MURYOKO
'Infinite Light'
Journal of Shin Buddhism
Harold Stewart
The Differences between Jodo and Shin
The wayfarer who finds himself chosen to follow this spiritual path tends to recapitulate, in both doctrine and method, the development of Pure Land Buddhism itself. At first, the Western seeker will probably feel more attracted to the charismatic personality of the gentle and saintly scholar Honen rather than to his disciple Shinran and so will begin with many invocations of the Name by his own effort. Only later, after discovering the enormity of the task set for him by this method, will he come to realize that it was Shinran's teaching of Once-Calling by Amida that carried the entire Pure Land Tradition in the Far East to its final point of development.
Apart from the question of the one or many invocations of the Nembutsu, other differences arose between the Jodo and Shin sects. A residue of self-effort still remains in Jodoshu, such as in counting the number of repetitions of the Name while telling a string of invocatory beads or beating a mokugyo, or wooden fish-gong. Both are inheritances from its Tendai origins and might lead to a self-conscious attention to the number of repetitions rather than to the Name itself. Whereas Honen emphasized the importance of a master to give the disciple accurate instruction, prevent deviant views on Faith, and check his progress in chanting the Nembutsu, Shinran refused to recognize any of his fellow devotees of Amida as disciples, for that Buddha can confer his Faith at any time and in any place without priestly intervention.
For Honen, too, Faith was still not Enlightenment but only its foreshadowing in this world; hence it could only be reached posthumously after Rebirth in Jodo. But Shinran realized that the Faith transferred by Amida was part of his own Enlightenment and so the Pure Land was virtual Nirvana from which actual Nirvana could be reached. Such lingering traces of the older Buddhist sects and their Jiriki path of self-power as remained in the Jodo sect were eliminated by Shinran's thoroughgoing Tariki approach with its Once-Calling by the Other Power.
The Jodo and Shin sects differ not only in such points of doctrine and practical method but also in their ritual and religious organization. As the parent sect, Jodoshu still retains some vestiges of the older monastic order inherited from Tendai. But following the precedent that his master Honen had recommended him to marry, Shinran abolished all celibate monks and nuns in his new True Pure Land sect, or Jodo Shinshu. As a result there have been married priests in the Shin sect for eight hundred years, and by custom the office of head of a temple has become hereditary. Nor is the Shinshu priest 'expected to be a kind of human Sunday' during the rest of the week like a Christian clergyman.
After being deprived of priestly rank and sent into exile on a trumped-up charge at the same time as Honen, Shinran thenceforth described himself as 'neither a monk nor a layman', and ever since his followers have adopted the same status as the founder. Unless the Shinshu priest has actually been the recipient of Amida's Faith, he is considered to be a bonbu like the rest of his fellow adherents and like them may eat meat and drink sake, for any restrictive regimen would involve self-effort. His role is not that of a moral paragon held up to his community but rather that of a professionally trained performer of the rites and ceremonies that, since Shinran abolished them, have gradually been reintroduced into Shinshu, mainly in response to popular demand. As the temple master, he lives in the precincts with his family and not only attends to services both in the temple and in the homes of its adherents but is also responsible for the maintenance of the buildings, gardens, and religious art objects belonging to the temple.
To sum up then in a single antithesis the difference between the two main subsects of Pure Land Buddhism: in Jodoshu, the devotee calls Amida many times; in Shinshu, Amida calls the devotee only once.