What Is Shin Buddhism?

The Growing Stage

The stage of self-enhancement and self- improvement is called the growing stage. The maturing stage is the stage of self-reflection and self-understanding. The teachers of the Dharma school must learn to be humble and to gain insight into their pettiness, both of which are required by the Dharma.

Good teachers don't try to teach ideas and concepts to children. They are good teachers if they can manifest humility and deep respect for the Dharma. Children will forget a lot of the ideas and concepts that their teachers have taught them, but they will remember the humility and respect that they have seen in their teachers.

Amida Buddha's Mind

The founder of Buddhism, who appeared in India in the sixth century B.C., gave Amida his first known knowledge. The person who awakens to Amida's Mind is born in the Pure Land. The Buddhists have understood that the Pure Land is the ultimate realization of the divine, and that it is a result of the extinction of birth and death.

The story of Dharmakara should not be seen as an allegory with a didactic purpose, but as a series of historic events. It is an expression of the vast processes involved in the task of human transformation. The law of karma states that the processes cannot be done outside of the realm of samsara.

The Mahayana understanding of things is that of a single entity, called samsara. The life of shinjin is accompanied by a nembutsu which involves the chanting of Amida Buddha's name in the original Sanskrit and is a way of showing respect to the Buddha. The Pure Land tradition believes that the Name of Amida should be invested with the power and virtues of the Buddha in order to benefit from the practice of nembutsu.

The fact that Buddhist meditative practices and ethical prescriptions are not considered a requirement for attaining enlightenment in Shin Buddhism does not mean that they can't be practiced as a random act of gratitude to the Buddha. The attitude in which the acts are undertaken is more important than the acts themselves. People who diligently absorb themselves in meditation everyday and faithfully keep the precepts in order to 'earn' their salvation can often be motivated by an obsessive self-concern that may sometimes border on spiritual hypocrisy, whereas the same practices observed in a spirit of gratitude and joy with no thought to any gain can

Ordinary lay people who were not strong enough to engage in the more difficult and austere practices of traditional monastic Buddhism were considered to be easier to accomplish with the practice of nembutsu. The nembutsu was open to everyone because it was easy to say and keep in mind, and it was also a way to maintain the Buddha's mental health. There are two types of bodhisattvas.