And so, overwhelmed and thankful for Amida Tathagata’s Primal Vow of “Buddha-centered power,” I will express in a poem what I wrote above, freely giving way to what rises to my lips:

In these passages, Master Rennyo expresses the joy of experiencing the “karma (for being born in the Pure Land) determined during everyday life” (heizei gojo) (being in the “‘group of those assured’ in our ‘present life’”) poeti-cally.

As indicated in Chapter One, I believe those who criticize Master Rennyo for distorting the teachings of the Venerable Master Shinran are those who have absolutely no awareness of the world of joy such as expressed by Master Rennyo above.

Such people have no awarenss of what both the Venerable Master Shinran and Master Rennyo experi-enced and wished to pass on to us. As in the traditional saying, “Realizing indebtedness to our parents only after having children of our own,” only when we have children of our own do we realize how indebted we are to our parents. Similarly, as expressed by the Venerable Master Shinran, “By entering the wisdom of shinjin/We become able to respond in gratitude/To the Buddhas’ benevolence” (from “Hymns of the Three Periods” (Shozomatsu Wasan).

Only when we receive “settled shinjin” do we truly realize the world of being in the “‘group of those assured (of birth in the Pure Land)’ in the ‘present life.’” That is what people who criticize Master Rennyo lack. Stating it even more frankly, they are persons whose shinjin is not yet settled.

In Master Rennyo’s language, they are “those whose shinjin is not yet settled” (shinjin miketsujo no hito, Letter 3 of Fascle II), “those lacking shinjin” (fushinjin no tomogara, Letter 11 of Fascle V, and “in whom anjin is yet to be realized” (mianjin no tomogara, Letters 9 of Fascle III and 7 of Fascle IV).