Edited by Jonathon Watts and Yoshiharu Tomatsu 2005 Traversing the pure land Path - A Lifetime of Encounters with Honen Shonin: Jodo Shu Press.
This is a beautifully produced book, providing an outline of the life and teachings of Honen and some of his disciples. This is taken from the forward -
“What is it to be a searcher, a wanderer, a wayfarer? In Buddhism, we are often given the image of someone, usually a man, abandoning his home, donning monastic robes, and living a life of strict training. However, this is just one possible outward form of being a wayfarer. The inward meaning of “abandoning home” really speaks to a spiritual search for truth and liberation from suffering (dukkha) by abandoning the “homes” of the mind and heart. These homes are places of inner comfort and refuge, yet they may also be like crutches that we resort to out of fear, anger or greed. In this way, they act as barriers to becoming more open to reality, to others and to ourselves. So to become a true wayfarer is to abandon these places of comfort in order to discover what is beyond the self. In order to begin such a new and radical journey, we may indeed require some form of outward abandonment, as seen in Shakyamuni Buddha abandoning his royal life.
Honen Shonin also abandoned a wordly life as a young boy, first entering the monkhood on Mount Hiei and then going further by entering the Kurodani hermitage in a seclude part of Mount Hiei. However, Honen accomplished still a third abandoning; this was the renouncing of the monastic life on Mount Hiei which he came to see as merely a form of outward abandonment and not inner. This physical abandoning of Mount Hiei paralleled an inner one in which he left behind the numerous teachings and practices of the vast Buddhist heritage of Mount Hiei to open himself up fully to the great other-power (tariki) of Amida Buddha. Giving up the egocentric traps of practices focused on personal salvation, he took the fearful but exhilarating step of opening himself up to the absolute in Amida’s Original Vow (hongan), which focuses on the salvation of all beings, great and small, wise and deluded, perfect and flawed. In this way, Honen became a true hijiri or wayfarer, and began to lead others in this way of Amida’s Original Vow…
…Although we have the tendency to try to essentialize the and
universalize any teacher’s or thinker’s ideas into one simple system,
Honen Shonin’s teachings defy such simplification because of his
tendency to speak in different ways to the different types of people he
encountered. With the poor and the marginalised, he usually spoke in
comforting terms, trying to empower them with a sense of confidence and
hope. Never too strict or too harsh, he showed the simple way of
entrusting the other power of Amida Buddha’s Original Vow. In this way,
the Pure Land tradition has sometimes been seen as a simplistic or
undisciplined path for those too soft and lazy to take on the rigors of
Zen or Theravada practice. However, with his encounters with his own
monastic disciples, we see Honen’s unrelenting zeal for practice and
the refinement of one’s heart/mind in opening up completely to a life
based in the Original Vow. Honen’s multiple abandonings were no simple
acts of giving up or dropping out, but rather major transformations
brought on by a heart/mind that would not permit spiritual complacency.”
