I have no doubt that I am at the brink of death. I hope you will be very pleased in case I am beheaded, (consecrating myself to the Lotus Sūtra). It is like being robbed of a strong poison by a bandit in exchange for a precious treasure.
Toki-dono Go-henji, A Response to Lord Toki, Writings of Nichiren Shōnin, Doctrine 2, Page 119
Prior to the introduction of Buddhism into China books written by the Three Emperors, Five Rulers, Three Kings, T’ai Kung-wang, Tan (The Duke of Chou), Lao-tzu and Confucius were called “sutras” or “classics,” through which people learned the proprieties: children’s indebtedness to their parents, and the relationship between rulers and the ruled. The teachings of these books were observed by the people, and heaven has accepted them. When one didn’t follow these dharma, he was punished as a disobedient child or an outlaw. When Buddhism was introduced from India, there arose a dispute between the two sides. One insisted that it should be accepted while the other argued that it should be rejected. The emperor summoned the two sides to debate the issue. The supporters of Buddhism refuted the anti-Buddhists. Since then whenever they debated, anti-Buddhists were defeated just as the sun melts ice, or water puts fire out. Eventually they no longer argued against Buddhism.
As Buddhism was thus introduced into China, it became clear that some scriptures were superior or more profound in content than others. That is to say, they could be divided into Hinayāna and Mahāyāna, exoteric and esoteric, or provisional and true sutras. For example, all rocks are inferior to any gold, and gold can be graded variously. No gold in the human world, however, equals the gold mined from the Jambu River. Even the gold from the Jambu River can never match the gold in the Brahma Heaven. Likewise, all scriptures of Buddhism are like gold: some are superior to or more profound than others.
Hinayāna sutras are like small boats, which can accommodate a few people but not hundreds or thousands. Moreover, they must stay close to this shore and can’t cross over to the other shore. They can only carry a small amount of cargo. Mahāyāna sutras are like larger vessels, which can carry easily ten to twenty people. Loaded with a large amount of cargo, they can sail from Kamakura to as far as Kyūshū or Mutsu Province (Aomori and Iwate Prefectures) in northern Honshu.
The true sūtra is beyond comparison to the other Mahāyāna sutras. It is like an enormous ship that, loaded with hundreds or thousands of people and a great amount of treasures, is able to sail as far as Korea. This is the one-vehicle teaching of the Lotus Sutra.
Oto Gozen Go-shōsoku, A Letter to Lady Oto, Nyonin Gosho, Letters Addressed to Female Followers, Page 112-114
Two Buddhas, p165Willingness to give even one’s life if need be took on deep soteriological meaning for Nichiren over the course of his career. By persevering for the Lotus Sūtra’s sake, he taught, one could expiate in a single lifetime one’s evil karma from countless past lifetimes; repay one’s obligations to the Buddha and to all living beings; fulfill the bodhisattva path; and be assured of fully realizing buddhahood in this lifetime. On this theme, he wrote to his followers: “Life flashes by in but a moment. No matter how many powerful enemies may oppose us, never think of retreating or give way to fear. Even if they should cut off our heads with a saw, impale our bodies with lances, or bind our feet and bore them through with a gimlet, so long as we have life, we must chant Namu Myōhō-renge-kyō, Namu Myōhō-renge-kyō. And if we chant up until the very moment of death, Śākyamuni, Prabhūtaratna, and the buddhas of the ten directions will come to us instantly … and surely escort us to the jeweled land of Tranquil Light.”
QUESTION: Is there any scriptural proof that we gain merits through the exclusive chanting of the daimoku?
ANSWER: The Lotus Sūtra says in chapter 26, “Dhārāṇi,” of the 8th fascicle that the merits obtained will be immeasurable when one keeps only the name of the Lotus Sūtra. The Lotus Sūtra of the True Dharma says in the chapter of “Total Upholding” that the merits of a person who hears this sūtra and keeps its name will be innumerable. The Lotus Sūtra with Additions says in the chapter of “Dhārāṇi” that the merits will be innumerably great when one keeps the name of the Lotus Sūtra. These clearly show how great the merits are for those who chant the daimoku.
Hokke Daimoku Shō, Treatise on the Daimoku of the Lotus Sūtra, Writings of Nichiren Shōnin, Faith and Practice, Volume 4, Page 39
Two Buddhas, p163-164[The verses] in the “Perseverance” chapter coincided eerily with Nichiren’s own ordeals. He himself had been “disparaged with evil words” and “attacked with sticks and swords.” He had been slandered to the high officials of the shogunate by monks revered as holy by the people at large and been “repeatedly expelled.” Especially during the ordeals of his Sado Island exile, Nichiren wrestled with self-doubts. Had the protective deities abandoned him? Was he, after all, not correctly practicing the Lotus Sūtra? By his own account, however, on recalling the verse section of the “Perseverance” chapter, he realized that he was living out the sūtra’s prophecies in a way unlike any other Lotus devotee. “Without me,” he concluded, “the predictions in these verses would all be lies.” One modern interpreter of Nichiren has termed this a “circular hermeneutic” in which text and reader simultaneously mirror and bear witness to one another. Nichiren validated the truth of the Lotus Sūtra’s words by undergoing in his own person the very trials that it predicted. Yet at the same time, the Lotus Sūtra now validated Nichiren’s practice, as the persecutions he encountered were predicted in the Lotus itself.
Nichiren termed his practice “bodily reading” of the Lotus Sūtra, meaning that he had fulfilled its predictions in his own person and was “not attached to body or life” in his efforts to propagate it. The same applied, he said, to those disciples who shared his commitment. On the eve of his banishment to Sado Island, he wrote to his disciple Nichirō who had also been seized and imprisoned, praising his dedication. “Others read the Lotus Sūtra with their mouths alone, reading only the words, but they do not read it with their mind. And even if they read it with their mind, they do not read it with their body. To read the sūtra as you are doing with both body and mind is truly admirable.”
In explaining the difficulty to be born a human being and to encounter the teaching of the Buddha, the Nirvana Sūtra, fascicle 33, states:
“The Buddha then picked up a small portion of soil placing it on a fingernail and asked Kāśyapa whether or not this was more than the soil in the worlds all over the universe. Kāśyapa Bodhisattva answered the Buddha, “World Honored One, the amount of soil on a fingernail cannot be compared to that in the worlds all over the universe.”
“With this simile in mind, the Buddha preached to Kāśyapa, “Gentleman, it is as rare as the amount of soil on a fingernail for a man to be reborn as a man or for those in the three evil realms to be reborn in the human realm equipped with all six organs in the central land of Buddhism, and furthermore to have the correct faith, study the way of the Buddha, attain freedom by practicing the correct way, and then to enter Nirvana. On the contrary, it is as vast as an occurrence as the soil in the worlds throughout the universe for human beings to fall into the three evil realms after death, for those in the evil realms to be reborn in those evil realms again, and for those who were born to the human realm without having six organs properly functioning, to be reborn in remote corners where Buddhism is unknown, to believe in evil ideologies or to practice evil ways without ever attaining freedom or Nirvana.”
Many teachings are condensed in this passage, so some words of explanation are needed. The number of human beings who will be reborn in the human realm after death is as small as the amount of the soil on a fingernail while those who will fall into the three evil realms are as vast as the soil in the worlds all over the universe. The number of those in the three evil realms who will be born after death in the human realm is as little as the amount of soil on a fingernail while those who will be reborn in the three evil realms after death are as immeasurable as the soil in all the worlds of the universe. Those who will be born human beings are as numerous as the soil in the worlds of the universe, but those who will be born human beings with six senses functioning properly are as small in number as the soil on a fingernail. Of those born human with six senses properly functioning, those born in remote areas are as numerous as the soil in the worlds all over the universe but those born in the center of the land are as small in number as the soil on a fingernail. Even though those born in the center of the land are as numerous as the soil in the worlds all over the universe, those who encounter Buddhism are as minute as the soil on a fingernail.
Shugo Kokka-ron, Treatise on Protecting the Nation, Writings of Nichiren Shōnin, Doctrine 1, Pages 53-54
Two Buddhas, p162In Nichiren’s reading, the predictions of future buddhahood that Śākyamuni Buddha confers at the beginning of [Chapter 13, Encouragement for Keeping this Sutra] on the remaining śrāvaka disciples — Mahāprajāpatī, his aunt and foster mother, and Yaśodharā, his former wife and the mother of Rāhula — were further evidence that the Lotus, unlike other Mahāyāna sūtras, guaranteed buddhahood to women, a point he stressed to his female followers. To one woman he wrote that she, practicing as she did in the present, troubled world, far surpassed Mahāprajāpatī, who had vowed in this chapter only to “extensively expound this sūtra in other lands.”
Having studied most sūtras of Buddhism, I have no doubt that I, Nichiren, am a practicer of the Lotus Sūtra. However, it seems that there are three reasons why I have not had any heavenly support. First, the deities may have abandoned this awful country because it is filled with people without faith in the Lotus Sūtra. Secondly, as the deities have not heard the sound of the Lotus Sūtra for a long time, they grew powerless. Thirdly, powerful devils have gotten into the minds of the three kinds of strong enemies of the Lotus Sūtra and controlled them, so deities such as the King of the Brahma Heaven and Indra cannot do much.
Toki-dono Go-henji, A Response to Lord Toki, Writings of Nichiren Shōnin, Doctrine 2, Page 118-119
Two Buddhas, p158-159In the development of Tendai Buddhism after Saichō, the implications of the nāga princess’s achievement were analyzed and disputed from many angles. Was the enlightenment to be realized “with this body” full or partial? To which of the stages of bodhisattva practice did it correspond? Was this kind of immediate realization accessible to all, or only to those who had cultivated practice in prior lifetimes? With some exceptions, later Tendai thinking shifted away from Saichō’s notion of attaining buddhahood within three lifetimes to an emphasis on direct realization of buddhahood in one’s present body. By Nichiren’s time, one strand of scholastic argument held that, at least in principle, even ordinary deluded persons might be able to access buddhahood at the beginning stages of faith and practice. Nichiren taught that embracing the Lotus Sūtra would make this a reality: “The Lotus Sūtra is the Buddha’s teaching and the Buddha’s wisdom. When one puts faith in even a single character or brushstroke, one immediately becomes a buddha in one’s present body. … , so [the Lotus Sūtra] transforms ordinary beings into buddhas. That is why it is called the wonderful dharma.”
The growth of the worst kind of evil is an omen of great virtue. Therefore, when we witness the entire Jambudvīpa (whole world) filled with evil and confusion to the same extent we can expect to see the dissemination of the Lotus Sūtra throughout the world.
Chie Bōkoku Gosho, Evil Wisdom Destroying the Country, Writings of Nichiren Shōnin, Volume 7, Followers II, Page 87