Shoju and Shakubuku

Nichiren Shonin spoke of one other practice required of Buddhists: to express compassion and gratitude to our fellow humans; this is propagation of the teachings of the Lotus Sutra. There are two forms of propagation, shoju and shakubuku. Shoju means gentle persuasion, and is used to describe the propagation of one who sets a good example. People are naturally drawn to such a person and seek to emulate him or her. However, the means that Nichiren Shonin advocated for his time and for the Declining Age of the Dharma in general is shakubuku, which means to break and subdue. However, this does not mean subduing people, being rude and dogmatic, or breaking violently. Instead, this simply means to speak the truth about the primary effectiveness of the Lotus Sutra and to speak truthfully about the deficiencies of other teachings. This does not mean attacking people with an attitude of insulting their beliefs; Nichiren Shonin says that the correct form of shakubuku is shown in the example of Bodhisattva Never Despise in Chapter Twenty of the Lotus Sutra.

Awakening to the Lotus