looking into the sun

It's not easy to see yourself clearly. There's a kind of confidence one needs in oneself to connect with the Sangha, to go for enlightenment. Pureland Buddhism feels foreign, feels like you're relying too much on other power, hoping to reborn in a pureland just because of your devotion to a mantra. I believe more and more in mappo more and more as I go along. It's hard to read Pureland texts. There's one free on Amazon that I downloaded: Wisdom of the East Buddhist Psalms translated from the Japanese of Shinran Shonin. There is so much free Dharma it's hard to feel like paying for a book. Reading this book I have tried to go past my knee jerk reactions to Pureland. This is a major tradition in Buddhism and I'm curious about it. I'm still not super connecting with it. I've been exploring the idea of faith in Buddhism after reading about it in the lovely book of Subhuti's: Mind in Harmony. I can't gobble it down, I need to savor it and chase all the trails of thought as I read though it. And one of those detours was into Shinran. I prostrate to Shinran when I do the refuge tree prostration practice, which is an maximalist practice that is about faith in the tradition. I need to learn more about the TBC refuge tree. You can read more about the practice in Teachers of Enlightenment: The Refuge Tree of the Western Buddhist Order.