Category Archives: WONS

WONS

A Mandala for the Protection of a Young Child

I am granting a mandala for the protection of your very young child. This good-luck charm is the essence of the Lotus Sūtra, the primary object of all the scriptures of Buddhism. For instance, it is like the sun and the moon in the heaven, a great king on the earth, the heart of a human being, a wish-fulfilling gem among treasures, or the pillar that supports and upholds a house.

When we keep this mandala with us, all the Buddhas and deities together keep their watchful eyes on us to protect us day and night without fail just as samurai protect their king, parents love their children, water gives fish life, rain waters plants, and trees provide shelter for birds. Keep your firm faith. Gracious indeed.

Myōshin-ama Gozen Gohenji, A Response to My Lady, the Nun Myōshin Writings of Nichiren Shōnin, Volume 7, Followers II, Pages 105

2buddhas, WONS

True vs. Provisional

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Nichiren saw the Lotus Sūtra as all-encompassing, containing the whole of Buddhist truth within itself. All other sūtras reveal but partial aspects of that truth. Or, in Tendai terminology, the Lotus Sūtra is “true,” while all other sūtras are “provisional.” What this meant for Nichiren in practical terms was that the Lotus Sūtra alone enables all persons without exception to become buddhas. Nichiren grounded this claim in the “three thousand realms in a single thought-moment” (ichinen sanzen) a principle first articulated by Zhiyi. … In essence, this principle means that at each moment the smallest phenomenon (“a single thought-moment”) and the entire cosmos (“three thousand realms”) mutually pervade and encompass one another. Where Zhiyi had introduced this idea only briefly, Nichiren developed it as the very foundation of his thought.

Two Buddhas, p24-25
d7b, WONS

The Hell of Slanderers of the Practicer of the Lotus Sūtra

QUESTION: What kind of hell do slanderers of the practicer of the Lotus Sūtra fall into?

ANSWER: The Lotus Sūtra, fascicle 2 (“A Parable” chapter), preaches, “Those who despise, hate, envy, and bear a grudge against a person who reads, recites, copies and upholds the Lotus Sūtra will fall into Avici Hell upon death. After suffering in this hell for as long as a kalpa, they will again die at the end of the kalpa and fall into the same hell to suffer. They will repeat this countless times and continue to suffer for innumerable kalpa (aeons).”

The palace of King Yama is located 500 yojana below the surface of the earth. Below the palace, between the depths of 500 and 1,500 yojana underground are located 136 hells such as the Eight Great Hells. 128 of the 136 hells are the abodes of minor criminals while the Eight Great Hells are the abodes of felons. Seven of the Eight Great Hells are for the offenders of the Ten Evil Acts while the last of the Eight Great Hells, the Hell of Incessant Suffering, is the abode of those who committed the Five Rebellious Sins, undutiful children, and slanderers of the Lotus Sūtra. To sum up, this passage cited from the “Parable” chapter of the Lotus Sūtra preaches that those who speak ill of or slander the practicer of the Lotus Sūtra in the Latter Age of Degeneration in this world even in jest must fall into the Hell of Incessant Suffering.

Hōren-shō, Letter to Hōren, Writings of Nichiren Shōnin, Volume 6, Followers I, Page 45

2buddhas, WONS

Relying on the Dharma, not on the Person

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[Nichiren’s] earliest surviving essay, written when he was twenty-one, suggests that he already took the Lotus Sūtra to be the sole teaching of universal buddhahood; his subsequent studies enhanced and deepened this conviction. Throughout, he was guided by the words of the Nirvāṇa Sūtra — regarded in Tendai circles as a restatement of the Lotus — to “rely on the dharma and not on the person.” For Nichiren, this meant that one should rely on the sūtras rather than the works of later commentators or the opinions of contemporary teachers, however eminent. And among the sūtras, one should rely above all on the Lotus, which is complete and final, and not others, which are incomplete and provisional. It is essential to bear in mind that for Nichiren, as for many of his contemporaries, the sūtras were literally the Buddha’s words; the stages of his fifty-year teaching career as mapped out in the Tendai doctrinal classification system represented historical truth; and the ranking of particular scriptures in the Tendai hierarchy of teachings directly mirrored their degree of salvific power.

Two Buddhas, p24
WONS

If They Are Not Moved to Believe in the Lotus Sūtra

As I contemplate this, those who become the king and deities of Japan are bodhisattvas in the rank of sangen (three wisdoms) according to Hinayāna Buddhism and bodhisattvas in the rank of initial ten (jūshin) of the 52 ranks in Mahāyāna. In the six-stage practice of the Lotus Sutra, they are at the second stage of myōji-soku (notional understanding), the stage at which one hears the name of the Lotus Sūtra and thereby has faith in it, or at the third stage of kangyō-soku (perception and practice), perceiving and practicing the “five stages” after the death of the Buddha: rejoicing on hearing the Sūtra, reading and reciting the Sutra, expounding it to others, practicing the six pāramitā, and perfecting the six pāramitā. Therefore, no matter how much merit community deities accumulate, if they are not moved to believe in the Lotus Sūtra upon hearing its name and practice the spiritual contemplation of the “3,000 existences contained in one thought” doctrine, they will become former bodhisattvas who will sink to the Hell of Incessant suffering forever.

Kangyō Hachiman-shō, Remonstration with Bodhisattva Hachiman, Writings of Nichiren Shōnin, Doctrine 1, Page 262

2buddhas, WONS

Nichiren as Interpreter

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The Japanese Buddhist teacher Nichiren (1222-1282), arguably the Lotus Sūtra’s most famous interpreter, lived and taught in a historical and cultural milieu quite different from that of the sūtra’s original compilers. As Buddhism spread through the Sinitic world, the Lotus had come to be widely revered as Śākyamuni Buddha’s highest and final teaching, and Nichiren asserted that only this sūtra represented his complete message. Like his contemporaries, Nichiren believed he was living in the age of the Final Dharma (J. mappō), a degenerate era when people are burdened by heavy karmic hindrances and liberation is difficult to achieve. Now in this evil era, he claimed, only the Lotus Sūtra leads to buddhahood; other teachings had lost their efficacy and must be set aside. Nichiren taught a form of Lotus practice accessible to all, regardless of social class or education: chanting the sūtra’s daimoku, or title, in the formula Namu Myōhō-renge-kyō. By chanting the daimoku with faith in the Lotus Sūtra, he said, one could realize buddhahood in this very lifetime. And, as faith in the Lotus Sūtra spread, the ideal buddha land would be realized in the present world.

Two Buddhas, p21-22
WONS

Repaying What One Owes to One’s Country

One studies Buddhism in order to repay what one owes to one’s country even at the cost of one’s life; it is not at all for one’s own sake. Grand Master T’ien-t’ai declares in his Words and Phrases of the Lotus Sūtra: “Looking at heavy rainfall, one can tell the size of the dragon which causes it; looking at the abundance of lotus flowers, one can tell the depth of the pond.” Likewise, we should realize the seriousness of the coming event by looking at unusual omens. National disaster seems imminent, so I have written to you repeatedly. No one listens to me; yet I keep warning.

Yadoya Nyūdō Sai-gojō, Second Letter to Lay Priest Yadoya, Writings of Nichiren Shōnin, Doctrine 1, Page 152-153

WONS

Vows to Protect Practicers of the Lotus Sūtra

[I]f the Lotus Sūtra is the true teaching and the protective deities of the Lotus Sūtra such as the sun and moon do not abandon me, I strongly believe that one day I will be able to return to my homeland and visit my parents’ grave. I wonder what has happened to the King of the Brahma Heaven, Indra, the sun and moon, and the Four Heavenly Kings. Do Goddess Amaterasu and Great Bodhisattva Hachiman not exist in Japan? Did they break their vows to the Buddha to protect the practicers of the Lotus Sūtra and have thus abandoned the practicers? I am not troubled by what may happen to me as a result of not being protected by the heavenly beings. But if you, heavenly beings, who made vows to protect the practicers of the Lotus Sūtra before Śākyamuni Buddha and the Buddha of Many Treasures as well as the many Buddhas from all the worlds in the universe, break your vows and do not protect me now, you will be making a great lie out of the Lotus Sūtra, in which the Buddha has stated in the “Parable” chapter, “I wholeheartedly discard the provisional teachings.” The fault of deceiving Buddhas of entire worlds throughout the universe in the past, present, and future is more fatal and profound than Devadatta’s false words and Honorable Kokālika’s lies. Although the Great King of the Brahma Heaven lives on the top of the region of form and Indra lives on the top of Mt. Sumeru, if they abandon me, Nichiren, their transgressions will become firewood that fuels the flames in the Avici Hell, where they will suffer continuously and never be released from this hell.

Kōnichi-bō Gosho, A Letter to Nun Kōnichi, Writings of Nichiren Shōnin, Biography and Disciples, Volume 5, Pages 48-49

WONS

The Mind in the Lotus Flower and Other Comparisons

Although there is no mind in the lotus flower, it blossoms in response to the sunlight. A Japanese banana plant has no ears, but its growth is influenced by thunder. Likewise, we are able to become Buddhas by the virtue of the daimoku of the Lotus Sūtra, which is like the sunlight and the thunder for a lotus flower and a banana plant. When one enters the water carrying a rhinoceros horn, the water will be kept away by 5 feet. When a leaf of sandalwood opens, the bad odor of eraṇḍa will disappear as far as 40 yojana (distance covered by a traveling man in 40 days). The evil karma of ordinary people is like the water and the eraṇḍa and the daimoku of the Lotus Sūtra is like the rhinoceros horn and leaf of sandalwood. A diamond is so hard that nothing can break it except the horn of a sheep and the shell of a tortoise. Large birds cannot snap the branch of a large tree called nyagrodha though the wren, a small bird said to nest on the eyelashes of mosquitoes, can. The evil karma of ordinary people like us, is as hard as a diamond and as big as nyagrodha. The daimoku of the Lotus Sutra, on the contrary, can easily break and snap the karma of ordinary people, like the horn of a sheep and the beak of a wren. As an amber jewel removes dust and a magnet attracts iron, so are our dust and iron of evil karma removed by amber and the magnet of the daimoku. You should always think this way and continuously chant Namu Myōhō Renge Kyō.

Hokke Daimoku Shō, Treatise on the Daimoku of the Lotus Sūtra, Writings of Nichiren Shōnin, Faith and Practice, Volume 4, Page 37-38

WONS

The Mutual Possession of the Ten Realms Doctrine

These people are those who do not know the difference between the pre-Lotus sūtras and the Lotus Sūtra. They are not only wandering blindly in their own stupidity and ignorance but also closing the Buddha-eye of all living beings. Wishing to be reborn in the Tuṣita Heaven is encouraged in many Hinayāna sūtras. It is also preached in some Mahāyāna sūtras. Many Mahāyāna sūtras encourage the rebirth in the Pure Land of the Utmost Bliss to the West. They are provisional sūtras that are later merged into the One Vehicle teaching in the Lotus Sūtra. According to the teaching of the Lotus Sūtra, both the Tuṣita Heaven and the Pure Land to the West are not separated. Both of them as well as the worlds of humans and gods are contained in the Buddha lands all over the universe. Expounding the mutual possession of the Ten Realms doctrine, the Lotus Sūtra reveals to evil persons the evil doings of the Ten Realms, and at the same time informs them that they are endowed with the five kinds of eyes (human eye, eye of heaven, eye of wisdom, eye of dharma, and the Buddha-eye). This is done in an effort to save even the most wicked among the evil. Regarding women, it can be said that all of the realms are inhabited by women because according to the doctrine of the mutual possession of the Ten Realms, women are included in the Ten Realms. Thus, the enlightenment of women is a reality. Therefore, those who believe in the Lotus Sūtra and seek Buddhahood cannot be led down to the nine realms of delusions by the force of karma.

Ichidai Shōgyō Tai-I, Outline of All the Holy Teachings of the Buddha, Writings of Nichiren Shōnin, Doctrine 3, Page 94