In the Shozomatsu Wasan is the wasan:

Through the compassion
Of Shakyamuni and Amida.
Our determination to be enlightened
Is awakened.
Only after receiving the transcendent wisdom
of shinjin,
Can we become vessels
To return the Buddha’s benevolence.

When our shinjin is determined and we are blessed with its transcendent wisdom, we naturally and without effort feel indebted to the Buddha. That is when we experience what it means to recite the Nembutsu in true gratitude, which is completely different from reciting the Nembutsu before receiving shinjin.

When we are blessed with the conviction that we will be born in the Pure Land, therefore, we know the difference between reciting the Nembutsu before receiving shinjin and after receiving it, and also what the Nembutsu that is recited in gratitude is.

Asserting the value of reciting the Nembutsu with “self-centered effort” arises when we have not experienced the Nembutsu that comes after receiving shinjin, as does the desire to criticize “reciting the Nembutsu in gratitude.” But as already indicated, the Venerable Master criticized the “‘self-centered effort’ of the ‘true gate’” (20th Vow), and in the Chapter on Transformed Land of the Kyogyoshinsho, he wrote that those who, “...consider reciting (the Nembutsu) to be “good roots” that they create, cannot have faith nor accept the Buddha’s wisdom.”

Further, in his Jodo Sangyo Ojo Mon’rui (Passages on Birth in the Pure Land Based on the Three Pure Land Sutras), the Venerable Master severely criticized doubt (reciting the Nembutsu in order to create “good roots”), by stating:

Reciting Amida Buddha’s sacred Name in order to create “good roots” (that we think will) cause our “birth in the Pure Land” means that although we recite the “marvelously mysterious” “Name of the Buddha,” we really doubt the Great and Compassionate Vow that is “impossible to recite (because we did not create it)” (fukasho), “impossible to explain” (fukasetsu) and “impossible to conceive” (fukashigi). Our doubt causes us to be imprisoned in the seven-jeweled jail from which we cannot escape for 500 years.

Reciting the “name of the Buddha” based on completion of the Primal Vow to create our own “good roots” is a great mistake. Many problems can arise if we attempt to do so. They include:

• Should those whose shinjin is not yet determined recite the Nembutsu?
• How should infants recite the Nembutsu?
• Is it wrong to recite the Nembutsu in order to receive shinjin?
• What should we do in order to receive shinjin?

It is, of course, wrong to say that those without shinjin should not recite the Nembutsu. There presently is a Jodo-Shinshu group that forbids reciting the Nembutsu before receiving shinjin, but that clearly is incorrect.