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.
Kishio Satomi’s Nichirenism relies heavily on the importance of the final 14 chapters of the Lotus Sutra, the Honmon, to the exclusion of all else.
Nichirenism and the Japanese National Principles, p96-98The Great Master Dengyo, with reference to [the precept platform], adopted the Shakumon centric idealistic commandment, while he rejected the Hinayanistic ones and those of the general Mahayanism. Dengyo, however, held, with the Shakumon centric commandment, the former fourteen chapters of the Hokekyo; therefore, he could not go further with the Honmon. Consequently, he adopted the Tenfold Prohibitive Commandments of the Bonmokyo (Skt. Brahma Djāla Sūtra), holding at the same time with the Shakumon centric idealistic commandment.
Nichiren, on the contrary, adopted only the Honmon-centric one and strictly prohibited any other kinds; because he saw the reason from the fact and the proof of the Scriptures that there is no authority maintained concerning the formal commandment in the days of the Latter Law. It would be too ineffectual to stipulate that a man should be such and such only by formal rules in this world of five turbidities or impurities.
We must attach more essential significance to commandment by refraining from such external rules; in other words, it is much more important to give signification of life in the depths of people’s minds than to give the ordinal arrangement of actions and appearances. Of course, there is no doubt that these old-fashioned commandments were very effective at one time in early ages but are too formal and too powerless to adapt to the age of the Latter Law. The age and people must have more internal authority, namely the commandment must be such as to give fundamental rules in the internal personality, with the most simple and authoritative dignity. Nichiren, therefore, rejected the Hinayanistic and general Mahayanistic commandments in consideration of their powerlessness, and, it may be added, with the authority of many Buddhist Scriptures on this point. He says:
“Now, the commandments are the Hinayanistic Two Hundred and Fifty rules. … With reference to the first commandment, namely “Thou shalt kill no living being,” in all the Scriptures except the Hokekyo, it is said that the Buddha kept this law. But the Buddha, who is revealed in these Scriptures with pious imposition, starts by killing, so to speak, from the point of view of the Hokekyo. Why? Because, although it seemed that the Buddha in these Scriptures kept the law in His daily affairs, yet He did not keep the True Commandment of “Kill no living being because He killed the possibility of Attainment of Buddhahood of all other beings except Buddhas Themselves, so that the beings were not allowed to attain Buddhahood. Thus, the leader, the Buddha, is not yet released from the sin of Killing, how ‘much less the disciples” (Works, pp. 365—6).
Therefore, Nichiren gives significance to one’s free will, which means in a sense an imperative category. This is a different point from that of the ordinal commandment which governs several of our acts superficially. He united the teachings and commandments which are explained together in the Nehan-gyo, from the point of view of the doctrine of the Hokekyo.
Although a man makes himself a perfect Buddhist, if it is limited to a mere individual personality and has no positive effect in protecting and spreading the Buddhist Law, then all exertions are in vain. How ever much one may be faithful to the mere individual formal commandment, it is of no use unless one awakes to the signification of one’s existence. Thus Nichiren thought. According to him, the signification of one’s existence can be filled up with ardent vows for the protection and enlargement of the Law.
Upholding this interpretation was the center of Satomi’s Nichirenism:
The protection of moral law is the sole task of human life, and this is the greatest invention and discovery of our lives. When one digresses from and acts against the moral principle, one is no longer worthy of being a human being, thus Nichiren thought. Consequently, weapons, army, education, commerce or the life, everything must be for the sake of true human life, which means the practice and the protection of moral laws. Buddha says in the Nehan-gyo:
“In spite of a man accepting and keeping the Five Commandments, he cannot be called a man of the true Mahayana Buddhism. One who protects the right law is the man of the true Mahayana Buddhism, even though he does not keep the Five Commandments. The man who protects the right law shall be armed. Him do I call the true practitioner of the Buddhist Commandments though he is armed.”
Nichirenism and the Japanese National Principles, p105-106
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