MURYOKO
'Infinite Light'
Journal of Shin Buddhism
Harold Stewart
Permissiveness
Permissiveness, which is the modern name for amoralism, conducts us rapidly back to the Roman circus. Such self-indulgence on a social scale, equating liberty with licence, permits us to do and be anything we please - except holy. The all-permissive society allows everyone to go his own way merrily to Hell, but despite its lip service to 'religious freedom' forbids anyone, for fear of scorn and ostracism, to aspire to Heaven. I, too, am subject to these social pressures to conform, as well as to innate laziness of mind and body, which dissuade me from climbing the stairway in the heat to do homage at Shinran's memorial tomb.