“Group Of Those Assured” In The Present Life

In “Passages (Concerning) Birth in the Pure Land in the Three Pure Land Sutras” (Jodo Sankyo Ojo Monrui), the Venerable Master Shiran wrote:

In this life we dwell in the “group of those assured (of birth in the Pure Land)” and we necessarily reach the true and real fulfilled land.

Here the Venerable Master clearly states that we join the “group of those assured (of birth in the Pure Land)” in our present life (in the present world).

Further, in the Chapter on Attainment of his “Teaching, Practice, Faith and Attainment,” the Venerable Master wrote:

When “ignorant beings filled with base passions” (bombu) and the multitudes caught in the cycle of birth-and-death and defiled by evil karma, realize the mind and practice that Amida directs to them, they immediately join the Mahayana “group of those assured (of birth in the Pure Land).”

And again, in “Hymns on the Pure Land,” the Venerable Master wrote:

Those who attain true and real shinjin
Immediately join the “group of those assured
(of birth in the Pure Land)”;
Having entered the stage of non-retrogression,
They are guaranteed to attain nirvana.

The above quotations by the Venerable Master Shinran clearly state that when our shinjin is settled in the present, we will be included in the “group of those assured (of birth in the Pure Land),” i.e., that our Enlightenment in the Pure Land is guaranteed.

In Letter 4, Fascle One of “Honorable Letters,” Master Rennyo wrote:

“Awakening the one thought-moment” (ichinen hakki) means joining the “group of those assured (of birth in the Pure Land).” This is the benefit we gain in this defiled world. The benefit we receive in the Pure Land is attaining nirvana.

Here Master Rennyo clearly states that being in the “group of those assured (of birth in the Pure Land)” is a benefit in this “defiled world” (edo, our present world in which we are lead astray by our ignorance and base passions). Attainment of “Buddhahood” or “nirvana” (metsudo, the realm where our sufferings are extinguished) is the benefit that we receive after being born in the Pure Land, so it refers to the next world.

Speaking personally, my dissertation in graduate school was, “On the Jodo-Shinshu Teaching (of Joining the) ‘Group of Those Assured (of Birth in the Pure Land)’ in Our Present Life.” More than 30 years have passed since I wrote it, but it was from that time that the subject of the “‘Group of those assured’ in our ‘present life’” has been my primary interest, and is what made me realize the truly marvelous nature of our Jodo-Shinshu teaching.