In 1989, when I first chanted the Daimoku, I was encouraged to chant in order to get stuff. Didn’t matter what stuff. Chanting was magical. Have faith, I was told.

Since leaving Soka Gakkai, my understanding of faith has shifted 180 degrees. This was true on Nov. 15, 2015, when I published a blog post following an on-line service with Rev. Ryusho Jeffus. And it is even truer today.

My understanding of faith today has grown from my appreciation of the purpose of the Buddha’s teaching. That purpose is succinctly explained in Chapter 2 of the Lotus Sutra:

“Śāriputra! The purpose of the various teachings that the Buddhas expound according to the capacities of all living beings is difficult to understand. I also expound various teachings with innumerable expedients, that is to say, with stories of previous lives, parables, similes and discourses. [The purpose of the various teachings of the Buddhas is difficult to understand] because the Dharma cannot be understood by reasoning. Only the Buddhas know the Dharma because the Buddhas, the World-Honored Ones, appear in the worlds only for one great purpose.

“Śāriputra! What is the one great purpose for which the Buddhas, the World-Honored Ones, appear in the worlds? The Buddhas, the World-Honored Ones, appear in the worlds in order to cause all living beings to open [the gate to] the insight of the Buddha, and to cause them to purify themselves. They appear in the worlds in order to show the insight of the Buddha to all living beings. They appear in the worlds in order to cause all living beings to obtain the insight of the Buddha. They appear in the worlds in order to cause all living beings to enter the Way to the insight of the Buddha. Śāriputra! This is the one great purpose for which the Buddhas appear in the worlds.”

“The Buddha said to Śāriputra:

“The Buddhas, the Tathāgatas, teach only Bodhisattvas. All they do is for one purpose, that is, to show the insight of the Buddha to all living beings, to cause them to obtain the insight of the Buddha.”

We are not asked to sit idly and intellectualize the meaning of the teaching of the Buddha. No, the Buddha seeks to cause us to act.

“The Tathāgatas save all living beings
With innumerable expedients.
They cause all living beings to enter the Way
To the wisdom-without-āsravas of the Buddha.
Anyone who hears the Dharma
Will not fail to become a Buddha.

“Every Buddha vows at the outset:
‘I will cause all living beings
To attain the same enlightenment
That I attained.’ ”

Our role is to gather enough faith to step through the gate of the Buddha’s wisdom and with each subsequent step to advance along the path the Buddha has laid before us – to enter the Way to the same enlightenment.

As I wrote back in 2015, “Eliminating suffering in my life by awakening my inherent enlightenment is the reason for chanting, not getting stuff.”

Faith is a personal aspect. It has no relationship to others. My faith is mine; yours is yours. This is something I don’t believe many people appreciate.

In Chapter 1, Mañjuśrī tells a short story about the previous life of Maitreya. It seems the Buddha-to-be wasn’t always a perfect example of a man of faith.

“There was a lazy man
Among the disciples
Of Wonderful-Light, the Teacher of the Dharma.
The lazy man was attached to fame and gain.

“Always seeking fame and gain,
He often visited noble families.
He did not understand what he had recited,
Gave it up, and forgot it.
Because of this,
He was called Fame-Seeking.”

No criticism of Fame-Seeking is offered. Instead, we learn:

“But he later did many good karmas,
And became able to see innumerable Buddhas.
He made offerings to them,
Followed them, practiced the Great Way,
And performed the six paramitas.
Now he sees the Lion-Like One of the Sakyas.

“He will become a Buddha
In his future life.
He will be called Maitreya.
He will save innumerable living beings.”

The Lotus Sutra is clear on this topic: We are not to criticize those who practice the Lotus Sutra.

In Chapter 10, The Teacher of the Dharma, the Buddha warns:

An evil man who speaks ill of me in my presence with evil intent for as long as a kalpa is not as sinful as the person who reproaches laymen or monks with even a single word of abuse for their reading and reciting the Sūtra of the Lotus Flower of the Wonderful Dharma.

In Chapter 13, Peaceful Practices, we are instructed:

“A Bodhisattva-mahāsattvas who wishes to keep, read and recite this sūtra in the latter days after my extinction when the teachings are about to be destroyed, should not nurse jealousy against others, or flatter or deceive them. He should not despise those who study the Way to Buddhahood in any way. He should not speak ill of them or try to point out their faults. … He should not have fruitless disputes or quarrels about the teachings with others..”

In Chapter 28, The Encouragement of Universal-Sage Bodhisattva, the Buddha warns:

“Those who, upon seeing the keeper of this sūtra, blame him justly or unjustly, will suffer from white leprosy in their present life. Those who laugh at him will have few teeth, ugly lips, flat noses, contorted limbs, squint eyes, and foul and filthy bodies, and suffer from bloody pus of scabs, abdominal dropsy, tuberculosis, and other serious diseases in their successive lives.”

It is not our place to judge others. Never-Despising Bodhisattva did not read or recite sūtras. He only bowed to the four kinds of devotees. When he saw them in the distance, he went to them on purpose, bowed to them, and praised them, saying, ‘I do not despise you because you can become Buddhas.’

Fame-seeking became Maitreya. Never-Despising became Śākyamuni. Our faith grows amid our causes and conditions. We should nurture and encourage others, not criticize.

Daimoku literally means “title” in Japanese. In the case of the Lotus Sutra, that title is Myoho Renge Kyo. The text of the sutra begins with the declaration, “Thus have I heard.” Since the principal practice for Nichiren Buddhists is recitation of Namu Myoho Renge Kyo, it is useful to consider the “chicken or the egg” conundrum found in the relationship between the text of the sutra and its title.

In Hōon-jō, Essay on Gratitude, Nichiren writes:

“The five characters in Chinese “Myō, Hō, Ren, Ge, and Kyō” appearing above the sentence, “Thus have I heard” is the essence of the one-volume Lotus Sūtra in eight fascicles, the essence of all the sūtras, and the supreme and True Dharma for all Buddhas, bodhisattvas, men of the Two Vehicles (śrāvaka and pratyekabuddha), heavenly beings, human beings, asura demons, and dragon deities. [Writings of Nichiren Shōnin, Doctrine 3, Page 50]

As Rev. Ryusho Jeffus explains in his Lecture on the Lotus Sutra:

“In understanding that ‘thus have I heard’ is referring to Myoho Renge Kyo we realize that Myoho Renge Kyo pre-exists the text of the sutra. In this understanding, Myoho Renge Kyo has always existed before the text explaining it. So, in this way Myoho Renge Kyo is the fundamental truth that exists outside of or independent of the actual text, which follows.”

The first chapter of the Lotus Sutra also reveals that this is not first time the sutra has been preached. As Shinjo Suguro points out in Introduction to the Lotus Sutra:

“Manjusri’s narrative on Sun-Moon-Light Buddha illustrates that the Lotus Sutra was expounded in the past just as it is in the present. It is the universal teaching transcending even the concept of time. It is not some recent invention. The subsequent appearance of twenty thousand Buddhas with the same name suggests that the personalities of all Buddhas originate in the spirit of the very first One. Here we get the first glimpse of the ‘infinite absolute Buddha,’ or Original Buddha, who will fully reveal himself in Chapter Sixteen, ‘The Duration of the Life of the Tathagata.’ “

Or as Gene Reeves puts it in Stories from the Lotus Sutra:

“Thus the books we have called ‘The Lotus Sutra’ and the like, whether in Sanskrit, Chinese, Japanese, French, or English, are at best representations or exhibits of the Sutra itself. Such pages of text, on wood or palm leaf or paper, are embodiments of the Sutra. This does not mean, however, that the Lotus Sutra itself is in any way more real than the concrete embodiments. Rather, it is only in such concrete embodiments – not only in printed texts, but also in recitation, in teaching, and in practicing it – that the Sutra lives.” [p42]

With our faith in the Lotus Sutra that we make concrete by reciting devotion to the title of the sutra, by sharing the teaching and by putting it into practice in our lives, we bring the Original Buddha Śākyamuni to life right here, right now.

For a discussion of faith, it is necessary to consider what we are being asked to understand by faith. As Thich Nhat Hanh explains in Peaceful Action, Open Heart, the Introductory chapter prepares the audience to receive a very important teaching about ultimate reality.

“[T]his introductory chapter opens two doors. The first door is that of history, the events we experience and what we can see and know in our own lifetimes. The second door is that of ultimate reality, which goes beyond time and space. Everything, all phenomena, participate in these two dimensions. When we look at a wave on the surface of the ocean, we can see the form of the wave and we locate the wave in space and time. Looking at a wave from the perspective of the historical dimension, it seems to have a beginning and an end, a birth and a death. …

“At the same time, all beings and things also belong to the ultimate dimension, the dimension of reality that is not subject to notions of space and time, birth and death … . A wave is a wave, but at the same time it is water. … To talk about a wave, we need these notions: the wave arises and passes away … . None of these distinctions can be applied to the wave in its ultimate dimension as water. In fact, you cannot separate the wave from its ultimate dimension.

“Even though we are used to seeing everything in terms of the historical dimension, we can touch the ultimate dimension. So our practice is to become like a wave – while living the life of a wave in the historical dimension, we realize that we are also water and live the life of water.” [p31-33]

This is another way of understanding the Middle Way.

Consider the light emitted by Śākyamuni that illuminates all the corners of eighteen thousand worlds in the east. The congregation can see from this world the living beings of the six regions of those worlds, down to the Avchi Hell of each world, and up to the Akanistha Heaven of each world. Mañjuśrī recalls seeing the same good omen from a Buddha called Sun-Moon-Light.

In the historical dimension, we don’t see this simultaneous nature of the 10 worlds – the six regions plus the higher realms of śrāvakas, pratyekabuddhas, bodhisattvas and buddhas. We see our provisional existence but not how each realm interpenetrates the other.

With the light of the Buddha’s wisdom, the simultaneous existence of the 10 worlds is revealed in the same way that the light of our Sun passing through a prism reveals the rainbow of colors inside.

The provisional reality and ultimate reality are not separate but one truth, the Middle Way. As explained in Lotus Seeds:

“The Truth of the Middle Way is the teaching that Emptiness and Provisionality are different ways of pointing out that the reality of anything, including our own lives, transcends the categories of existence and non-existence.”

In the first chapter of the Lotus Sutra proper, the Buddha emits a ray of light and illumines all the corners of eighteen thousand worlds in the east, down to the Avchi Hell of each world, and up to the Akanistha Heaven of each world, the congregation gasps in wonder at this omen. The word “faith” appears only once.

Maitreya Bodhisattva narrates what everyone in the congregation is able to see:

“They also saw the Bodhisattva-mahāsattvas [of those worlds] who were practicing the Way of Bodhisattvas [in various ways] according to the variety of their karmas which they had done in their previous existence, and also according to the variety of their ways of understanding [the Dharma] by faith.”

Note the emphasis on the variation. We are not the same. The causes and conditions of each individual are as varied as there are people. And we each have our unique way of understanding the Dharma by faith.

This variation is a major theme of the Sutra of Innumerable Meanings:

“Seeing that conditioned desires are innumerable, the bodhisattva expounds the teachings in infinite ways. Because there are infinite ways of exposition, there are infinite meanings as well. The infinite meanings stem from a single dharma.”

This concept of equality and difference is emphasized throughout the Lotus Sutra.

In the second half of Chapter 1, when Mañjuśrī responds to Maitreya’s question about the meaning of the great wonder of the Buddha’s illumination of 18,000 worlds, he recalls an event from his past life:

“Good men! Innumerable, inconceivable, asamkya kalpas ago, there lived a Buddha called Sun-Moon-Light, the Tathagata, the Deserver of Offerings, the Perfectly Enlightened One, the Man of Wisdom and Practice, the Well-Gone, the Knower of the World, the Unsurpassed Man, the Controller of Men, the Teacher of Gods and Men, the Buddha, the World-Honored One. He expounded the right teachings. His expounding of the right teachings was good at the beginning, good in the middle, and good at the end. The meanings of those teachings were profound. The words were skillful, pure, unpolluted, perfect, clean, and suitable for the explanation of brahma practices. To those who were seeking Śrāvakahood, he expounded the teaching of the four truths, a teaching suitable for them, saved them from birth, old age, disease, and death, and caused them to attain Nirvāṇa. To those who were seeking Pratyekabuddhahood, he expounded the teaching of the twelve causes, a teaching suitable for them. To Bodhisattvas, he expounded the teaching of the six paramitas, a teaching suitable for them, and caused them to attain Anuttara-samyak-saṃbodhi, that is, to obtain the knowledge of the equality and differences of all things.”

We are equal but different. Our faith is different but equal. In the end we seek one thing: “To obtain the knowledge of the equality and differences of all things.”

“All of you, know this, join your hands together,
And wait with one mind!
The Buddha will send the rain of the Dharma
And satisfy those who seek enlightenment.”