important point. I believe there is absolutely no meaning in considering salvation as a concept separate from our nature, and isolated from the problems that we have in making our way in the world.

I believe the reason concepts such as “birth in the Pure Land in the present” and “becoming a Buddha in this world,” which imply completely ridding ourselves of “base passions” in this world, and which are absolutely contrary to the Venerable Master’s position, constantly arise because those who raise them have not experienced being in the “rightly-established group,” which comes from having received shinjin. I believe that is how mistaken attempts to speak of such imaginary benefits in the present arise.