The last half of the sutra, consisting of the latter 14 chapters, is the Essential Section that reveals the Original Buddha. Therefore it is called the Original Gate. In this section, the Buddha personifies the universal and timeless ultimate truth. As such he is known as the Original or Eternal Shakyamuni Buddha. The Eternal Buddha is an ever-present and active spiritual reality that leads all people to realize their own Buddhahood. All Buddhas who appear throughout the universe as teachers in the past, present, and future are reflections of this Eternal Buddha. In other words, they owe their awakening to the Eternal Buddha, their source and model.
Lotus SeedsQuotes
Why We Chant
Of course, one might wonder why simply repeating a phrase is considered the most important practice for Nichiren Buddhists. Nichiren Shonin himself explained that the Buddha prescribed the Odaimoku as a good medicine to cure living beings of the sufferings of birth and death. To become more like someone we admire, it is helpful to act like that person. If we want to become like the Buddha, we must act like the Buddha. In the Lotus Sutra, the Buddha revealed that all Buddhas including himself became enlightened by revering the Lotus Sutra itself. This is what we are doing when we chant the Odaimoku. Through this practice, we become one with the Buddha and cultivate our own Buddha nature.
Awakening to the LotusThe True State of Nirvana
The Buddhist state of nirvana is not the absence of all things but the absence of the mistaken desires and actions that are the causes of suffering. In the state of nirvana, true and ideal activity continues in an even more vigorous fashion. Nirvana is to be found in the world of transmigration, though unbound by its fetters.
Basic Buddhist ConceptsAwakening to the Doctrine of Ichinen Sanzen
Attaining Buddhahood means to awaken to the doctrine of Ichinen Sanzen and obtain an unlimited-life. We have lost that ability; but we can participate in the Buddha’s activities as a part of His life when we chant the Odaimoku. This is the way for us to attain Buddhahood in Mappō.
Buddha Seed: Understanding the OdaimokuEntering the Region of Buddhas
If a believer in the teachings of our sect, sitting in front of the Mandala, recognises the identity of his own body with the real state of the Ten Worlds – if he annihilates in his consciousness all distinction between his own self and all others; if he frees himself from the passions of love and hatred – it is then certain that he will be able to exercise complete control over pleasure, cheerfulness, anger, sorrow and so forth whenever they arise, and to act justly and impartially to all with whom he may come in contact. His person will have already partly entered the region of Buddhas, even in this present life. How, then, can he doubt that he will attain to complete Buddhahood in the hereafter? Therefore Nichiren says, “The doctrines of our sect stand far above those of the other eight sects. They teach us that we can become Buddhas immediately. If one only sees that the mind, the Buddha, and all living beings are one and all embodied in his own thought, and are not to be found elsewhere, he can certainly attain to enlightenment in his earthly life however low his intellect may be. And if the man of low intellect can do so, how much more a man of higher intellectual status? He, surely, need stand in no doubt about the matter. A fortiori, then, must this be the case with those whose intellects are of the highest order of all. Since the doctrines taught by Sakyamuni all his life long are those which take the nature of a living being as the basis on which they stand, anyone who understands his own nature is called a Buddha, while those unable to do so are justly termed ‘the vulgar.’ ”
Doctrines of Nichiren (1893)The Unity Presented in the Lotus Sutra
Prior to the Lotus Sutra, the Buddha taught many different teachings for a variety of people, teachings well suited to the capacities and natures of those he taught. With the teaching of the Lotus Sutra, though, we have the advent of the unification of all those individual teachings into one specific complete teaching that goes beyond the ending point of the parts of the whole. Our challenge, as contemporary practitioners of Buddhism, is to learn from the prior teachings, but do so from the point of the unity presented in the Lotus Sutra.
Lotus Path: Practicing the Lotus Sutra Volume 1Belief in Karma
Now to confess one’s Karma and to live a life of repentance are necessary preliminaries to Buddhist training, which consists in an endeavour to overcome the iron fetters of Karma as manifested in weal and woe, in births and deaths. Belief in Karma is not a blind submission to fate, but a step towards a strenuous effort to overcome selfish motives and to emerge from the vicious narrowness of individual life into broad communion with other beings, especially with enlightened spirits.
History of Japanese ReligionThe True Nature of Enlightenment
This view of Shakyamuni Buddha, specifically in the sixteenth chapter of the Lotus Sutra [as the original and eternal Buddha], is the key to the true nature of enlightenment according to Nichiren Buddhism.
Shinjo Suguro explains that the original and eternal Shakyamuni Buddha provides Buddhism with a united faith:
“In Buddhism, various Buddhas have been established as objects of devotion for different pious believers. Since each Buddha has a good reason for being venerated, Buddhism permits us to worship any or all of them. Nevertheless, the Most-Venerable-One should be One, just as the Truth is One. The second half of the Lotus Sutra (Hammon) emphasizes such a Buddhist position regarding the unity of faith. As the object of faith is absolute, it must relate to the realm of eternity. Generally we think of Shakyamuni as a historical figure, bound by the limitations of time and space, and only a provisional manifestation of the infinite, eternal Buddha. According to the Lotus Sutra, however, every Buddha, including the historical Shakyamuni Buddha, is a representation of the eternal original being of Shakyamuni.”
Lotus World: An Illustrated Guide to the GohonzonThankfulness
In order to express gratitude willingly, we require a feeling of thankfulness. Thus, Buddhism places a great emphasis on a way of life of being able to express thanks naturally, rather than forcing us to express it as a commandment.
Summer WritingsMaitreya and Nichiren
The prediction of Maitreya being the next Buddha is universally accepted, taught, and believed by all Buddhist. There are some exceptions though with some Nichiren groups claiming that Nichiren is the True Buddha and it ends with him. For a Nichiren group to claim that Nichiren is the True Buddha and deny the prediction of Maitreya is a betrayal of what Nichiren believed and what is actually stated in the Lotus Sutra. This is a very important point and needs to be considered carefully. Either you follow Nichiren and his belief in the Lotus Sutra and thereby inherit Nichiren’s mission, or you don’t in which case it isn’t possible to claim to be a disciple of Nichiren and the Lotus Sutra. It defies logic by trying to work it both ways.
Lecture on the Lotus Sutra