Teaching, Practice, Faith and Realisation (Kyōgyōshinshō)

Shinran's main doctrinal work and the founding text of the Jōdo Shinshū (True Pure Land) school, begun around 1224 and revised over many years. Its full title means a collection of passages revealing the true teaching, practice and realisation of the Pure Land way. Most of it is an anthology of quotations from sutras and from Pure Land masters in India, China and Japan, among them Nāgārjuna, Vasubandhu, Tanluan, Shandao and Hōnen, arranged and commented on by Shinran. Its six chapters treat the true teaching, which is the Larger Sutra of Immeasurable Life; the true practice, which is saying the name of Amida Buddha; true shinjin, the entrusting heart; true realisation, which is nirvana; the true Buddha and land; and the provisional Buddhas and lands. Shinran's central claim is that both practice and shinjin are given by Amida's Other Power through the Primal Vow, not produced by the self. A postscript recalls the 1207 persecution of Hōnen's community and Shinran's exile.

It is the most rigorous statement of the view that liberation comes from Other Power rather than one's own effort, an idea often compared with Luther, and the key to understanding Shinran.