The hope of the future and the present danger

Nichiren’s faith in his own mission was firmly established; all the events of his life proved to him the truth of Buddha’s prophecies concerning the messenger of the Tathāgata in the Latter Days. In the later years, his thoughts turned more to the future of his religion and his country. His serene delight among the mountains of Minobu was an earnest of the terrestrial paradise that should come in all the world. Probably he offered prayers to Buddha for the fulfilment of this expectation, but he certainly did not lay much weight on any special form of prayer, much less on any ritual such as was employed by the Buddhists of the time. For him, his life in silent retirement was the greatest of prayers, because he believed that the concentrated thought of a true Buddhist ruled the realm of truth, and that by his thought and desire the fulfilment would be hastened.

Though thus living for the future, the present could not be excluded from his mind. In the autumn of the year in which Nichiren retired from the world, the Mongols invaded outlying islands in western Japan, devastated them, and massacred the inhabitants. The invaders, further, succeeded in landing on the larger island of Kyushu, the seat of the government of western Japan and, for a while, occupied that part of the country. The people were in consternation, and the government appealed for help to Shinto and Buddhist deities by dedicating offerings and celebrating mysteries. Nichiren watched the passing events with anxiety, but with a confident faith. His anxiety was of a different nature from the apprehension of the people. He was sure that his country was destined to be a fountain of blessing for the whole world through all coming ages. Yet the government and the people were actually rebels against the true religion of the Lotus, and had not repented as yet of their grave sin in persecuting the prophet, the messenger of Buddha. Therefore, he was no less convinced that Japan was to suffer still greater calamities at the hands of the Mongols. He could welcome the Mongol invaders as instruments of chastisement for the sinful nation, yet he could not harden his heart to the fate of his people in their distress. Righteous indignation and yearning compassion were in conflict within him. He often expressed himself in words like the following: “Behold, now, the danger impending from the fierce Mongols! When they occupy the imperial residence and massacre the people as they did in the western islands, you will undoubtedly ask the help of Nichiren. But it will then be too late. Repent, and be converted to the true faith before the hour of the utmost disaster arrives!”

He even went so far as to say that the Mongols were the messengers of Buddha, sent for the chastisement of the unbelievers living in his country. But he did not curse his fellow-countrymen and wish their ruin, nor did he believe that Japan was doomed to such a fate. For example, in a letter addressed to a lady he says:

“You would perhaps rejoice to see my prophetic warning fulfilled, and the Mongols occupying this country. But such a sentiment befits only the common herd (and should not be cherished by my followers). Every faithful follower of the Lotus of Truth should know that he is living in a winter, but also that spring is sure to come after winter.”

His thoughts concerning the threatening catastrophe seem to be somewhat conflicting, though his course was clear. He was a fervent patriot, but the country and nation he hoped to see was one completely purged from the sin of rejecting the Truth – the Japanese nation reconstructed and transformed according to his own ideal; while the actual nation was still false to Buddha and his religion. The prospective chastisement of the nation by a foreign invasion was something like a radical cure for a cancer. He saw in the invaders the surgeons, but he never believed that the patient would succumb to the operation. He cursed Japan, but exalted her at the same time, according to these two opposite points of view. This explains the paradoxical character of his expressions in those days of great anxiety. The paradoxes were never, in his own mind, contradictions, but were conceived to be steps toward the fulfilment of his aim.

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NICHIREN: THE BUDDHIST PROPHET

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