the Hongwanji as an institution must reflect on regarding its responsibility during World War II. But to consider that responsibility goes back to Master Rennyo is a great misunderstanding. I further believe that sort of thinking comes from not understanding the Venerable Master Shinran’s teaching, which is the “way of (stepping out of the round of) birth and death,” and “the great importance of (birth in) the Pure Land of Ultimate Joy.”

As I have already mentioned, the thought of “the two truths of the ultimate and the conventional” also exists in the Venerable Master Shinran, even if it is expressed in the form of quotations from his predecessors. He also used terms like “ultimate truth” and “conventional truth,” “transcend world” (shusse) and “this world” (seken), and “great matter of birth in the Pure Land of Ultimate Joy” (jodo gokuraku no daiji) and “matters of this world” (kono yo no koto), all of which are related to the “ultimate truth” and “conventional truth” of the “two truths of the ultimate and the conventional.”

In spite of this, however, more than a few scholars assert that there is absolutely no indication of “the two truths of the ultimate and the conventional” in the Venerable Master Shinran, and that Master Rennyo taught such a point of view in order to curry favor with those in authority and thus distorted the Venerable Master’s teaching. I believe such a position is completely mistaken.

Using the terminology of “the two truths of the ultimate and the conventional,” such scholars consider the Venerable Master Shinran’s thought only in terms of “conventional truth.” That’s why they discuss the essence of the Venerable Master Shinran’s teaching in terms of establishment (authority) and anti-establishment. They have absolutely no understanding of the world of “ultimate truth.” In other words, they consider the Venerable Master Shinran’s teaching only from the point of view of “conventional truth,” that of morality and ethics, rather than from the way of transcending the world of birth and death (delusion). How can they be expected to have a point of view that even approaches that of the Venerable Master Shinran’s?