 In East Asian Pure Land tradition, this royal “tragedy of the capital of Rājagṛha,” where Sakyamuni often resided and preached, was understood to indicate that the Pure Land teaching was intended for ordinary, unenlightened beings in anguished circumstances, rather than for a capable spiritual elite. Shinran emphasizes the distance between this world and the realm of enlightenment by asserting that at the point in history when conditions were ripe for teaching and reception of the Pure Land path, the entire drama of regicide and betrayal was played out by incarnated bodhisattvas precisely to allow for the introduction of the Pure Land teaching. It is, therefore, the condition of self-reflection and repentance that allows for the reception of the Pure Land teaching. As we have seen, for the Pure Land tradition that Hōnen adopted from China, this motif is reiterated in the sutra narrative of the lowest grade of nembutsu practitioner, who has committed evil throughout his life but encounters the teaching through a good friend on his deathbed and simply utters Amida’s name ten times.