Understanding Shinran offers a sensitive and balanced examination of the life and teachings of the founder of Pure Land Buddhism. The author shows how the ongoing drama of salvation through the grace of Amida -- a mutual engagement of form and the formless, of ignorant humans and the awakened Buddha -- can be read as a message of hope by Buddhists and Christians alike.

Shinran (1173-1262) is the founder of the Jodo Shinshu Pure Land Buddhist tradition in Japan during the Kamakura period. This movement, once set in motion, eventually became the largest Buddhist sect in Japan and spread to the West at the end of the nineteenth century. Renowned scholar of Shin Buddhism, Alfred Bloom, presents the life and spiritual legacy of Shinran Shonin, the influential religious reformer and founder of Pure Land Buddhism, the most popular school of Buddhism in Japan today. Bloom presents a wide selection of Shinran's essential writings on the key Shin Buddhist idea of true entrusting (shinjin) to the Other-Power of Amida Buddha through His Vow to save all sentient beings. The Essential Teachings of Shinran, also, includes a foreword by Shin Buddhist scholar, Rueben Habito, a detailed glossary of foreign terms, and a select bibliography for further reading.

Languages change over time. No matter how hard we try to control and regulate them, they exist in a state of endless metamorphosis. This does not mean, though, that we should simply stand by and watch as language devolves into nonsense. What should we do, then? Recognizing the inevitability of change is a given, of course. But we must also navigate the delicate line between the pull of popular trends and the urge to cling blindly to the ways of the past. The ideal balance, Professor Nakanishi argues in this book, lies in being "one step behind the times," which is the best approach for wielding.

This annotated translation by Daisetz Suzuki (1870-1966) comprises the first four of six chapters of the Kyogyoshinsho, the definitive doctrinal work of Shinran (1173-1262). Shinran founded the Jodo Shin sect of Pure Land Buddhism, now the largest religious organization in Japan. Writing in Classical Chinese, Shinran began this, his magnum opus, while in exile and spent the better part of thirty years after his return to Kyoto revising the text. Although unfinished, Suzuki's translation conveys the text's core religious message, showing how Shinran offered a new understanding of faith through studying teachings before engaging in praxis, rather than the more common and far more limited view of faith in Buddhism as relevant to one just beginning their pursuit of Buddhist truth. Although Suzuki is best known for his scholarship on Zen Buddhism, he took a lifelong interest in Pure Land Buddhism. Suzuki's own religious perspective is evident in his translation of gyo as ''True Living'' rather than the expected ''Practice,'' and of sho as ''True Realizing of the Pure Land'' rather than the expected ''Enlightenment'' or ''Confirmation.'' This book contains the second edition of Suzuki's translation. It includes a number of corrections to the original 1973 edition, long out of print, as well as Suzuki's unfinished preface in its original form for the first time.

2000CHOICE Outstanding Academic Title Toward a Contemporary Understanding of Pure Land Buddhism offers proposals for creatively reinterpreting the Pure Land path. Japanese Pure Land thought brought about a major development in Buddhist tradition by evolving a path to enlightenment that is pursued while carrying on life in society. It is rooted in the Mahayana ideal of compassion and in the bodhisattva, or being of wisdom, who vows to ferry all living things to the other shore of awakening. In this book, three Buddhist scholars utilize hermeneutic thought, process theology, and the mandala contemplation of Buddhism to address issues of modernity and religious values in the world today. In addition, the work proceeds to offer a new model of interreligious dialogue. Gordon D. Kaufman and John B. Cobb, Jr. reflect critically on the Buddhist proposals, drawing on their long experience as religious philosophers facing questions concerning the contemporary applicability of Christian thought. Contributors include John B. Cobb, Jr., Dennis Hirota, Gordon D. Kaufman, Musashi Tachikawa, and John S. Yokota.

"Daisetsu Teitaro Suzuki is considered a key figure in the introduction of Buddhism to the non-Asian world. Many in the West encountered Buddhism for the very first time through his writings and teaching, and for nearly a century his work and legacy havecontributed to the ongoing religious and cultural interchange between Japan and the rest of the world, particularly the United States and Europe. As an early and influential representative of Zen Buddhism outside of Japan, Suzuki shaped the global conversation about the nature of religious practice for much of the twentieth century. This is the first of a multivolume series gathering the full range of Suzuki's writings. Volume 1 (Zen) presents a collection of Suzuki's classic essays as well as lesser-known but equally influential articles on Zen Buddhist thought and practice. Chinese and Japanese characters, which were originally removed from most post-World War II editions of Suzuki's essays, have been reinstated, and the romanization of Buddhist names and technical terms has been updated uniformly throughout the volume. This collection also contains an in-depth introduction to Suzuki's approach to Zen that places his influence in the context of modern developments in religious thought, practice, and scholarship, making this a useful edition for contemporary scholars and students of Buddhism"--Provided by publisher.

The Japanese Pure Land master Shinran (1173–1262) was a product of his age. His angst in the period of the decay of the Dharma, his subsequent search for spiritual liberation, and his ultimate discovery of the path of the nembutsu could not have occurred isolated from the social temper of his time, any more than his religious thought could have developed beyond the fabric of traditional Japanese Buddhist teachings and practices. This study concentrates on the relationship between Shinran's experiences in the first half of his life and his historical and social environment. Both the boldness and subtlety of his ideas begin to emerge in this examination, moving beyond the hagiographical limitations often characteristic of research into the Shin tradition. Numerous Shinran studies have been bound by the limitations of either purely historical or religious-philosophical analysis. But these two approaches have rarely been combined, and since Shinran's early life and his cultural environment together constitute not only the basis but also the matrix of his mature thought and practice, such a combination reveals both the power of his ideas and the cultural factors that stimulated their development.