Two Buddhas, p31-32For Nichiren, preaching the exclusive truth of the Lotus Sūtra was not only about leading individuals to enlightenment, but also about saving the country and establishing an ideal buddha land in this world, a task he came to see as his personal mission and responsibility. In declaring the supremacy of the Lotus Sūtra, he found it necessary to rebuke attachment to other, provisional teachings; in consequence, he encountered repeated antagonism. Nichiren was often beset by danger and privation. Out of this experience, he developed what might be called a soteriology of undergoing persecution. The Lotus Sūtra itself speaks of the hostility that will confront its devotees in a latter evil age. Nichiren and his followers therefore understood the persecutions they faced as both fulfilling the sūtra’s prophecies and confirming the veracity of their mission to propagate it. Nichiren also taught that to endure hardships and opposition in spreading faith in the Lotus Sūtra is to repay one’s debt to the Buddha, eradicate one’s past evil karma, fulfill the bodhisattva’s mandate to sacrifice even one’s life, if need be, to save others, and guarantee one’s future buddhahood. Indeed, one could say that Nichiren’s teaching on buddhahood has two temporal modes: immediately manifesting the all-encompassing buddha realm in the act of chanting the daimoku, and realizing buddhahood as an unfolding process in devoting oneself to the daimoku’s propagation.
Category Archives: WONS
Entering Mt. Minobu and Recalling Hometown
On the eighth day of the fourth month I met with Hei no Saemonnojō Yoritsuna. I was prepared to withdraw into the mountains and forests as my warnings to the government that would save Japan from destruction went unheeded three times. I left Kamakura on the twelfth day of the fifth month and entered Mt. Minobu. Before coming to Minobu I wanted to return to my hometown and visit my parents’ grave. However, as an edict in Confucianism and Buddhism stipulates that one should return home in glory, it would have been unfilial of me to return home without successfully remonstrating with the government. However, just as I was able to return to Kamakura from exile on Sado Island, where I never imagined it possible to leave alive, I hope that the government might someday heed my warnings. I will visit my parents’ grave then, not under the present circumstances. Even so, I miss my hometown and long to return such that whenever winds and clouds come from the east, I go outside of my hermitage just to feel the wind and see the cloud.
Kōnichi-bō Gosho, A Letter to Nun Kōnichi, Writings of Nichiren Shōnin, Biography and Disciples, Volume 5, Pages 50
Knowing Whether Scriptures Are Correctly Translated.
It is predicted in the Nirvana Sūtra, in such fascicles as the third and ninth, that in the process of transmission from India to foreign lands, Buddhism would beget many misinterpretations, and as a result few people would be able to attain Buddhahood. Therefore, Grand Master Miao-lê says, “Whether or not there are mistakes in Buddhist scriptures, it all depends on translators. It has nothing to do with the Buddha Himself.” He means that no matter how hard people today try to attain Buddhahood according to sūtras, they would be unable to do so if the sūtras are false, and that they can’t blame the Buddha for it. In studying Buddhism, besides knowing the differences between Mahāyāna, Hinayāna, provisional, real, exoteric, and esoteric teachings, one must first of all know whether or not scriptures are correctly translated.
Senji-shō, Selecting the Right time: A Tract by Nichiren, the Buddha’s Disciple, Writings of Nichiren Shōnin, Doctrine 1, Page 212
Doctrine of Obtaining Buddhahood by the Two Vehicles
The doctrine of obtaining Buddhahood by the Two Vehicles is not expounded in sūtras of the first four of the Five Flavors, such pre-Lotus sūtras as the Flower Garland Sūtra, Āgama sūtras, Hōdō sūtras (various Mahāyāna sūtras), and the Wisdom Sūtra. Since various pre-Lotus sūtras do not preach the attainment of Buddhahood by the Two Vehicles, the attainment of Buddhahood by bodhisattvas is impossible through the Four Teachings expounded in those sūtras. Bodhisattvas say in the Flower Garland Sūtra that their vow will never be completed until all people attain Buddhahood. All bodhisattvas invariably take four great vows. When the first vow “to save all the people” is not fulfilled, the last vow “to attain the supreme teaching of the Buddha” will not be completed. In this respect, the bodhisattvas’ vow is not completed by the pre-Lotus sūtras preached during the first forty years or so which do not expound the attainment of Buddhahood by the Vehicles.
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 219-220
Inherent Buddhahood
Two Buddhas, p26For Nichiren, the Lotus Sūtra alone fully revealed the inherence of the buddha realm in all nine realms of unenlightened beings: By chanting its title, Namu Myōhō-renge-kyō, which instantiates the wisdom of all buddhas, even the most deluded person, he said, can manifest the buddha realm directly. Nichiren likened this to fire being produced by a stone taken from beneath the depths of water or a lamp illuminating a place that has been dark for millions of years.
Revealing Grave Sins of Past Lives
In the immemorable past, I must have been born a wicked king and must have deprived practicers of the Lotus Sūtra of their food and clothing and their properties on numerous occasions just as some people today in Japan have been destroying the Lotus temples. I must have also cut off the heads of numerous practicers of the Lotus Sūtra. I may have purged myself of some of these grave sins but not all of them. Even if I have, there are the residuals. In order to attain Buddhahood, I must completely compensate for all those serious sins. My merits in spreading the Lotus Sūtra are still shallow while my sins in the past are still deep. If I had preached only provisional sūtras, grave sins in my past lives would not have been revealed. It is like a forging iron, for instance. Unless you hit it and forge it hard, hidden scars will not be seen. They appear only when the iron is hit hard many times on an anvil. Or it is analogous to squeezing hemp seeds. Unless squeezed hard, there is little oil. Ever since I, Nichiren, strongly condemned those who slander the True Dharma in Japan, I have been persecuted. It must be that grave sins in my past lives are revealed through my merits in defending the dharma in this life. It is just as a piece of iron remains black unless heated by fire and becomes red when placed in fire. Even calm water makes great waves when quickly stirred by a log. A sleeping lion roars loudly when awakened by a touch of hand.
Kaimoku-shō, Open Your Eyes to the Lotus Teaching, Writings of Nichiren Shōnin, Doctrine 2, Page 107
Where Hell and the Buddha Exist
Two Buddhas, p25-26Ichinen sanzen is a complex and challenging concept, and in his doctrinal instruction, Nichiren frequently concentrated on one of its key component principles: the mutual inclusion of the ten dharma realms (jikkai gogu). Traditional Buddhist cosmology divides saṃsāra or the realm of rebirth for unenlightened beings into a hierarchy of six paths: hell dwellers, hungry ghosts (preta), animals, demigods (asura), humans, and gods (deva). Above these, Tendai doctrine places four more realms characterized by ascending levels of awakening: the two realms of the śrāvakas and pratyekabuddhas, who cultivate the aims of detachment and cessation of desire set forth in the so-called Hinayāna teachings, aiming for the goal of Nirvāṇa; bodhisattvas, who strive for the liberation of all beings; and fully realized buddhas. In contrast to the buddha realm, which represents enlightenment, the other nine realms represent various levels of delusion, or states not yet fully awakened. Being empty of fixed, independent existence, all ten interpenetrate, meaning that each realm contains all ten within itself. Specifically, this means that the Buddha and all living beings are not separate; the buddha realm does not exist apart from oneself. Nichiren explains this in simple terms: “As to where hell and the Buddha exist: some sūtras say that hell lies beneath the ground, while others say that the Buddha dwells in the west. But close investigation shows that both exist within our five-foot body. For hell is in the heart of a man who despises his father and makes light of his mother, just as flowers and fruit are already present within the lotus seed. What we call ‘buddha’ dwells in our mind, in the same way that stones contain fire and that jewels have value intrinsically.”
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
True vs. Provisional
Two Buddhas, p24-25Nichiren 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.
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