Category Archives: WONS

WONS

Predictions Proven True

These are the predictions in the “Risshō Ankoku-ron.” Now I, Nichiren, would like to add my views to them. The Buddha once predicted that Kutoku, a Jain, would die in seven days and be reborn a hungry spirit. Refuting the Buddha, Kutoku declared that he would not die in seven days and that he would be an arhat, who would not be reborn in the realm of hungry spirits. Nevertheless, Kutoku died in seven days, showing the very appearance of the hungry spirit just as predicted by the Buddha.

When the wife of a rich man in the city of Campā, in central India, became pregnant, six non-Buddhist masters insisted that she would give birth to a baby girl. However, just as the Buddha predicted, a baby boy was born.

Upon finishing the preaching of the Lotus Sūtra, the Buddha predicted in the Sūtra of Meditation on the Universal Sage Bodhisattva that He would enter Nirvāṇa in three months. Although non-Buddhist masters all called it a lie, the Buddha entered Nirvāṇa on the fifteenth of the second month.

It is stated in the Lotus Sūtra, fascicle 2, chapter three on “A Parable”: ” Śāriputra! After a countless, inconceivable number of kalpa from now you will become a Buddha called Flower Light Buddha.” The sūtra also asserts in the third fascicle, chapter eight, “Assurance of Future Buddhahood”: “This Mahā-Kāśyapa, a disciple of Mine, will see 300 trillions of Buddhas in future lives. … After that in the final stage of his physical existence, he will become a Buddha called Light Buddha.” It is declared in the fourth fascicle, chapter ten, “The Teacher of the Dharma, “If anyone rejoices even for a moment at hearing a verse or a phrase of the Sūtra of the Lotus Flower Of the Wonderful Dharma after My death, I also assure him of his future attainment of Perfect Enlightenment.”

These passages in the Lotus Sūtra are predictions of the Buddha about future lives. Nevertheless, who would believe in them if His three predictions cited above, such as the death of Kutoku, a Jain, had not proved to be true? It would be difficult to believe in them even if the Buddha of Many Treasures attested them to be true, and Buddhas in manifestation swore to their truth with their long tongues touching the Brahma Heaven. The same can be said about me today. Even if I, Nichiren, were able to preach as fluently as or show the divine powers of Maudgalyāyana, who would believe in me if my predictions had not proven to be true?

When a letter of state came from the Mongol Empire in the fifth year of the Bun’ei Era (1268), a wise man, if there had been one in Japan, should have wondered whether or not my prediction was proving to be true. I uttered harsh words to Hei no Saemonnojō who arrested me on the twelfth of the ninth month in the eighth year of the Bun’ei Era (1271). Those harsh words have proved to be true on the eleventh of the second month in the following year, when a domestic disturbance erupted. Anyone with a human mind should have believed in me. People should have believed in me even more so, as Mongol troops have invaded Japan this year, plundering the two provinces of Iki and Tsushima. Even pieces of wood and stone or birds and beasts would be startled by the exact agreement between what I had predicted and what actually happened. Yet, nobody listens to me. This is no trivial matter. Possessed by evil spirits, all the people in this country are drunk and insane. It is sad, pitiful, fearful, and hateful.

Ken Risshō-i Shō, A Tract Revealing the Gist of the “Risshō Ankoku-ron,” Writings of Nichiren Shōnin, Doctrine 1, Page 164-165

Eyes, WONS

Beyond Death And Before Birth

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Those attracted to Buddhism were not content to leave the question of what lies beyond death (or before birth) unanswered. They were deeply dissatisfied by Confucian agnosticism and Taoist fatalism regarding why we are born, where (if anywhere) we go when we die, why there is so much injustice in the world, and whether our moral and spiritual strivings mean anything in the face of death’s inevitability. The humanism of the indigenous Chinese traditions was very realistic and practical, but it tended to leave an existential void that Buddhism seemed better able to respond to with its teachings of rebirth and the process of sowing and reaping the effects of one’s causes over many lifetimes. Though imperfectly understood, at least at first, Buddhism gave people a sense of hope, responsibility, and meaning by teaching that life did not end at death and that the course of our lives is not random or the product of some arbitrary fate (whether endowed by Heaven or the Tao) but is determined by our own actions in sowing the seeds of good or ill that will come to fruition in present or future lifetimes.

Nichiren, like many other Buddhist teachers in East Asia before and after him, praises the humanistic virtues and civilized arts that the Confucians and Taoists taught, but in the end he too finds that their teachings are limited to only the present lifetime and that they do not address the debts owed from previous lives nor do they teach anything pertaining to the lives to come.

They may be called saints as far as their teachings for our present lives are concerned, but they cannot be called saints when we see that they know nothing about our previous or future lives. They are not different from ordinary men who cannot look at their backs or blind men who cannot see even their fronts. … But they are not true saints because they do not know the past and future. They cannot save the future lives of their parents, lords, and teachers. Therefore, we can say that they do not know the favors given to them by their seniors.

Open Your Eyes, p70
WONS

Hyakkai Senyo vs. Ichinen Sanzen

QUESTION: How does the term “1,000 aspects contained in 100 realms” (hyakkai senyo) differ from “3,000 existences contained in one thought” (ichinen sanzen)?

ANSWER: Speaking of a mind having “1,000 aspects contained in 100 realms,” we consider sentient beings only. When we talk about “3,000 existences contained in one thought,” we consider both sentient as well as insentient beings.

Kanjin Honzon-shō, A Treatise Revealing the Spiritual Contemplation and the Most Verable One, Writings of Nichiren Shōnin, Doctrine 2, Page 130

Eyes, WONS

Five Major Precepts and Five Constant Virtues

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The Trapusa and Bhallika Sūtra, another apocryphal Chinese sūtra composed in the year 460 by a monk named Tan-jing, equated the five major precepts of Buddhism that enable one to be reborn as a human being with the five constant virtues of Han Confucianism. This became a popular theme taken up by later East Asian Buddhist writers. In the ninth century work Inquiry Into the Origin of Humanity by Zongmi (780-841) the equation of the five precepts and five constant virtues is put forth in the following formula: “Not killing is benevolence, not stealing is righteousness, not committing adultery is propriety, not lying is trustworthiness, and, by neither drinking wine nor eating meat, the spirit is purified and one increases in wisdom.” Nichiren also assumed this equivalence and alluded to it in works such as The Cause of Misfortunes (Sainan Kōki Yurao, considered a trial essay for Risshō Ankoku-ron):

Prior to Buddhism being introduced in China sage rulers such as the Yellow Emperor governed their kingdoms by means of the five virtues. After the introduction of Buddhism we can see these five virtues are the same as the five precepts of Buddhism prohibiting kill