A Priest and His Disciples (by Hyakuzo Kurata): Book review
Shinran(親鸞）
The play consists of six acts, and the two characters, Shinran, the founder of the Jodo Shinshu sect, and Yuien, who served him well, appear throughout the play. The age difference is just 50 years old, and it feels like the relationship between a grandfather and a grandson. Shinran will live to be 90 years old, but Yuien will die when he is 40 years old and will be reborn in the Pure Land. It seems that the process up to that point was a very difficult road.
In the first place, the teachings of Honen (Shinran) are based on Amida Nyorai's wish that ``If you do not realize that you are an evil person and save all the ``villains'' who seek your salvation, you will not become a Buddha. And since Amida Nyorai has already attained Buddhahood, even the wicked are saved.” There is no such thing as a perfect human being, and from the perspective of a perfect Tathagata, everyone is the same villain. Here lies the secret of the “absolute power of others” of the Jodo sect and the Jodo Shin sect.
By the way, even if Shinran and Yuien entered the path of faith, their worldly desires would never go away.
In the case of Yuien, when he was 25 years old and in his prime, he had an unforgiving love affair with a 16-year-old courtesan, Kaede. When the senior monks notice this, they accuse Yuien of saying that love is forbidden and ask Shinran to banish him from the temple. This attitude was as ruthless as the Pharisees of Christianity.
Shinran's answer to this was, ``It is true that Yuien may be a bad person. It is because he is a bad person that he is here.” Although it violated the general precepts of Buddhism, it was a reasonable judgment in terms of the doctrine of the Pure Land Gate.
Time passes further, and Shinran is 90 years old and is on his deathbed. Yuien is also 40 years old, married to him "Kaede" named "Katsunobu", and she has two cute children. For Shinran, the last worldly desire in this world was Zenran, the child he had when he was in exile. Zenran liked debauchery and was a do-it-yourself son, so Shinran severed the relationship between parent and child. However, after meeting him at the end of his life, Shinran will leave this world and go to the Pure Land.
