Shinran: Jinsei no Mokuteki

Shinran loses both parents at eight years old and is left with a question he cannot escape: if everyone must eventually die, why do we live? At nine he enters Mount Hiei, devoting ten years to Buddhist training in the hope of finding an answer that can quiet that fear.

At nineteen he meets Tamahi, daughter of the regent Kujo Kanezane, and cannot forget her despite the mountain's strict teachings against attachment. Convinced that his own desires make him unworthy of salvation, Shinran leaves Hiei and encounters Honen, a teacher who offers a path that does not demand becoming free of human weakness first. Between his spiritual search and his feelings for Tamahi, Shinran begins moving toward the answer that will define his life.