Do you consider yourself an “ordinary person”? I certainly didn’t. Without wishing to inflate myself with my own uniqueness, I have always found that because I have no affinity with or interest in current Western culture, sacred or profane, I have very little in common with most other Western people, which does not feel “ordinary’.

In the light of Jodo Shinshu, however, we need to consider this word “ordinary” a little differently. The term bonbu（凡夫) means a person who is still mired in bonnou (煩悩）- the worldly passions and desires, the fact that we want this and dislike that, the fact that this makes us happy and that makes us angry, all the ordinary things that tie us to the world-illusion, the samsara.

Ridding ourselves of bonnou is the same thing as experiencing satori (悟り) – liberation from the everyday world-illusion – and experiencing (or as we say in Japanese “opening”) the Whole.

Opening satori by our own power is a huge undertaking beyond the reach of “ordinary people”.

Jodo Shinshu is not just tariki (他力 – other power) like other Pure Land schools, including its nearest rival in popularity in Japan, Jodo Shu. It is zettai tariki ( 絶対他力 – absolute other power).

This makes it the easiest path for the “ordinary person’, the final flowering of the Pure Land school.

If you take an interest in the lives and views of the great Traditionalist / Perennialist scholars, from Guenon to the present day, in videos, articles, books etc., you may be surprised at the difficult path so many of them have chosen*.

What we have to ask ourselves is “Are we capable of such a path?”

If not, we can place ourselves entirely in the hands of Amida-sama and the power of Her/His** mysterious Primal Vow. Some may ask, “Is this really a Path that one is following or is one simply passively waiting to be saved?”

It is in fact a Path, even though it is the “Easy Path”. Our part is to say the Nenbutsu “Namu Amida Butsu” and to listen to the Jodo Shinshu teachings.

As we do so, we start to realize how hard it is to let go of the jiriki mentality. We think, for example, that when we say the Nenbutsu or make some improvement in ourselves, we have done something toward our own salvation. But we haven’t. We are absolutely dependent on Amida-sama.

This realization of complete dependence teaches us that our own inability to open satori and rid ourselves of bonnou is absolute. This is zettai tariki.

But we will continually keep slipping back, continually keep congratulating ourselves on our own power.

Also, as we listen deeply to the Dharma, we become increasingly aware of our own bonnou, of the fact that even the “good” things we do and think are motivated by our own convenience, our own inescapable likes and dislikes, angers and pleasures.

As our self-assessment plunges ever downward, we become more and more fully aware of the debt of gratitude we owe to Amida-sama, on whom we are absolutely dependent.

And we become aware that even this debt of gratitude we don’t come anywhere close to repaying. Most of the time our thoughts are almost exclusively dominated by bonnou and our clinging to the samsara.

There is very little we can do about this. We are absolutely dependent on Amida-sama.

This is zettai tariki, absolute Other Power.

Of course, we could try saving ourselves (jiriki), but remember what that entails. We are “ordinary people” and there is only One who can save us.

And as we enter ever more deeply (slipping at every step) into this realization, we inevitably begin realize the vastness and mystery of the Way we have entered. We are just a tiny part of an unfathomably huge process by which Amida-sama is saving every sentient being in the universe(s).

In Amida-sama we have found the Absolute in its most compassionate form. Or rather that compassionate Absolute has found us.

Beside this immense reality, our small selves fade even from our own consciousness (at least for a few enlightened moments). The vastness of that Absolute, Who has grasped us, never to let us fall back into the terrible waters of the samsara, overwhelms our small self-calculations. And even at other times, more and more, the overwhelming feeling that guides our lives is gratitude.

Gratitude for everything. Because everything in our lives has been a step leading us toward our final absorption in the Absolute.

And while, to the individual Western mind, “absorption” may seem like the annihilation of the individual, it is in fact the total fulfillment – in its true form – of everything we have ever desired.

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* Most of the great writers and scholars of the Perennial / Traditionalist movement, starting with the founder, Guénon, have gravitated toward severely ascetic initiatory paths of jiriki (Self-Power) Realization, the majority within Islamic initiatic organizations; a substantial minority (probably the largest after Islam) in the ascetic Hesychast traditions of Mount Athos in the Eastern Orthodox Christian Church. (From About Perennial Jodo Shinshu)

** Her/His – Obviously the Absolute is beyond human gender. In everyday usage in Japan Amida-sama is often referred to as Oya-sama (親様) meaning the Supreme Parent – containing all the compassionate qualities of the eternal Mother and all the protective strength and wisdom of the eternal Father.