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Living Nembutsu
by
Jeff Wilson
Refugee Shinran
In the first chapter, I described Shinran as a radical – indeed, the most radical Buddhist Japan has ever produced. Naturally the question arises where did this radicalness come from? Was it simply part of Shinran’s unusual character? Was he raised to be a rebel? Or did something in his life awakened him to such an extent that he took the Buddhist tradition further than anyone before him?
It’s impossible to fully know another person and their motivations, especially someone of a different culture far away in time and place. And yet, there are some clear clues that indicate at least part of how Shinran came to be such a radical Buddhist. The personal hardships the children faced profoundly influenced the Buddhism that he taught. This is true of his descendent Rennyo as well. The ways in which these men responded to the troubles of their times with Buddhist messages designed to provide insight, comfort, and solidarity to their listeners show that Buddhism is not static or timeless. Rather, Buddhism emerges from the social conditions of life experiences of those who practice and teach it.
In this chapter, I want to explore how the persecution, displacement, and poverty that Shinran and Rennyo experienced led them to feel solidarity with the neglected, the abused, the shunned and the refugee. Their responses took two main forms: first, they place themselves among such marginalized people, rather than apart from them. Second, they promoted a vision of Buddhism that focused on images of peace, shelter, security, welcoming and universal compassion. It was these two aspects – identity with the outcasts of society, and the propagation of Buddhism that accepts and cares for all – that fundamentally defined Jodo Shinshu as a radical teaching people living in hard times.
Shinran Shonin: Downwardly Mobile
The person who will be referred to as Shinran was born in 1173 CE, in a hamlet on the outskirts of the capital Kyoto. Many of the details of his life are uncertain, and there are debates within the scholarly community over various elements of his autobiography. His childhood name was Matsuwakamaro. His family seems to have been part of the lower aristocracy, so while they were not people of significant power or importance, his initial childhood would have been relatively comfortable. Unfortunately for him, it was all downhill from there.
His father apparently died when Shinran was around four years old and Shinran became an orphan at age 9. We don’t know the precise causes of this parents’ death, but it occurred in the midst of the Genpei War, a civil war that brought about the destruction of the Emperor-based form of government and the ascendancy of the warrior class as a military dictatorship that ruled Japan for nearly 700 years. There could be any number of reasons why Matsuwakamaro was orphaned, as it was an age of numerous disasters. The horror of the times was described by the Buddhist hermit monk Chomei in his Account of a Ten Foot Hut:
In the reign of Emperor Yowa [1181] I believe, though it becomes so long ago I have trouble remembering, there was a terrible famine, lasting for two years [this] is the period when Shinran became an orphan]. From spring through summer there was a drought, and in autumn and winter typhoon and flood – bad conditions one after another, so that grain crops failed completely. Everything people did became wasted effort. Though they prepare the ground in the spring, and transplanted the rice in the summer, the fall’s rice harvest and winters prosperity were not achieved… After a year of such suffering people hoped the new year would be better, but the misery increased as, in addition to the famine, people were afflicted by contagious disease. Everyone suffered from malnutrition, until gradually to say that “All the fish will choke in shallow water” would fit very well. Now even those wearing bamboo hats, with legs wrapped in leggings, walked frantically from house-to-house begging. I saw vagabonds of this kind, as they were walking, suddenly collapse and die. Close to the roofed mud wall at the side of the road, the number of bodies dead from starvation continually increased. Because no one even tried to clear away those corpses, the odor of the putrefaction became offensive throughout [Kyoto], and people could not even stand to look at them. The city was permeated by the smell and the mountain of corpses accumulated along the Kamo riverbed until there were places where horses and carriages could not pass.
Amidst all this death, Matsuwakamaro was taken to the Shorenin temple in Kyoto. Parentless children had few options in medieval Japan, and the monastery was the only place to receive social services. The pathos of life seems to have already imprinted itself upon the boy. Tradition records that when the abbot Jien suggested a slight delay in his ordination, the future Shinran replied with a poem: “The minds that think there is a tomorrow are like cherry blossoms; but who can tell if there will be a tempest in the night?” He was ordained right away, and became Hannen, a novice monk. Thus, he passed out of the world of family and prestige to become a servant of the temple…
Excerpt ingratitude from: Living Nembutsu: Applying Shinran’s Radically Engaged Buddhism
in Life and Society, Jeff Wilson. The Sumeru Press Inc., Manotick, 2023
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