Category Archives: 800years

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800 Years: Faith and the Protective Deities

Yesterday, Nov. 11, is the day traditionally set aside to mark what’s called the Komasubara Persecution of Nichiren. Here’s the official explanation:

“After returning from exile at Izu in 1264, Nichiren Shonin visited his home village in Awa Province to see his sick mother. After she recovered, Kudo Yoshitaka, the Lord of Amatsu, invited Nichiren Shonin to his residence. On their way in the evening of November 11, Nichiren Shonin and his retainers were attacked by Tojo Kagenobu and his followers at Komatsubara. Nichiren Shonin was injured on his forehead, and his disciple, Kyoninbo and Lord Yoshitaka were killed. A cotton hat is put on Nichiren Shonin’s statue from November 11 through Spring Higan (toward the end of March) or Rikkyo Kaishu-e Service commemoration the establishment of Nichiren Buddhism (April 28) to heal the injury on his forehead.”

After last year’s Komasubara Persecution service at the Sacramento Nichiren Buddhist Church, Rev. Kenjo Igarashi offered a sermon on faith and Dharma power and the protective deities. Here’s some of what he offered.

First, Rev. Igarashi explained that Nichiren Shonin survived being injured in the ambush at Komatsubara because he had strong Lotus Sutra faith. That faith, said Rev. Igarashi, caused the Lotus Sutra deities to offer their protection.

Rev. Igarashi offered a tale of his time caring for Nichiren followers in Brazil. One of these members was the owner of a large appliance store. The owner had been abducted from outside the store and taken to a remote location 100 miles away. The kidnappers took everything he had on him, even his clothes. He was left with only his underwear. Later, his store was broken into and all of the computers and televisions were stolen. The store owner asked Rev. Igarashi to pray for him and his shop, and Rev. Igarashi performed a purification ceremony for the man and gave him an amulet. The next time he went to Brazil the store owner asked him to pray for him and his store again. Afterward, the store owner and his wife invited Rev. Igarashi to dinner. During the dinner, the store owner wrote two Chinese characters on a napkin and gave the napkin to Rev. Igarashi. The store owner, who was Korean, did not speak English or Japanese and normally communicated through his wife, who knew a little Japanese. The characters on the napkin were Dharma and power. The store owner was commenting on the strength of Rev. Igarashi’s Dharma power. But Rev. Igarashi reminded the store owner that he had the strength of his faith, and that faith in the Lotus Sutra attracted the protection of the deities and the Buddha’s benefit.

Dharma power comes from faith in the Lotus Sutra, Rev. Igarashi stressed. If you don’t have strong faith you can’t get Dharma power, the deities’ power, the deities’ protection. When one has strong faith the deities offer their protection and the Buddha gives his benefits. That’s why, explained Rev. Igarashi, it is very important to strengthen your faith.

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800 Years: Practicing Our Faith in Our Home and Work

SHOKYO TO HOKEKYO TONO NAN-I NO KOTO

Since the Buddha dharma is not understood correctly and is not believed righteously, the worldly law becomes disorderly. The Buddha dharma is like a body while the worldly law is like its shadow. When the body bends, its shadow also bends.

(Background : May 26, 1280, 58 years old, at Minobu, Showa Teihon, p.1752)

DANNOTSU BO GOHENJI

To serve your master (in your work) is to practice the teaching of the Lotus Sutra. The sutra says that worldly politics and economy are not against its ultimate reality.

(Background : April 11, 1278, 56 years old, at Minobu, Showa Teihon, p.1493)

Explanatory note

An old Chinese book says that a wise man predicted destruction of his country because its people did not bother to comb their hair, and his prediction became true.

There is a Japanese saying, “Eyes are the windows of one’s mind.” The slightest movement of our eyes shows what we are thinking. Our thoughts are expressed in our attitudes, which become social movements.

Such matters are taught in Buddhism. But people generally think that Buddhism concerns individual’s inner self only. Nichiren Daishonin clarified this matter. Merely holding hands in gassho and reciting the sutra are not the practice of faith in Nichiren Buddhism. But faith must appear in our daily works.

We, Nichiren Buddhists, keep the teaching of “Rissho Ankoku,” that is, to establish the righteousness of the Buddha’s teaching is to secure the nation. We must understand that the social movement is the reflection of the people’s religion. We must remember that Nichiren Daishonin advised Kingo Shijo to stay on his work when Kingo wanted to quit his work for the sake of devotion to his faith. We must keep Nichiren’s advice in our minds and practice our faith in our home and work.

Rev. Kanai

Phrase A Day

800years, WONS, original

800 Years: Merits Spontaneously Accessed by Faith

The practices carried out by the Buddha throughout his countless lifetimes (causes) and the resulting virtues of his enlightenment (effects) are contained in the daimoku and spontaneously accessed by the practitioner in the act of chanting. We can see this idea developing in a personal letter that Nichiren wrote the year before the Kanjin honzon shō:

This jewel of [the character] myō contains the merit of the Tathāgata Śākyamuni’s Pāramitā of giving (danbaramitsu), when in the past he fed his body to a starving tigress or [gave his life] to ransom a dove; the merit of his Pāramitā of keeping precepts, when, as King Śrutasoma, he would not tell a lie; the merit gained as the ascetic Forbearance, when he entrusted his person to King Kali; the merit gained when he was Prince Donor, the ascetic Shōjari, [etc.] He placed the merit of all his six perfections (rokudo) within the character myō. Thus, even though we persons of the evil, last age have not cultivated a single good, he confers upon us the merit of perfectly fulfilling the countless practices of the six perfections. This is the meaning [of the passage], “Now this threefold world / is all my domain. / The beings in it / are all my children.” We ordinary worldlings, fettered [by defilements], at once have merit equal to that of Śākyamuni, master of teachings, for we receive the entirety of his merit. The sūtra states, “[At the start I made a vow / to make all living beings] / equal to me, without any difference.” This passage means that those who take faith in the Lotus Sūtra are equal to Śākyamuni Commoners [i.e., the heirs chosen to succeed the emperors Yao and Shun] immediately achieved royal status. Just as commoners became kings in their present body, so ordinary worldlings can immediately become Buddhas. This is what is meant by the heart of [the doctrine of] three thousand realms in one thought-moment.

Original Enlightenment and the Transformation of Medieval Japanese Buddhism


Peaceful Action, 800years

800 Years: The Buddha’s Faith in Us

The Buddha shows great faith in us by entrusting the wonderful Dharma to us. We can repay this trust and faith by becoming the arms and hands of the Buddha and continuing the Tathagata’s great work of leading all beings to the shore of liberation.

Peaceful Action, Open Heart, p136
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800 Years: Combining Faith and Discernment

The mental state generated by the firsthand encounter with mystery is called faith. A religion whose teachings a person tries to explain entirely by reason has no power to move others because this person has only a theoretical understanding and cannot put his theory into practice. Such a religion does not produce the energy to cause others to follow it. True faith has power and energy. However uneducated a person may be and however humble his circumstances, he can save others and help them promote his religion if he only has faith. But if he has faith in what is fundamentally wrong, his energy exerts a harmful influence on society and those around him. Therefore faith and discernment must go together. A religion cannot be said to be true unless it combines faith and discernment. The Buddha’s teachings can be understood by reason. They do not demand blind, unreasoning faith. We must understand the Buddha’s teachings by listening to preaching and by reading the sutras. As we advance in our discernment of these teachings, faith is generated spontaneously.

When a person who has a flexible mind is not advanced in discernment, he develops faith as soon as he is told, “This is a true teaching.” So far as the teaching of the Lotus Sutra is concerned, that is all right, because he will gradually advance in discernment through hearing and reading its teaching.

In short, we can enter a religion from the aspect either of faith or of discernment, but unless a religion combines both aspects, it does not have true power.

Buddhism for Today, p64
800years, d20b, WONS

800 Years: Keep Yourself as a Practicer

Whatever happens to you, have a firm faith and keep yourself as a practicer of the Lotus Sūtra and join the ranks of my followers. As long as you agree with me, you will be one of the bodhisattvas who emerged from the earth. And if you are determined to be a bodhisattva of the earth, there is no doubt that you have been a disciple of the Original Śākyamuni Buddha from the remotest past. The “Emerging from the Earth” chapter states, “I have been teaching and converting these people ever since the eternal past.”

Shohō Jisso-shō, Treatise on All Phenomena as Ultimate Reality, Writings of Nichiren Shōnin, Faith and Practice, Volume 4, Page 78

800years, d30b, Blog

800 Years: The Protection of 10 Rākṣasas Daughters

With faith, practice and study we advance along the path to enlightenment, but faith alone launches us on this journey and that same faith becomes our armor, inviting protection along the way. In particular, the faithful benefit from the 10 rākṣasas daughters, who promise in Chapter 26, Dhārānis, that those who read, recite and keep the Lotus Sūtra will have no trouble. These demon daughters and the Mother of Devils, Kishimojin, are encouraged by the Buddha to protect even those who only recite the Daimoku.

Two Buddhas Seated Side by Side points out Nichiren’s emphasis in his letters on the participation of the 10 rākṣasas daughters in the protection and testing of adherents:

“Nichiren saw the workings of the ten rāksasis in the events surrounding him, both great and small. He saw their roles as protecting Lotus devotees, occasionally testing their faith, aiding their practice, relieving their sufferings, and chastising those who obstruct their devotion. To a follower, the lay monk Myōmitsu, he wrote: ‘The ten rāksasis in particular have vowed to protect those who embrace the daimoku of the Lotus Sūtra. Therefore they must think of you and your wife as a mother does her only child … and safeguard you day and night.’ To two new parents, the samurai Shijō Kingo and his wife, Nichiren wrote that the ten rāksasis would watch over their infant daughter, so that ‘wherever she may frolic or play, no harm will come to her; she will “travel fearlessly, like a lion king”.’ He saw the protection of the ten rāksasis in the kindness of an elderly lay monk on Sado Island who had come to his aid, helping him to survive in exile, and in the devotion of a woman who had made him a robe to shield him from the cold in the recesses of Mount Minobu. Their protection was further evident to him in the fact that he had been able to escape unscathed from an attack on his dwelling in Kamakura and survived other threats as well. To two brothers whose father had threatened to disinherit them on account of their faith in the Lotus Sūtra, he suggested: ‘Perhaps the ten rāksasis have possessed your parents and are tormenting you in order to test your resolve.’ He also asserted that the ten rāksasis, along with other deities, had induced the Mongol ruler to attack Japan to chastise its people for abandoning the Lotus Sūtra.”

Two Buddhas, p247

There is an important, deeper meaning to the presence of the 10 rākṣasas daughters in Chapter 26. As Nikkyō Niwano explains in Buddhism for Today:

“These female demons with one voice declared before the Buddha that if anyone harassed the preachers of the sutra, they would protect the preachers and rid them of such persecution. Their declaration bears witness to the fact that the Buddha-mind is found even in these demons. Conversely, the teachings of the Lotus Sutra can be said to have the power to enable even these demons to become buddhas.”

Buddhism for Today, p389
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800 Years: Compassion of the Bodhisattva

In the introduction to The Six Perfections, Buddhism and the Cultivation of Character, Dale S. Wright says:

“From the early beginnings of their tradition, Buddhists have maintained that nothing is more important than developing the freedom implied in their activity of self-cultivation—of deliberately shaping the kind of life you will live.”

Six Perfections: Buddhism & the Cultivation of Character, p 3-4

The first of the Six Perfections is generosity, and it is generosity which exemplifies the interaction of our practice for self and others.

“If, engulfed in our own world of concerns, we do not even notice when someone near us needs help, we will not be able to practice generosity. Similarly, if we maintain a distant posture toward others that, in effect, prevents them from appealing to us for help, we will rarely find ourselves in a position to give. The first skill that is vital to an effective practice of generosity is receptivity, a sensitive openness to others that enables both our noting their need and our receptivity to their requests. Our physical and psychological presence sets this stage and communicates clearly the kind of relation to others that we maintain.”

Six Perfections: Buddhism & the Cultivation of Character, p 33

This is the lesson we are to take from Chapter 25, The Universal Gate of World-Voice-Perceiver Bodhisattva.

As Thich Nhat Hanh explains in Peaceful Action, Open Heart:

“Happiness is made of one substance – compassion. If you don’t have compassion in your heart you cannot be happy. Cultivating compassion for others, you create happiness for yourself and for the world. And because Avalokiteśvara is the embodiment of this practice, the Sutra says that we pay respect to him by bowing and touching our foreheads to the ground. This is an ancient Indian practice, a gesture of deep respect to one’s teacher.”

Peaceful Action, Open Heart, p200

Gene Reeves suggests in The Stories of the Lotus Sutra that the sutra can be said to have a primary focus on wisdom when it emphasizes teaching the Dharma as the most effective way to help others. But compassion is the focus when you consider the message of the parables.

“The father of the children in the burning house does not teach the children how to cope with fire; he gets them out of the house. The father of the long-lost, poor son does not so much teach him in ordinary ways as he does by example and, especially, by giving him encouragement. The guide who conjures up a fantastic city for weary travelers does not teach by giving them doctrines for coping with a difficult situation; instead, he gives them a place in which to rest, enabling them to go on. The doctor with the children who have taken poison tries to teach them to take some good medicine but fails and resorts instead to shocking them by announcing his own death. All of these actions require, of course, considerable intelligence or wisdom. But what is emphasized is that they are done by people moved by compassion to benefit others.”

The Stories of the Lotus Sutra, p275-276

Our faith in the Lotus Sutra is manifest in our compassion.

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800 Years: Faith in the Real World

OMONSU DONO NYOBO GOHENJI

Suppose we ask where the Buddha is, and where hell is. Some sutras state that hell is below the earth, while others state that the Pure Land of Buddhas is in the west. But the explicit truth is that both hell and Buddha exist within five feet of our bodies. It probably can be said that hell exists in one’s mind when he despises his father and neglects his mother. As the seed of the lotus brings forth its root and flower, we have the Buddha in our minds.

(Background : January 5, 1281, 58 years old, at Minobu, Showa Teihon, p. 1856)

Explanatory note

We, Buddhists, sometimes wonder where the Buddha is and where hell is. When we look back upon the past, we have experienced the various states of joy and anger, happiness and sadness from one moment to another. These various states are divided into ten realms of living beings in Buddhism. They are : the realms of hell, hungry spirit, animal, asura (shura), man, heavenly being, sravaka (shomon), Pratyekabuddha (engaku), Bodhisattva, and Buddha.

Our minds are sometimes calm, and it appears that we are one step closer to the Pure Land of Buddha, but in the next moment, our minds would change to the realm of asura or hungry spirit. In short, we may think that we live peacefully, but we may be at the gate of the terrible hell.

We will find a light of truth when we overcome our suffering and hardship. Our aspiration to attain Buddhahood and fear of falling into hell will force us to find the true meaning of our life.

In other words, hell does not exist anywhere but in our minds. The mind that is so filled with anger, evil desires, and complaints is the same mind with which we aspire for Buddhahood.

Nichiren Daishonin saw suffering people who were trembling with fear and despair. These people thought there was no hope in this world and wished to escape from that reality. They dreamed of going to the Pure Land of the Amida Buddha, a place which they had never seen before. Looking at this, Nichiren taught them that they had the wrong faith and that they should seek the Buddha’s enlightened world in this real Saha-world. This was his compassionate way to lead us to the true teaching of the Buddha Śākyamuni.

We are easily moved by a religion that claims to remove our misfortune or sufferings and to take us to an imaginative heaven. However, Nichiren teaches us that there is no other place if we are not relieved of our sufferings in this real world. How can we receive Buddha’s compassion and find true peace and happiness? He says that it is only by polishing our minds.

Rev. Matsuda

Phrase A Day

800years, original

800 Years: The Mind of Faith

[T]he “contemplation of the mind” in Nichiren’s teaching is not the introspective meditation on the moment-to-moment activity of one’s (unenlightened) mind, but rather embracing the daimoku, which is said to embody the enlightenment of the eternal Buddha of the origin teaching, that is, the three thousand realms in a single thought-moment in actuality.

“Embracing” the daimoku has the aspects both of chanting and having the mind of faith (shinjin); for Nichiren, the two are inseparable. Faith is also all-inclusive: in the Final Dharma age, it substitutes for the three disciplines of precepts, meditation, and wisdom. “That ordinary worldlings born in the Final Dharma age can believe in the Lotus Sūtra is because the Buddha realm is inherent in the human realm.” Thus the “one thought-moment containing three thousand realms” is also the “single moment of belief and understanding.” In the moment of faith, the three thousand realms of the original Buddha and those of the ordinary worldling are one. This moment of faith corresponds to the stage of myōji-soku. Like that of many medieval Tendai texts, Nichiren’s thought focuses on realizing Buddhahood at the stage of verbal identity, which he understood as the stage of embracing the daimoku of the Lotus Sūtra and taking faith in it. (Page 270)

Original Enlightenment and the Transformation of Medieval Japanese Buddhism