Reciting the Nembutsu means saying, “Namo Amida Butsu” with our mouths. As already related, when the “name of Amida Buddha” (myogo) of Namo Amida Butsu fulfilled in the 17th Vow reaches our hearts, it becomes shinjin, and what comes out of our mouths is the Nembutsu. Accordingly, that Nembutsu is the Nembutsu given to us by the Buddha. In his Shozo-matsu Wasan, the Venerable Master wrote:

How shumeless
And unrepentant I am!
But because the virtue of Amida’s Name
Pervades the ten directions,
It reaches even
My false and insincere heart.

Here the Venerable Master expresses his understanding that since Amida Buddha’s salvation takes the form of his Name and reaches us in that form, the Nembutsu that we recite with our mouths is really the Buddha’s calling voice to us. He informs us followers of Jodo-Shinshu that, “Our voice calling the Buddha is (at the same time) the voice of the Buddha calling us.” The Venerable Master also says that “listening,” reciting the Nembutsu and placing our hands together in gassho, are all activities due to “Buddha-centered power.” Accordingly, “The ears with which we hear, the mouths with which we recite, and the hands that we placed together in gassho, are all due to the ‘marvelously mysterious’ power of Amida Buddha’s Vow.”

Since shinjin is the cause of our birth in the Pure Land, we use the phrase, “shinjin is the true cause” (shinjin shoin) in our Jodo-Shinshu teaching, and since recitation of the Nembutsu is how we express our gratitude for (our cause of birth being determined), we use the phrase, “reciting (the Name) in gratitude” (shomyo ho-on). That is the essence of our teaching.