Another aspect of the expiation of karma is that the very strength of one’s practice is what brings about resistance both within ourselves and from the people around us, and allows hidden flaws within ourselves to arise where they can be seen, recognized, and resolved. Nichiren cites Zhiyi who wrote, in regard to the practice of calming and contemplation meditation, ”The merit of trivial acts of practicing Buddhism without calming the mind and contemplation of the truth is not strong enough to bring out our past sins hidden in ourselves. Only when we practice calming the mind and contemplation of the truth under any circumstances can we bring our past sins out to the surface.” (Hori 2002, pp. 106-107 adapted) Zhiyi also warned that, “We will then be confronted at once by the three obstacles and four devils.”

In the time when the Lotus Sūtra first appeared, the [lay] people might have been the supporters of the more conservative schools like the Sarvāstivādins. In Nichiren’s time, they would have been the followers of Hōnen’s exclusive nembutsu who did not believe it was possible to attain buddhahood in this world. These people would include the mob who burned down Nichiren’s hut at Matsubagayatsu, the steward Tōjō Kagenobu and his followers who ambushed Nichiren at Komatsubara, and the Hōjō regents who exiled Nichiren to Izu, attempted to have him executed at Tatsunokuchi, and who then exiled him to Sado Island. It is important to note that the ignorant laypeople are Buddhists. This is not about the persecutions that may come about at the hands of those belonging to other religions or ideologies.

The ignorant laypeople are a powerful enemy precisely because they are Buddhists who support wrong views and who help to oppress those teachers who uphold the Lotus Sūtra. Today, ignorant laypeople would be those who claim to be Buddhists but who do not actually know for themselves the teachings of the Buddha taught in the sūtras and who base their understanding on the views and opinions of their teachers, who themselves may not have a deep understanding of the teachings of the Buddha but who present their own ideas as Buddhism. These people then close their minds to any who try to point out what the sūtras actually teach and instead cling to what they have read in secondary sources or to teachings given by whatever charismatic teacher they have chosen to follow. Because of this, Buddhism in the modern world has all too often been associated with psychedelic drugs, nationalism, and exploitive authoritarian teachers who use their power for personal aggrandizement, financial gain, and even sexual predation.

The standards for ethical conduct and the criteria for what is or is not in keeping with the teachings set forth by the sūtras become obscured and lost when laypeople uncritically accept popular misconceptions and the biased teachings of charismatic authorities over what the Buddha taught. In this way, Buddhism is greatly misrepresented, its reputation tarnished, and its ability as a tradition to liberate people and lead them to buddhahood is greatly impeded.

What exactly does it mean to follow the Dharma and not the person? Isn’t the Dharma the teachings of Śākyamuni Buddha in the sūtras, and therefore the teaching of a person? For that matter, there is the question of whether the sūtras, particularly the Mahāyāna sūtras, are in fact verbatim records of the Buddha’s teaching. So how can we know whether we are following the Dharma or just some person’s opinion, whether the person of the Buddha or the opinion of some anonymous person(s) attributed to the Buddha? Though perhaps a bit circular, the Buddha’s reply to the question asked of him by Mahāprajāpatī as to what is the Dharma may be worth considering.

Then the Gautamī, Mahāprajāpatī, approached the Lord; having approached, having greeted the Lord, she stood at a respectful distance. As she was standing at a respectful distance, the Gautamī, Mahāprajāpatī said to the Lord: “Lord, it were well if the Lord would teach me the Dharma in brief so that I, having heard the Lord’s Dharma, might live alone, aloof, zealous, ardent, self-resolute. “

“Whatever are the states, of which you, Gautamī, may know: these states lead to passion, not to passionlessness, they lead to bondage, not to the absence of bondage, they lead to the piling up (of rebirth), not to the absence of piling up, they lead to wanting much, not to wanting little, they lead to discontent, not to contentment, they lead to sociability, not to solitude, they lead to indolence, not to the putting forth of energy, they lead to difficulty in supporting oneself, not to ease in supporting oneself – you should know definitely, Gautamī: this is not Dharma, this is not discipline, this is not the Teacher’s instruction. But whatever are the states of which you, Gautamī, may know: these states lead to passionlessness, not to passion … (the opposite of the preceding) … they lead to ease in supporting oneself, not to difficulty in supporting oneself – you should know definitely, Gautamī: this is Dharma, this is discipline, this is the Teacher’s instruction.” (Horner 1992 volume V, p. 359 adapted)

The Dharma, then, is that which leads away from further deluded entanglement in our attachments and aversions for conditioned phenomena and toward liberation, the unconditioned. The Dharma is not the Dharma because the Buddha taught it. The Buddha is the Buddha, an “awakened one,” because he awakened to the Dharma, which is the true nature of reality. Any teaching that is in accord with how things really are can be considered the Dharma. This is why anything that conforms to the “three seals of the Dharma” can be considered the word of the Buddha. The three seals are the observations that (1) conditioned phenomena are impermanent, (2) without a self-nature, and (3) that true peace can only be found in the unconditioned, which is nirvāṇa. Sometimes another seal is added, the observation that conditioned things are ultimately unsatisfactory, for a total of four seals.

The source of the four reliances (or “four refuges”) is the Four Refuges Sūtra (S. Catuḥpratiśaraṇa Sūtra) according to Étienne Lamotte: “The Catuḥpratiśaraṇa Sūtra posits, under the name of refuges (pratisaraṇa), four rules of textual interpretation: (1) the dharma is the refuge and not the person; (2) the spirit is the refuge and not the letter; (3) the sūtra of precise meaning is the refuge and not the sūtra of provisional meaning; (4) (direct) knowledge is the refuge and not (discursive) consciousness. As will be seen, the aim of this sūtra is not to condemn in the name of sound assessment certain methods of interpretation of the texts, but merely to ensure subordination of human authority to the spirit of the dharma, the letter to the spirit, the sūtra of provisional meaning to the sūtra of precise meaning, and discursive consciousness to direct knowledge.” (Lamotte, p. 12)

How can Nichiren insist that the Lotus Sūtra is the only sole sūtra that is difficult to receive and keep, read, recite, expound, and copy in the Latter Age after the Buddha’s passing?

In order to evaluate these claims, Nichiren refers to the first and last of the “four reliances” taught by the Buddha in the Mahāyāna Mahāparinirvāṇa Sūtra as a guide for discerning the meaning of Buddhist teachings. The four reliances are to: “Rely on the Dharma and not upon persons; rely on the meaning and not upon the words; rely on wisdom and not upon discriminative thinking; rely on sūtras that are final and definitive and not upon those which are not final and definitive.” (see Yamamoto, p. 153)

Nichiren takes the four reliances to mean that one should not trust the word of even great bodhisattvas like Samantabhadra or Mañjuśrī unless they are preaching with the sūtras in hand. Nichiren cites Nāgārjuna (late second to early third century), Zhiyi (538-597), Saichō (767-822; also known as Dengyō), and even Enchin (814-891; aka Chishō) who all state that one should only follow commentaries that accord with what is taught in the sūtras and furthermore that one should not believe in oral transmissions. All of these teachers are considered to be patriarchs of the Tiantai/Tendai school and therefore Nichiren is showing that the interpretations of the Tiantai school can be relied upon because they follow the principles of the four reliances. Nichiren’s contention is that the other schools of Buddhism were straying from these principles, because of sectarian pride in their own particular doctrines and methods. Though it might seem ironic to those who believe that Nichiren was himself a sectarian polemicist, he wrote, “Surely, those who aspire to enlightenment should not be biased, stay away from sectarian quarrels, and not despise other people.” (Hori 2002, p. 85) Nichiren did not see himself as trying to promote his own narrow view, or even the particular views of the Tiantai school. Rather, Nichiren was trying to find in the sūtras themselves the criteria for judging the relative merits of various Buddhist teachings. He believed that he had found such a criteria in the four reliances and in the statements of the Lotus Sūtra regarding its own supremacy. Nichiren’s conviction was that in China only the Tiantai school had upheld what the sūtras actually teach, and that in Japan, only Saichō and himself had properly passed on this teaching without distorting or compromising it.