Shinran knew that he was a man in a bad way – the very man described in Shan-Tao’s parable of the Two Rivers. And Rennyo knew the same.

That is why Shinran preached and taught the radical dharma of total dependence on Amida’s Personhood and Work – making the Vows and then fulfilling them – as his only hope for salvation from suffering at long last.

And Rennyo preached and taught the same.

For karmic reasons beyond my own understanding, various Shin teachers have muddied the waters around Rennyo, making it seem like his teaching was different from Shinran’s, rather than the same.

Professor Kobai refutes that false view completely. He shows in an unequivocal way, how Rennyo was a true student of Shinran – not making up his own version of the dharma as some do today – but being faithful to the content of the Dharma he received from Shinran as his Dharma master.

By showing us how Rennyo stayed true to his Dharma master Shinran, Kobai points us in the correct direction for reviving the Sangha in our day as well. Our only hope is in what I call “The Shinran Manifesto”: the call to return to the True Teaching of our True Teacher Shinran.

This is what Rennyo did, 600 years ago, 200 years after Shinran’s death. Because Rennyo was a faithful steward of a dharma gate that did not belong to him, the Sangha fulfilled its purpose in a mighty way.

Because Rennyo was a faithful steward, I stand here today – a western man, able to read the Letters of Rennyo, and the writings of Shinran, in translation.

Do you care about the survival of the Shin Sangha? Do you care about its mission to bear the final dharma for this age of Dharma Decline to a suffering world?

Then I invite you to read this volume by Professor Eiken Kobai – also a true teacher of the True Teaching of Shinran Shonin.

NamuAmidaButsu -

Paul Roberts