Ānxīn juédìng chāo 安心決定鈔
The Anthology on Settling the Mind in Faith [author unknown — traditionally ascribed to the Seizan-line Pure Land school]
About the work
A two-fascicle Pure Land doctrinal treatise, anonymous, of the late Kamakura period. The work is widely admired across all Pure Land lineages and was particularly influential in the Hongan-ji branch of Shinshū after 蓮如 Rennyo singled it out as the work to be most assiduously read by Shinshū devotees alongside Shinran’s own writings. The Anjin ketsujōshō — “The Anthology on Settling the Mind [in Anjin Faith]” — is the classical articulation of anjin (安心, “settled mind,” doctrinal certainty), the central devotional category of late-medieval Japanese Pure Land soteriology.
Abstract
The treatise argues, in 27 numbered sections, that anjin — the settled-mind state of doctrinal certainty regarding rebirth — is the central spiritual achievement of the Pure Land practitioner. The argument has three main moves: (1) Anjin is not produced by the practitioner; it is received when the practitioner properly understands the senju-nenbutsu doctrine. (2) Anjin once received is irrevocable; the practitioner who has anjin cannot lose it through any subsequent action. (3) Anjin is the only criterion of true Pure Land practice; nenbutsu without anjin is jiriki and does not lead to the true reward-land.
The doctrinal position is closest to the Seizan-line Pure Land school of 證空 Shōkū and his successors — particularly Sen’a 詮阿 and Shōgei 聖冏 — and the work has traditionally been ascribed to that line, though no certain attribution is possible. The text was, however, adopted enthusiastically by Rennyo in the 15th c. as a doctrinal model for his own anjin teaching, and the Ofumi KR6t0379 cite the Anjin ketsujōshō repeatedly. Rennyo reportedly said: “Whenever I read the Anjin ketsujōshō, my own anjin is renewed”.
Date. Late Kamakura, conservatively c. 1290–1330, on the basis of doctrinal vocabulary and the form of the text. No internal date.
Structural Division
The CANWWW entry (div29.xml, T83N2679) records the work as a 2-fascicle anonymous text with no internal toc sub-list and no related-text cross-references tabulated.
Translations and research
Critical edition: Shinshū shōgyō zensho, vol. 4 (where it is included as a kyōgi-betsu — “outside-the-school” but doctrinally important — text). English: portions in Rogers & Rogers, Rennyo (1991). Japanese: Ōhara Shōjitsu, Hōnen kyōgaku no kenkyū (Ryūbunkan, 1956), ch. on the Seizan-line; Inaki Sen’e, Anjin ketsujō-shō kōgi 安心決定鈔講義 (Hongan-ji, 1973); Hosokawa Gyōshin, Rennyo Shōnin den no kenkyū (Hōzōkan, 1989).
Links
- CBETA online
- Probable doctrinal lineage: 證空 (Shōkū)–Seizan school
- Adopted by: 蓮如 (Rennyo)