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45 5 Shinjin More than “Faith”? In the previous chapter we considered saṃvega, a Pali term to which one might not initially turn to consider dimensions of an incipient movement of faith and, hence, not many have considered its relation to the arising of faith. In this chapter, however, something of the opposite seems to have occurred when we find that our attempts to understand a word most prominently given to us by Jōdo Shinshū Buddhists, shinjin, might become inadequate by introducing the English word faith. We come now to give focal attention to a great human word, a word that points to the heart of what it means to be genuinely human. That word is a Japanese word, shinjin (信心). Shinjin is alluring. Let me begin to respond to this. Shinjin is attractive, or at least some of us find this notion of the goal of human life to be eminently worth pursuing, or at least seriously pondering. I am not sure that I fully understand why. Perhaps it is part of our human “makeup,” part of what it means to be human, that men and women are so constituted that when we “hit upon” a notion such as shinjin it gives us pause and makes us consider what we have come upon. It is possible that this observation reflects my anthropology, a systematic reflection on the behavior that constitutes human existence. It is also possible that my perception is associated with what it means to be a discerning human being, homo sapiens. Assuredly, this observation has direct bearing on my understanding of religious men and women, persons becoming genuinely, authentically human, homo religiosus. What is it about us, or within us, that makes us take shinjin seriously, that makes us want to understand it, as reasonable men and women, that leads us to pursue it, initially to try to find at least some perspective for it if not to hope for its arising or occurrence ? Some of us who are Jōdo Shinshū or Shin Buddhists have thought that realizing shinjin would be the fulfillment of our lives. One wonders why. For 4 6 I n t he C om p a ny of Fr ie nd s those of us who are Jōdo Shinshū or Shin Buddhists, shinjin represents salvation , our final and only hope. Others of us who are students of this tradition, and primarily of men and women who participate in it, seek to understand too. We seek this understanding because through it, if we have the patience and humane sensitivity to discern it, we might come to learn something more about ourselves, about ourselves as men and women, about ourselves as religious persons. Shinran seems never to have told us exactly what shinjin is, nor did he give us a path with methodical stages whereby we might follow into shinjin, nor did he represent himself as an example of a person who has shinjin. Yet, he spoke and wrote from within shinjin. How might we begin a consideration of shinjin? Of course, we might turn to Shinran, but what do we find—a shaveling simpleton, a person who called himself “short-haired stupid person (Gutoku),” and we are immediately knocked off balance because we readily perceive that Shinran became a profoundly insightful man, that he was enabled to unmask our human deceptions and thereby to help us find the source of our healing by letting us see ourselves exactly as we are in a context, indeed in a cosmos, that is fundamentally, ineradicably , compassionate. Shinran was powerful in his meekness, a forceful presence in his radical self-effacement, profoundly simple in his observations about the complexities of the human condition, dynamic in his quiet gentleness. While living in exile he was reaching out to be supportive of others. He was a person exerting great influence without self-assertiveness, a person who communicated to us the bondage that is our experience and who thereby led us to a position to discern wherein our freedom might begin. When we consider a figure such as Shinran, evaluations by customary analysis tend somehow to miss the mark. Yet millions of men and women since the lifetime of this person have found this focal figure worthy of deepest admiration. Would you agree with me that this is fascinating? Speak about shinjin, write about the conditionless, about that which is fundamentally inconceivable—that is impossible, and yet we continue. I will consider two general points in this chapter...

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