His retirement and his reason for retiring from the world

The clamorous prophet was now suddenly changed to a silent recluse or a voluntary exile. Five days’ journey brought him to his new abode, and the local chief of the place, Lord Hakiri, one of his warrior followers, welcomed him. A little hut was built in a deep valley in the midst of high peaks, and there the recluse began his new life with a few of his beloved disciples. This place, called Minobu, became Nichiren’s home for the last eight years of his life, and, as we shall see later, he regarded it as a paradise on earth because of his residence there.

The change was perhaps quite unexpected, even to his intimate followers, but was a premeditated plan on the part of Nichiren. Various motives have been conjectured for this sudden turn in his life, but he himself, better than anyone else, tells us why he made it. The simplest explanation of the matter is given in the words: “I had always resolved to repeat my remonstrance three times, and to retire if these attempts should prove a failure.” Now the “three times is in accordance with an old Chinese proverb, and Nichiren had delivered his message thrice: in 1260, when he had presented his Risshō Ankoku Ron; in 1268, when he had repeated the remonstrance as a kind of ultimatum; and now, when he had pressed his demands after the return from Sado. But when we read between the lines, the retirement meant a continuation of his life in exile. It had been his determination not to return to Kamakura, unless the Hōjōs should be completely converted, and now his return had proved a failure. How could he remain peacefully in Kamakura? If he should continue his protests, his fate was plain – another execution or another exile! He was not so blind as to expect anything better. Why should he not become a voluntary exile, instead of a compulsory one? The reception of his third and last remonstrance was the occasion of his retirement, but not its true cause. His motives lay deeper. Let us see what they were.

The first was negative, the idea of expiation. We have already seen that Nichiren conceived his suffering as expiation. His idea was, “Expiation of my sins is the fulfilment of my mission to perpetuate the Lotus of Truth to the coming ages. Sins are not extinguished until the aim be attained.” Since his triumphal entry had proved a failure, he must continue the expiation as he had been doing in Sado. Naturally, he associated with expiation a measure of suffering. Whenever he suffered from the extreme cold of Minobu, he must have reminded himself of his first winter in Sado; and he always rejoiced to liken his suffering with the self-castigation of Buddha during his years of self-training among the mountains. “The height of the hermitage is only seven feet, while the depth of snow is ten feet. Ice makes up the walls, and the icicles are like the beads of garlands decorating shrines.”

Whenever his followers at a distance sent him food or clothing, he wrote touching letters thanking them for the presents, and likened his benefactors to his parents or to those persons who supplied food to Buddha. His life at Minobu was one of extreme simplicity and austerity, and he never left the obscure spot. The uninviting place, a small piece of level ground, “as large as the palm of a hand,” surrounded by high peaks, was his abode for eight years. Here he constructed a hermitage and rejected Lord Hakiri’s offer to erect a larger edifice. It was only in the year before his death that he at last consented to the building of an assembly hall of moderate size; but he enjoyed his abode there as if it were a paradise.

“Expiation” was the thought that constantly occupied his mind, but this idea was, after all, a negative one; the positive, and by far more important, reason of his retirement was his solicitude for the future of his religion. As we have had repeated occasion to note, Nichiren associated every step of his life with some feature of the [Lotus Sutra], and especially regarded his life in Sado as the chief part, the climax, of his life. Now the last stage was to be inaugurated and dedicated to the consummation of his mission and to the perpetuation of his religion, just as the last twelve chapters of the [Lotus Sutra] made up the consummation of the Truth. He had proclaimed the Sacred Title at the outset of his ministry; he had furnished the object of worship and spiritual introspection by the graphic representation of the Supreme Being [Gohonzon Maṇḍala]; one thing alone remained – to prepare for or establish, the central seat of his religion. These three instruments of his propaganda were called the “Three Mysteries.” Although there are some allusions to them in his writings before this time, Nichiren proclaimed this trinity for the first time in the first essay written after his retirement. This treatise is dated the twenty-fourth of the fifth month – just a week after his arrival at Minobu. The great plan which he had long been meditating, and the motive which led him to retire from the present world, and to work for the future, was the establishment of the “Kaidan,” or the Holy See of the Catholic Church of Buddhism.

In that essay he says:

“What, then, is that mystery which Nāgārjuna and Vasubandhu, T’ien T’ai and Dengyō have not revealed during the more than two thousand years since Buddha’s decease? It is naught else but the Supreme Being (Honzon), the Holy See (Kaidan), and the five characters of the Sacred Title (Daimoku), all according to the truth of the primeval Buddhahood. …

“Behold the tribulations and commotions coming one upon another! They are, indeed, the signs heralding the appearance of the sages, Viśiṣṭacāritra and the others. They will appear and establish the Three Gateways to the truth of the primeval Buddhahood. Then, throughout the four heavens and the four quarters will prevail universally the Lotus of the Perfect Truth. Can there be any doubt about this?”

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NICHIREN: THE BUDDHIST PROPHET

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