Entrusting of faith and practice : the objective aspect of Shinran's thought based on his Kyōgyōshinshō

A good way to approach Shinran’s vision of the Pure Land soteriology, is to distinguish a subjective and an objective aspect of it. The latter, with which the present paper is concerned, considers Amida as the only source and an ultimate end of the liberating activity on a cosmic scale. In other words, the whole process of attaining liberation by beings, and then their coming back to help others, is seen by Shinran as an expression of will and power of Amida. It will be demonstrated by the extensive use of the first four chapters of his major work Kyōgyōshinshō. There is of course a problem to reconcile this vision with a subjective aspect, i.e. the question how to actually gain Amida’s help, and - most of all - why so many of us are yet to be saved. This question however is not going to be addressed here, for it was discussed earlier (see: R. Szuksztul, O darze i obdarowanym, czyli problem z soteriologią Shinrana, "Estetyka i Krytyka"2011, nr 22).