A Nichiren Buddhist View of Awakening
Finally completed Rev. Ryuei McCormick’s Open Your Eyes: A Nichiren Buddhist View of Awakening. This is a compilation of a series of blog posts McCormick originally posted on his Fraught With Peril website.
I heartily endorse Mark Herrick’s assessment of this work:
Open Your Eyes, p6This book is a thoroughly researched and well sourced reference combining a historical look at the spread of Buddhism and illuminating Nichiren’s thinking within its context of medieval Japanese culture. It carefully explains why Nichiren expressed criticism of other Buddhist schools and his overarching motivation to ease the suffering of people in this world by returning emphasis to Śākyamuni Buddha’s message that everyone regardless of gender, status, or circumstance can become a buddha in this very lifetime.
The physical book is huge. Literally. It measures 7 inches by 10 inches and 600 pages. (By comparison, Murano’s Lotus Sutra is 5 7/8 by 8 1/4 and 427 pages.) But it is not difficult to read. The text is broken up into 46 chapters, with an average length of 12 or so pages per chapter. I recommend a chapter-a-night regimen.
At the conclusion of the book, McCormick offers an excellent explanation of why you should bother reading his book. Given the length of the book, moving this message up front may encourage more people to pick it up and consider what it has to say:
Open Your Eyes, p586-587Many people today, I think, are very casual about being either nominally religious, or vaguely spiritual, or openly disdainful of religious teachings and spiritual practice. Those who do investigate and take up Buddhism and Buddhist practice all too often are satisfied with the small rewards of worldly benefits like peace of mind gained through silent sitting practices, or perhaps good fortune in their relationships or careers because they believe Buddhism can give them some kind of metaphysical control over their lives through ritual practices. I would not deny that sitting meditation or chanting can bring about peace of mind or help people gain the insight to refrain from bad and instead make good causes to help them make the most of life in a worldly sense. Even Śākyamuni Buddha gave discourses to lay followers to help them live wisely and thereby enjoy relatively happy lives in a worldly sense. However, what Nichiren is inviting us to do in Kaimoku-shō is to reflect more deeply about religious teachings including Buddhism and what they mean in terms of how we view life and our own role. Are we content to simply accept that this is the only life and that after death there is nothing at all? Or do we believe there may be some heavenly realm to hope for and that a virtuous life can lead us to it? Or do we wish to seek buddhahood — a life of selfless compassion that transcends small-minded concerns about personal happiness in this or some other lifetime? If we are really willing to engage the deepest teachings of Buddhism and try to realize and actualize them, what are we willing to put on the line? How much of ourselves are we willing to give? Are we only looking for protection and benefits? Or do we have the compassion and courage to give more and more of ourselves for the sake of all beings according to whatever the situation may demand? I cannot imagine that everyone will come to the same conclusions as Nichiren did, but I do think that if the Kaimoku-shō can inspire us to at least reflect on these questions, then it will have been well worth taking the time to read and ponder its message.
I’m also publishing the Introduction and I will be setting aside additional quotes in the future.
Earlier I published a lengthy excerpt in a blog post Understanding the 12-Linked Chain of Causation.