This introductory chapter marks a convenient place in the present study to say more about Nichiren’s understanding of the Lotus Sūtra’s title.

First, we might consider the individual words that make up the title. Myō has the connotations of “wonderful,” “marvelous,” and “inconceivable.” The use of this character in the title was Kumārajīva’s innovation; an earlier translation by Dharmaraksa (230?-316) uses shō (Ch. Zheng), meaning “true” or “correct.” Fayun (467-529), an early Chinese commentator on the Lotus Sūtra, took myō (miao) to mean “subtle” as opposed to “crude” or “coarse.” Zhiyi argued that myō has both a relative and an absolute meaning. From a relative standpoint, myō, denoting the perfect teaching, is superior to all others, which by comparison are incomplete. But from an absolute standpoint, myō is perfectly encompassing; there is nothing outside it to which it could be compared. This reading laid the groundwork for later understandings of the Lotus Sūtra as both superior to, and at the same time inclusive of, all other teachings.

Nichiren said that myō has three meanings. The first is to open, meaning that it opens the meaning of all other sūtras. “When the Buddha preached the Lotus Sūtra, he opened the storehouse of the other sūtras preached during the preceding forty-some years, and all beings of the nine realms were for the first time able to discern the treasures that lay within those sūtras,” he wrote. Second, myō means “perfectly encompassing; each of the 69,384 characters of the sūtra contains all others within itself. “It is like one drop of the great ocean that contains water from all the rivers that pour into the ocean, or a single wish-granting jewel that, although no bigger than a mustard seed, can rain down all the treasures that one might gain from all wish-granting jewels.” And third, myō means “to restore to life,” meaning that it revives the seeds, or causes, of buddhahood in those who have neglected or destroyed them.

Renge means “lotus blossom,” and the Sanskrit puṇḍarīka indicates a white lotus. Lotuses grow in muddy water to bloom untainted above its surface and thus represent the flowering of the aspiration for awakening in the mind of the ordinary, deluded person. The lotus plant also produces flowers and seedpods at the same time. To Chinese Tiantai patriarchs, as well as medieval Japanese Tendai interpreters, this suggested the simultaneity of “cause” (the nine realms, or states of those still at the stage of practice) and “effect” (the buddha realm or state of buddhahood), meaning that all ten realms are mutually inclusive. Nichiren draws on the analogy of the lotus to stress his claim that the Lotus Sūtra enables the realization of buddhahood in the very act of practice. As he expressed it: “The merit of all other sūtras is uncertain, because they teach that first one must plant good roots and [only] afterward become a buddha. But in the case of the Lotus Sūtra, when one takes it in one’s hand, that hand at once becomes a buddha, and when one chants it with one’s mouth, that mouth is precisely a buddha. This is just like the moon being reflected on the water the moment it rises above the eastern mountains, or like a sound and its echo occurring simultaneously.”

The last character, kyō, means “sūtra.” Kyō in the title of the Lotus Sūtra, Nichiren said, encompasses all the teachings of all buddhas throughout space and time. Namu, which prefaces the title in chanting, comes from Sanskrit namas, meaning “reverence,” “devotion,” or “the taking of refuge.” Ultimately, Nichiren took it as expressing the willingness to offer one’s life for the dharma. Nichiren made clear, however, that the significance of the daimoku does not lie in its semantic meaning. The daimoku, he said, is neither the text nor its meaning but the intent, or heart, of the entire sūtra. He defined it alternately as the seed of Buddhahood, the father and mother of all buddhas, and the “three thousand realms in a single thought moment in actuality… .”