Faith (shin) is the working of one’s emotions, and discernment (ge) that of one’s reason. Though people often say that a religion or faith ought to be believed in instead of argued about, it is very dangerous to believe blindly in a religion without having any knowledge of it. If this religion is a worthless or wrong teaching, blind belief will result in not only ruining ourselves but also exerting an extremely harmful influence on our families and on society in general.

Even if a religion is a good teaching, as long as we believe in it blindly our faith is liable to be easily shaken by circumstances. Let us suppose that one believes that he will recover from a disease or that his circumstances will improve if only he has faith in a particular religion, without understanding its teachings. He does recover from his illness, believing that his cure is due to his religion, but he suffers a relapse and then begins to doubt. Suppose that then his son fails his university-entrance examination; the father forsakes the faith to which he has so firmly adhered regardless of others’ opinions. This kind of thing is a common occurrence.

This kind of faith is not a firm faith in the true sense of the term but merely a narrow faith. A true religion can always be understood through reason; this kind of understanding is called discernment.

Next the recompense of the various sins of slandering the Law are mentioned. What we must pay special attention to here is that such recompense is not meted out by the Buddha as a punishment. The Buddha does not have this kind of relationship with man. Because he is the truth that gives life to all things in the universe, it is hardly possible that he would perform an action running counter to man’s life, such as letting him fall into hell or letting him become an animal or a deformed person. Who brings such punishment on man? Needless to say, man brings it upon himself. His own illusion brings it upon him. Illusion is like a dark cloud that covers our intrinsic buddha-nature. When the light of our buddha-nature is covered with illusions, darkness arises in our minds and various unpleasant things happen to us. This state is the punishment that we have meted to ourselves. If we blow away the dark clouds of our own illusions, our buddha-nature will immediately begin to shine forth. Therefore we have nothing to fear in the Buddha. We must keep firmly in mind and truly believe that the Buddha is that which enlivens all beings at all times.

The book Buddhism by Christmas Humphreys has been widely read in the West. The author, a distinguished English lawyer and also a devout Buddhist, wrote in his preface: “Indeed, by the usual tests, Buddhism is not a religion so much as a spiritual philosophy whose attitude to life is as cool and objective as that of the modern scientist. But it lives, it lives tremendously. …” We cannot help admiring the fact that Mr. Humphreys, a Westerner, has grasped the essence of Buddhism with such accuracy. Indeed, he may have been enabled to understand Buddhism in its true and pure state because he was born and bred in England, which has no tradition of Buddhism.

When we reconsider the teaching of the Law of Appearance in the Lotus Sutra, we realize that though Buddhism is indeed a religion in one respect, … at the same time, with Christmas Humphreys, we can say that Buddhism is a great system of philosophy and ethics.

Philosophy is the science of the study of this world, human life, and the fundamental principles of things. Ethics is the path of duty. The teaching of the Lotus Sutra that we have studied so far may be tentatively summed up as philosophy and ethics. However, when we thoroughly investigate the teaching of the Lotus Sutra, the most profound teaching of the Buddha, we realize that it is also the teaching of a religion that enables us to be saved from our mental suffering, something which cannot be accomplished by learning alone, making human life brighter and leading the world toward peace.

All living beings can enter the Buddha-way from any point: from worshiping the buddhas’ relics, from building stupas and memorials, from building temples and shrines to the buddhas in the wilderness, or even from heaping sand in play to form a buddha’s stupa. All living beings can enter the Buddha-way by doing anything good. As they increasingly strive after virtue and develop the great mind of benevolence, they finally become buddhas.

The One-vehicle means: All people can become buddhas. The enlightenment obtained by śrāvakas, pratyekabuddhas, and bodhisattvas alike is one by which they become buddhas, and it is the same in origin. Some can obtain the enlightenment of a śrāvaka and others can obtain that of a pratyekabuddhahood. Both aspects of enlightenment are gates to the Buddha knowledge.

This is allegorically explained as follows: A person who has entered this gate cannot enter the inner room of the Buddha-knowledge until he has first passed through the porch of the bodhisattva practice. At the same time, it cannot be said that the gate and the porch are not both included within the residence of the Buddha. However, if a person stays at the gate, he will be drenched when it rains and chilled when it snows. “All of you, come into the inner room of the Buddha’s residence. The eastern gate, the western gate, and the porch, all are entrances that lead to the inner room of the Buddha-knowledge.” This is the meaning of the Buddha’s words, “Besides the One Buddha-vehicle, there is neither a second vehicle nor a third. I have shown the existence of these two vehicles by my tactful power. There is only one true goal for all.”

The law “Nirvana is quiescence” teaches us that we can completely extinguish all the sufferings of human life and obtain peace and quietude when we destroy all illusions. How can we reach this state? The only way is to realize the two laws “All things are impermanent,” and “Nothing has an ego.”

The reason we worry about various kinds of sufferings is that we forget that all phenomena in this world are impermanent, that all things continuously change according to the law of cause and effect; we are deluded by phenomena and influenced by considerations of immediate gain or loss. If we study the way to buddhahood and by practicing it realize the truth of the impermanence of all things, we become able to attain a state of peace and quietude in which we can never be swayed by shifting circumstances. This is the state of “Nirvana is quiescence.”

The Buddha’s teachings instruct us that sin and evil did not originally exist in this world. They are due to the cessation of the proper progress of human life or the return to a wrong course. Therefore, the moment we abandon such negative uses of energy, that is, as soon as we are free from illusion, evil disappears and the world of the light of the brilliant rays of the Buddha is revealed before us. Our “non-advance,” our “non-approach” to the Buddha, is sin and evil because such action is contrary to the proper course of human life.

From the selfish point of view of ego, we think that we can do as we like so long as we are prepared to accept the consequences of our actions, and we ask only to be left alone and not be interfered with by others. However, such an attitude is a fundamental error because our lives are related in some way to the lives of all others, so that the evil produced by one per son inevitably exerts an influence upon other people somewhere, and the negligence of one person is sure to prevent others from advancing. If we understand this, we can be spiritually awakened to the fact that our own stagnation or retrogression hinders others, so that we determine to advance upward bit by bit. This is the true spirit of the law that nothing has an ego, and this is the reason why the true spirit of Buddhism consists in constant endeavor.