Tag Archives: rennyo
Rennyo & the bee nembutsu
When we bought our house six years ago the garden was a wasteland of concrete and couch grass, largely devoid of bird or animal life. Since then we’ve worked hard to turn it into a pretty tract which gets quite a variety of wildlife. Just this week for instance we’ve seen a hedgehog, bats, goldfinches, [...]
Ofumi Readings in English
From Friday evening to Sunday afternoon I attended a retreat at the Jōdo Shinshū temple which some of us who blog here attend. It was only the fifth such retreat to be held and was generally very successful, although there is always much to learn about the organisation of such events both at a communal and personal level. A [...]
New Year’s Day
Following on from Kyoshin’s post yesterday I would like to add one of my favourite verses for the New Year: Long ago, joy was wrapped in my sleeves – but, tonight, it’s more than I can contain! This poem is quoted by Rennyo Shonin in the 1st Letter of Fascicle 1 of the Ofumi. It [...]
Doshu’s Twenty-One Resolutions
New Year’s resolutions are something I rarely make and still more rarely keep, however since discovering Doshu’s ‘Twenty-One Resolutions’ in their translation by Reverend Kemmyo Taira Sato, the idea of making them has taken on a whole new meaning. Whereas the resolutions we usually make are generally concerned with more mundane matters, Doshu (14?? To [...]
More on the Gaikemon
I’m probably going to screw this up but here’s what I think Sensei told me at the weekend about the phrase ‘zogyo zasshu’: Zogyo is about ‘What to practice’ (Nembutsu) – the ‘miscellaneous’ (zogyo) practices of non-Pure Land and non-Buddhist ways are rejected. Zasshu – refers to ‘How to Practice’ (Mind that is Single) – the [...]
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