Quotes

Profound

Relationship of Relative and Ultimate

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Three kinds of relationship between the Relative and Ultimate in terms of the Traces and Origin are delineated by Chih-i in order to convey their inconceivable reality as one entity.

  1. The Ultimate underlies the implementation of the Relative (Yüeh-shih Shih-ch’üan). Chih-i explains that the Buddha’s real intention in his teaching is for beings to recognize the Origin as the Ultimate Truth. However, the Ultimate is difficult to be measured by beings, for they have mistaken the Relative (i.e., Traces) as the Ultimate, and are unable to recognize the Relative or the Ultimate.
  2. The Relative has to be abandoned in order to reveal the Ultimate (Feich’üan Hsien-shih). Chih-i asserts that this meaning indicates that the Buddha’s real intention is for beings to recognize the Relative in order to prevent them from being attached to it.
  3. Opening the Relative and revealing the Ultimate (K’ai-ch’üan Hsien-shih). This is to prevent beings from being attached to the Ultimate and neglecting the importance of the Relative, since the Relative is an inseparable reality from the Ultimate (in the sense that the former reveals the latter). The relationship of these two is that the Relative contains the Ultimate as the latter underlies the former, and the Ultimate contains the Relative as the latter is derived from the former. These two are identical to each other, given that one cannot depart from the Relative to seek the Ultimate.
History of Japanese Religion

Nichiren’s Buddhist Church

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Nichiren’s conception of the Buddhist Church was an extension of his idea of the paradise inherent in every soul and to be realized in the life of each enlightened soul as well as in the universal communion of such souls.

History of Japanese Religion

original

Defiance of Worldly Authority

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In later life, Nichiren’s conviction that all the people of Japan in his day were slanderers of the Lotus Sūtra would underscore his advocacy of shakubuku (to “break and subdue”), the “stern method” of teaching the Dharma by assertively rebuking “wrong views.” To the rhetoric of rebuking slander he assimilated both the Buddhist ideal of bodhisattva conduct and the Confucian virtues of loyalty and filial piety. One rebukes another’s slander to save that person from the hells and to provide the karmic connection to the Lotus that alone enables the realization of Buddhahood; thus Nichiren regarded shakubuku as an act of bodhisattva-like compassion and the highest form of service to that person. In addition, Nichiren argued that not to obey a sovereign or parent who opposed the Lotus Sūtra was the true form of loyalty and filial devotion, thus appropriating Confucian virtues in a way that could in some cases legitimize, or even mandate, defiance of worldly authority. (Page 255-256)

Original Enlightenment and the Transformation of Medieval Japanese Buddhism


Profound

Teaching and Practice

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Respecting the teaching and practice, whereas the Origin refers to the teaching and the Traces refers to the practice, Chih-i states that the teaching functions as the foundation for practice to arise, but without practice, one cannot attain an encounter with the teaching (from which the principle can be manifested). Therefore, the indispensability of these two parties renders a single inconceivable reality. (Vol. 2, Page 320)

The Profound Meaning of the Lotus Sutra: Tien-tai Philosophy of Buddhism


original

The Need to Rebuke Enemies of the Lotus Sūtra

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In keeping with Nichiren’s increased emphasis on the Lotus Sūtra as the exclusive vehicle of salvation in the Final Dharma age, his writings during the Izu period also show a growing concern with the evil of “slander of the Dharma” (hōbō), a sin elaborated in detail in a number of Mahāyāna sūtras but which Nichiren understood as willful disbelief in or rejection of the Lotus Sūtra. Believers in the Lotus Sūtra, in his thought, ordinarily need not fear rebirth in the hells, whatever their mis deeds: “Apart from discarding faith in the Lotus Sūtra to follow an advocate of provisional teachings, all other worldly evil acts cannot equal [in weight] the merit of the Lotus; thus those who have faith in the Lotus Sūtra will not fall into the three evil paths.” Slander of the Lotus Sūtra, however, “exceeds a thousand times” the five perverse offenses (gogyakuzai) of killing one’s mother, father, or an arhat; causing the body of the Buddha to bleed; or disrupting the harmony of the sangha; and is the cause for falling into the Avici Hell. Thus the practitioner of the Lotus has a duty to rebuke slander, whatever the personal consequences: “No matter what great good one may produce, even if one reads and transcribes the entire Lotus Sūtra a thousand or ten thousand times, or masters the way of contemplating the three thousand realms in one thought-moment, if one fails to rebuke enemies of the Lotus Sūtra, one cannot attain the Way.” (Page 255)

Original Enlightenment and the Transformation of Medieval Japanese Buddhism


Profound

The Inconceivable Reality

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Chih-i’s illustration of the inconceivable reality of the Origin and the Traces in the context of six polar concepts reveals the significance of both entities: the Origin is what the Traces are based upon, and the Traces are what manifest the Origin. (Vol. 2, Page 320)

The Profound Meaning of the Lotus Sutra: Tien-tai Philosophy of Buddhism


original

Primary and Dependent Karmic Recompense

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THE LAND OR COUNTRY (KORU): “Country” here means a land inhabited by a specific people. From the viewpoint that the “self” at present is the concatenation of all past deeds, living beings represent primary karmic recompense (shōhō) and the land they inhabit, dependent recompense (ehō). The two are understood as nondual (eshō funi), like body and shadow. Thus, in correspondence to the capacity of their inhabitants, lands or countries may be said to have an affinity to particular teachings. Following earlier Tendai thinkers such as Saichō, Annen, and Genshin, Nichiren argued that the country of Japan is related exclusively to the Lotus Sūtra. However, such claims on the part of Annen and others were inevitably linked to the authority of their religious institution, the Enryakuji on Mt. Hiei, as a major cultic center for the rites of nation-protection. In Nichiren’s hands, the same claim served to challenge the authority of Mt. Hiei and other leading cultic centers, as well as the rulers who supported them, by arguing that they did not preserve unadulterated the teaching of the Lotus, which alone could truly protect the country, but had contaminated it with Mikkyō, Pure Land, and other “inferior” teachings. Indeed, part of Nichiren’s idea of Japan was that it had become “a country of slanderers of the Dharma”; hence one disaster was destined to follow upon another. (Page 254-255)

Original Enlightenment and the Transformation of Medieval Japanese Buddhism


Profound

Explaining the Origin and the Traces

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Explaining the Origin and the Traces (Shih Pen-chi)
In order to address the concept Origin, Chih-i finds it necessary to explain the relationship between the Origin and the Traces by means of defining these two in the context of the six polar notions in terms of the principle and facts, principle and teaching, teaching and practice, substance and function, relative and ultimate, and present and past. These six notions designate the Origin and the Traces six different definitions.

  1. In terms of the principle and facts (Li-shih), the Origin is defined as the principle, and embodies the nature of emptiness; and the Traces are defined as the facts and refer to all entities of worldly phenomena.
  2. In terms of the principle and teaching (Li-chiao), the Origin is defined as the principle, and refers to both the principle as the Absolute Truth and the facts as the Worldly Truth; and the Traces are defined as the teaching and refer to the teaching of the principle and facts.
  3. In terms of the teaching and practice (Chiao-hsing), the Origin is defined as the teaching, and refers to the teaching of the principle and facts, and the Traces are defined as the practice, and refer to the practice that is derived from this teaching.
  4. In terms of the substance and function (T’i-yung), the Origin is defined as the substance, and refers to the Dharma-body (dharmakāya); and the Traces are defined as the function, and refer to the Transformation body (nirmāvakāya) that is derived from this substance.
  5. In terms of the relative and ultimate (Ch’üan-shih), the Origin is defined as the Ultimate Truth, and refers to the ultimate attainment of the substance and function by the eternal Buddha; and the Traces are defined as the Relative Truth and refers to the relative implementation of the substance and the function by the historical Buddha.
  6. In terms of the present and past (Chin-i), the Origin is defined as the present, and refers to what is revealed for the first time in the present Lotus Sūtra concerning the eternal Buddha; and the Traces are defined as the past and refers to what has been already known in the previous sūtras, concerning historical Buddha Śākyamuni.

Through these six definitions, Chih-i reveals not only the content of the Origin and the Traces, but also the relationship between the two: The Origin is fundamental, and the Traces arise from the Origin. Nevertheless, the content of the Origin and the Traces is not fixed but takes turns to define each other in the subsequent context of different polar concepts. This reflects a complementary and interactive relation between the Origin and the Traces and is Chih-i’s endeavor to demonstrate that the Origin contains the Traces, and the Traces contain the Origin. Chih-i argues that the Origin and the Traces are different and not different. They are different because they bear different definitions in each of the six polar concepts, and they are not different because they are defined by their counterpart in each of the subsequent polar concepts. Hence, the Origin and the Traces are inconceivable, and this inconceivable reality that underlies the Origin and the Traces is further illustrated by Chih-i, who claims that although the Origin and the Traces are different with six meanings, they share the same inconceivable reality. (Vol. 2, Page 318-319)

The Profound Meaning of the Lotus Sutra: Tien-tai Philosophy of Buddhism


Summer Writings

Penitence

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What is penitence in the Lotus Sutra? The first thing you should do is be calm and obedient before the Buddha, and recognize your immaturity by yourself. It does not matter whether you feel a sense of guilt or not, but have penitence to the Buddha and pray to extinguish your bad karma with the Odaimoku. It is said that a penitence or repentance service was held by the Buddha for his disciples or congregation regularly when He was still alive. The echo of penitence with Odaimoku enters into our body through our ears and sinks deeply into the Alaya-shiki, extinguishing the nested bad karmas one after another, and Odaimoku is stored in your Alaya-shiki as good karma.

Nichiren Shonin says: “Even if the bad karma is small, if you don’t have penitence, you will surely have to reap the gravest. Even if you have deep bad karma, through your penitence to the Buddha, the karma will disappear.” (Konichi-bo Gosho)

Summer Writings

original

Being a Leper Who Chants Namu-Myōhō-Renge-Kyō

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THE TIME (ji). This category encompasses Nichiren’s understanding of the Final Dharma age, which, like most Buddhist scholars of the time, he held to have begun in 1052. Here again, the comparison with Hōnen is instructive. For Hōnen, in the time of mappō, people are of limited capacity, and the easy practice of the nenbutsu is therefore appropriate. For Nichiren, the Buddha specifically intended the daimoku of the Lotus Sūtra for the Final Dharma age; thus this age is the very time when the daimoku is destined to spread. This element of historical inevitability is a key aspect of Nichiren’s thought and would later form the topic of one of his major treatises: Senji shō (The selection of the time). By defining the beginning of the Final Dharma age as the precise historical moment when the Buddha’s ultimate teaching, the Lotus Sūtra, shall spread, Nichiren was able to reverse the conventional gloomy connotations of the last age and celebrate it as the best possible time to be alive. He represented great teachers of the past, such as Chih-i, Chan-jan, and Saichō, as lamenting their inability to see the dawn of this age. “Rather than be great rulers during the two thousand years of the True and Semblance Dharma ages, those concerned for their salvation should be common people now in the Final Dharma age. … It is better to be a leper who chants Namu-myōhō-renge-kyō than be chief abbot (zasu) of the Tendai school.” (Page 254)

Original Enlightenment and the Transformation of Medieval Japanese Buddhism