Yesterday I wrote about Senchu Murano’s penchant for inserting his twist on tales from the Lotus Sutra (“Questions and Fantasy Answers“). I also posted that article on the Nichiren Shu Group on Facebook and asked if anyone could offer a defense for the use of “fantasy” stories in place of actual Lotus Sutra verses in teaching Nichiren Buddhism.
Judging from the comments I received, my original post failed to make clear my point. Let me try again.
In Nichiren’s Treatise on Opening the Eyes of Buddhist Images, Wooden Statues or Portraits (Writings of Nichiren Shōnin, Faith and Practice, Volume 4, Page 91), he writes:
The written words of the Lotus Sutra express in a visible and tangible form the Brahma’s voice of the Buddha, which is invisible and intangible, so that we can see and read them with our eyes. The Buddha’s pure and immaculate voice, which had disappeared, is resuscitated in the form of written characters for the benefit of humankind.
Shinkyo Warner, in his Daily Dharma post on this quote, says:
Living in this world, 2500 years after the Buddha Śākyamuni walked the Earth, it is difficult to hear his voice leading us to enlightenment and encouraging us to let go of our attachments. In the Lotus S̄ūtra we have an instrument for creating the Buddha’s voice in our own time. This is his highest teaching. It brings all beings to liberation, whether they are clever or dull, stupid or wise, focused or distracted. It reminds us of our true nature as Bodhisattvas who chose this life out of our determination to benefit all beings. It shows us how to transform the poison of suffering into the medicine of compassion, and the poison of ignorance into the medicine of wisdom.
When Senchu Murano inserts his words and ideas into his “fantasy” about the Lotus Sutra, what do we hear?
In Murano’s 1997 booklet, The Gohonzon, he tells this tale about the Buddha Many Treasures (Prabhutaratna, Taho):
The fantastic narration of the Lotus Sutra begins with the story of Prabhutaratna (Many-Treasures, Taho) Buddha, as follows:
There lived a Buddha called Taho many kalpas ago in a world called Treasure-Pure, which was located far to the east of the Saha World. Taho Buddha knew the Wonderful Dharma, but did not expound it by himself because he thought that the Wonderful Dharma should be expounded by a Buddha who would emanate from himself as many Replica-Buddhas as there are worlds in the universe, dispatch them to those worlds, and then expound the Wonderful Dharma in a sutra called the Lotus Sutra. Taho Buddha decided to wait for the advent of such a Buddha, and to approve the truthfulness of the Lotus Sutra expounded by that Buddha.
In Murano’s 1998 booklet, Questions and Answers on Nichiren Buddhism, he suggests this is how Chapter 11 starts:
Sakyamuni Buddha did what he had never done before at the beginning of Chapter XI of the Lotus Sutra. He produced innumerable Replica Buddhas of his own from himself, told them to expound what he was going to expound from that moment, and dispatched them to the worlds of the ten quarters: the four quarters, the four intermediate quarters, zenith, and nadir. After he saw them having reached their assigned worlds, Sakyamuni Buddha expounded the teaching of the One Vehicle, that is the Lotus Flower of the Wonderful Dharma. Obedient to their Original Buddha, his Replica-Buddhas expounded the same teaching throughout the universe and as a result the universal validity of the Wonderful Dharma was revealed.
The stupa of the seven treasures sprang up from underground and hung in the sky before the Buddha at the opening of Chapter 11. There is no discussion of emanations of Śākyamuni until the congregation asks Śākyamuni to open the stupa. As for whether other Buddhas can create emanations, that is clearly the case in The Sutra of Contemplation of the Dharma Practice of Universal Sage Bodhisattva, which is the concluding portion of the Threefold Lotus Sutra. (See this post.)
If the tale of the Stupa of Treasures, as Murano says, is where “the fantastic narration of the Lotus Sutra begins,” then what of the earlier 10 chapters?
In Chapter 11, Śākyamuni explains to the congregation what has happened:
“The perfect body of a Tathāgata is in this stūpa of treasures. A long time ago there was a world called Treasure-Purity at the distance of many thousands of billions of asaṃkhyas of worlds to the east [of this world]. In that world lived a Buddha called Many-Treasures. When he was yet practicing the Way of Bodhisattvas, he made a great vow: ‘If anyone expounds a sūtra called the Lotus Flower of the Wonderful Dharma in any of the worlds of the ten quarters after I become a Buddha and pass away, I will cause my stūpa-mausoleum to spring up before him so that I may be able to prove the truthfulness of the sūtra and say ‘excellent’ in praise of him because I wish to hear that sūtra [directly from him].”
“He attained enlightenment[, and became a Buddha]. When he was about to pass away, he said to the bhikṣus in the presence of the great multitude of gods and men, ‘If you wish to make offerings to my perfect body after my extinction, erect a great stūpa!’
“If anyone expounds the Sūtra of the Lotus Flower of the Wonderful Dharma in any of the worlds of the ten quarters, that Buddha, by his supernatural powers and by the power of his vow, will cause the stūpa of treasures enshrining his perfect body to spring up before the expounder of the sūtra. Then he will praise [the expounder of the sūtra], saying, ‘Excellent, excellent!’
“Great-Eloquence! Now Many-Treasures Tathāgata caused his stūpa to spring up from underground in order to hear the Sūtra of the Lotus Flower of the Wonderful Dharma [directly from me]. Now he praised me, saying, ‘Excellent, excellent!’ ”
Senchu Murano’s words are pure fabrication, a whole cloth that muffles the Buddha’s pure and immaculate voice.
How does one defend such an act, especially when the book was written in English for an audience that knew little if any of the teachings of the Lotus Sutra?