saying the nembutsu　称名 Various English expressions, such as reciting, pronouncing, or uttering the nembutsu, are in common use. “Saying the nembutsu”, however, sounds most natural and ordinary, suited to the religious life of a Shin Buddhist. While there is nothing extraordinary about saying the nembutsu, the realization attached to it, involving one’s whole being, evokes an entirely new universe of meaning. Shinran states: “The practice of the nembutsu is to say it perhaps once, perhaps ten times, on hearing and realizing that birth into the Pure Land is attained by saying the Name fulfilled in the Primal Vow. . . . There can be no nembutsu separate from shinjin (Lamp for the Latter Ages).”