In describing Daniel Montogemery’s Fire in the Lotus, I mentioned that it appeared to adhere to a Nichiren Shu doctrinal line that Senchu Murano drew. This is most evident in Montgomery’s discussion of Original Enlightenment thought and the Ongi-kuden.
Senchu Murano’s 1998 booklet entitled Questions and Answers on Nichiren Buddhism contains a series of questions he was asked by his friends overseas.
Feb. 6, 1986, Daniel B. Montgomery asked:
“Are the Ongi-kuden and the Onko-kikigaki of any value or not?”
Murano responded on Feb. 24, 1986:
“Recent investigations have reached the conclusion that the Ongikuden was written by a priest of the Nikko Monryu during the Muromachi Period (1392-1467). It stresses the importance of the Hongaku-shiso (the philosophy of original enlightenment). The Hongaku-shiso was naturalistic optimism, which flourished in those days of national disintegration. The logic favored by the philosophers was, roughly speaking, we have the Buddha-nature; we are Buddhas in essence; we are already Buddhas; we do not have to practice anything. Thus, secularism was justified. The purpose of Buddhism became just to enjoy speculation by arbitrary self-will, ignoring the study of texts. Bold equations were endlessly created, such as “we are Buddhas,” “illusions are enlightenment,” “this world is the Buddha-land,” “one is three,” “three are one” etc., etc. These equations are fascinating, but produce no value. The Hongaku-shiso was advocated by the Medieval Age Tendai (Chuko Tendai), and many Nichiren Buddhists were also attracted to this philosophy. Even today, the impact of this philosophy is still found in the terminology of the liturgy of Nichiren Buddhism. The Onko-kikigaki was written probably by someone connected with the Itchi-ha, who attempted to cope with the Ongi-kuden, also during the Muromachi Period.”
In Fire in the Lotus, Montgomery examines the idea of Original Enlightenment thought as it evolved in Japan and shows how the distortion of Original Enlightenment theory led to Nichiren Shoshu’s idea that Nichiren, not Śākyamuni, is the original Buddha.
There is a difference between Original Enlightenment as taught in India and China, and as it developed in Japan, where it encountered ‘the basically optimistic Shinto mentality of the Japanese.’ In its pure form Original Enlightenment may be the highest reaches of Buddhist thought. The idea is that all the contradictions and conflicts of the world as we know it are transcended by Emptiness. Subject and object, male and female, mind and body, life and death, good and evil, and other polarities are not opposed to each other, but mutually dependent. Take away one, and you lose the other. In the Vimalakirti Sutra this idea of interdependence is expressed as non-duality (Japanese, funo.) Nonduality refers to the absolute, not to the everyday world, which is clearly full of dualities and contradictions.
In Japan, however, Tendai thinkers pushed the idea further. They affirmed the absolute nature of the contradictions. The everyday world is the absolute; it is not-two.
Yoshiro Tamura, in his study entitled ‘Interaction between Japanese Culture and Buddhism: The Thought of Original Enlightenment,’ points out that a very thin dividing line has been crossed here. From maintaining the tension between the absolute and the relative as not two, we have crossed over to the affirmation of the relative itself as the not-two (Osaki Gakuho, No. 138 (1985) 2).
This is the Japanese version of Original Enlightenment. It spread gradually, almost as if its proponents were not fully aware of what they were implying. The idea of Original Enlightenment was already developing at the time of the Kamakura reformers, and it became pervasive after them. It is found everywhere, especially in Tendai, Shingon, Nichiren, Kegon and Zen. It is forcefully repudiated only by the Pure Land schools, who reject this world entirely, putting all their hope in the world to come. But even there, it sometimes sneaked in by the back door, for we are saved naturally by Amida without any contrivance on our part.
The logic of Original Enlightenment is that since we are already enlightened, we do not have to do anything about it. We are already Buddhas just as we are. It follows that any religious practice — any morality, for that matter — will only confuse the matter. We must ‘do our own thing’ because ‘our own thing’ is the Buddha nature operating within us.
The vocabulary of Original Enlightenment produced grandiose slogans: ‘I am Buddha’; ‘illusions are enlightenment’; ‘this world is the Buddha-land’; ‘the three bodies of Buddha are one’; ‘one is three’; ‘earthly desires are enlightenment’; ‘body and mind are one’; ‘the sufferings of life and death are nirvana’. In his authenticated writings Nichiren rarely used such terms, and when he did, he carefully explained their meaning.
‘Earthly desires are enlightenment and … the sufferings of life and death are nirvana. When one chants Namu Myoho Renge Kyo even during sexual union of man and woman, then earthly desires are enlightenment and the sufferings of life and death are nirvana. Sufferings are nirvana only when one realizes that the entity of human life throughout its cycle of birth and death is neither born nor destroyed.’ (MW 2:229)
Nichiren’s explanation is orthodox Mahayana. Reality viewed from wisdom is nirvana and enlightenment (bodai); reality viewed from illusion is passion and suffering. In either case, reality is reality. Many Tendai, Shingon, and Pure Land teachers of the times crossed a subtle line here with their careless use of dramatic slogans, but Nichiren held to that line. A highly moral man, he objected to the amorality latent in Original Enlightenment. He saw it clearly in the iconoclasm of Zen, which he described as ‘inspired by devils.’
After his death, however, there appeared collections of his unauthenticated ‘oral teachings,’ which were loaded with the vocabulary of Original Enlightenment. A well-meaning author compiled a book to bring Nichiren up-to-date by recasting his teachings in the then-popular slogans of Original Enlightenment. He called it Ongi Kuden (‘Record of the Orally Transmitted Teachings [attributed to Nichiren]’). Appearing at the height of the Original Enlightenment craze, it is saturated with its phraseology. Here is its exegesis of a line from Chapter 16 of the Lotus Sutra:
‘Since I truly became Buddha (there have passed) infinite, boundless . . .’ (Ga jitsu jobutsu irai muryo muhen): Gajitsu (‘I truly’) means Buddha’s attaining enlightenment in kuon, the infinite past. However, the true meaning is that Ga (‘I’) is indicative of all living things in the universe or each of the Ten Worlds, and that Jitsu (‘truly’) is defined as Buddha of Musa Sanjin (natural Three Bodies) . . . The person who realizes this is named Buddha. I (literally, ‘already’) means the past and rai (literally, ‘to come’) the future. Irai includes the present in it. Buddha has attained the enlightenment of Ga jitsu, and His past and future are of uncountable and unfathomable length . . . Kuon means having neither beginning nor end, being just as man is, and being natural. It has neither beginning nor end because Musa Sanjin is not created in its original form. It is just as man is because it is not adorned by the 32 wonderful physical features and 80 favorable characters [of a Buddha]. It is natural because the Buddha of Honnu Joju (‘unchanging inherently existing’) is natural. Kuon is Namu Myoho Renge Kyu Kuon Jitsujo — really enlightened, enlightened as Musa (‘not being produced by conditions’).
(Ongi Kuden, quoted by Ikeda, Science and Religion 200)
All the main ideas of Original Enlightenment are here: ‘just as man is’; ‘not produced by conditions’; ‘not adorned with any special characteristics’; ‘inherently existing’; ‘all living things are originally enlightened’. The only important idea which is missing is ‘earthly desires are enlightenment’, but that appears elsewhere in the same text: ‘Burn the firewood of earthly desires and reveal the fire of enlightened wisdom’ (Ongi Kuden, quoted by Kirimura, Outline of Buddhism 172).
Ongi Kuden, which may have been written at Taiseki-ji in the first place, became prominent in the theology of Nichiren Shoshu. It was widely believed to contain the authentic verbal teachings of Nichiren as recorded by Nikko. Ironically, one forgery provoked another one. The rival ‘Unity’ branch produced its own ‘oral transmission’ called Onko-kikigaki, and claimed that it had been put into writing by Niko of Mount Minobu. Its real purpose seems to have been to counteract the influence of Ongi Kuden. Only in recent times have both works come to be regarded as pious forgeries (Murano 1982).
The Nichiren Shoshu doctrine that Nichiren himself is the Original Buddha follows logically from Original Enlightenment. Nichiren is originally enlightened to the true Dharma. ‘Original’ here does not mean first at a point in time, but eternal — timeless. We are all originally enlightened, and Nichiren reveals what this means. When we practice what he practiced (as when Shakyamuni practices what he practiced) we uncover our originally enlightened nature.
Nichiren is said to have realized his own Original Enlightenment at the moment the executioner raised the sword above his head on the beach at Tatsunokuchi. From that moment on Nichiren’s teachings are the infallible words of the Originally Enlightened Buddha.”
Fire in the Lotus, p177-180
To underscore this focus on the Ongi-kuden in Nichiren Shoshu at the expense of Nichiren Shu foundational teachings, Montgomery points out that in 1950, Jōsei Toda, a founder of Soka Gakkai, promised to rebuild Taiseki-ji, which had been largely abandoned during the war years. To do this, he vowed to emphasize the Ongi Kuden and to shun Chih-i’s philosophy. Montgomery points out that he gets this information from Daisaku Ikeda’s Human Revolution, Volume IV, pages 249-56.
Next: The Life of Kumārajīva
