This is another in a series of daily articles concerning Kishio Satomi's book, "Japanese Civilization; Its Significance and Realization; Nichirenism and the Japanese National Principles," which details the foundations of Chigaku Tanaka's interpretation of Nichiren Buddhism and Japan's role in the early 20th century.
The concept of Ichinen Sanzen is incorporated in Kishio Satomi’s Nichirenism.
Nichirenism and the Japanese National Principles, p34-37In the chapter “Introduction” in the Hokekyo, the significant purport of the preaching of the Scripture is stated in idealized words. He afterwards elucidated the true value of human nature as it is for the first time in the second chapter. It is the unique theory and is different from all other Scriptures. The few essential lines of it are:
“The Law which Buddha attained to perfection is most rare and difficult to understand. None but between a Buddha and a Buddha truth of reality is unravelled. It is what I call Such Forms, Such Natures, Such Bodies, Such Powers, Such Functions, Such Dynamic Causes, Such Static Causes, Such Effects, Such Retributions and Such Consummate and Consistent Unities of Origin and End of all Beings ” (Yamakawa, p. 42 ; see Kern, p. 32).
According to Tendai this doctrine is termed “Mutual Participation of the Ten Worlds,” that is to say, Buddha classified human nature into ten worlds from Buddha to Hell. The possibility of the approximation of every being to the mortal Buddha was not admitted in any previous Scriptures, while in the Hokekyo it became clear that every being has the nature of Buddha or the divine essence in his very soul. So, if he looks within himself for his hidden treasure, namely the intrinsic value of personality, and leads it to realization, then he can make himself Buddha. Because these ten worlds participate in one another ten times ten. Hence the theory of “Mutual Participation.” If so, why such different worlds? Tendai and Nichiren explained it by “Tenfold Suchness,” Japanese technic “Jūnyo,” i.e. ten categories like the following :
- Form or Essence (So).
- Nature or Attribute (Sho).
- Body or Manifestation (Tai).
- Energy or Power or Potency (Riki),
- Movement or Function (Sa).
- Dynamic Cause (In).
- Statistic Cause (En).
- Effect (Kwa),
- Retribution or Compensation (Ho)
- Consummate and Consistent Unity of Origin and End (Hon-mats Kukyō Tow).
This causality or mutuality, “Tenfold Suchness of Reality,” shows the differences as such ten worlds. Each of the ten interrelated to each, and make a hundredfold worlds, and if each of these has the interrelation with “Tenfold Suchness,” then “A Thousandfold Suchness” and again if it is correlated with “Three States of the Body and Spirit,” we then have “Three Thousandfold worlds.” The Three States of the body and spirit (Japanese, San Seken, i.e, three kinds of the world) are nothing but another view of the world in Buddhism. This is shown in the following table :
- All living creatures.
- Earth or Land.
- Five accumulated essences of the human body.
1. Substance.
2. Perception.
3. Conception.
4. Action.
5. Knowledge.It is wonderful that all these worlds are inherent in our minds; and this doctrine is termed “Ichinen Sanzen,” meaning “Three thousand Worlds inherent in one person.”
This theory is given special emphasis in Kishio Satomi’s Nichirenism.
Nichirenism and the Japanese National Principles, p79The theory of the Tenfold Suchness in the Hokekyo … guides the principle of the Mutual Participation. According to it, all beings have all the natures and tendencies of their various personal characters innately. Real Suchness, the truth of the universe, exists in such a phenomenon. Reality and phenomena are inseparable. But if there is no one who keeps the truth, then the truth or the law is equal to nothing. However high and sublime the Supreme Being may be, if we ourselves do not enter the ideal of it, and do not realize in our own lives its principle and form, it is just an idol and our existence worthless.
Therefore, all the beings, Buddha and man, saint and layman, must be united under the fundamental primeval virtues of the supreme principle of our lives.
For Satomi mutual participation encompasses both good and evil.
Nichirenism and the Japanese National Principles, p76According to the principle of Mutual Participation, all natures are inherent in our mind a Priori, in other words, from God-nature to Satan-nature inhere in us. Therefore even the Buddha or God has quite naturally an evil nature or hellish mind; Buddha is Buddha because He cultivated Himself and He enlightened all hellish natures and made them refined. So also can we redeem evil-natured people. If there is no element of Satan or hell or evil or that sort of thing in God or Buddha, He is a mere spiritual cripple. How can He redeem evil natures? The conception of Sin must not be dramatized by mythology. Sin co-exists with divine nature in man and in God. But the difference between man and God depends on their effect for the enlightenment of natures. Thus, if we awake in our valuable nature and realize that its value continues everlastingly, in other words, from moment to eternity, from man to God, then we can recognize the true significance of lives. The doctrine of the Sacred Title is shown thus briefly.
Satomi’s Nichirenism embraces the unity of opposites.
Nichirenism and the Japanese National Principles, p82Keeping this in view it will be easy to understand that Nichiren’s idea consisted in “Coincidentia oppositorum” [unity of opposite] and “Synthetic union.” According to him, all beings on the one side are a mass of lust, but nevertheless they are, on the other side, Buddha in nature or Buddha in substance. Therefore, if they would self-awaken to their true value and strain every nerve to get near their intrinsic Buddhahood, significant lives would be established. For that reason he divided the Buddha into two kinds, viz. Buddha-in-Nature and Buddha-in-Realization. The former corresponds to normal man and the latter means Buddha himself. Besides, all beings from the Buddha to Hell or from man to all lower animate creatures are united in the highest principle, that is to say, Myōhōrengekyō.
Satomi’s discussion of lust might be problematic for some. Still, taken in the context of the Ichinen Sanzen, this is hardly controversial.
Nichiren, moreover, intended to solve the problem of the relation between God and man. If the evil is denied, then goodness must be denied as a matter of course. There is no God outside of our lust, nor divine thing except our nature. Because our nature is existence as a whole, as is shown in the doctrine of the Mutual Participation. Therefore if our lust were annihilated divine nature would then also be nonexistent. From such a point of view he did not adopt Stoicism or asceticism, while on the other hand he did not admit secularism or vulgarism. With regard to this, he asserted that we must spiritualize lust and instinct, but not exterminate them.
Lust will turn into divine power if we spiritualize it. Let lust be divine power, let evil be goodness and let the wicked perform divine action: therein Nichiren’s thought lies. Once he writes to Shijo Kingo, a warrior, as under:
“Even when in the act of sexual intercourse if one devoted oneself to the Sacred Title, lust would be supreme signification and ‘Life and Death is Nirvana’ would be found in it ” (Works, p. 853).
He writes again to him :
“Utter Namu-Myōhōrengekyō’ even while drinking wine in company with your wife. Don’t let the heart suffer, don’t indulge in any pleasure. Be happy to utter the Sacred Title when fortune favors you or during the time of misfortune. Is it not the enjoyment of your own faith of the Hokekyo? ” (Works, Pe 711).
Thus did he teach his disciples, with views which totally differ from the Hinayana Buddhists’ view of Nirvana. Therefore such an excellent law of the Sacred Title was declared to Honge Jogyo from Buddha Shakyamuni in the Hokekyo for the purpose of propaganda in the beginning of the Latter Law.
Nichirenism and the Japanese National Principles, p74-75
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