The following is a poem that Myoho-bo(the former Bennen) is said to have composed on Mt. Itajiki:

The mountains are the same,
And the roads are
just as they were in the past.
All that has changed
Is my heart…

After returning to Mt. Itajiki where he had formerly practiced asceticism, Myoho-bo realized with a start that nothing had changed – neither the mountains nor the roads – and yet everything had changed because of the change in his heart. Although he had harbored thoughts of killing the Venerable Master, now that he was the Venerable Master’s disciple and able to take joy in basking in the light of Amida Buddha’s Primal Vow, he was no longer the same Bennen. That was why he changed his name to Myoho-bo.

Although there are many other stories of dramatic conversions to his teaching, in Article Six of “Notes Lamenting Differences” (Tannisho), the Venerable Master is quoted as saying:

I do not have even a single disciple. Perhaps I might say they are my disciples if they recite the Nembutsu through my personal efforts. But how preposterous it is to refer to others as “my disciples” when they say the Nembutsu because they have personally experienced the power of Amida Buddha’s Primal Vow!

Buddha’s disciples. He considered those who followed him to be “fellow followers” (ondobo) who “follow the same path” (ondogyo).

The Venerable Master wrote many works, but he is considered to have begun writing his major work, “Teaching, Practice, Shinjin, and Attainment” about the year 1224 CE (Gennin 1) when he was living in the Kant? area. He was then 52 years of age.

About the year 1232 CE (Joei 1), when the Venerable Master was approximately 60 years of age, he returned to his hometown of Kyoto. That was where he wrote the majority of his works, and from where he wrote many letters to his followers who remained in the Kanto area.

Among the unfortunate things that happened to the Venerable Master after returning to Kyoto was having to disown his eldest son Zenran (1209 – approx. 1292 CE). About twenty years after the Venerable Master left the Kanto area (when he was about 80 years of age), the number of people who misunderstood what he had taught began to increase. Because he was too old to travel back to the Kanto area to correct those misunderstandings, the Venerable Master asked his eldest son Zenran to take his place in teaching them correctly. Unfortunately, Zenran found that task extremely difficult. Not only that, it appears that Zenran began taking the side of those who misunderstood the Venerable Master’s teaching, and personally began teaching what is called “secretly transmitted mistaken doctrine” (mitsuden igi).

Zenran lied to the Venerable Master’s followers in the Kanto area and said that the Venerable Master taught him (Zenran) the truth in secret late at night when no one else was around. That was the mistaken teaching that he spread. It is impossible to determine at this time just what that mistaken teaching was. In a letter dated the 29th day of the 5th lunar month of 1256 CE (the Venerable Master was 84 years of age) that the Venerable Master sent to Zenran, however, the Venerable Master wrote that he was cutting all ties with Zenran because of the lies that Zenran told the Venerable Master’s followers in the Kant? area.