Wisdom of the East | Page 3

for twenty years he gave his thoughts to its
empty glitter. Therefore, at the age of twenty-nine he cast it all behind
him, and in deep humility cast himself at the feet of the great Teacher
Honen, who, in the shades of Higashiyama, was setting forth the saving
power of the Eternal One who abideth in the Light and in whom is no
darkness--the Buddha of Boundless Light. And in this place and from
this man Shinran received enlightenment.
Life now lay before him as a problem. Unlike as the two men are in
character and methods, his position resembled that of Martin Luther on
quitting the Church of Rome. For the Buddhist monastic rule requires
its members to be homeless, celibate, vegetarian, and here, like Luther,
Shinran joined issue with them. To his mind the attainment of man lay
in the harmonious development of body and spirit, and in the fulfilment,
not the negation of the ordinary human duties. Accordingly, in his
thirty-first year, after deep consideration, he married the daughter of
Prince Kujo Kanezane, Chief Minister of the Emperor and head of one
of the greatest houses in Japan, and in that happy union he tasted four
years of simple domestic joy, during which a son was born to him.
Then the storm broke.
Trouble was stirred up by the orthodox Buddhist Church with evil
reports which reached the ears of the Emperor, and Shinran was sent
into banishment in the lonely and primitive province of Echigo--a
terrible alternative for a man of noble birth and refined culture. He took
it, however, with perfect serenity as a mission to those untaught and
neglected people, and into their darkness he brought the light of the
Father of Lights, and the people flocked to the warmth and wonder of
the new hope, and heard him gladly. The story is told by a
contemporary, whom I have thus rendered:
"In the spring of the third year of the era of Kennin, the age of Shinran
Shonin was twenty-nine. Driven by the desire for seclusion, he
departed to the monastery of Yoshimizu. For as his day was so remote

from the era of the Lord Buddha, and the endurance of man in the
practice of religious austerity was now weakened, he would fain seek
the one broad, straight way that is now made plain before us, leaving
behind him the more devious and difficult roads in which he had a long
time wandered. For so it was that Honen Shonin, the great teacher of
the Doctrine of the Land of Pure Light, had taught him plainly of the
inmost heart of the Faith, raising up in him the firm foundation of that
teaching. Therefore he certainly received at that time the true meaning
of the Divine Promise of universal salvation, and attained unto the
imperishable faith by which alone the ignorant can enter into Nirvana
without condition or price.
"From the province of Echigo Shinran passed onward to that of Hitachi,
and entered into seclusion at Inada, that little village of the region of
Kasama. Very lonely was his dwelling, yet many disciples sought after
him, and though the humble door of the monastery was closed against
them, many nobles and lesser persons thronged into the village. So his
hope of spreading abroad the Holy Teaching was fulfilled and his
desire to bring joy to the people was satisfied. Thus he declared that the
revelation vouchsafed to him in the Temple of Rokkaku by the
Bodhisattwa of Pity was indeed made manifest."
It is that revelation which speaks in these Psalms--the love, aspiration,
passion for righteousness and humility which are the heart of all the
great religious utterances of the world.
"Alas for me, Shinran, the ignorant exile who sinks into the deeps of
the great ocean of human affections, who toils to climb the high
mountains of worldly prosperity, and is neither glad to be with them
who return no more to illusion, nor takes delight in approaching more
nearly to true enlightenment. O the pity of it! O the shame of it!"
This cry alternates with the joy of perfect aspiration, and it is that
which keeps these psalms in warm human touch with the spirituality
that is neither of race nor time, but for eternity.
He was sixty-two years of age when he returned from exile to
City-Royal, and though he made it his centre, it was his home no more.
He wandered from place to place, teaching as he went, after the manner
of the Buddhas. At the age of ninety his strength suddenly failed, and
the next day he passed away in perfect peace.
Such were the outward events of his life; his own writings must give

the history of his soul. His teachings to-day are spread far and