Nichiren’s childhood and the years of his study

Nichiren was born on the seacoast of the southeastern corner of Japan, in a fishing village surrounded on the north by undulating hills and washed by the dark blue waves of the Pacific Ocean on the south. Tidal waves have washed away the part of the seacoast where his father’s house stood, and today the spot is pointed out in the depths of the wonderfully clear water, on the rocky bottom of the sea, where lotus flowers are said to have bloomed miraculously at the birth of the wonderful boy. His father was a fisherman, and doubtless the boy was often taken out in the father’s boat and must have enjoyed the clear sky and pure air of the open sea. When in later years, during his retirement in the mountains, a follower sent him a bunch of seaweed to eat, the old hermit wept as he called to mind his early memories of the seaweeds, which are, indeed, a charming sight as they are seen through the transparent water. Far away from the effeminating air of the Imperial capital, far away from the turmoils and agitations of the Dictator’s residence, the boy grew up in the fresh and invigorating atmosphere of a seaside village, in the midst of unadorned nature – wooded hills and green trees, blue waters and sandy beaches. The inspiration of nature and the effect of association with the simple, sturdy people are manifest in each step of Nichiren’s later career, in his thoughts and his deeds. The new light was to come out of the East for the salvation of the Latter Days – this prophetic zeal of Nichiren is in large measure to be attributed to his idea about his birth, and to the surroundings of his early life.

In 1233, when the boy was eleven years old, his parents sent him to a monastery on the hill known as Kiyozumi, the “Clear Luminosity,” near his home. The reason is not given, but it was in no way an exceptional or extraordinary step; in those days many a father did the same, whether from motives of piety or for the sake of the boy’s future career. The peaceful and innocent days of the boy novice passed; he was made an ordained monk when he was fifteen years old, and the religious name given by his master was Renchō, or “Lotus-Eternal.” Doubts grew with learning, because too many tenets and practices were included in the Buddhist religion of his days, and the keen-sighted youth was never satisfied with the incongruous mixture in the religion he was taught. “My wish had always been,” he tells us in his later writings, “to sow the seeds for the attainment of Buddhahood, and to escape the fetters of births and deaths. For this purpose I once practised, according to the custom of most fellow-Buddhists, the method of repeating the name of Amita Buddha, putting faith in his redeeming power. But since doubt had begun to arise in my mind as to the truth of that belief, I committed myself to a vow that I would study all the branches of Buddhism known in Japan and learn fully what their diverse teachings were.”

His distress of mind was, however, not over a merely intellectual problem, but was a deeply religious crisis; and, indeed, the young monk was then passing through so violent a struggle of religious conversion that he at last fell into a swoon, following a fit of spitting blood. It is said that during this swoon he saw, in vision, Kokuzō, the deity of wisdom.

This happened when Renchō was seventeen years old, and in the next year we find him studying under a teacher of Amita-Buddhism in Kamakura, the residence of the Commissioners. The uneasiness of the young monk was not allayed, and his quest of truth was not satisfied by the teachers who were accessible in the provinces. Renchō then went to Hiei, the greatest center of Buddhist learning and discipline, where he stayed from 1243 to 1253, pursuing a varied course of study and training. During these years he also visited other centers of Buddhism, where special branches of Buddhism were taught and practiced, and extended his study even to Shinto and Confucianism. The results of all this study and investigation are shown, not only in the erudition of his later writings, but in the comprehensive breadth of his doctrine. But the range of his studies never diverted him from his central problem: What is the true form and the unique truth of Buddhism? On the contrary, as he progressed in knowledge, the conviction gradually grew strong in his mind that the truth is one, and that the essence of the Buddhist religion – nay, of human life – is not manifold. “I had gone to many centers of the religion,” he says in reminiscence, “during those twenty years, in the quest of Buddhist truths. The final conclusion I arrived at was that the truth of Buddhism must be one in essence. Many people lose themselves in the labyrinth of learning and studies, through thinking that every one of the diverse branches might help to the attainment of Buddhist ideals.” Wherein, then, did the young zealot find the unique truth?

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NICHIREN: THE BUDDHIST PROPHET

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