This is another in a series of daily articles concerning Kishio Satomi's book, "Japanese Civilization; Its Significance and Realization; Nichirenism and the Japanese National Principles," which details the foundations of Chigaku Tanaka's interpretation of Nichiren Buddhism and Japan's role in the early 20th century.
In Kishio Satomi’s chapter on the Three Great Secret Laws he offers an explanation on how Nichirenism bridges the pantheistic vs. monotheistic religions and establishes a religion for the future that eventually declares “Confucius or Christ or Mohammed or any sages are nothing but one of the distributive bodies of this One and Only Buddha.”
Nichirenism and the Japanese National Principles, p84-87There are two tendencies about the conception of God which must be noticed. The one is pantheism and the other is monotheism. Pantheism identifies God in nature, or looks upon Nature as partial appearances of the sole and absolute God. It shows immanency of God in opposition to deism. The Eleatics, Xenophanes, Parmenides, etc., advocated this theory in an early age, and Bruno, Spinoza, Fichte, Schelling, Hegel, Schleiermacher, Hartmann, Wundt, Lotze, etc., conceived this thought also. Spinoza is a pioneer of this thought in the modern age and his famous words “Deus sive natura ” (God is nature) are quoted as the motto of pantheism.
Pantheistic thought in the history of religion germinated mainly among Aryan races and, according to Tiele, what is called theanthropic religion. Pantheism, as a rule, has a great system and a great ideal, and gives us not only a sensitive satisfaction, but likewise a rational one. But in pantheism there is no union in its vast system, and so it is very difficult to fix the religious object which is the object of our sentiment. Therefore religious practice can hardly be the outcome of it. If we look upon the universe or nature as a religious object there is, indeed, no religious object. Or if we consider our slight efforts of daily life as divine acts or religious practice, it is equal to having no religious practice at all. To make such pantheistic thought possible a deistic thought or an atheistic color or maybe a polytheistic idea must be adduced.
On the other hand, monotheism has the One God who created this world from another world. The nature of God in monotheism is quite different from that of polytheistic gods. God is transcendent and we cannot mix up God and the universe. God and the world are totally different things. According to Tiele this is called theocratic religion, and originated among the Semitic races. The representative religion of the former is Buddhism, while Christianity is the highest development of the latter.
It is quite natural that mechanism or causality grew in the former thought and teleologism or finality comes from the latter. The characteristic of the former religion is tolerance and of the latter intolerance. Von Hartmann gave a suggestion concerning the future religion in his “Religionsphilosophie.” According to it the religion which is worthy of the future has to unite these two different tendencies in harmony. But we cannot find the possibility of the unity in the Bible nor in the ordinal Buddhist Scriptures. In other words, there are no foundations on which to unite them in these Sacred Books. In the Bible there is the chapter of “St. John” which accepted abundant pantheistic thought, under the influence of Scholastic philosophy, in order to fill up the original weak point of the Bible. But there is no foundation for uniting them in the whole Bible. Hinayana Buddhism is known as atheism in that it denies the Divine One and only aims at Nirvana. On the other hand, there are pantheism and monotheism in Mahayana Buddhism, for instance, the Shingon Sect, the Zen Sect, the Tendai Sect, etc., belong to pantheism, and the Shin Sect or Jodo Sect belongs to monotheism; but they also have no foundations on which to unite these opposite tendencies.
Nichirenism is the answer to this problem. First of all, in the Hokekyo, we have the doctrine of “Six Ors” which throws a light on this problem. According to this thought, the Primeval or Fundamental Buddha, whose deep sense of His existence is explained in Chapter 16 in the Scripture, as we have mentioned already, is unique and sole God in the Universe, and all the beings and all the divines or sages and wise men are nothing but His distributive bodies. It says:
or I explained about my own appearance, or about others’; or appeared myself, or under the mask of others; or showed my own action, or others’ ” (Yamakawa, pp. 459—60 ; cf. Kern, p. 301).
Moreover, it is stated in other lines :
“All young converted men! Whenever people came and saw me, I considered and observed their different degrees of faculty of faith and so forth, and I preached the Law under the different names (of Buddhas, gods, sages or wise men, etc.) and the strength of succeeding generations in various places; and again I revealed my lives and proclaimed that I shall be in Nirvana before long; and delivered mysterious laws with various pious impositions and allowed beings to feel ecstasy ” (Yamakawa, pp. 458-9; Kern, p. 300).
Therefore, Nichiren says:
“The Buddha of the ‘Duration of the Life of the Tathagata’ reveals Himself even in the lives of Grasses (Herbs) and Trees ” (Works, p. 1293).
It is evident that in these lines Nichiren’s One Buddha Centric Pantheism, as Yamakawa expresses it, is firmly established. And then the following view is possible, that Confucius or Christ or Mohammed or any sages are nothing but one of the distributive bodies of this One and Only Buddha. Nichiren recognized the One Buddha as the sole and highest existence, who revealed Himself as Eternal Buddha in Chapter 16 of the Hokekyo, but at the same time he acknowledged the divine nature as intrinsically inherent in all beings, according to the principle of Mutual Participation of the ten worlds. He holds with monotheism in the former sense and holds with pantheism in the latter sense. But as he says in his letter to a lady, Nichinyo (Works, p. 721), he took up the position of One Buddha Centric Pantheism as his ultimate decision. We can see here one of the reasons for determining what the condition of the future religion will be.
It is interesting to note the difference between Nichirenism and Risshō Kōsei Kai’s emphasis on inter-faith cooperation. In The Stories of the Lotus Sutra Gene Reeves writes:
The Stories of the Lotus Sutra, p71[E]ven when we think we cannot see him, the Buddha can be found right next to us. The Buddha may not even go by the name of a buddha. Sometimes perhaps he goes by the name of Christ, or Krishna, or even Jane. Belonging to a Buddhist temple or organization is not, in itself, the Buddha Way, nor is it the only way to enter or follow the Buddha Way. The “universal gate” is many gates, many more than you or I could possibly know in a lifetime.
And in Buddhism for Today, Risshō Kōsei Kai’s founder Nikkyō Niwano writes:
Buddhism for Today, ppxviiiThrough whatever sutra we may study the teachings of Sakyamuni, Sakyamuni himself is the same honored one who casts the same light of wisdom on us. Therefore, although the Lotus Sutra is certainly the most excellent teaching among the many sutras, it reflects a basic misunderstanding to despise other sutras by excessively extolling the Lotus Sutra.
While Risshō Kōsei Kai would say infinite paths lead to the summit of the mountain, Nichirenism would say all paths lead to the Lotus Sutra and only the Lotus Sutra reaches the summit. There’s a middle path here somewhere.
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