The General Preface to the Venerable Master Shinran’s “Teaching, Practice, Faith and Attainment,” begins with:

Reflecting carefully, I realize that the difficult-toconsider Universal Vow is a great vessel that bears us across the difficult-to-cross ocean. The unhindered light is the sun of wisdom that vanquishes the darkness of our ignorance. Thus when conditions had matured for the teaching of birth in the Pure Land to be revealed, Jodatsu provoked Jase to commit great crimes. Using this opportunity, Shakyamuni Buddha lead Idai to select the Land of Peace and Happiness by explaining the pure action by which birth (in the Pure Land) is established.

In other words, after careful reflection, the Venerable Master realized that Amida Buddha’s Primal Vow, which is absolutely beyond the comprehension of the “ignorant filled with base passions” (bombu), is a great ship that allows us to sail across the ocean of delusion from which it is so difficult to be saved, that it is the light which rips asunder the darkness of doubt without being obstructed by anything.

And because that is what it is, when the Pure Land teaching matured to where it could be revealed in this world, Jodatsu (Daiba, Devadatta in Sanskrit) seduced Jase (Ajase, Aj~taÑatru in Sanskrit) into turning against his own father, King Bimbashara (Bimbisara in Sanskrit), and finally killing him. This tragic incident resulted in Shakyamuni Buddha leading Idai (Queen Idaike, Queen Vaidehi in Sanskrit), who desired to live in a world without suffering, to select the Pure Land of Ultimate Joy.

That world is attained by reliance on the Nembutsu of Amida Buddha’s Primal Vow. This is called “accommo-dative virtue” (gonke no nin), which refers to a Buddha or a Bodhisattva who has temporarily assumed a form to bring about the salvation of sentient beings. The Venerable Master Shinran considered Daiba, Ajase and Idaike in this story recounted in the “Meditation Sutra,” to be Bodhisattvas who assumed the forms they did in order to relieve the suffering of sentient beings in this world. What this story tells us is that the Buddha’s Great Compassion is what truly saves those who are filled with evil, such as those who commit the “five perversities” (gogyaku).

As I have already stated, the above are the opening words of the Venerable Master Shinran’s major work, “Teaching, Practice, Faith and Attainment.” Obviously, he wanted first of all, to praise the virtue of the Primal Vow by which he himself was saved, and therefore described the central character in the “Meditation Sutra,” Queen Idaike, with the words, “Shakyamuni Buddha lead Queen Idaike to select the Land of Peace and Happiness...”