Talk:Shinran/Comments

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I have some problems with use of the term "faith" in the article. It's been pretty well established for some time now that faith is a poor translation of the Japanese term shinjin, which is more accurately translated as "entrusting".

Faith implies a dualistic relationship, an almost passive relationship, between the believer and Amida Buddha, which undermines the idea that all living beings have Buddha-nature. As Richard St. Clair, in his site at [1] explains:

Shinjin is totally different from either shinko or shinrai [other terms used to explain aspects of the term faith] in that it has no intimation whatsoever of "looking up to" but expresses a condition of trust in Amida Buddha and his Vow to save all beings everywhere at all times. In this entrusting there is no subject, no object, no "I believe in something." It is an entrusting relating to the Sanskrit word prasada, which describes a condition that is very calm, still, pure. Cittaprasada is "the mind and heart which is clear and pure," translated in the Chinese text as joshin, "clear or pure mind." Shinran chose shinjin as the word more adequately carrying his intended meaning of "the truth of one 's heart and mind in a clear and pure way. " Here "pure" is to be carefully understood not as moral purity in the puritanical sense, but as the purity that is the result of non-calculation and non-ego. It is at the point where the pure, clear mind (cittaprasada) becomes my condition that the shinjin of Shinran's teachings becomes manifest. Thus shinjin is neither "faith" in a secular nor in the commonly held religious sense of the English word.

It's a difficult word to work with, but I strongly suggest reconsidering its use in this particular article.