Day 14 covers all of Chapter 9, The Assurance of Future Buddhahood of the Śrāvakas Who Have Something More to Learn and the Śrāvakas Who Have Nothing More to Learn, and opens Chapter 10, The Teacher of the Dharma.
Having last month heard Śākyamuni’s prediction of who will become a Buddha, we consider the consequences of speaking ill of someone who keeps the Lotus Sūtra.
“Medicine-King! 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.
“Medicine-King! Anyone who reads and recites the Sūtra of the Lotus Flower of the Wonderful Dharma, know this, will be adorned just as I am. I will shoulder him. Wherever he may be, bow to him! Join your hands together towards him with all your heart, respect him, make offerings to him, honor him, and praise him! Offer him flowers, incense, necklaces, incense powder, incense applicable to the skin, incense to burn, canopies, banners, streamers, garments, food and various kinds of music! Make him the best offerings that you can obtain in the world of men! Strew the treasures of heaven to him! Offer him heaps of the treasures of heaven! Why is that? It is because, while he is expounding the Dharma with joy, if you hear it even for a moment, you will immediately be able to attain Anuttara-samyak-saṃbodhi.”
This problem with criticism of those who practice the Lotus Sūtra is a constant concern in Nichiren’s writings. In his “Treatise on Protecting the Nation” he writes:
Preaching the sin of abusing upholders of the Lotus Sūtra, “The Teacher of the Dharma” chapter of the Lotus Sūtra states, “Suppose a person with evil intent keeps speaking ill of the Buddha in His presence for as long as a kalpa (aeons), his sin is rather light. Suppose a person utters a word to curse lay persons or monks who read and recite the Lotus Sūtra, his sin is extremely grave.”
The sin of cursing just one upholder of the Lotus Sūtra is as serious as this. How much more serious the sin of writing books, causing people all over Japan to curse the upholders of the Lotus Sūtra! How much more serious the sin of discouraging practicers of the Lotus Sūtra by designating this sūtra the teaching through which not even one out of 1,000 persons would be able to attain Buddhahood!