Note: I wrote this article when I was still a member of Hongwanji and still believed that the Hongwanji system can be reformed
In many articles on this website, in my books or on my Facebook
pages I presented to you many explanations and passages from the sacred texts
in which it is clearly stated that the Pure Land of Amida Buddha is to be
attained after death and that it is not to be found “here and now”, or in “one’s
mind”, as some nowadays deluded scholars and priests in the international Jodo Shinshu sangha claim.
In this short post I intend to show to you that our Jodo Shinshu
Hongwanji-ha (Nishi Hongwanji) religious organisation does NOT officially
sustain the aberrant views of those scholars and priests. The following two
passages are from an official document of our school, Jodo Shinshu Kyosho (The
Essential of Jodo Shinshu) and from a statement made by the former Monshu
(Patriarch/Leader) of Hongwanji, His Eminence Koshin Ohtani, the 24th successor of Shinran
Shonin and also the one who ordained me. In the passages you can read by yourself that birth in the Pure Land is
to be understood as taking place after death, in perfect agrement with the
sacred texts of our tradition:
