During my recent hour-long walking meditations, I’ve been pondering how to describe the role of the Daimoku in Buddhist practice. Similes – comparison of one thing with another thing of a different kind, used to make a description more emphatic or vivid – seem the best bet.
Consider The Simile of the Magnifying Glass
Let’s set the stage with some background from Nichiren’s letters:
The first thousand years following the Buddha’s extinction are called the Age of the True Dharma. During this period, many people kept the precepts and some attained Buddhahood. The next thousand years are called the Age of the Semblance Dharma. During this period, many people broke the precepts, and only a few attained Buddhahood. After the Age of the Semblance Dharma comes the Latter Age of Degeneration. This period is filled with people who neither keep nor break the precepts, but the country is filled with people who have no precepts.
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In the Latter Age of Degeneration, the pre-Lotus sūtras and the teaching of the theoretical section of the Lotus Sūtra, which were suitable in the Ages of the True Dharma and the Semblance Dharma, no longer enabled the people to shed delusions of life and death and attain Buddhahood.
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In the Latter Age of Degeneration beginning 2,000 years after the passing of the Buddha, the Hinayāna and Mahāyāna sutras given to Kāśyapa, Ānanda, Mañjuśrī, Maitreya, Medicine King, Avalokiteśvara and others were no longer useful as medicine for living beings. It is because they were no longer effective as cures for the severe ailments of living beings. While the Buddha considered what to do about this, Superior Practice Bodhisattva emerged from the earth. The Buddha then ordered the bodhisattva to give the five characters of Myō, Hō, Ren, Ge, and Kyō to all living beings throughout the Jambudvīpa.
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So today, more than 700 years later, we are well into the Latter Age of Degeneration, when the Buddha’s teachings have lost their vitality. It is much like the sun in winter in Upstate New York.
During the spring and summer and into the fall, the sun nourishes us with its warmth. But once winter settles in, that warmth is nowhere to be found. The same sun is there in the cloudless afternoon sky, but the temperature is 17 degrees Fahrenheit or even less.
In this endless winter of diminished warmth in the Latter Age of Degeneration, the Daimoku acts like a magnifying glass, focusing the Dharma rays to a single point. That focused energy is enough to set fire to karmic encumbrances or to burn away delusions.
The daimoku has two meanings: the daimoku which was practiced during the Ages of the True Dharma and Semblance Dharma, and that which is practiced in the Latter Age of Degeneration. During the Age of the True Dharma, Bodhisattvas Vasubandhu and Nāgārjuna chanted the daimoku solely for the sake of their own practice. During the Age of the Semblance Dharma, Grand Masters Nanyüeh and T’ien-t’ai chanted only the daimoku, Namu Myōhō Renge Kyō; they, too, chanted it for their own practices, not to guide other people. Their daimoku was a practice for attaining enlightenment based on the teaching of the theoretical section of the Lotus Sūtra. The daimoku which I, Nichiren, recite today in the Latter Age of Degeneration is the daimoku of Namu Myōhō Renge Kyō, which, unlike that of the previous ages, is not merely the practice for personal enlightenment but it is the practice also for benefitting others. This five-character daimoku is not just a title of the Lotus Sūtra; it contains the five profound meanings of the name, entity, quality, function and teaching.
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