Category Archives: WONS

WONS

Grass Growing Near a Large River

I am greatly concerned about the illness of your lord. Even though your lord does not seem to place his full trust in you, you are fortunate enough to be his retainer and to receive his favor, which in turn enables you to believe in and support the Lotus Sūtra. This will certainly be considered a prayer for the recovery of your lord from illness. Although a bush under a large tree does not receive the rain directly, and the grass growing near a large river does not have immediate access to the river water, the bushes receive dew from the large tree, and the grass absorbs moisture from the great river to survive and grow. The same can be said of the relationship between you and your lord.

Sushun Tennō Gosho, The ‘Emperor Sushun’ Letter, Writings of Nichiren Shōnin, Faith and Practice, Volume 4, Page 119-120

d25b, WONS

Never-Despising Bodhisattva’s Hurry to Preach the Lotus Sūtra

The Words and Phrases of the Lotus Sūtra, fascicle 10, says, “A question was asked why Never-Despising Bodhisattva was in such a hurry in preaching the Lotus Sūtra while the Buddha had not expounded it for 42 years after appearing in the world. It was answered that the Buddha preached the Hinayāna teaching first for the people who had possessed the seed of Buddhahood by listening to the Lotus Sūtra in the past life, whereas Never-Despising Bodhisattva sowed the seed of Buddhahood by preaching the true Mahāyanā teaching of the Lotus Sūtra for the people who had never heard of the sūtra in the past life.”

This interpretation by Grand Master T’ien-t’ai means that as we look at the past of those who listened to the pre-Lotus sūtras such as the Flower Garland Sūtra preached at the place of Enlightenment, the Āgama sūtras preached in the Deer Park, the Sūtra of the Great Assembly preached at the Daihōbō, and the Wisdom Sūtra preached by the White Heron Pond, including both the Hinayāna and Mahāyanā and provisional and true teachings as well as the four doctrinal teachings and the eight teachings (the four doctrinal teachings plus the four methods of teaching), they had received the pure and perfect seed of Buddhahood in the eternal past at the time of the Eternal Buddha and the Great Universal Wisdom Buddha. Nevertheless, because of their sin of slandering the One Vehicle teaching of the Lotus Sūtra, they have been unable to attain Enlightenment wandering instead around in the world of darkness for as long as “500 (million) dust-particle kalpa” and “3,000 dust-particle kalpa.” However, the seed they had received grew gradually until finally the time had come for them to hear the Lotus Sūtra on Mt. Sacred Eagle and to become aware of the gem (Buddhahood) given by the Buddha in the past. For 40 years or so till the Lotus Sūtra was preached, the Buddha preached the Hinayāna and provisional sūtras to them in order to prepare their capacity to understand as the Buddha thought that even those who had established a relationship with the Lotus Sūtra in a past life might speak ill of it for a variety of reasons.

Soya Nyūdō-dono-gari Gosho, A Letter to Lay Priest Lord Soya, Writings of Nichiren Shōnin, Doctrine 3, Pages 149-150.

2buddhas, d7b, WONS

Grieving Deeply Over Slandering

Like his contemporaries, Nichiren embraced the idea that human beings are an integral part of the cosmos, and their actions affect both society and the natural world. He attributed the disasters confronting Japan during his lifetime — famine, epidemics, earthquakes, and the Mongol threat — to this fundamental error of “disparaging the Lotus Sutra.” Rejection of the sutra, in his eyes, would destroy the country in this life; in the future, it would condemn its people to countless rebirths in the Avici hell. The horrific sufferings described in the verse section of [Chapter 3] were for him not mere rhetorical hyperbole but an actual account, coming from the Buddha’s own mouth, of the fate that awaited the great majority of his contemporaries, something that grieved him deeply.

Two Buddhas, p85
WONS

Those Who Destroy Buddhism

Some people might wonder what is good about accusing those followers of the Pure Land and Zen Buddhism, making enemies of them. In response, I will cite the Nirvana Sūtra: “Suppose there is a virtuous monk who does not accuse anyone of harming Buddhism, does not try to purge or punish him. You should know that such a monk is an enemy of Buddhism. In case the monk accuses such a man, purges, and punishes him, such a monk is a disciple of the Buddha who truly follows Him.”

Grand Master Chang-an explains this in his Annotations on the
Nirvana Sūtra:

“Those who destroy Buddhism are those within Buddhism working against Buddhism. Those heartless people who keep friendly relationships with such evil doers by overlooking their sins are their enemies. Those who are kind enough to try to correct them are the upholders of the True Dharma and true disciples of the Buddha. To prevent a friend from committing evil is really a friendly act. Therefore, one who accuses those of harming Buddhism is the Buddha’s disciple; and one who does not purge evil doers is an enemy of Buddhism.”

Kaimoku-shō, Open Your Eyes to the Lotus Teaching, Writings of Nichiren Shōnin, Doctrine 2, Page 113

2buddhas, WONS

Understanding Dharma Slander

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Nichiren’s understanding of dharma slander included not only verbal disparagement, as the term suggests, but the mental act of rejection or disbelief. As he declared, “To be born in a country where the Lotus Sūtra has spread and neither to have faith in it nor practice it, is disparaging the dharma.” In other words, one could be guilty of “disparaging the dharma” without malign intent, even without knowledge that one was doing so, simply by following a teacher who had set the Lotus aside in favor of lesser, provisional teachings. Nichiren initially leveled, this charge against Hōnen’s followers but later expanded it to include both Shingon and Tendai adepts who subordinated the Lotus Sūtra to the esoteric teachings; practitioners of Zen, who emphasized its “wordless transmission” over the Buddhist scriptures in general; as well as movements to revitalize precept observance, which based themselves on precepts grounded in provisional teachings.

Two Buddhas, p85
WONS

Repenting After Committing a Serious Crime

You also asked in your letter to be told where Yashirō, who killed men, would be reborn in his next life. As sure as a needle sinks in the water and rain falls from the sky, a man who kills an ant falls to hell and a man who cuts off a dead body cannot avoid falling into the three evil regions of hell, hungry spirits, and beasts. Much more so, a man who kills a human. However, even a large boulder can float with the power of a boat, and a great fire can be extinguished with the power of water. Likewise, if a man does not repent for even a small transgression, he necessarily falls into an evil path, but if a man repents after committing a serious crime, his transgression will be expiated. There are many examples to support this.

Kōnichi-bō Gosho, A Letter to Nun Kōnichi, Writings of Nichiren Shōnin, Biography and Disciples, Volume 5, Pages 51

2buddhas, WONS

The One Teaching Powerful Enough to Liberate People

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Nichiren was by no means the only person to condemn Hōnen’s exclusive nenbutsu teaching as “disparaging the dharma.” Other critics, however, based their objections on the widely held premise that the Buddha had taught multiple forms of practice for persons of different capacities; claiming exclusive validity for one practice alone was “disparaging the dharma” because it rejected the multitude of other Buddhist teachings and practices such as keeping the precepts, meditation, esoteric ritual performance, reciting sūtras, and so forth.

Nichiren’s criticism had a different thrust: namely, that the Pure Land teachings were provisional and therefore unsuited to the present time, the age of the Final Dharma. They did not set forth the mutual inclusion of the ten realms that enabled all persons to realize buddhahood here in this world, in this body, but instead deferred it to another realm after death. By his time, a generation or so after Hōnen, exclusive nenbutsu followers were specifically urging people to abandon the Lotus Sūtra, which they claimed was too profound for people in this benighted era. In Nichiren’s view, this was disparaging the dharma. To discourage people from practicing the Lotus Sūtra because it was beyond their capacity was far worse than direct verbal abuse of the sūtra, because it threatened to drive the Lotus into obscurity, closing off the one teaching powerful enough to liberate people of the present evil age. “The Lotus Sūtra is the eyes of all the buddhas,” he wrote. “It is the original teacher of Śākyamuni Buddha, master of teachings. One who discards even a single character or brush dot commits a sin graver than killing one’s parents ten million times or shedding the blood of all buddhas in the ten directions.”

Two Buddhas, p84-85
WONS

The Merit Contained in Only Five Chinese Characters

QUESTION: I would like to know how great the merit contained in only five Chinese characters of myō, hō, ren, ge, and kyō can be.

ANSWER: The great ocean receives the whole flow of rivers from all over the world; the great earth contains everything including sentient and insentient beings; the wish-fulfilling gem rains all kinds of treasures; the King of the Brahma Heaven controls the whole Triple World (realms of desire, no desire, and non-form). Likewise, the five Chinese characters of myō, hō, ren, ge, and kyō possess the merits of all phenomena. In short, they contain everything in the Ten Realms from hell to the realm of Buddhas, including those that exist in the lands and the lands themselves.

Hokke Daimoku Shō, Treatise on the Daimoku of the Lotus Sūtra, Writings of Nichiren Shōnin, Faith and Practice, Volume 4, Page 39

2buddhas, d7b, WONS

Dharma Slanderers

What particularly drew Nichiren’s attention in the “Parable” chapter was the long segment of the final verse section detailing the horrific karmic retribution incurred by those who disparage the Lotus Sūtra. The act of “disparaging the dharma” (S. saddharmapratiksepa, J. hōbō, also translated as “slandering” or “maligning” the dharma) was considered so grave a sin that in East Asia it was sometimes appended to the list of the five heinous deeds. The term occurs frequently in the Mahāyāna sūtras, where it often means maligning the Great Vehicle scriptures; in its Indic context, it was probably intended to counter the mainstream Buddhist criticism that the Mahāyāna was not the Buddha’s teaching.

Japanese Buddhists, however, understood theirs to be a “Mahāyāna country.” Unlike the situation faced by the Lotus Sūtra’s compilers, no one questioned the Mahāyāna’s legitimacy. Nichiren therefore took the term “dharma slander” in a different sense, to mean rejecting the Lotus Sūtra in favor of provisional teachings.

Two Buddhas, p83
WONS

Insufficient Faith

QUESTION: Is there a definitive statement proving that the bodhisattvas do not attain Buddhahood if the Two Vehicles do not attain it?

ANSWER: It is stated in the thirty-sixth fascicle of the Nirvana Sūtra: “A person who believes that people possess the Buddha-nature but that not necessarily all the people have it is called a man of insufficient faith.” If this is true, bodhisattvas in various pre-Lotus sūtras are all icchantika (a man without faith and virtue and without the possibility of attaining Buddhahood). These sūtras do not acknowledge the attainment of Buddhahood by the Two Vehicles as well as by the bodhisattvas. In this sense, as long as the attaining of Buddhahood by the Vehicles is not acknowledged, attaining Buddhahood by the bodhisattvas is not possible in the pre-Lotus sūtras preached during the first forty years or so.

Nizen Nijō Bosatsu Fu-sabutsu Ji, Never-Attaining Buddhahood by the Two Vehicles and Bodhisattvas in the Pre-Lotus Sūtras, Writings of Nichiren Shōnin, Doctrine 3, Page 220