Let This Be Known: Finding the Shin Buddhist Path

Can we find a spiritual basis for living in samsara, the world of suffering? A compelling response comes from Shinran, a teacher of Japan’s Kamakura period who established Jōdo Shinshū or Shin Buddhism. His spiritual seeking was a great advance for the Buddha-dharma, owing to the psychological depth of his experience and to the unstable era in which he lived. Eight centuries later, we are just beginning to appreciate his accomplishment. Shinran’s teaching challenges our preconceptions about Buddhism, just as it upended the religious ideas of his day. A distinguishing feature of Jōdo Shinshū is that recognizing our spiritual sickness and realizing the cure are simultaneous. For Shinran, the cure is here and now; it is to receive self-awareness (known as shinjin) by looking into the mirror of the teachings.

“Many books written in English about Jōdo Shinshū are introductions… Now with James Pollard’s Let This Be Known, there’s a bridge that bring readers from the surface generalizations to a deeper understanding of Shinran’s teachings.” —Rev. Patti Nakai

”The author clearly has embraced Shin Buddhism as his path, and his presentation of Shinran’s teachings is one of the clearest renditions of our founder’s path to awakening that exists today.” —Rev. Ellen Hamada Crane

”Shin Buddhism will begin to resonate with people in this country when they are able to encounter a book like James Pollard's.” —Rev. Marvin Harada, BCA Bishop