Tenrikyo Dynamic Mission  - SINCERITY

The teaching as concerns "sincerity" applies to two states of mind. One common and one not common.  The first state, the uncommon state of mind that is hastened and intended to be realized through the teaching, is the mind of "true sincerity". It is that state that is the quick, direct path to single-heatedness with the mind of God, the truth of origin, the original cause of all things. It is the state of mind that can only be known and understood through the totally settled and purified "mind like clear water".  That truly sincere state of mind is often referred to as a mind of single-hearted sincerity. True sincerity implies intentionally letting go of all shallow, worldly common and common worldly thoughts thus allowing  our self-centered imagination to melt back into the original parental heart that is its true origin.

In the "Model Story" ("Hinagata") of Miki Nakayama's awakening and the replacement of her mind we see her true sincerity in the way that she followed the instruction, given to any  person who would act as a medium, to intentionally empty her mind. She truly and sincerely complied with the instruction and because of Her true sincerity She became one with the truth of origin. Her worldly common mind having been replaced by the original mind of God, the one truth that exists at the core of all human minds equally.

We also know from Miki Nakayama's model story that she very much believed that incantations and magical arts were great and indeed it was during the course of just such an incantation that She awakened. We can easily assume that her contemporaries in the village and surrounding areas also believed that incantations and magical arts were great too. That is to say that incantations and magical arts and the truths that flowed from those widely held principles were common in her world. In the teaching of our parent of origin such truths and principles and the truths that reasonably flowed from them we revealed to be non-existent truths that God had taught and made effective in the early "twig part" of the human species.

To any observer or person on hearing of Her remarkable transformation and powers it is reasonable to assume that since they could see things with their own eyes the teachings of God the parent were taken to be modifications of what God our parent referred to as worldly common ("Sekai nami") and common worldly ("Sekai no ri") truths that they were already familiar with.

We know from God our parent's tireless effort to open just a narrow path of single-hearted salvation that almost everyone did not in fact understand Her intention and instead continued to sincerely try to understand Her intention in shallow worldly common and common worldly ways. That situation brings us to the second use of the word "sincerity" as it applies to people who sincerely wanted to understand but who could not get past their shallow worldly common and common worldly interpretations of God our parent's intention and teaching.

This situation leads us to the second use of "sincerity". That is the sincerity of those who wanted to know the truth of origin and tried to understand but who were sincerely unable to ponder deeply and break out of shallow, worldly common thinking as concerned their understanding of the truth of their origin.

From the point of view of God our parent's truly sincere mind the condition of our minds requires God's tireless effort to enter into the mud of our human minds and make them clear. From the point of view of our sincerity this is the determination to work at clearing the mud, dust and debris from our mind, making it like clear water. This work or service is the step by step process of turning our worldly common sincerity into true sincerity so that we can know and understand the mind of God, the original cause of all things. Of course if we sincerely choose to rely on common worldly and worldly common thinking that work or service can take a very long time to be completed.

As it turns out the path of single-hearted salvation is very tricky because God has no other place to start the path of single-hearted sincerity than within the mud of our minds. That means that to a degree God has to tentatively speak of and entertain mud, dust and debris in order to talk to us and to hold our sincere interest. There is however never a time in the teaching where God accepts worldly common minds as truly sincere minds and so though there are many paths in the mud of our minds there is still only one path to single-heartedness and that is the true sincerity that reveals the one truth of origin, the original cause of all things at the core of each and every human mind. These days as we gain more familiarity with the way our mind works we can speak of the origin as the consciousness that our self-centered imaginations rise up are reflected in. 

A sincere mind that clings to the truths of the world and worldly common interpretations understandably automatically assumes that the teaching of the truth of origin "like most traditional beliefs, is the kind of faith that focuses on praying for divine favors to personal advantages or notions that Oyasama's teachings emanated from a human mind  ".* A mind that is so bound to shallow worldly common thinking is unable to give itself over to true sincerity and single-heatedness with God. That sincere misunderstanding will continue to be the biggest obstacle to single-hearted salvation unless it is given up by turning the mind inward and leaning entirely on the mind of God, our original consciousness, the place where our thoughts rise up from and the place where we as human beings are made. 

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