Question: Josho – I need your help regarding the issue of shinjin (or lack of). I know that I do not have settled shinjin, as much as I would like to have it. I follow the Amida Dharma for a while but then I fall off the rails and think that perhaps another path is or more suited to me. So…I try to follow another path just to arrive at the place where I realize (again) that I cannot “succeed” in any type of spiritual progress by my own efforts and that I need Amida. So…. I return to Amida.
Intellectually I believe in the existence of Amida and His Pure Land, and I do want to go there, but there is obviously some kind of emotional or other block which is preventing me from having settled shinjin and from really experiencing Amida as a living presence in my life. What is your advice? Can you help?