Mina hito o watasamu to omou kokoro koso gokuraku e yuku shirube narikere - Senzai Wakashu(English Translation & Meaning)

皆人を渡さむと思ふ心こそ
極楽へ行くしるべなりけれ

Roma-ji: Mina hito o watasamu to omou kokoro koso gokuraku e yuku shirube narikere
English Translation: The heart that longs
to carry all people across,
that heart, I find,
is the guide that shows the way
to the land of paradise
Meaning: It is the heart that longs to carry every person across to the far shore that is the true guide on the way to paradise.
Commentary: Book Nineteen Buddhist Poems 1255

Headnote: "Composed as a poem of instruction when I wrote the order of service for the Rebirth Lecture"
He composed this as a poem of instruction when he wrote the order of service for the lecture meeting held to pray for rebirth in paradise. The heart that longs to carry all people across is the guide on the way to paradise, he says. It teaches the compassion of the Great Vehicle: not praying for one's own rebirth alone, but the heart that seeks to save every person is what leads one oneself to paradise.
The author, "Vinaya Master Yōkan," was a monk of the late Heian period who studied at Tōdaiji and lived at Zenrinji in Kyoto, spreading the nembutsu. Zenrinji is also called Eikandō, and he wrote the Ōjōkōshiki among other works.
This poem closes the book. Where the opening poem, 1202, laments a body forever wandering through the sorrowful world, this poem closes the book by teaching that the heart wishing to carry all people across is the guide to paradise, so a book that began in the grief of rebirth ends on the path to birth in the Pure Land. The closing poem of Book Eighteen, 1201, likewise says that devotion leads to paradise, so the ends of both books point the way to paradise.

First line, "mina hito o": "all people."
Second line, "watasamu to omou": a line of eight syllables, one over the count. "Watasu" means to carry beings across from the shore of delusion to the shore of enlightenment. Where "wataru to ya" in the third line of 1227 in this book sings of one seen as crossing the bitter sea alone, this poem sings of the heart that would carry all people across.
Third line, "kokoro koso": "koso," an emphatic binding particle, closes with the perfective form "kere" in the fifth line.
Fourth line, "gokuraku e yuku": "Gokuraku" is Amida's Pure Land in the west, the same word as "Gokuraku wa" in the first line of 1201, the closing poem of Book Eighteen.
Fifth line, "shirube narikere": "shirube" means a guide on the way, and "kere," the perfective form of the exclamatory "keri," closes the binding.
Author: Yōkan
Source: Senzai Wakashu
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