For Asai Yōrin, hongaku thought was a defilement that had to be removed if the original purity of Nichiren’s doctrine were to be restored. He was vehement about its corruptive tendencies. The kanjin style of interpretation that it fostered had contributed not only to a decline in faithful scholarly exegesis, he said, but also to the degeneracy of monks who took advantage of the decline of imperial authority in the Insei period to flaunt their power. “From the outset, the original enlightenment doctrine of medieval Tendai actually spurred on corruption.” Asai saw its claim that “the worldly passions are enlightenment” as serving to rationalize widespread monastic license in the Muromachi period, such as descents from Mt. Hiei on nightly pleasure-seeking forays or homosexual relations with male novices (chigo). Nichiren, he argued, had stressed text-based exegesis, not subjective interpretation; the primordial Buddha of the Lotus Sūtra was for him a transcendent object of faith, not equated with the mind of deluded beings. In short, Nichiren’s thought was not to be grasped within the same frame as medieval Tendai, which was permeated throughout by the very Mikkyō that Nichiren had so bitterly criticized. (Page 70)

Such studies were pioneered by the Nichiren Shū scholar Asai Yōrin (1883-1942), who aimed at recovering a “pure” Nichiren doctrine based on “scientific” investigation of the canon and the identification and elimination of apocryphal texts. Asai’s findings, which he began to publish in the 1930s, were startling and revisionist. He pointed out that, of the works traditionally attributed to Nichiren that deal with original enlightenment thought, most do not exist in Nichiren’s autograph or in transcriptions made by his immediate disciples, nor do they appear in the earliest indices of his writings. Moreover, they employ terminology and concepts that, while common to medieval Tendai oral transmission texts, appear only infrequently or not at all in those of Nichiren’s writings whose authenticity can be verified. Maeda, Shimaji, and Uesugi were in error, Asai declared, because they had assumed that the essence of Nichiren’s doctrine was expressed by writings in his corpus reflecting the influence of medieval Tendai hongaku thought. In fact, Asai argued, these writings were not Nichiren’s work at all but the forgeries of later disciples who, influenced by their study on Mt. Hiei or at Tendai seminaries in eastern Japan, had incorporated hongaku thought into their understanding of Nichiren’s teaching. Even if some of these texts should conceivably be Nichiren’s writings, they did not represent his “primary thought,” as expressed in his two major treatises, which Asai held should be normative: the Kaimoku shō (Opening of the eyes) and the Kanjin honzon shō (The contemplation of the mind and the object of worship). While presenting itself as objective and scientific, Asai’s argument proved a timely and effective weapon in defending Nichiren against the charge of being derivative of medieval Tendai. (Page 68-70)

Applied to the issue of distinguishing between medieval Tendai and Nichirenist versions of hongaku thought, however, the ri/ji distinction became not a contrasting of two modes of practice, as Nichiren had used the terms, but a distinction of theory and practice. An example concerned medieval Tendai versus Nichirenist readings of the “original Buddha” (honbutsu) of the sixteenth or “Fathoming the Lifespan of the Tathāgata” chapter of the Lotus Sūtra, enlightened since the unimaginably remote past. For medieval Tendai thinkers, this Buddha was the “Tathāgata of original enlightenment” who is equated with the cosmos or dharma realm itself; the sūtra’s revelation of his “original attainment” of Buddhahood countless kalpas ago was no more than a revelation in principle (ri kenpon), a skillful means or metaphor to show that all beings are enlightened from the outset. Such an interpretation, the Nichiren scholars argued, reduced the eternal Buddha of the Lotus Sūtra to no more than an abstract Dharma body (Skt. dharmakāya, Jpn. hosshin) or truth as principle; in their reading, the “original attainment” was actual (ji kenpon) and emphasized the centrality, among the Buddha’s three bodies, of the “reward body” (sawbhogakāya, hōjin), the Buddha wisdom acquired through practice by which the Dharma is realized. Tendai original enlightenment thought was accordingly characterized as a mere theoretical, abstract statement that beings are inherently enlightened by nature (jinen hongaku), while Nichiren’s teaching was presented as the, actualization of inherent enlightenment through faith and practice (shikaku soku hon aku). (Page 58)

Among the large corpus of writings traditionally attributed to Nichiren (1222-1282) are many that deal with original enlightenment thought. In 1926, when Shimaji published “Nihon ko Tendai kenkyū no hitsuyō o ronzu,” it was generally accepted both inside and outside Nichiren Shū that Nichiren had taught the doctrine of original enlightenment. Some difference of opinion existed as to whether he stood closer to the doctrinal position of the Eshin or the Danna school, but the influence of medieval Tendai on his thinking was virtually unquestioned.

Nonetheless, within Nichiren Shū, scholars had for some time been engaged in attempting to establish the existence of clear differences between medieval Tendai hongaku thought and the hongaku thought of Nichiren, making use of the distinction between ri, or “principle,” and ji, meaning “phenomena” or “concrete actuality.” Over and above their importance to East Asian Buddhism generally, these categories held a time-honored place in the Nichiren tradition, having been used by Nichiren himself to distinguish between the “contemplation of the mind” (kanjin) set forth by the Chinese T’ien-t’ai founder Chih-i (538- 597) and his own form of practice. Where Chih-i’s form of meditative discipline was that of “principle,” or introspective contemplation to perceive the true aspect of reality in one’s own mind, Nichiren’s was that of “actuality,” or the chanting of the daimoku, the title of the Lotus Sūtra, said to embody the reality of the Buddha’s enlightenment and the seed of Buddhahood. Nichiren’s usage reflects the strong influence of esoteric Buddhism, in which ri refers to formless truth that is contemplated inwardly, and ji, to its expression in outwardly manifest practices involving concrete forms. (Page 67-68)

Although Shimaji characterized original enlightenment thought as the “climax” of Buddhist philosophy in Japan and the “matrix” of the new Kamakura Buddhism, he perceived a moral danger in an idea that affirmed all activities of life as precisely the activities of the originally inherent Tathāgata. Tendai thought concerning an inherently enlightened Buddha, Shimaji said, had proceeded in two major directions: “One took form as the bright Kamakura Buddhism that purified original enlightenment thought, while the other sank to a naturalistic, corrupt thought and brought about the deterioration of the Buddhism of Mt. Hiei.” Elsewhere using “original enlightenment thought” in a very broad sense to encompass all the immanentalist forms of Buddhism that had developed in East Asia—Shimaji suggested that the notion of all things as inherently enlightened had encouraged an incorporation of non-Buddhist elements that inevitably brought about the destruction of Buddhism. In the case of Japan, he said, this process had fortunately been halted at the critical moment by the emergence of the new Kamakura movements, which “were able to remove the danger that inevitably accompanies original enlightenment thought, purify and actualize it, skillfully harmonizing it with the idea that enlightenment is acquired.” Scattered throughout Shimaji’s writings are indications that, despite his conviction of their philosophical indebtedness to Tendai hongaku thought, he considered the Kamakura thinkers superior in the areas of practice and ethics. In the case of Nichiren, for example, while judging that “the content of his doctrine scarcely differs from medieval Tendai thought,” Shimaji wrote that Nichiren had brought the vitality of faith to a medieval Tendai that had not transcended philosophical conceptualizing and introduced national concerns to an original enlightenment doctrine that had hitherto been concerned purely with individual salvation. (Page 64-65)

“Hongaku thought” is best understood not as a monolithic philosophy, but as a multivalent discourse, albeit one that included among its many forms some highly developed doctrinal formulations. It was, moreover, a discourse embodied in specific practices, lineages, and concerns about authority and legitimacy. “Original enlightenment thought” is a convenient designation for the great range of concepts, perspectives, arguments, and doctrinal formulations informed by ideas of original enlightenment, but it was by no means either unified or an exclusively philosophical enterprise. The term will be used in this study based on this understanding. (Page 52)

[O]riginal enlightenment thought influenced a shift in how the unity of kami and Buddhas was understood. During the Nara and Heian
periods, the Buddhas and bodhisattvas, who transcend time and space, had increasingly come to be identified with specific local deities and thus grounded, as it were, in the temporal and geographical realities of Japan. The logic of these identifications was eventually expressed in terms of honji-suijaku, language borrowed from T’ien-t’ai/Tendai Lotus Sūtra exegesis. The Buddha of the latter fourteen chapters of the sūtra, or “origin teaching” (honmon), who attained enlightenment countless kalpas ago, is the Buddha in his original ground (honji), while the Buddha of the first fourteen chapters, or “trace teaching” (shakumon), is the “manifest trace” (suijaku) who appeared in this world as the historical Buddha. Chih-i had likened the relation of the two to that of the moon in the sky and its reflection on a pond. When this relation was applied to that of Buddhas and kami, it became possible to conceive of the deities, not merely as protectors of Buddhism or as suffering beings in need of Buddhist salvation, but as local manifestations of the transcendent Buddhas and bodhisattvas, compassionately projected as a “skillful means” to lead the people of Japan to enlightenment. (Page 41)

Here it is appropriate to note some of [the impact of Tendai] thought on the broader intellectual life of medieval Japan. This discourse did not remain confined to Buddhist scholastic circles but was quickly assimilated to other vocabularies and found other modes of expression. It can be found, for example, in didactic tales and poetry of the medieval period. Shasekishū (Sand and pebbles), a collection of setsuwa (tales) by Mujū Ichien (a.k.a. Dōgyō, 1226—1312), relates the following:

The Shou-leng-yen Ching tells the story of Yajn͂adattā, who looked in a mirror one morning and could not see her face because of the way she was holding the mirror. Believing that her head had been taken by a demon, she ran about distractedly until someone showed her how to hold the mirror correctly. Then she thought that her head had been restored. Both her wretchedness and her delight were without foundation. The unenlightened man is like one who looks for his lost head. The mind of original enlightenment (hongaku) is not lost; the loss comes only from thinking that this is so. Thinking that we have discovered and attained something for the first time is what we feel when we experience enlightenment for the first time (shikaku). But how can we attain it for the very first time [when it has been there since the beginning]? (Page 39-40)

While the perspective of original enlightenment dominated the medieval Tendai tradition, it was not universally accepted. An important critic was Hōchi-bō Shōshin (fl. 12th cent.), a scrupulous exegete who was the author of voluminous commentaries on the major works of Chih-i. Shōshin framed his criticism in response to “many among those who study shingon,” hinting at the esoteric roots of Tendai original enlightenment thought. Original enlightenment, he said, was to be understood in terms of the Awakening of Faith, as a potential within deluded worldlings to be realized by the practice of acquired enlightenment. In particular, Shōshin criticized the claim that the ordinary worldling is “originally the Buddha of self-awakening” (honrai jikakubutsu), a position he denounced as a denial of the causality of practice and attainment and “the same as heterodox teachings” (gedō-setsu). Shōshin also opposed definitions of Śākyamuni of the “Fathoming the Lifespan” chapter of the Lotus Sūtra as an originally inherent Buddha, which, he said, clearly went against the sūtra’s statement that Śākyamuni had practiced the bodhisattva way and attained Buddhahood in the remote past. Shōshin’s criticisms form an important external reference point for gauging how far original enlightenment thought had developed by the late Heian period. For convenience’ sake, this book will use the term “medieval Tendai thought” to refer to the tradition’s hongaku-dominated mainstream, but with the understanding that not all medieval Tendai thinkers accepted contemporary notions of original enlightenment. (Page 38-39)

We have already seen that Saichō saw the Lotus Sūtra as the “direct path” or “great direct path,” over and against the Hossō view of enlightenment as requiring three incalculable aeons to achieve. He was not optimistic about most people actually realizing Buddhahood with this very body, a possibility he saw as open only to those who had reached the stage of partial realization, the fifth of the six stages of identity, which corresponds to the first abode or bhūmi in the fifty-seven stages of bodhisattva practice of the perfect teaching. The fifth stage of identity and the first abode both denote the point of transition from the level of an ordinary worldling (Prthag-jana, bonbu) bound by defilements to that of the sage (ārya-sattva, shō), who has eliminated all defilements except ignorance (mumyō-waku) and begun to experience true insight. Where the birth and death of the ordinary worldling is determined by karma (bundan shōji), that of the sage is chosen in accordance with his aspiration for enlightenment and intent to benefit others (hennyaku shōji). “Realizing Buddhahood with this very body” for Saichō thus referred to the partial enlightenment of those who had already made the transition from ordinary worldling to sage. However, he also maintained that, even in the case of deluded worldlings, through the power of the Lotus Sūtra the process of enlightenment could be vastly accelerated, being fulfilled in the next lifetime or at latest the lifetime after that. This concern, even on a theoretical level, with the possibility of Buddhahood for ordinary worldlings would eventually emerge as a major characteristic of Japanese Buddhism as a whole. (Page 32)