The above quotations clearly indicate that what happens in this world is being included in the “‘rightly-established group’ from which there is no ‘retrogression’” (shojoju futaiten), and not “birth in the Pure Land in the present.” That is why the tenth of the Ten Benefits listed in the Chapter on Faith of the Kyogyoshinsho is the “benefit of being in the ‘rightly-established group,’” and not the “benefit of being born in the Pure Land.”

The Venerable Master emphasized salvation in the present, but he did not say that we would be born in the Pure Land in the present, which is what genzei ojo means. What he taught was that we would be in the “rightly-established group” in the present, meaning that our birth in the Pure Land is settled in the present, which is what genzei shjja means.

Next is the problems of “becoming a Buddha in the present” (genzei jobutsu). The basis for this error is said to be the quotation from the Kegon-gyo (Flower-Wreath Sutra) in the Chapter on Faith of the Kyogyoshinsho:

Those who hear this dharma
And rejoice in shinjin
Free of doubt,
Quickly attain the supreme enlightenment;
They are thus equal to Tathagatas.

In his Jodo Wasan, the Venerable Master wrote:

Those who rejoice in shinjin
Are said to be equal to Tathagata.
The “great mind of faith”
is the nature of the Buddha,
Which is Tathagata.

Again, in Letter 3 of the Mattosho, he wrote:

Know that those with true shinjin can be called equal to Tathagatas because, although they are impure and always creating karmic evil, their hearts and minds are already equal to Tathagatas. ... In the Hanju-san (In Praise of the Buddha’s Appearance), the Master of Komyo Temple, explains that the hearts of those with shinjin already reside in the Pure Land. “Reside” refers to the fact that the hearts of those with shinjin are always in the Buddha Land. ... This means that they are the same as Miroku, that is, they have attained the state of toshogaku, and that is why those with shinjin are equal to Tathagatas.

It is from passages such as, “those with shinjin are equal to Tathagatas,” or especially, “those with shinjin already and always reside in the Pure Land,” that the feeling that we can become a Buddha in the present, or that we posses the virtues of a Buddha or something close to it in the present, arises.

While the Venerable Master does say, “Those with shinjin are equal to Tathagatas,” and while that may sound as if he is saying receiving shinjin is the same as being enlightened in the present, the truth is exactly the opposite. Consider the following statements that the Venerable Master made. As already quoted from the Chapter on Faith of the Kyogyoshinsho:

How sad that I, Gutoku Ran (the Venerable Master Shinran), sunk in the vast sea of lust and lost on the great mountain of desire for fame and profit...