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So also is the rigid classification, so prominent in "the old sects," of all beings or pupils into three grades. As in Islam or Calvinism, all believers stand on a level. To Shinran, faith was the sole saving act. To rely upon the power of the Original Prayer of Amitabha Buddha with the whole heart and give up all idea of ji-riki or self-power, is called the truth.
The regular doctrines of Buddhism that salvation comes only through self-effort and self-victory are rejected, and salvation through the merits of another is taught. "Ta-riki," "another's power," not "Ji-riki," "self-power," is with them the orthodox doctrine. Priests may marry and eat meat, practices utterly abhorrent to the older and more primitive Buddhism.
Therefore the wise man ought to practise pure behavior; passing through the wilderness of birth and death, pure conduct is to him a virtuous guide. From pure behavior comes self-power, which frees a man from many dangers; pure conduct, like a ladder, enables us to climb to heaven.
But it was my habitual practice to withdraw the boys from the routine of the book, and to appeal to their self-power in the treatment of questions not comprehended in that routine. At first, the change from the beaten track usually excited a little aversion: the youth felt like a child amid strangers; but in no single instance have I found this aversion to continue.
I have seen the boy's eye brighten, and at length, with a pleasure of which the ecstasy of Archimedes was but a simple expansion, heard him exclaim, 'I have it, sir. The consciousness of self-power, thus awakened, was of immense value; and animated by it, the progress of the class was truly astonishing.