Category Archives: WONS

WONS

A Great Vessel for Japan

I have made a vow. Even if someone says that he would make me the ruler of Japan on the condition that I give up the Lotus Sūtra and rely upon the Kammuryō-ju-kyō (Sūtra of Meditation on the Buddha of Infinite Life) for my salvation in the next life, or even if someone threatens me saying that he will execute my parents if I do not say “Namu Amida-butsu,” and no matter how many great difficulties fall upon me, I will not submit to them until a man of wisdom defeats me by reason. Other difficulties are like dust in the wind. I will never break my vow to become the pillar of Japan, to become the eyes of Japan, and become a great vessel for Japan.

Kaimoku-shō, Open Your Eyes to the Lotus Teaching, Writings of Nichiren Shōnin, Doctrine 2, Page 105-106

WONS

Rewarded with an Easy Delivery

Candlelight brightens the darkness. Even dirty water reflects the moonlight beautifully. In this world nothing is brighter than the sun and the moon; nothing is more noble than the lotus flowers. As the Lotus Sūtra is like the sun and the moon and the lotus flowers, it is called the Sūtra of the Lotus Flower of the Wonderful Dharma. I, Nichiren, am also like the sun and the moon and the lotus flowers. If you truly believe in the Lotus Sutra, you will be rewarded and protected by the Buddha so that you will have an easy delivery. It is said in the Lotus Sutra: “It is rare to meet this marvelous teaching,” and “If you believe in this, you will have an easy birth.”

Shijō Kingo Nyōbō Gosho, A Letter to the Wife of Shijō Kingo, Nyonin Gosho, Letters Addressed to Female Followers, Page 60

LS32, d30b, WONS, 2buddhas

The Workings of the Ten Rāksasis

Nichiren saw the workings of the ten rāksasis in the events surrounding him, both great and small. He saw their roles as protecting Lotus devotees, occasionally testing their faith, aiding their practice, relieving their sufferings, and chastising those who obstruct their devotion. To a follower, the lay monk Myōmitsu, he wrote: “The ten rāksasis in particular have vowed to protect those who embrace the daimoku of the Lotus Sūtra. Therefore they must think of you and your wife as a mother does her only child … and safeguard you day and night.” To two new parents, the samurai Shijō Kingo and his wife, Nichiren wrote that the ten rāksasis would watch over their infant daughter, so that “wherever she may frolic or play, no harm will come to her; she will ‘travel fearlessly, like a lion king’.” He saw the protection of the ten rāksasis in the kindness of an elderly lay monk on Sado Island who had come to his aid, helping him to survive in exile, and in the devotion of a woman who had made him a robe to shield him from the cold in the recesses of Mount Minobu. Their protection was further evident to him in the fact that he had been able to escape unscathed from an attack on his dwelling in Kamakura and survived other threats as well. To two brothers whose father had threatened to disinherit them on account of their faith in the Lotus Sūtra, he suggested: “Perhaps the ten rāksasis have possessed your parents and are tormenting you in order to test your resolve.” He also asserted that the ten rāksasis, along with other deities, had induced the Mongol ruler to attack Japan to chastise its people for abandoning the Lotus Sūtra.

Two Buddhas, p247
d20b, WONS

Escaping the Evil Realms Without Understanding the Lotus Sūtra

The Buddha preaches in “The Appearance of Bodhisattvas from Underground” of the Lotus Sūtra that those who doubt and do not believe in this sūtra will fall into the evil realms of hell, hungry spirits, and beasts. This means that all who have the ability of understanding but do not have faith in the Three Treasures will fall into the evil realms. Nevertheless, scholars today wonder how those who only have belief in the Three Treasures but cannot understand what the sūtra means are able to avoid falling into the evil realms by just chanting Namu Myōhō Renge Kyō. These scholars are those who will go down to the most terrible hell, according to the sūtra cited above. Therefore, people can escape the evil realms without understanding the sūtra perfectly as long as they chant Namu Myōhō Renge Kyō.

Hokke Daimoku Shō, Treatise on the Daimoku of the Lotus Sūtra, Writings of Nichiren Shōnin, Faith and Practice, Volume 4, Page 37

WONS

Taking Opportunity of Illness to Become Devotee of Lotus Sūtra

Although your husband did not exhibit a strong faith in the Lotus Sūtra in this life, perhaps due to meritorious acts in his previous life, he is taking this opportunity of a long illness to become a devotee of the Lotus Sūtra and is trying to practice its teaching. I believe that the minor crimes committed by him may have already dissipated. Even the major evil of his slandering the True Dharma must have been eradicated due to his devotion to the Lotus Sūtra. Even if he should leave this world to go to the Pure Land of the Sacred Mountain right now, he would be as happy as if he were basking in the sunshine, and finally able to see clearly in all directions due to its light. He would rejoice over an early death.

Myōshin-ama Gozen Gohenji, A Response to My Lady, the Nun Myōshin Writings of Nichiren Shōnin, Volume 7, Followers II, Pages 103

LS32, d28b, WONS, 2buddhas

A Bodhisattva Who Watches Over the Lotus Sūtra’s Female Devotees

Gadgadasvara [Wonderful-Voice Bodhisattva] finds brief mention in a personal letter Nichiren wrote to a woman who had made offerings to each of the Lotus Sūtra’s twenty-eight chapters. “The ‘Gadgadasvara’ chapter,” he wrote to her, “tells of a bodhisattva called Gadgadasvara (“Fine Sound”) who dwells in the land of the buddha Kamaladalavimalanakṣastrarā jasaṃkusumitābhijn͂a (“Knowledge [Conferred by] the King of Constellations [Named] Pure Flower”) in the east. In the past, in the age of the buddha Jaladharagarjitaghoṣasusvaranakṣatrarājasamkusumitābhijn͂a (“Flowering Wisdom of the King of Constellations [Named] Thunder-Sound of Clouds”), he was Lady Vimaladattā (Pure Virtue), the consort of King Śubhavyūha (Fine Adornment). At that time, Lady Vimaladattā made offerings to the Lotus Sūtra and was reborn as the present bodhisattva Gadgadasvara. When the tathagata Śākyamuni expounded the Lotus Sūtra in the Sahā world, this bodhisattva arrived and promised to protect those women who would embrace the Lotus Sūtra in a latter age.”

Here Nichiren draws on the interpretive tradition that Gadgadasvara had in a past life been the consort of King Subhavyūha, who appears in Chapter 27 of the Lotus, to assert that this bodhisattva will watch over the sūtra’s female devotees.

Two Buddhas, p239-240
WONS

Saving the Ignorant, Evil, Women, and Icchantika

According to the three great works of T’ien-t’ai (Profound Meaning of the Lotus Sūtra, Words and Phrases of the Lotus Sūtra, and Great Concentration and Insight ) and Miao-lê’s annotations on them, the Lotus Sūtra is to save the ignorant, evil, and women, whom other sūtras are unable to save, as well as icchantika, who are eternally drowned in the sea of life and death. Yet, teachers of other sects, who do not know this aim of the Buddha, consider the Lotus Sūtra either equal to other sūtras, good only for much-practiced bodhisattvas above the ranks of shoji and shojū, or promising Buddhahood to the ignorant merely as a means of encouragement.

T’ien-t’ai and Miao-lê refuted these erroneous doctrines, declaring that those wandering in the six realms of illusions are exactly whom the Lotus Sūtra aims to address. They preached the two doctrines of shurui seed and sōtai seed, recognizing both merits and demerits of the past as the seed of Buddhahood. They also declared that those born into the realms of heavenly beings or human beings must have accumulated in the past the merit of keeping the five precepts or the ten virtuous acts enabling them to become Buddhas.

Shugo Kokka-ron, Treatise on Protecting the Nation, Writings of Nichiren Shōnin, Doctrine 1, Page 41

WONS

Misled by ‘Evil Friends’

In the final analysis, no matter how I am abandoned by gods and how much difficulty I encounter, I will uphold the Lotus Sūtra at the cost of my own life. Śāripūtra could not attain Buddhahood after having practiced the way of the bodhisattva for as long as sixty kalpa because he could not endure the difficulty presented by a Brahman who asked him for his eyes. Those who had received the seed of Buddhahood from the Eternal Buddha and Daitsūchishō (Great Universal Wisdom) Buddha an incalculable number of kalpa ago could not obtain Buddhahood for as long as 500 or 3,000 dust-particle kalpa (gohyaku jindengō or sanzen jindengō) until they listened to the preaching of the Lotus Sūtra on Mt. Sacred Eagle in this world. It was because they had been misled by these “evil friends” to abandon the Lotus Sūtra. No matter what happens, abandoning the Lotus Sūtra will cause us to be plunged into hell.

Kaimoku-shō, Open Your Eyes to the Lotus Teaching, Writings of Nichiren Shōnin, Doctrine 2, Page 105

WONS

Worrying About One’s Sickness

By the way your husband’s recent illness may have been at the Buddha’s discretion. This is because it is preached in the Vimalakirti Sūtra and the Nirvana Sūtra that a sick person will indeed attain Buddhahood. This means that the desire to attain Buddhahood begins to appear while one worries about one’s sickness, doesn’t it?

Myōshin-ama Gozen Gohenji, A Response to My Lady, the Nun Myōshin Writings of Nichiren Shōnin, Volume 7, Followers II, Pages 103

d14b, WONS

The Sin of Slandering a Practicer of the Lotus Sūtra

Suppose a man as evil as Devadatta slandered, physically beat and envied Śākyamuni Buddha, committing all three kinds of acts—physical, verbal, and mental—against the Buddha for as long as one medium kalpa (20 times the length of a kalpa). How serious is the sin committed by this man? This earth is 168,000 yojana in depth, and it supports all the water of the four great oceans, earth, and rocks of nine mountains, numerous trees and plants, and all creatures on top without dropping, tilting or breaking them. On the contrary, Devadatta’s body being five feet tall or so fell into hell breaking through the earth because he committed the Three Rebellious Sins. The hole he fell through still exists today in India. Tripiṭaka Master Hsüan-chuang writes in his Record of the Western Regions that he saw the hole of Devadatta in India while making a pilgrimage from China to India.

However, it is preached in the “Teacher of the Dharma” chapter of the Lotus Sūtra that the sin of slandering a practicer of the Lotus Sūtra in the Latter Age of Degeneration on a mere whim, without any trace of animosity or envy, is more serious than the sin of Devadatta committing the three kinds of acts—verbal, physical, and mental—against the Buddha for as long as a medium kalpa. How much more so then is the sin of people today who, like Devadatta commit the three kinds of evil acts (verbal, physical, and mental) against a practicer of the Lotus Sūtra, by speaking ill of him, censuring him, envying and physically beating him, and trying to kill him for many years!

Hōren-shō, Letter to Hōren, Writings of Nichiren Shōnin, Volume 6, Followers I, Page 44-45