Quotes

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Overthrowing The Abstract

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Asai Yōrin‘s locating of Nichiren in opposition to medieval Tendai was explicitly extended to the other Kamakura founders by one of his disciples, Shigyō Kaishū (1907-1968). …

Where, according to Shigyō, medieval Tendai simply declared that the defilements are expressions of original enlightenment just as they are (jinen hongaku), in Dōgen’s thought, original enlightenment is mediated by practice and self-awakening, and in Shinran’s thought, by the relinquishing of egotistical reliance on one’s own efforts (jiriki). In addition, where medieval Tendai thought had taught contemplation of the mind of ordinary persons, the new Kamakura schools stressed faith in the enlightenment of the Buddha.

Similar statements have continued to emerge from the Nichiren Shū academic circle based at Risshō University and appear to represent a certain orthodoxy. Asai Endō, for example, writing twenty years after Shigyō, claims that medieval Tendai stressed only the Buddhahood inherent in ordinary people and “disregarded even [the stage of] hearing the Dharma and embracing it with faith,” which he terms “a confusion of theory and practice, a pernicious equality.” Its insistence on the identity of ordinary persons with an originally enlightened Buddha “became an empty theory divorced from the times,” unable to bring about positive spiritual results in an age of turmoil accompanying the rise of the warrior class. “The founders of the new Kamakura Buddhism left Mount Hiei, weary of this kind of Buddhist thought that gave priority to theory, being divorced from reality. Therefore, while Hōnen, Shinran, Dōgen, and Nichiren each have their own unique religious qualities, they are all alike in the point of having resolved to overthrow abstract theory.” (Page 71-72)

Original Enlightenment and the Transformation of Medieval Japanese Buddhism


Profound

The Poison That Kills Ignorance

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Chih-i cites another allegory from the twenty-seventh chapter in the Nirvāṇa sūtra:

“It is like someone who puts poison in milk that can kill people, even the flavor of ghee can also kill people.”

This allegory is used for the purpose of illustrating that the Buddha nature is everywhere, and that all positions of the Perfect Teaching are equally significant, seeing that one can realize truth at any one of these stages. Chih-i analogizes fresh milk with the mind of an ignorant man, and poison with the knowledge of the Ultimate Truth. Poison can perish a life. Similarly, knowledge of the Ultimate Truth that is symbolized by poison possesses power to destroy ignorance. Chih-i points out that like poison, knowledge of the Ultimate Truth is always right here embedded in the mind of an ignorant man. This provides an underlying meaning of uncertainty, viz. it is not certain whether or not poison might start to break out in any given moment. Since the Five Flavors are filled with poison, all of them can kill. This means that a person can attain knowledge of the Buddha in any one of these given stages without having to go through each of them gradually. (Vol. 2, Page 232-233)

The Profound Meaning of the Lotus Sutra: Tien-tai Philosophy of Buddhism


Lotus Seeds

The Middle Way

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The Truth of the Middle Way is the teaching that Emptiness and Provisionality are different ways of pointing out that the reality of anything, including our own lives, transcends the categories of existence and non-existence. From the point of view of Emptiness, things do not exist as separate or permanent. From the point of view or Provisionality, things do exist for a time in accord with the law of cause and effect. The Middle Way recognizes thal both points of view are true and have their place.

Lotus Seeds

original

The Original Purity Of Nichiren’s Doctrine

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For Asai Yōrin, hongaku thought was a defilement that had to be removed if the original purity of Nichiren’s doctrine were to be restored. He was vehement about its corruptive tendencies. The kanjin style of interpretation that it fostered had contributed not only to a decline in faithful scholarly exegesis, he said, but also to the degeneracy of monks who took advantage of the decline of imperial authority in the Insei period to flaunt their power. “From the outset, the original enlightenment doctrine of medieval Tendai actually spurred on corruption.” Asai saw its claim that “the worldly passions are enlightenment” as serving to rationalize widespread monastic license in the Muromachi period, such as descents from Mt. Hiei on nightly pleasure-seeking forays or homosexual relations with male novices (chigo). Nichiren, he argued, had stressed text-based exegesis, not subjective interpretation; the primordial Buddha of the Lotus Sūtra was for him a transcendent object of faith, not equated with the mind of deluded beings. In short, Nichiren’s thought was not to be grasped within the same frame as medieval Tendai, which was permeated throughout by the very Mikkyō that Nichiren had so bitterly criticized. (Page 70)

Original Enlightenment and the Transformation of Medieval Japanese Buddhism


Profound

Attaining Ghee

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With regard to the five flavors that are used to analogize five levels of the position of the Perfect Teaching, Chih-i cites an allegory from the Nirvāṇa Sūtra:

“In the Snow Mountains, there is a type of grass named ‘enduring humility.’ If a cow eats the grass, it immediately attains ghee.” “The cow is analogous with an ignorant man, and the grass is analogous with the Eightfold Correct Path. [If one] can cultivate the Eightfold Correct Path, [one] instantaneously perceives the Buddha-nature, which is called the attainment of ghee. This is analogous with the Perfect Teaching, with which [one] walks on the wide and straight road and observes that all sentient beings are identical to the characteristic of Nirvāṇa, which can no longer be extinguished.”

By quoting the Nirvāṇa Sūtra, Chih-i intends to say that the bodhisattva of the Perfect Teaching does not need to go through the first four stages of flavor before he can directly arrive at the final stage of ghee. This is an expression of the superiority of the Perfect Teaching. Chih-i affirms that there are four subtleties that constitute the Perfect Teaching and can be drawn from this analogy. (i) The fact that the cow can instantly attain the ghee as truth through eating grass signifies that the conception of truth of the Perfect Teaching is ultimate. Thus, the grass of acquiescence (Jents ‘ao) is the metaphor for the Subtlety of Objects (Ching-miao). (ii) The attainment of liberation as the result of the cow eating grass suggests that the cow is the metaphor for the Subtlety of Knowledge (Chih-miao) that penetrates truth. (iii) The fact that the actualization of liberation is due to the action of eating grass indicates that this action of eating is used as the metaphor for the Subtlety of Practice (Hsing-miao). (iv) Finally, ghee is used as the metaphor for the Subtlety of Positions (Weimiao). (Vol. 2, Page 232)

The Profound Meaning of the Lotus Sutra: Tien-tai Philosophy of Buddhism


original

Nichiren And Original Enlightenment Thought

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Such studies were pioneered by the Nichiren Shū scholar Asai Yōrin (1883-1942), who aimed at recovering a “pure” Nichiren doctrine based on “scientific” investigation of the canon and the identification and elimination of apocryphal texts. Asai’s findings, which he began to publish in the 1930s, were startling and revisionist. He pointed out that, of the works traditionally attributed to Nichiren that deal with original enlightenment thought, most do not exist in Nichiren’s autograph or in transcriptions made by his immediate disciples, nor do they appear in the earliest indices of his writings. Moreover, they employ terminology and concepts that, while common to medieval Tendai oral transmission texts, appear only infrequently or not at all in those of Nichiren’s writings whose authenticity can be verified. Maeda, Shimaji, and Uesugi were in error, Asai declared, because they had assumed that the essence of Nichiren’s doctrine was expressed by writings in his corpus reflecting the influence of medieval Tendai hongaku thought. In fact, Asai argued, these writings were not Nichiren’s work at all but the forgeries of later disciples who, influenced by their study on Mt. Hiei or at Tendai seminaries in eastern Japan, had incorporated hongaku thought into their understanding of Nichiren’s teaching. Even if some of these texts should conceivably be Nichiren’s writings, they did not represent his “primary thought,” as expressed in his two major treatises, which Asai held should be normative: the Kaimoku shō (Opening of the eyes) and the Kanjin honzon shō (The contemplation of the mind and the object of worship). While presenting itself as objective and scientific, Asai’s argument proved a timely and effective weapon in defending Nichiren against the charge of being derivative of medieval Tendai. (Page 68-70)

Original Enlightenment and the Transformation of Medieval Japanese Buddhism


Profound

Relative And Ultimate Teachings

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Chih-i offers an explanation for his preference of the position of the Perfect Teaching over those of the other three teachings in terms of the Relative and the Ultimate. The relative teachings contain two characteristics. First, they are not upright rivers and are winding and roundabout, considering that the Buddha did not directly express his true intention of guiding beings to attain Buddhahood in relative teachings. Second, the relative teachings serve to suit the dispositions of sentient beings (Sui-ch’ing) like all forests that must have trees. By means of presenting the Three Vehicles (śrāvaka, pratyekabuddha, and bodhisattva), the Buddha uses the relative teaching to mature sentient beings so that they will be able to eventually receive the Perfect Teaching, and enter the One Buddha-vehicle. Obviously, the relative positions, which are represented by three kinds of herbal grass and two kinds of tree, are not ultimate, and have to be abolished. The ultimate positions, which are represented by the Perfect Teaching, are analogous with “the great river [named] Golden Sand that flows straight into the Western Sea” and are analogous with “all golden and silver trees that are part of precious forest.” Since these positions are not winding (i.e., entailing no expedient purpose), but straightforward (i.e., direct attainment of the Ultimate Truth), they are not to be abolished. In addition, from the point of view of integrating the three relative teachings (i.e., Tripiṭaka, Common and Separate) with the one ultimate teaching (i.e., Perfect Teaching), positions of the former teachings should be abolished, and positions of the latter teaching should not be abolished. In other words, since the One Vehicle of Buddhahood is the result of an integration of the Three Vehicles, these three no longer need to exist, but this One Buddha-vehicle is necessary to remain. (Vol. 2, Page 228)

The Profound Meaning of the Lotus Sutra: Tien-tai Philosophy of Buddhism


Basics

Complete Tranquillity

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If the existence of the ordinary mortal is one of suffering, the state of the enlightened sage, whose delusions have been eliminated, is the complete tranquility of nirvana. In his first sermon, the Buddha described nirvana as “the utter passionless cessation of, the giving up of, the forsaking of, the release from, the absence of longing for this craving.” Craving represents all the obstructions, including ignorance, that hinder the realization of the ideal state. Nirvana is the state in which all obstructions have been eliminated and one can function in accord with the ideal.
Basic Buddhist Concepts

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Tendai Vs. Nichirenist Hongaku Thought

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Applied to the issue of distinguishing between medieval Tendai and Nichirenist versions of hongaku thought, however, the ri/ji distinction became not a contrasting of two modes of practice, as Nichiren had used the terms, but a distinction of theory and practice. An example concerned medieval Tendai versus Nichirenist readings of the “original Buddha” (honbutsu) of the sixteenth or “Fathoming the Lifespan of the Tathāgata” chapter of the Lotus Sūtra, enlightened since the unimaginably remote past. For medieval Tendai thinkers, this Buddha was the “Tathāgata of original enlightenment” who is equated with the cosmos or dharma realm itself; the sūtra’s revelation of his “original attainment” of Buddhahood countless kalpas ago was no more than a revelation in principle (ri kenpon), a skillful means or metaphor to show that all beings are enlightened from the outset. Such an interpretation, the Nichiren scholars argued, reduced the eternal Buddha of the Lotus Sūtra to no more than an abstract Dharma body (Skt. dharmakāya, Jpn. hosshin) or truth as principle; in their reading, the “original attainment” was actual (ji kenpon) and emphasized the centrality, among the Buddha’s three bodies, of the “reward body” (sawbhogakāya, hōjin), the Buddha wisdom acquired through practice by which the Dharma is realized. Tendai original enlightenment thought was accordingly characterized as a mere theoretical, abstract statement that beings are inherently enlightened by nature (jinen hongaku), while Nichiren’s teaching was presented as the, actualization of inherent enlightenment through faith and practice (shikaku soku hon aku). (Page 58)

Original Enlightenment and the Transformation of Medieval Japanese Buddhism


Profound

Abolishing The Tripiṭaka, Common and Separate Teaching

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With regard to the abandonment of the position of the Tripiṭaka Teaching, Chih-i says that the Tripiṭaka Teaching is intended for the practitioner to get rid of evil and to aspire for wholesomeness. If his wholesomeness is established, the doctrine of this teaching should be abolished for the sake of motivating the practitioner to continue to pursue his practice. Along with the abandonment of the doctrine of the Tripiṭaka Teaching, its practice and position should be abandoned as well.

With regard to the abandonment of the position of the Common Teaching, Chih-i denotes that the Common Teaching is intended for the person not to remain satisfied with the perception of emptiness. As the truth of emptiness is only a partial truth, the practitioner should continue to perceive no-emptiness (e.g. provisional existence). From this point of view, the doctrine of the Common Teaching, along with its knowledge, practice and position, should be abolished.

With regard to the abandonment of the position of the Separate Teaching, Chih-i asserts that the Separate Teaching is intended for the bodhisattva to destroy delusions of lacking innumerable knowledge of saving beings. When this task is fulfilled, the teaching is complete, whereby the position of the Separate Teaching should be demolished. In addition, Chih-i states that another reason for the abandonment of the Separate Teaching is that the Separate Teaching still expresses the word of other’s mind to suit the inclination of beings. To be specific, Chih-i stresses that all practices and positions before the Ten Stages should be abolished. However, the position of the Ten Stages and the position of the Buddha should not be abandoned (if speaking in terms of attainment of the Buddhahood), and should be abandoned (if speaking in terms of different levels of attainment). Finally, for the sake of establishing the position of the Perfect Teaching, the position of the Separate Teaching should be abandoned.

With regard to the position of the Perfect Teaching, Chih-i affirms that as all eight positions of the Perfect Teaching are true positions which are not the result of the expedient teaching, but rather, derived directly from the ultimate teaching that expresses the word of the Buddha’s own mind, they do not have to be abolished.