A calm reflection and the attainment of faith in his mission

Ten days were spent in the journey from the southern coast of Japan to the northern, and Nichiren now stood on the exposed coast of Echigo, gazing upon the waves raging in a winter gale. On the way thither he had travelled over hills and passes, crossed streams and valleys never before trodden by him. Now, in the midst of winter, the lands all along the northern coasts were covered with snow. There he saw for the first time the Sea of Japan – this man who hitherto had known only the Pacific Ocean. The gale raged so continuously that he was obliged to stop at the little haven of Teradomari for a week. All of his past life seemed to him something like a series of frightful dreams, yet the dreams were as real as any facts of human life – nay, more real than anything else, because the records had been written in his tears and blood. During his stay there, while waiting to embark, he pondered over the past and the future. “Mountains beyond mountains” he had found in his journey in coming thither, and “waves upon waves” were raging in the sea before him. Similar had been his past experience, and such was also the prospect of the coming years. He examined and reviewed all the history of his life, comparing it with the words of the [Lotus Sutra], and could only arrive at the same conclusion he had come to in Izu, but now upon more conclusive evidence.

Although every step of his perilous life had been a subject of reflection in the light of the prophecies in the [Lotus Sutra], Nichiren had never before had an opportunity so well suited to a comprehensive retrospect and profound meditation as at this time. As he reviewed it, his career had step by step fulfilled, almost to the letter, the prophecies concerning the propagators of the Truth; and now he was entering a new life, after a resurrection – the proper part of his life as the man wholly dedicated to the cause of the Truth, as well as to the spiritual welfare of all people in the coming days of degeneration. “The one, the pioneer, who lives the life of the Lotus of Truth,” was surely not a product of chance, but a realization of the vows and promises recorded in the [Lotus Sutra]. Then, why should not he, Nichiren, be in vital continuity with some of those saints who had been commissioned by Buddha to work in the future, and were destined to suffer persecutions on that account? Many persons are mentioned who appeared in the assembly of the Lotus and took the vows to perpetuate the Truth. Whoever they might be, Nichiren must be one of them – this was the conviction that was now firmly established in his mind. This is stated in a letter addressed to one of his earliest believers, Lord Toki, written one day after his arrival at Teradomari. This letter is the first of a series of testimonies evincing Nichiren’s consciousness that he was a reincarnation of one of the saints in the prophecies.

After a brief narrative of the journey, the letter quotes the passages to which Nichiren had paid special attention, interpreting the meaning of his life. The quotations are similar, but in this letter a special emphasis is laid on passages in the thirteenth chapter on “Perseverance,” such as, “They will deride us and abuse us, and assail us with weapons and sticks,” “We shall repeatedly be driven out of our abodes.” He continues:

“Nichiren has indeed been driven out repeatedly, and exiled twice. The Lotus of Truth proclaims the truths which are universal to all ages, past, present, and future. (What it says concerning the past is to be true of the present, and what it announces to occur in the present will be fulfilled again in the future.) Thus, the chapter on the Bodhisattva Sadāparibhūta [Never-Despising Bodhisattva] telling what happened to him in the past, is now being realized in (the life of one who is practicing) what the chapter on Perseverance tells, and vice verso. Then, surely (the man who is now realizing) the Perseverance will be in future (the man who practices the life of) Sadāparibhūta. Thus, Nichiren will be the Bodhisattva Sadāparibhūta. … (The chapter on Perseverance says that in the future, in the days of the Latter Law, there will appear eight billions of millions of saints who practice their vows.) Now, in these days there are the three kinds of opponents of the Truth (as exemplified in Nichiren’s persecutors); and yet, if not one of those millions of saints should appear, it would be something as if an ebb were not followed by a flood; and as if the moon, when it had waned, did not wax again. When the water is clear, the moonlight is reflected in it; when a tree grows, birds abide in its branches. Nichiren is the vicar of those saints, eight billions of millions in number, and is protected by them all.”

The vicar of the innumerable saints who took the vows of “Perseverance” was the Bodhisattva Sadāparibhūta [Never-Despising Bodhisattva]. Nichiren is not here quite as definite as he was in a letter addressed to the same lord, more than one month later, from Sado. In the latter he says, in part:

“During nearly two months since my arrival in this island of Sado, icy winds have been constantly blowing, and, though the snowfall is sometimes intermitted, the sunlight is never seen. My body is penetrated by the cold, whereof (as is told concerning the cold hells) there are eight kinds. … As I have written you, during the two thousand and two hundred years since Buddha’s death, various masters have appeared in the world and labored to perpetuate the Truth, knowing its import, and yet adapting it to the needs of the times. The great masters T’ien T’ai and Dengyō made explicit the purport of the Truth (by uttering its Sacred Title), and yet they did not propagate it. One who shall fulfil this task is to appear in this country. If so, may not Nichiren be the man? … The Truth has appeared, and the omens are already more clearly manifest than ever before. The Scripture says, ‘There appeared four leaders, Viśiṣṭacāritra’ etc.”

This is the first definite statement about his personal connection with Viśiṣṭacāritra (Jap. Jōgyō), the leader of the saints called out of earth in the [chapter 15, The Appearance of Bodhisattvas from Underground]. From this time on, Nichiren remained constant in the belief that his former life was that of Viśiṣṭacāritra, although he often referred to other saints as his predecessors and spoke as if he were a reincarnation of one of them.

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NICHIREN: THE BUDDHIST PROPHET

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