The book A Phrase A Day includes this short quote from Nichiren’s Tsuchi-ro Gosho:
Tomorrow, I (Nichiren) will be exiled to Sado Island. In this cold evening, I am thinking of you in the cold dungeon.
My thought is that you have read and practiced the Lotus Sutra with your heart and action, which would save your parents, brothers, sisters, relatives, ancestors, and everyone around you. Other people read the sutra vocally without feeling in their hearts. Even though they might read it with their heart, they do not experience it as the sutra teaches. Compared with them, you are very precious since you are practicing the sutra in your actions, voices, and spirit.
That letter was written by Nichiren in 1271. Today, at the beginning of 2026, what does it mean to practice the Lotus Sutra “in your actions, voices, and spirit”?
During a group discussion following a Sunday service with Rev. Ryuei McCormick’s Nichiren Buddhist Sangha of the San Francisco Bay Area I expressed my unease with today’s focus of personal practice in Nichiren Buddhism. I didn’t express myself well. I couldn’t put into words what was bothering me.
Reading The Sixth Patriarch’s Dharma Jewel Platform Sutra pointed in the general direction of what I feel is the missing component of Nichiren Buddhism. As Rev. Heng Sure and Professor Martin Verhoeven explain in their Translators’ Introduction:
The Sixth Patriarch's Dharma Jewel Platform Sutra, pxx-xxiAccording to the Sixth Patriarch, the Dharma teachings are something to be used (yong用), applied and tested. Indeed, for the Master, the Way must be walked, or it is not the Way. The dao/Way elucidated by the Sixth Patriarch is not a religious doctrine, nor an ontological or metaphysical Truth, nor even a faith to espouse. The Chinese character for the Way (dao 道) denotes movement, literally ‘walking’ (是,辶), suggesting the Way is existentially real, found underfoot. As the word implies, a ‘path’ is for walking, and reveals itself only in and through the traversing of it, in vivo not a priori. Confucius may have been hinting at something similar in saying, “It is the person that can make the Way great, and not the Way that can make the person great.” (Analects 15:28)
Thus the Way is discovered concretely, not surmised abstractly. Stationary, there appears to be no Way, but as soon as one walks, the road appears. Hence the saying, “From afar, the mountain appears unscalable, but when you get to the bottom of the mountain, there is always a way.” This point cannot be overemphasized: without ‘walking’ there is no Way. Without serious and sincere engagement, the true path falls away and disappears from sight; or perhaps worse, descends into a dead end of clever debate, (ko tou chan口頭禪; lit. ‘head-mouth zen’).
How do we use the Lotus Sutra in our daily lives? How do we avoid the clever debate outside and realize concretely the way to Buddhahood in our lives?
Again Rev. Sure and Professor Verhoeven explain:
The Sixth Patriarch's Dharma Jewel Platform Sutra, pxxxv-xxxviThe Dharma comes alive only in the actual taking up of the practice of “going back to the root; returning to the source” (yong 用). Practice activates meaning; cultivation and understanding mutually respond. Without serious practice, insight recedes and dims. The texts can then seem meaningless and obscure, or become ritualized cant and doctrinal abstraction (ti體). The philosophical purpose of a sutra is to stimulate and guide a journey. The sutra is a map to be opened up and referenced again and again while traversing what otherwise might be terra incognita – the unfamiliar land of one’s own mind. As The Dhammapada points out:
No one frees you but yourself.
No one can, and no one may.
You yourself must walk the Path:
Buddhas only show the way.Time and again, the Master urges his followers not to seek outside their own nature for bodhi. Any external grasping, even at that teaching itself, is pointless because “basically there’s not one thing” (ben lai wu yi wu 本來無一物). Hence, all teachings can only serve as upaya (fang bian方便) or liberative techniques.
In Nichiren’s letter, Shō Hokke Daimoku-shō, Treatise on Chanting the Daimoku of the Lotus Sūtra, he writes:
QUESTION: What should a believer of the Lotus Sūtra regard as the Honzon (the Most Venerable One)? How should one perform the Buddhist rites and practice daily training?
ANSWER: First of all, the Honzon could be eight fascicles, one fascicle, one chapter or the title alone of the Lotus Sūtra. This is preached in the “Teacher of the Dharma” and “Divine Powers of the Buddhas” chapters. Those who can afford to may have the portraits or wooden statues of Śākyamuni Buddha and the Buddha of Many Treasures made and placed on both sides of the Lotus Sutra. Those who can further afford to may make the portraits or wooden statues of various Buddhas all over the universe or Universal Sage Bodhisattva. As for the manner of performing the rites, standing or sitting practices must be observed in front of the Honzon. Outside the hall of practice, however, one is free to choose any of the four modes of acts: walking, standing, sitting and lying down. Next, regarding the daily practices, the daimoku of the Lotus Sūtra should be chanted, “Namu Myōhō Renge Kyō.” If possible, a verse or phrase of the Lotus Sūtra should respectfully be read. As an auxiliary practice one may say a prayer to Śākyamuni Buddha, the Buddha of Many Treasures, the numerous Buddhas throughout the universe, various bodhisattvas, Two Vehicles, Heavenly Kings, dragon gods, the eight kinds of gods and demigods who protect Buddhism as one wishes. Since we have many ignorant people today, the “3,000 existences contained in one thought” doctrine may be difficult to contemplate from the beginning. Nevertheless, those who wish to study it are encouraged to do so from the start.
Writings of Nichiren Shōnin, Faith and Practice,
Volume 4, Page 20
The Sixth Patriarch, in discussing the practice of chanting maha-prajña-paramita, points out the trouble with mindlessly chanting.
The Sixth Patriarch's Dharma Jewel Platform Sutra, p23-24Good and Wise Friends, people chant “prajña” all day long without realizing the prajña of their own essential nature. Just as talking about food will not satisfy hunger, so too only talking about emptiness, even for myriad eons, will give you no insight into your own nature – ultimately it is of no benefit.
Good and Wise Friends, Maha-prajña-paramita is a Sanskrit phrase which means “great wisdom that goes to the other shore.” This must be practiced with the mind; not merely recited by the mouth.
Verbal repetition without mental cultivation is like a fantasy, a hallucination, like dew drops and a lightning flash. If, however, while the mouth recites, the mind practices, then both mind and mouth are in accord. One’s own essential nature is Buddha; apart from this nature there is no other Buddha.
When I sit in front of my altar and recite Hoben Pon and Jiga Ge before my Mandala Gohonzon, I fight to maintain my attention. As my mind wanders, I slip into rote recitation. I struggle to make reciting the sutra and chanting the Daimoku meaningful in my life. How do I apply this?
The Translators’ Introduction offers this reply:
The Sixth Patriarch's Dharma Jewel Platform Sutra, pxxiii-xxivIn the mind-ground approach of the Sixth Patriarch, the scriptures of sutras, shastras, and vinaya (the ‘three baskets, or Tripitaka) are to be used, not simply worshipped. Translating Dharma (fa法) as “Law” completely misses this key point: the Dharma teachings are tools for self-discovery, not canonical writ. They are intended as mirrors of and for the human mind, as catalysts for change, not merely as icons of devotion or incantatory prayer.
The Sixth Patriarch’s Dharma Jewel Platform Sutra
The Practice
NEXT: Practice Beyond Reciting
Seeking the Pure Land in the Wrong Place
Our Inherent Buddha Nature
