Citation

Kiyozawa, Manshi, and Nobuo Haneda. “My Religious Conviction.” December Fan: The Buddhist Essays of Manshi Kiyozawa, Shinshu Center of America, 2014, pp. 49–55.

Quotes

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Know that you do not know. That is knowledge.
— Socrates

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There is no need for me to deliberate on what is good or evil, right or wrong. There is nothing I can do. I act as I please and do as I am inclined. There is no need for me to be concerned about my every action, even if it turns out to be a mistake or a crime. Tathāgata takes on the burden of responsibility for all of my actions. I need only trust in Tathāgata to live in constant peace of mind.
— Manshi Kiyozawa

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The power of Tathāgata is limitless. The power of Tathāgata is unsurpassed. The power of Tathāgata is omnipresent. It pervades everything and works freely, without hindrance. By committing myself to the wondrous power of Tathāgata, I have great peace and comfort. By entrusting the important question of life and death to Tathāgata, I have no fear, no discontent.

Collations

• Religious conviction = mind that trusts in Tathāgata.
• Trust and Tathāgata refer to the same reality.
• Trust relieves one from suffering.
• Kiyozawa's experience of trust is that it fills up his mind completely and leaves no room for delusions.
• Religious gratitude = joy experienced when religious conviction relieves one from suffering.
• For one to experience the benefit of trust, one must undergo religious experimentation.
• Kiyozawa was led to trust in Tathāgata after realizing that his intellect is limited. But before he got to this conclusion, he also pursued all kinds of intellectual investigations. According to him, this is the most essential point in his religious conviction.
• I can trust in Tathāgata = I can live my life event though I'm incompetent in my self-efforts.
• I cannot help but trust in Tathāgata = I can live with peace of mind despite the requirement for me to choose and act.
• Kiyozawa's religious conviction refers to his conviction about the reality of infinite compassion, infinite wisdom, and infinite power.
• Infinite power = Tathāgata enables peace when religious conviction is established.
• Kiyozawa's greatest happiness is that provided by religious conviction. He experiments on this daily.
• Infinite wisdom = Tathāgata delivers Kiyozawa from the darkness of his ignorance.
• Kiyozawa believes he cannot establish a criterion for judging trust on the basis of human intellect.
• Infinite power = Tathāgata endows us with the great ability to live while letting go of the pressure to maintain moral principles.
• Tathāgata = The basic reality underlying our existence

Literature notes

Kiyozawa's position is really very amoralist. One could even say that it is pure amoralism because he doesn't even care whether what he does is crime. In Beyond Morality, at least Garner introduced how we can still build a just and good society while letting go of the need to maintain moral principles.

Prompts