This is the attitude that Master Rennyo recommended to his followers. It expresses the attitude of “making the ‘king’s law’ primary” and “common sense first” (jingi isen).

Further, in the fourth of the six articles of Letter 10, Fascle III, dated the 15th day of the 7th month during the 7th year of Bummei (1475 AD), and in Letter 11, Fascle III, dated the 21st day of the 11th month during the same 7th year of Bummei, he wrote:

Further, (the Venerable Master Shinran) carefully stated that we should observe the principles of humanity, justice, propriety, wisdom and sincerity. He stated that outwardly we should honor the laws of the state but that deep within, we should consider the shinjin of “Buddha-centered power” based on the Primal Vow to be fundamental.

And in Article 141 of “Heard and Recorded During Master Rennyo Lifetime” is the passage: “Obey the ‘king’s law’ (obo) in your outward actions but cultivate the ‘Buddha’s Law’ (buppo) in your heart.”

The reason Master Rennyo urged the principle of “king’s law is primary,” was the sudden increase in the political power of his followers. He made statements such as the above in order to keep his followers from attacking governmental institutions, but some scholars take this position of “king’s law is primary” to be a conspiracy to curry favor with the authorities. Such scholars quote the Venerable Master Shinran’s Postscript to the Chapter on Transformed Land of his “Teaching, Practice, Faith and Attainment” in which he wrote: “The emperor and his ministers, acting against the Dharma and violating righteousness, became enraged and embittered.”

These scholars assert that Master Rennyo’s position is different from the Venerable Master Shinran’s criticism of the Emperor and denial of governmental authority, and that Master Rennyo distorted the Venerable Master Shinran’s teaching as well as the content of the Venerable Master‘s shinjin.