sudden attainment　頓教 Sudden attainment is the realization of enlightenment at a certain point in time made possible by timeless reality abruptly or noncontinuously breaking into time, in contrast to gradual and partial realization of timeless reality which involves a progression through many stages of awakening. Hōnen considered the Tendai and Shingon teachings to be within the realm of sudden attainment, but, since they affirm the capacity of human beings to attain awakening through self-power, he classified them as belonging to the gradual within sudden attainment. In contrast, he called the Pure Land path, which teaches the realization of Buddhahood through attainment of birth in the Pure Land without having rid of blind passions, the sudden within sudden attainment. Shinran follows Hōnen in referring to the nembutsu path as “the sudden within the sudden”. That this points to awakening through Other Power and not through self-power rather than simply a question of time is clear in his description of the awakening of shinjin as being “neither sudden nor gradual, neither meditative nor nonmeditative (Teadhing, Practice, and Realization).”