Zìlì tālì shì 自力他力事
On Self-Power and Other-Power by 隆寛 Ryūkan (撰)
About the work
A single-fascicle vernacular-Japanese Pure Land doctrinal treatise by Ryūkan 隆寛 隆寛 (1148–1227), the companion piece to his Ichi-nen ta-nen funbetsu-ji KR6t0388. The Jiriki tariki-ji — “On Self-Power and Other-Power” — provides the classical Hōnen-school distinction between jiriki (自力, self-power: rebirth secured by the practitioner’s own moral and meditative effort) and tariki (他力, other-power: rebirth secured by the power of Amida’s vow). The work is doctrinally fundamental to the Shinran-Shinshū tradition; the jiriki/tariki distinction here articulated becomes one of the principal scholastic categories of all subsequent Japanese Pure Land theology.
Abstract
Ryūkan defines jiriki as the practitioner’s own effort in the meditative, ethical, and recitative practices of the Buddhist path. He defines tariki as Amida’s vow-power, which the practitioner receives rather than generates. The two are not simply alternatives: tariki is superior to jiriki, but jiriki — within its category — is also a valid path to rebirth, in the lower transformed-body (kemyō-do 化名土) and suspended-rebirth (kemman-do 懈慢土) destinations described in the Larger Sukhāvatīvyūhasūtra. Only the tariki path leads to the true reward-land (hōdo 報土) of Amida.
Shinran took up this distinction and extended it in his Kyōgyōshinshō: for Shinran, jiriki (in the strict sense) never leads to the true reward-land; only tariki shinjin does. The Ryūkan-position is therefore the intermediate stage between Hōnen’s broader Pure Land position and Shinran’s stricter tariki-only position.
Date. Late Ryūkan, c. 1220–1227.
Structural Division
The CANWWW entry (div29.xml, T83N2678) records the work as a single-fascicle treatise by Ryūkan with no internal toc sub-list and no related-text cross-references tabulated.
Translations and research
English translation: Yoshifumi Ueda & Dennis Hirota (trans.), in The Collected Works of Shinran (Hongwanji-ha, 1997), vol. 1. Studies: James C. Dobbins, Jōdo Shinshū (1989); Mark L. Blum, Origins and Development of Pure Land Buddhism (2002); Ōhara Shōjitsu, Hōnen kyōgaku no kenkyū (Ryūbunkan, 1956); Sōhō Machida, Renegade Monk (UC Press, 1999).
Links
- CBETA online
- Author: 隆寛 (Ryūkan)
- Companion: KR6t0388 (Ichi-nen ta-nen funbetsu-ji)
- Shinshū continuation: KR6t0367 (Shinran, Ichi-nen ta-nen mon’i)