Category Archives: WONS

WONS

One Body and One Thought

The important statement in the fifth fascicle of the Great Concentration and Insight reads, “One moment of thought possesses ten realms of all phenomena. Each of the ten realms also has the ten realms of all phenomena, making a total of one hundred realms of all phenomena. Because each of the hundred realms has thirty factors of existences (the Three Factors of Existences—living beings, environment, and the five constituent elements of living beings—multiplied by ten as each of them has ten aspects), the hundred realms of all phenomena possess the three thousand factors of existences. These three thousand factors of existences are contained in one thought.” Grand Master Miao-lê interpreted this, saying in his Annotations on the Great Concentration and Insight, “Know this: in both sentient and insentient beings exist three thousand factors of existences in one thought. Therefore, when they become enlightened, one body and one thought will permeate throughout the realms of all phenomena according to this wonderful principle of ‘3,000 existences contained in one thought.’ ”

Ichidai Shōgyō Tai-I, Outline of All the Holy Teachings of the Buddha, Writings of Nichiren Shōnin, Doctrine 3, Page 90

WONS

Ordinary Yellow Rocks

Clouds cover the moon and slanderers hide wise men. When people slander, ordinary yellow rocks appear to be gold and slanderers seem to be wise. Scholars in this age of decay, blinded by slanderous words, do not see the value of the gold in the “Life Span of the Buddha” chapter. Even among men of the Tendai Sect some are fooled into taking a yellow rock for gold. They should know that if Śākyamuni had not been the Eternal Buddha, there could not have been so many who received guidance from Him.

Kaimoku-shō, Open Your Eyes to the Lotus Teaching, Writings of Nichiren Shōnin, Doctrine 2, Page 75

WONS

Changing Barley and Wheat to Characters of the Lotus Sūtra

It is said that a rabbit jumped on the back of the sage to whom Aniruddha offered a bowl of barnyard millet rice, and it became a dead person. The sage went home to unload it and found it had become a golden person. Whenever the sage pulled out a finger of the golden man to sell, a new finger appeared. When an evil king tried to plunder the golden man, it changed to an ordinary corpse. Thus, it is said, the sage continued to live a fabulously rich life for as long as 91 kalpa (aeons).

When a man named Mahānāma picked up a pebble, it changed to a piece of gold, and King Konzoku changed sand to gold. Now you have changed barley and wheat to characters of the Lotus Sūtra, which will become a mirror and accessories for a woman and an armor and helmet for a man. They will be your protective deities and help you to become a well-known warrior. Namu Myōhō Renge Kyō. Namu Myōhō Renge Kyō.

Nanjō-dono Gohenji, Reply to Lord Nanjō, Writings of Nichiren Shōnin, Volume 7, Followers II, Pages 13

LS32, d7b, d12b, WONS, 2buddhas

Our Karmic Connection to Śākyamuni Buddha

As with Chapter Three, Nichiren’s references to this chapter focus, not on the parable from which it takes its name, but on another element entirely, in this case, the story of the buddha Mahābhijfiājfiānābhibhū [Great-Universal-Wisdom-Excellence Tathāgata].

Nichiren drew three chief conclusions from this narrative. The first is that beings of our own, Sahā world have a karmic connection solely to Śākyamuni Buddha and not to the buddhas of other words. Everything about the dharma known in this world originated with Śākyamuni. None of the great Pure Land teachers, Nichiren said, had ever actually met the buddha Amitābha or renounced the world to practice the way under his guidance. The name Sahā, from the Sanskrit word meaning “to bear or endure,” refers to the tradition that this world is an especially evil and benighted place where it is difficult to pursue the Buddhist path — quite unlike the radiant pure lands with which the Mahāyāna imagination populated the cosmos. Thus, Śākyamuni was said to have displayed exceptional compassion in appearing in this world. In the Greater Amitābha Sūtra or Sūtra of Immeasurable Life, Amitābha Buddha vows to accept into his pure land all who place faith in him except those persons who have committed the five heinous deeds or disparaged the dharma. Nichiren accordingly suggested that these most depraved of evil persons had been excluded from the pure lands of the ten directions and were gathered instead in the present, Sahā world, where Śākyamuni had undertaken to save them. This was the meaning, he said, of Śākyamuni Buddha’s statement in Chapter Three, “I am the only one who can protect them.” To forsake the original teacher Śākyamuni was a grave error, as the people of this world cannot escape samsāra by following any other buddha.

Two Buddhas, p116-117
WONS

Suffering Minor Torments in this Life

It is stated in the six-fascicle Nirvana Sūtra (Hatsunaion Sūtra by Fa-hsien), fascicle 4 (‘Four Reliances’ chapter), “Short supply of clothing or food, the inability to make a fortune, being born to a poor family or parents with a wrong view, or persecutions by the king and various other people are the retributions for past crimes in this world. This is due to the merit of upholding the True Dharma.”

These scriptural statements mean that because we persecuted the practicer of the True Dharma in a past life, our destiny is to fall into the Great Avīci Hell. However, by strongly upholding the True Dharma in this life, we absolve the major torment of the future by suffering the comparatively minor torments in this life. According to these scriptural statements, retributions for the past slandering of the True Dharma include being born in a poor family or a family with mistaken views, and persecution by the king. A family with mistaken views means a family of parents who slander the True Dharma while persecution by the king means to be born during the rule of an evil king.

Kyōdai-shō, A Letter to the Ikegami Brothers, Writings of Nichiren Shōnin, Volume 6, Followers I, Page 77

WONS

What Is the Merit of Only Chanting the Daimoku?

QUESTION: If someone chanted Namu Myōhō Renge Kyō without understanding its meaning will the benefit of understanding still be received?

ANSWER: When a baby nurses, it does not comprehend the taste; nevertheless, it receives the benefits of the milk naturally. Did anyone know the ingredients or formula for Jīvaka’s wondrous medicines? Water is without intent but it can extinguish fire; and even though fire consumes many things, can we say it does this deliberately? This is Nāgārjuna and T’ien-t’ai’s idea! I am merely repeating it.

Shishin Gohon-shō, The Four Depths of Faith and Five Stages of Practice, Writings of Nichiren Shōnin, Faith and Practice, Volume 4, Page 106-107

LS32, d9b, d10b, WONS, 2buddhas

Teaching Śrāvakas the Taste of Ghee

Nichiren explained that these four great śrāvakas “had not even heard the name of the delicacy called ghee,” but when the Lotus Sūtra was expounded, they experienced it for the first time, savoring it as much as they wished and “immediately satisfying the hunger that had long been in their hearts.” Nichiren’s reference here to “ghee,” or clarified butter, invokes the concept of the “five flavors,” an analogy by which Zhiyi had likened the stages in human religious development to the five stages in the Indian practice of making ghee from fresh milk. As we have seen, like other educated Buddhists of his day, Nichiren took the Tendai division of the Buddha’s teaching into five sequential periods to represent historical fact. From that perspective, Nichiren sometimes described the sufferings that he imagined the Buddha’s leading śrāvaka disciples must have endured during the period when Śākyamuni began to preach the Mahāyāna, seeing their status plummet from that of revered elders to targets of scorn and reproach for their attachment to the inferior “Hinayāna” goal of a personal nirvāṇa. Some Mahāyāna sūtras excoriate the śrāvakas as those who have “destroyed the seeds of buddhahood” or “fallen into the pit of nirvāṇa” and can benefit neither themselves nor others. Their “hunger” then would have represented their chagrin and regret at not having followed the bodhisattva path and thus having excluded themselves from the possibility of buddhahood.

At the same time, Nichiren imagined them suffering hunger in the literal sense. As monks, they would have had to beg for their food each day. Nichiren imagined that on hearing the érävakas rebuked as followers of a lesser vehicle, humans and gods no longer viewed them as worthy sources of merit and stopped putting food in their begging bowls. “Had the Buddha entered final nirvāṇa after preaching only the sūtras of the first forty years or so without expounding the Lotus Sūtra in his last eight years, who then would have made offerings to these elders?” he asked. “In their present bodies, they would have known the sufferings of the realm of hungry ghosts.” Serious hunger was a condition that Nichiren had experienced at multiple points in his life and with which he could readily sympathize. But when the Buddha preached the Lotus Sūtra and predicted buddhahood for the śrāvakas, Nichiren continued, his words were like the brilliant spring sun emerging to dissolve the ice of winter or a strong wind dispersing dew from all the grass. “Because [these predictions] appear in this phoenix of writings, this mirror of truth [i.e., the Lotus], after the Buddha’s passing, the śrāvakas were venerated by all supporters of the dharma, both humans and gods, just as though they had been buddhas.”

Two Buddhas, p106-107
WONS

The True Mahāyāna Teaching

Now it is the beginning of the Latter Age of Degeneration. Those who should be saved by Hinayāna and provisional Mahāyāna teachings have disappeared, leaving only those who should be saved by the True Mahāyāna teaching.

You cannot load a big rock on a small boat. Evil and ignorant people are like huge rocks. Such teachings as Hinayāna and provisional Mahāyāna sūtras and the nembutsu are like a small boat. A large malignant scab cannot be cured easily because it is a severe sickness. For us in the Latter Age of Degeneration, nembutsu is like cultivating a rice field in winter. The time is not at all right.

Nanjō Hyōe Shichirō-dono Gosho, A Letter to Lord Nanjō Hyōe Shichirō, Writings of Nichiren Shōnin, Doctrine 3, Pages 142.

WONS

Unless the Causative Relationship Is Ripe

The moon does not shy away from its own reflection, but it cannot be reflected without water. Even though the Buddha hopes to convert the populace, He cannot show the eight major events in His life unless the causative relationship is ripe. It is like Hinayāna sages of śrāvaka, who have listened to the Mahāyāna teaching and ascended the ladder of the bodhisattva way leading to Buddhahood, until they have reached the step of shoji in the distinct teaching or shojū in the perfect teaching. In the end, however, they have to wait for the future for their Buddhahood. It is because they have listened only to the pre-Lotus sūtras and striven for self-control and self-salvation.

Kaimoku-shō, Open Your Eyes to the Lotus Teaching, Writings of Nichiren Shōnin, Doctrine 2, Page 75

WONS

Delight in Such a Discouraging Life

We left Echi on the tenth of the tenth month and arrived at the province of Sado on the 28th of the same month. On the first of the eleventh month I entered the Sammaidō Hall in the wilderness called Tsukahara located behind the residence of Homma Rokurōzaemon. This place was a run-down hut, about six foot square in size and without a statue of the Buddha, built in a place where dead bodies were abandoned like Rendaino in Kyoto.

The roof was full of holes and the four walls had fallen off so that snow which piled up in the room never disappeared. I had to stay here day and night, sitting on a piece of fur and wearing a raincoat made of straws. At night it snowed, hailed and thundered continuously. In the daytime no rays of sunshine penetrated the heavy clouds. It was such a discouraging life there. In ancient China Li-ling (Su-wu) was sent to the land of Hsiung-nu as an emissary and was captured and confined in a cave for years. Tripitaka Master Fa-tao who remonstrated with Emperor Hui-tsung of Sung in vain was exiled to Southern China, having his face branded with a red-hot iron. They must have felt just like I felt then.

However, this is in fact delightful. In ancient times King Suzudan abandoned the throne to seek the True Dharma and devoted himself to austerities under a prophet called Asita for as long as one thousand years. As a result of such intense training, he finally obtained the great merit of the Lotus Sūtra. Struck by self-conceited monks with sticks, Never-Despising Bodhisattva could become a practicer of the Lotus Sūtra.

Now it is Nichiren who, born in the Latter Age of Degeneration, is encountering these great difficulties for having propagated the five Chinese characters of myō, hō, ren, ge, and kyō.

Shuju Onfurumai Gosho, Reminiscences: from Tatsunokuchi to Minobu, Writings of Nichiren Shōnin, Biography and Disciples, Volume 5, Pages 31-32