Ven. Kenjo Igarashi serves members of the Sacramento Nichiren Buddhist Church, but also Nichiren Shu practitioners in Chicago and elsewhere. As he was mentioning last week, he performs a lot of funerals. At last week’s service, he offered an outline of the reason behind the Japanese traditional 49 day ceremony for the dead. It went something like this:
When a person dies the “spirit” is nailed to this world with seven nails. Every 7 days, a trial is held before a judge/prosecutor, with a different deity in charge at each hearing. Different things in the dead person’s life are considered in each hearing. The “spirit” is not allowed to present a defense. Instead, prayers of family members serve to mitigate any bad things or enhance any good things. After each hearing a nail is removed.
On the 49th day hearing, the last nail is removed and the deity in charge points to six unmarked doors. The doors are gateways to the six lower realms — hell, hungry spirits, animals, angry spirits, humans and heaven. The “spirit,” now free, must choose which door to exit. The prayers of family members help make the best choice.
In my brief exposure to Nichiren Shu, I’ve discovered quite a spectrum. For example, I find Rev. McCormick, with his rigorous academic approach, at one extreme end of the spectrum in regard to deities and their role in Buddhism and Rev. Igarashi at the other extreme. (I suspect Rev. Igarashi’s 500 days of esoteric ascetic practice has that effect.)
When I read the Lotus Sutra and Nichiren’s writings, I feel deities ought to be a real aspect of Buddhism. But how? Our modern world makes it hard to “believe” in deities. Personally, I enjoy what I term my “What if…” openness that accepts infinite possibilities with a bemused smile.
I have to give you an example. This is from Nichiren’s Rationale For Remonstration With Hachiman (Writings of Nichiren Shonin, Doctrine 1) :
The Sutra of Transmission of the Buddhist Teaching, fascicle 1, speaks of the previous life of Venerable Kasyapa:
Once upon a time there lived a Brahman named Nyagrodha in the Kingdom of Magadha. Because of the great merit of his good acts for a long time in a previous life. . . , he was immensely rich and piled up vast wealth in this life. . . , which was worth a thousand times more than that of the king of Magadha. (…) Although he was very wealthy, he was childless, so the Brahman said to himself, “My days are numbered, but I have nobody to inherit my treasures filled in the warehouse. I wish to have a child.” Thus the Brahman prayed to the forest god in the neighborhood for good luck of having a child. Having prayed for years without any luck, he became furious and said to the forest god: “I have prayed to you for the last several years to no avail. I am going to pray to you from the bottom of my heart for seven more days. If it does not do any good, I am going to burn down your shrine.” Hearing this, the forest god in agony relayed his problem to the Four Heavenly Kings, who in turn reported the matter to Indra.
Indra looked around all over the world, but could not find anyone worthy of being Nyagrodha’s child, so he went to the King of the Brahma Heaven for help. With his divine eye, the King of the Brahma Heaven then closely observed the whole world, finding a heavenly being in the Brahma Heaven who was about to die. The King told him that if he was to be reborn in the human world, he should be born as a child of Nyagrodha Brahman in Jambudvipa. The dying being answered that he did not want to be reborn in a family of a Brahman because Brahman dharma includes many evil and false views. The King of the Brahma Heaven told him again: “Nyagrodha Brahman is a powerful man of virtue that there is no one in the world worthy to be born as his child. If you are reborn to his family, I will protect you lest you should fall into “evil view.” Thereupon the heavenly being in the Brahma Heaven answered, “I will respectfully follow your words.”
The King of the Brahma Heaven then reported the turn of events to Indra, who in turn informed the forest god. Elated by the good news, the forest god called upon the Brahman at home saying, “You should no longer have a grudge against me. Your wish will be fulfilled in seven days.” As expected, the wife of the Brahman became pregnant in seven days and gave birth to a baby boy ten months later. (…) This is Venerable Kasyapa today.
This is just a fun story by modern perspectives. But “What if…” and you smile and consider how rich is the universe of 3,000 realms at this moment.
