Attended the Sacramento Nichiren Buddhist Church Komatsubara Persecution Service on Sunday. Ven. Kenjo Igarashi‘s gosho covered the four great persecutions that followed Nichiren’s submission of the Rissho Ankoku-Ron.

As explained by Rev. Igarashi:

Nichiren Shonin used “strong words” in establishing the supremacy of the Lotus Sutra and Sakyamuni Buddha because he was trying to save the suffering people of Japan. But those strong words provoked many people to attack Nichiren Shonin.

Today we don’t use shakubuku to break people’s ideas and then teach them the correct view. Now we teach using shoju to lead and convince them by respectfully, accepting and understanding their viewpoints and situations.

In Nichiren’s time, however, the calamities and unhappiness were seen as the consequence of failing to embrace the Lotus Sutra and Sakyamuni. Strong words were necessary to break the wrong views and to enable the embracing of the supreme teaching of the Lotus Sutra. Only then would the protective deities return to Japan and make peace for the people.

Today many people don’t care. They’re just living day to day. But all life is the result of your cause and condition. That’s why you must extinquish your bad karma otherwise you can’t be happy, you won’t have deities protecting you. You have to chant all of the time. Then you will be happy and then the whole world will be at peace.

Nichiren Shonin was Jogyo Bodhisattva, who was one of Sakyamuni’s original disciples. He could have become Buddha but instead he chose to be born in this world in order to save suffering people. That’s why Nichiren never stopped his propagation.

If everyone follows Nichiren Shonin, then Sakyamuni Buddha and the deities are going to protect us all the time. Then we will be happy. Then we will have world peace.

Recently I was hunting for refills for a staple gun in the printer room at the Sacramento Nichiren Buddhist Church. This is also the room where Ven. Kenjo Igarashi keeps his extra copies of books. While I was looking for the staples I took the opportunity to browse the books on the shelf. That’s when I came across a 54-page booklet entitled “Questions and Answers on Nichiren Buddhism” by Senchu Murano. The booklet was published in 1998 by the Nichiren Shu Overseas Propagation Promotions Association. Rev. Igarashi said I was welcome to take a copy.

Beginning this morning I will be reprinting portions of the book over the next several days.

The book is divided into three chapters:

• Chapter I. Buddhist Concepts
• Chapter Il. The Mandala
• Chapter Ill. The Komon Ha and Taisekiji Temple

The entire third chapter and portions of Chapter 1 focus on Nichiren Shoshu and Soka Gakkai. Since my purpose in publishing quotes on this site is to help me remember important topics and concepts, I don’t see a point in publishing the disputes with Nichiren Shoshu and Soka Gakkai. It’s not important to me. However, I am making available the entire book for download here.

We decorate with paper flowers on bamboo branches in remembrance of the cherry tree that bloomed out of season on Oct. 13. 1282, when Nichiren died.

In Japan, Nichiren’s memorial is treated like a festival, with crowds parading with lanterns drapped in flowers, beating drums and ringing bells and dancing.

Why is everyone happy? Nichiren Shonin was a desciple of the original Sakyamuni Buddha, the Eternal Buddha. He was already a Bodhisattva. He chose to be born into this suffering world. It was his intention to enter this world to save people.

Everyone has causes and conditions that bring them to this suffering world. Everyone has a Buddha seed within them. If you don’t practice, you can’t get a good condition. The seed needs condition – soil, water, sun – otherwise it never grows. Everybody has a Buddha nature, this seed. That is why when you chant Namu-Myoho-Renge-Kyo you can approach enlightenment.

The Lotus Sutra is the supreme teaching of Sakyamuni Buddha. Today we can study the Lotus Sutra and chant Namu-Myoho-Renge-Kyo because Nichiren Shonin chose to come back to this suffering world. That’s why today the memorial service for Nichiren Shonin expresses our gratitude to him for his gift to us.

Today will begin the 25th time I’ve cycled through my 32-days of the Lotus Sutra and published a portion of that day’s reading. That’s 24 months of 32 days, or two Lotus Sutra years. I’ve taken this milestone as an opportunity to start using quotes from Introduction to the Lotus Sutra in conjunction with each day’s sutra offering.

The book, which covers the full Threefold Lotus Sutra, is more a general introduction than a study guide, offering summaries of each chapter and explanations of the meaning of what is happening. It’s the explanations that I’ll be publishing as quotes. Unfortunately, not all chapters include explanations. For example, the final two chapters are only summarized without explanation. To me that’s unfortunate since I find the message about teachers in King Wonderful-Adornment as the Previous Life of a Bodhisattva well worth exploration. Another complication is that chapters such as Expedients and The Duration of the Life of the Tathagata have much more worth quoting than other chapters. As a result the quotes published will not always be related to that day’s portion of the Sutra.

Here’s an updated illustration of the Hōtōge with the beats now illustrated fully. (See earlier blog post.)

There are no beats for the first two words – Shi Kyō – and then a single beat for each word thereafter until the final Yō, which gets a double beat. There are four beats per line, except those lines that are highlighted, which get three beats. Quick beats are struck where the words are linked.

Each service when I play this recording and recite the words I’m reminded of the reason for the odd beat. The story is told in Rev. Ryuei Michael McCormick’s Lotus in the Sea of Flames. The event takes place as Nichiren is being taken away to Izu on his first exile.

“I am no magistrate,” said the official. “I am not interested in your arguments. I am only interested in getting you onto that ship, out of Kamakura, and on to Izu. Now keep quiet!”

As the boat moved away Nichiren began to chant the final verses from the eleventh chapter of the Lotus Sutra, “It is difficult to keep this sutra. I shall be glad to see anyone keeping it even for a moment.” The rocking of the waves caused his voice to fade in and out, giving the recitation an odd rhythm. The passage ended with, “Anyone who expounds this sutra even for a moment in this dreadful world should be honored with offerings by all gods and men.” From that point on Nichlren knew that he and his disciples had truly become practitioners of the Lotus Sutra as its predictions of hardships that would be faced by the teachers of the True Dharma began to be fulfilled in their own lives.

In April I published this post. At the time I had been attending the Sacramento Nichiren Buddhist Church since January 2015 and I was still unable to recite the version of Hotoge performed during the service immediately after chanting Daimoku.

I have recordings of the services but the mokusho and the drum overwhelm everything. So I made an appointment with Ven. Kenjo Igarashi and asked him to record the Hotoge so that I can play it during my home services.

But when I reviewed the recordings with the text in the service book used in Sacramento, the words didn’t line up. Two lines were short – three beats instead of four.

It was only this Sunday, Oct. 1, while attending the online service at Myoshoji that I finally found the reason. The highlighted lines above accurately reflect the beats in the recording.

Finally.

Hotoge with mokusho

Hotoge words

The source of the odd beat is explained in Lotus in a Sea of Flames.

Attended the Sacramento Nichiren Buddhist Church‘s fall Ohigan service. This is the third of the regular memorial services held each year in Nichiren Shu – Spring and Fall Equinox and Obon in Summer. When you add in family memorial services to the mix it raised the question of why we have so many services honoring our ancestors. That was the subject of Ven. Kenjo Igarashi‘s lecture after the Ohigan service today.

Rev. Igarashi told the story of a woman who complained that Buddhists have too many memorial services. She decided she’d rather be a Christian – no memorial services.

Each memorial service has special meaning.

“Today I want to explain sandoku – three poisons,” he said. “These three poisons are why we suffer.”

What follows is my paraphrasing of the lecture.

The first of the poisons is greed. And greed is an essential component of living in this world. Everyone is competing with others all the time.

The second poison is anger. Everyone is fighting, fighting. Anger toward other people is easy.

The third poison is traditionallly translated as stupidity or ignorance. Rev. Igarashi suggested describing the third poison as “a lot of complaints. All the time complain. … All the time, I’m right and you’re wrong.”

Since these poisons cause our suffering that’s why Śākyamuni said we must eliminate these. If you don’t, you’ll never get happy in this life and after you pass away you won’t go to paradise or a good realm.

These three poisons are the reason we are born in this suffering world, but most people are ignorant of this fact.

People want to be happy. They want to be rich. They want to be famous. Everybody thinks like that. But we need to think about why we are born into this world.

The purpose of our Buddhist practice is to extinguish these three poisons. We can’t attain enlightenment or go to a good realm after we die without doing that.

It is hard to extinguish these three poisons. That’s why we had today’s pāramitā service.

The Nichiren Shu brochure on Higan offers this explaination of the pāramitās.

1. fuse means to offer one’s self wholeheartedly and unconditionally, without any expectation of its return.
2. jikai is to follow and maintain the general precepts of the Buddha.
3. nin-niku suggests a resilience to persevere through hardship.
4. syojin refers to the necessity of conscientious effort in accomplishing one’s goals.
5. zenjo points to qualities existent in meditation, calling upon one’s concentration, adjoined by calmness and poise.
6. chie is the Buddha’s wisdom, reinforced with its practical application.

How does this apply to memorial services for deceased ancestors?

“Maybe [those ancestors] are still in the suffering world,” Rev. Igarashi said.

Today’s service is called Higan, which means the other shore. The other shore is enlightenment.

“We are living on this shore, the suffering world, so maybe our ancestors are still in this suffering world. That’s why we practice in order to send them to the other shore with us.”

The six kinds of practices – the six pāramitās – are very important. With them we can extinguish the three poisons while at the same time helping our ancestors reach the other shore as well.

This is not a practice twice or three times a year. Every day is Higan or Obon.