Two Buddhas, p165Willingness to give even one’s life if need be took on deep soteriological meaning for Nichiren over the course of his career. By persevering for the Lotus Sūtra’s sake, he taught, one could expiate in a single lifetime one’s evil karma from countless past lifetimes; repay one’s obligations to the Buddha and to all living beings; fulfill the bodhisattva path; and be assured of fully realizing buddhahood in this lifetime. On this theme, he wrote to his followers: “Life flashes by in but a moment. No matter how many powerful enemies may oppose us, never think of retreating or give way to fear. Even if they should cut off our heads with a saw, impale our bodies with lances, or bind our feet and bore them through with a gimlet, so long as we have life, we must chant Namu Myōhō-renge-kyō, Namu Myōhō-renge-kyō. And if we chant up until the very moment of death, Śākyamuni, Prabhūtaratna, and the buddhas of the ten directions will come to us instantly … and surely escort us to the jeweled land of Tranquil Light.”
Category Archives: d18b
Bodily Reading
Two Buddhas, p163-164[The verses] in the “Perseverance” chapter coincided eerily with Nichiren’s own ordeals. He himself had been “disparaged with evil words” and “attacked with sticks and swords.” He had been slandered to the high officials of the shogunate by monks revered as holy by the people at large and been “repeatedly expelled.” Especially during the ordeals of his Sado Island exile, Nichiren wrestled with self-doubts. Had the protective deities abandoned him? Was he, after all, not correctly practicing the Lotus Sūtra? By his own account, however, on recalling the verse section of the “Perseverance” chapter, he realized that he was living out the sūtra’s prophecies in a way unlike any other Lotus devotee. “Without me,” he concluded, “the predictions in these verses would all be lies.” One modern interpreter of Nichiren has termed this a “circular hermeneutic” in which text and reader simultaneously mirror and bear witness to one another. Nichiren validated the truth of the Lotus Sūtra’s words by undergoing in his own person the very trials that it predicted. Yet at the same time, the Lotus Sūtra now validated Nichiren’s practice, as the persecutions he encountered were predicted in the Lotus itself.
Nichiren termed his practice “bodily reading” of the Lotus Sūtra, meaning that he had fulfilled its predictions in his own person and was “not attached to body or life” in his efforts to propagate it. The same applied, he said, to those disciples who shared his commitment. On the eve of his banishment to Sado Island, he wrote to his disciple Nichirō who had also been seized and imprisoned, praising his dedication. “Others read the Lotus Sūtra with their mouths alone, reading only the words, but they do not read it with their mind. And even if they read it with their mind, they do not read it with their body. To read the sūtra as you are doing with both body and mind is truly admirable.”
Persuasive and Aggressive Propagation
Now, two ways of propagation, the persuasive and aggressive, are incompatible with each other just as water and fire are. The fire dislikes the water, and the water hates the fire. Those who prefer the persuasive tend to laugh at those who practice the aggressive and vice versa. So, when the land is full of evil and ignorant people, the persuasive means should take precedence as preached in the “Peaceful Practices” (14th) chapter of the Lotus Sūtra. However, when there are many cunning slanderers of the True Dharma, the aggressive means should take precedence as preached in the “Never-Despising Bodhisattva” (20th) chapter.
It is the same as using cold water when it is hot and fire when it is cold. Plants and trees are followers of the sun, so they dislike the cold moon. Bodies of water are followers of the moon, so they lose their true nature when it is hot. As there are lands of evil men as well as those of slanderers of the True Dharma in this Latter Age of Degeneration, there should be both aggressive and persuasive means of spreading the True Dharma. Therefore, we have to know whether Japan today is a land of evil men or that of slanderers in order to decide which of the two ways we should use.
Kaimoku-shō, Open Your Eyes to the Lotus Teaching, Writings of Nichiren Shōnin, Doctrine 2, Page 111
A Happy Life
Buddhism for Today, p169“A Happy Life” [the title of the Peaceful Practices chapter in the 1975 edition of the Threefold Lotus Sutra] means always to maintain a peaceful and happy mind and willingly to practice religious disciplines. So long as a person faces religious persecution with resentment, his mental attitude does not embody the ideal way of a true believer of the Lotus Sutra; whatever misfortune may befall him, he must maintain a peaceful and calm mind for the sake of the Law and must voluntarily practice religious discipline and preach the Law.
Preaching the Exclusive Truth of the Lotus Sūtra
Two Buddhas, p31-32For Nichiren, preaching the exclusive truth of the Lotus Sūtra was not only about leading individuals to enlightenment, but also about saving the country and establishing an ideal buddha land in this world, a task he came to see as his personal mission and responsibility. In declaring the supremacy of the Lotus Sūtra, he found it necessary to rebuke attachment to other, provisional teachings; in consequence, he encountered repeated antagonism. Nichiren was often beset by danger and privation. Out of this experience, he developed what might be called a soteriology of undergoing persecution. The Lotus Sūtra itself speaks of the hostility that will confront its devotees in a latter evil age. Nichiren and his followers therefore understood the persecutions they faced as both fulfilling the sūtra’s prophecies and confirming the veracity of their mission to propagate it. Nichiren also taught that to endure hardships and opposition in spreading faith in the Lotus Sūtra is to repay one’s debt to the Buddha, eradicate one’s past evil karma, fulfill the bodhisattva’s mandate to sacrifice even one’s life, if need be, to save others, and guarantee one’s future buddhahood. Indeed, one could say that Nichiren’s teaching on buddhahood has two temporal modes: immediately manifesting the all-encompassing buddha realm in the act of chanting the daimoku, and realizing buddhahood as an unfolding process in devoting oneself to the daimoku’s propagation.
11th Day of the 11th Month
On the 11th day of the 11th month this year, on the thoroughfare of Matsubara in Tōjō, Awa Province, about four to six o’clock in the afternoon, hundreds of nembutsu followers ambushed me. I was accompanied by about ten people, of whom only three or four were strong enough to fight. Arrows shot by nembutsu followers were falling like rain, and their swords were attacking us like lightning. One of my disciples was killed at the spot and two others were seriously wounded. I also was hit and wounded, and faced mortal danger, but somehow I escaped death and am still alive today. My faith in the Lotus Sūtra has been strengthened as I experienced persecutions such as this.
It is said in the 10th chapter of “The Teacher of the Dharma” in the Lotus Sūtra, fascicle 4, “Many people hate it (the Lotus Sūtra) with a passion, even in My lifetime. Needless to say, more people will do so after My death.” And in the 14th chapter of “Peaceful Practices,” fascicle 5, it states, “Many people in the world would have hated it (the Lotus Sūtra) and few would have believed it.” There are many people in Japan who read and study the Lotus Sūtra. Many people are punished because they steal or commit adultery, but no one has been punished due to his faith in the Lotus Sūtra. Therefore, none of the followers of the Lotus Sūtra in Japan have practiced the Sūtra as is preached. Only I, Nichiren, have truly read it. This is what the chapter of “Encouragement for Upholding This Sūtra” states: “We will not spare even our lives. We treasure only unsurpassed enlightenment.” Therefore, I, Nichiren, am the foremost practicer of the Lotus Sūtra in Japan.
Nanjō Hyōe Shichirō-dono Gosho, A Letter to Lord Nanjō Hyōe Shichirō, Writings of Nichiren Shōnin, Doctrine 3, Pages 145-146.
Rejecting Peaceful Practices
Two Buddhas, p 169[Nichiren] explicitly rejected the “four kinds of practice” set forth in the chapter as unsuited to the present era. Those practices had been appropriate, he said, in the preceding eras, the ages of the True Dharma and the Semblance Dharma, but they were not suited to the Final Dharma age. “The four peaceful practices [in the “Ease in Practice” chapter] correspond to shōjū,” he wrote. To carry them out now in the mappō era would be as misguided as sowing seeds in winter and expecting to reap the harvest in spring. Rather, Nichiren saw the situation in Japan in his day as demanding the shakubuku approach: “The present era is defined in the sūtras as an age of quarrels and disputes, when the pure dharma will be obscured and lost. At this point, the provisional and true teachings have become utterly confused. … When the time has come for the one vehicle to spread, the provisional teachings become enemies. If they generate confusion, they must be refuted from the standpoint of the true teaching. Of the two propagation methods, shōjū and shakubuku, this is shakubuku as it pertains to the Lotus Sūtra.”
Perseverance Before the Three Kinds of Powerful Enemies
Two Buddhas, p162-163What particularly drew Nichiren’s attention in Chapter Thirteen … was the verse section … , comprising twenty lines in Kumārajiva’s Chinese version, in which eighty myriad kotis of nayutas of advanced bodhisattvas who have gathered from other worlds all vow to Śākyamuni Buddha to preach the Lotus Sūtra throughout the worlds of the ten directions, going on to enumerate the trials they are willing to undergo in order to disseminate the sūtra in an evil age after his final nirvāṇa. Based on this passage, in his commentary on Zhiyi’s Lotus Sūtra lectures, Zhanran formulated the concept of “three kinds of powerful enemies” who will obstruct Lotus Sūtra devotees: ignorant lay people, who will speak ill of them or attack them with staves and swords; deceitful monks of false wisdom who in their conceit “think they have attained what they have not”; and prominent monks who make a show of holiness, acting like forest-dwelling saints, but are actually greedy and arrogant and who slander Lotus devotees to persons in authority, including kings, ministers, and members of the priestly caste, as well as to other monks and lay householders. Sentenced to exile for the second time, Nichiren wrote that while the three types of enemies predicted in the “Perseverance” chapter were much in evidence in his day, not one of the eighty myriad kotis of nayutas of bodhisattvas who had pledged themselves to the Lotus Sūtra’s propagation was to be seen. There was only himself. Accordingly, he resolved, “I will propagate this sūtra on behalf of those eighty myriad kotis of nayutas of bodhisattvas. May they extend to me their aid and protection.”
A Compassionate Act of Bodhisattva Practice
Two Buddhas, p88For Nichiren, convinced as he was that only the Lotus Sūtra leads to liberation in the mappō era, preaching exclusive devotion to the Lotus was not dogmatic self-assertion, but a compassionate act of bodhisattva practice. Whether others accepted the Lotus Sūtra or rejected it, telling them of its teaching would implant the seed of enlightenment in their minds and thereby enable them to establish a karmic connection to the sūtra that would someday allow them to realize buddhahood, whether in this lifetime or a future one.
A Variable Transmission for the One Vehicle
Chapter 13, Encouragement for Keeping This Sūtra, opens with Medicine-King Bodhisattva-mahāsattva and Great-Eloquence Bodhisattva-mahāsattva, together with their twenty-thousand attendants who were also Bodhisattvas, vowing to the Buddha that they will keep, read, recite and expound this sūtra in the difficult Sahā world after the Buddha’s extinction.
The Buddha does not reply.
Then after the arhats and śrāvakas and the Buddha’s step-mother and former wife all offer to teach the dharma in other lands outside the Sahā world, the Buddha silently looks “at the eighty billion nayuta Bodhisattva-mahāsattvas. These Bodhisattvas had already reached the stage of avaivartika, turned the irrevocable wheel of the Dharma, and obtained dhārāṇis.” These Bodhisattvas are waiting for the Buddha to command them to keep and expound the Lotus Sūtra.
The Buddha remains silent.
This has always puzzled me. These Bodhisattvas, unlike those in Chapter 15, are not identified as having come from other worlds. Are the “eighty billion nayuta Bodhisattva-mahāsattvas” of Chapter 13 a subset of the “Bodhisattva-mahāsattvas, more than eight times the number of the sands of the River Ganges, who had come from the other worlds” in Chapter 15?
I’ve found an answer to my puzzlement in Two Buddhas Seated Side by Side, although it is hidden behind misleading shorthand in the book.
In the post Bodhisattvas from Other Worlds, I discuss the book’s suggestion that all of the Bodhisattvas who volunteer at the start of Chapter 13 “have arrived from other worlds.”
I posted on the Nichiren Shu group on Facebook the question, “With the exception of Maitreya, are all of the great bodhisattvas listed in Chapter 1, Introductory, from other worlds?”
In response, Michael McCormick said: “As far as I can tell, yes, the bodhisattva’s whose names I am familiar with in that opening passage are bodhisattvas who are of a more cosmic nature and two of them, Avalokitesvara and Mahasthamaprapta are particularly associated as attendants of Amitabha Buddha. I think the idea is that the only bodhisattva officially associated with this particular world is Maitreya Bodhisattva. The Lotus Sutra, being a relatively early Mahayana sutra, is taking the assumed cosmology and personnel of the teachings found in the Agamas and Pali canon and spinning it.”
But I believe the answer is more nuanced, and that nuance is provided by Jacqueline Stone’s explanation of how Nichiren saw the transmission of the Lotus Sūtra.
Two Buddhas, p236Chapters Twenty-Three, Twenty-Four, and Twenty-Five describe how specific bodhisattvas display their powers in the world to benefit sentient beings. … From Nichiren’s standpoint, the bodhisattvas appearing in these chapters had received only the general transmission described in the “Entrustment” chapter. Either they had come from other worlds, or they were followers of Śākyamuni in his provisional guise as the Buddha of the trace teaching or shakumon portion of the sūtra. Thus, their work was chiefly confined to the True and Semblance Dharma ages.
It is Nichiren’s explanation that “[the Bodhisattvas] had come from other worlds, or they were followers of Śākyamuni in his provisional guise as the Buddha of the trace teaching” that explains why the Buddha does not answer the Bodhisattvas who volunteer to spread the Lotus Sūtra in Chapter 13.
Stone quotes Nichiren’s letter “Kashaku hōbō metsuazai shō” to explain:
Two Buddhas, p219-220As for the five characters Myōhō-renge-kyō: Śākyamuni Buddha not only kept them secret during his first forty-some years of teaching, but also refrained from speaking of them even in the trace teaching, the first fourteen chapters of the Lotus Sūtra. Not until the “Lifespan” chapter did he reveal the two characters renge, which [represent the five characters and] indicate the original effect and original cause [of the Buddha’s enlightenment]. The Buddha did not entrust these five characters to Mañjuśrī, Samantabhadra, Maitreya, Bhaiṣajyarāja, or any other such bodhisattvas. Instead he summoned forth from the great earth of Tranquil Light the bodhisattvas Viśiṣṭacāritra, Anantacāritra, Vlśuddhacāritra, and Supratiṣṭhitacāritra along with their followers and transmitted the five characters to them.
To shorthand this by saying — as the book does repeatedly — these Bodhisattvas are all from other worlds, distracts the reader from the distinction between the trace teaching and the origin teaching and the significance of the transmission of Namu Myōhō-renge-kyō to the Bodhisattvas who have been the Buddha’s students since the beginningless past.