Shinran’s ‘Practice’

In Buddhism, the fundamental question regarding practice is what practice will allow one to overcome the suffering of samsara. Shinran offered a unique answer to that question based on the transformation of his understanding of Buddhism brought about through his encounter with Hōnen, a Buddhist thinker who advocated exclusively practicing the recitation of the nenbutsu. This paper aims to clarify the significance and originality of Shinran’s grasp of what that practice is through a careful reading of his works. Shinran holds that his encounter with Hōnen’s teaching led him to shift from the self-power practices of the Path of Sages to the Other Power of the Pure Land tradition. After describing the traditional view of practice laid out in the Path of Sages, which aims to attain enlightenment through severing one’s mental afflictions and developing wisdom through meditative concentration, I discuss Hōnen’s understanding of the nenbutsu as an Other Power practice selected in the Amida’s original vow. From Hōnen’s perspective, people are incapable bringing about the sort of transformation that was sought after through those traditional, self-power practices such as keeping precepts and engaging in mediation. Rather than engaging in such an impossible endeavor, Hōnen advocated reliance on the compassionate action of Amida’s original vow, which promised to bring all who relied on it to ultimate enlightenment. Then I discuss how Shinran developed Hōnen’s ideas to shift the significance of practice to one entirely based on Other Power faith. Shinran does not focus on the act of vocal recitation of the nenbutsu, but instead emphasizes the importance of the experience of hearing the significance of the name of Amida as explained by awakened predecessors and the arising of faith toward that message. From Shinran’s perspective, the name of Amida represents the virtues of true suchness that have already been fully realized entirely independent of the actions or intentions of the individual practitioner. For Shinran, recognizing and accepting the virtues that are shown to exist through the Amida’s name is the key to being liberated from samsara and is possible in an instant of insight that is available to anyone regardless of their abilities or actions. Through these considerations, this paper shows how Shinran’s emphasis of Other Power faith is an essential element of his clarification of the True Pure Land Buddhism as the consummation of Mahayana Buddhism

Universal asymptotic correlation functions for point group C6v\boldsymbol{C_{6v}} and an observation for triangular lattice Q\boldsymbol{Q}-state Potts model

We investigate universal forms for asymptotic correlation functions of off-critical systems that possess $C_{6v}$ symmetry following the argument for $C_{4v}$ symmetry in Phys.~Rev.~E{\bf 102},~032141. Unlike the $C_{4v}$ case, a minimal form exists that contains only two free parameters: the normalization constant and modulus. Using this form as a building block, we can construct next asymptotic forms to the minimal one. We perform large-scale Monte Carlo simulations of the triangular lattice $Q$-state Potts model above the transition temperature and successfully obtain numerical evidence to support a wide applicability of the minimal form to lattice models, including unsolvable ones. From the calculated minimal form, we derive the universal shape of equilibrium crystals in the honeycomb lattice Potts model described by an algebraic curve of genus 1. Although the curve differs from those obtained in the $C_{4v}$ case, the latters also have genus 1. We indicate that the birational equivalence concept can play an important role in comparing asymptotic forms for different point group symmetries, for example, $C_{6v}$ and $C_{4v}$.Comment: 36 pages, 4 figur

Shinran’s ‘Practice’ : The Shin Buddhist Turn in the Buddhist Understanding of Practice

In Buddhism, the fundamental question regarding practice is what practice will allow one to overcome the suffering of samsara. Shinran offered a unique answer to that question based on the transformation of his understanding of Buddhism brought about through his encounter with Hōnen, a Buddhist thinker who advocated exclusively practicing the recitation of the nenbutsu. This paper aims to clarify the significance and originality of Shinran’s grasp of what that practice is through a careful reading of his works. Shinran holds that his encounter with Hōnen’s teaching led him to shift from the self-power practices of the Path of Sages to the Other Power of the Pure Land tradition. After describing the traditional view of practice laid out in the Path of Sages, which aims to attain enlightenment through severing one’s mental afflictions and developing wisdom through meditative concentration, I discuss Hōnen’s understanding of the nenbutsu as an Other Power practice selected in the Amida’s original vow. From Hōnen’s perspective, people are incapable bringing about the sort of transformation that was sought after through those traditional, self-power practices such as keeping precepts and engaging in mediation. Rather than engaging in such an impossible endeavor, Hōnen advocated reliance on the compassionate action of Amida’s original vow, which promised to bring all who relied on it to ultimate enlightenment. Then I discuss how Shinran developed Hōnen’s ideas to shift the significance of practice to one entirely based on Other Power faith. Shinran does not focus on the act of vocal recitation of the nenbutsu, but instead emphasizes the importance of the experience of hearing the significance of the name of Amida as explained by awakened predecessors and the arising of faith toward that message. From Shinran’s perspective, the name of Amida represents the virtues of true suchness that have already been fully realized entirely independent of the actions or intentions of the individual practitioner. For Shinran, recognizing and accepting the virtues that are shown to exist through the Amida’s name is the key to being liberated from samsara and is possible in an instant of insight that is available to anyone regardless of their abilities or actions. Through these considerations, this paper shows how Shinran’s emphasis of Other Power faith is an essential element of his clarification of the True Pure Land Buddhism as the consummation of Mahayana Buddhism

Pyrrole-imidazole hairpin polyamides with high affinity at 5′–CGCG–3′ DNA sequence; influence of cytosine methylation on binding

To investigate the binding of 5′–CpG–3′ sequences by small molecules, two pyrrole (Py)–imidazole (Im) hairpin polyamides, PyImPyIm–γ–PyImPyIm–β–Dp (1) and PyIm–β–Im–γ–PyIm–β–Im–β–Dp (2), which recognize the sequence 5′–CGCG–3′, were synthesized. The binding affinities of the 5′–CGCG–3′ sequence to the Py–Im hairpin polyamides were measured by surface plasmon resonance (SPR) analysis. SPR data revealed that dissociation equilibrium constants (Kd) of polyamides 1 and 2 were 1.1 (± 0.3) × 10–6 M and 1.7 (± 0.4) × 10–8 M, respectively. Polyamide 2 possesses great binding affinity for this sequence, 65-fold higher than polyamide 1. Moreover, when all cytosines in 5′–CpGpCpG–3′ were replaced with 5-methylcytosines (mCs), the Kd value of polyamide 2 increased to 5.8 (± 0.7) × 10–9 (M), which indicated about 3-fold higher binding than the unmethylated 5′–CGCG–3′ sequence. These results suggest that polyamide 2 would be suitable to target CpG-rich sequences in the genome

Non-local spin correlation as a signature of Ising anyons trapped in vacancies of the Kitaev spin liquid

In the Kitaev chiral spin liquid, Ising anyons are realized as Majorana zero modes bound in $Z_2$ fluxes, which, however, are thermal excitations with finite decay rates. On the other hand, a lattice vacancy traps a $Z_2$ flux even in the ground state, resulting in the stable realization of a Majorana zero mode in the $Z_2$ flux. We demonstrate that spin-spin correlation functions between two vacancy sites exhibit long-range correlation arising from the fractionalized character of Majorana zero modes, in spite of the strong decay of bulk spin correlations. Remarkably, this non-local spin correlation does not decrease as the distance between two vacancy sites increases, signaling teleportation of Majorana zero modes. Furthermore, we clarify that the non-local correlation can be detected electrically via the measurement of non-local conductance between two vacancy sites, which is also utilized for the readout of Majorana qubits. These findings pave the way to the measurement-based quantum computation with Ising anyons trapped in vacancies of the Kitaev spin liquid.Comment: 6 pages + 4 figures, and a Supplemental Materia

Parenteral Nutrition Administration Leads to Specific Alterations in the Expression of Adipocytokines and Peroxisome Proliferator‐Activated Receptors in a Rat Model

Peer Reviewedhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/141876/1/jpen0329-sup-0001.pdfhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/141876/2/jpen0329.pd