More on faith

Shinjin is the experience of awakening to the salvific grace of Amida. It arises the very instant - what Shinran referred to as a "thought moment" - we recognize our inherent buddha nature and realize we are saved by the power of Amida's primal vow. Because shinjin is often translated as "faith" we miss this essential aspect of Jodo Shinshu teachings. As Takamaro Shigaraki writes in The Problem of the True and the False: "The nembutsu is the process and shinjin is the goal."

To describe shinjin as faith completely undermines the very premise of shinjin; shinjin is the liberation we seek, the jumping off point to nirvana. Shinjin, itself, is the gift of recognition of our buddha nature and our ultimate deliverance from the seemingly endless cycle of life and death through Amida Buddha.

When I describe shinjin as the experience of awakening, I mean that shinjin is not a static moment, an "aha!" moment. It is, instead, a lifetime experience of growth and learning. While Shigaraki calls it the goal, I do not believe he means that it stops there. Once we have attained shinjin, we continue to experience it on successively more profound levels. Shinjin is, in a sense, an ongoing penultimate experience that does not reach its final fruition until that moment when we are released from this life and freed from the wheel of samsara.

Awakening to shinjin, experiencing shinjin, opens us to the desire to learn and understand more. It is our limited, deluded self that prevents us from experiencing total enlightenment in this life time but shinjin drives us on to learn more, to open our hearts ever more to Amida's grace. Our buddha nature seeks reunion with Amida and through shinjin it pushes harder and farther until we are free.