THE SO-CALLED ‘SHÔJU’ INITIATIVE AND ITS SPONSORS
continued...part 2 of 8
Matsubagayatsu Monument at Matsubagayatsu
(Photo by S. Polito)
A SMOKESCREEN FOR IGNORANCE AND LACK OF FAITH
What has happened here is that the ‘shôju’ supporters have confused rudeness, smear tactics, unsupported assertions and personal insults (which they have long used) with the genuine, Sutra-based shakubuku that we espouse.
This initiative is, I believe, largely a smoke-screen put forward by people who
have long since abandoned the fundamental ideas of Nichiren Shônin (if, indeed,
they ever held them in the first place). There are two aspects of Buddhist practice:
one’s own practice (jigyô) and converting others (keta); it is obvious that the
proposed change is not merely a shift in “converting others” but rather the
ratification of their own beliefs and practices which seem in many cases to be
merely a form of syncretism to which various bits and pieces of Nichiren Shônin’s religion have been added. In other words, many of these people do not really uphold Nichiren Shônin’s “exclusive practice of the Hokke” (senji Hokke) as their own ideal and, indeed, some have even said in the past that there is “not one bit of evidence”
to show that Nichiren Shônin believed in “exclusive practice” (an assertion that
would surprise Japanese Buddhist historians).The problem then is that these people neither believe in Nichiren Shônin’s
historic doctrines nor do they understand the fundamental doctrinal background
of his words; as a result they simply substitute what all of them learned in the Sôka Gakkai, personal abuse, for Sutra-based and rational argument. Even now as they
put on the mask of reason and learned debate, we can see their thorough-going confusion in their seeming apologetic for Nichiren Shônin’s methods and their simultaneous call for abandoning his methods because, they claim, we live in a different era. Their nominal goal of getting rid of the abusive language and hatred might be laudable, if that were, in fact, what they were aiming for, but that is not their real goal.MAPPÔ, THE AGE IN WHICH WE LIVE
First of all, they do seem to concede that Nichiren Shônin taught according
to the time (ji) and the capacities (ki) but they deny the clear teaching that we as
well as Nichiren Shônin live in the same age of the Latter Dharma which is to last
ten thousand years; the Kyô gyô shô gosho, which they cite as proof for some of
their assertions, specifically condemns the idea that the Latter Dharma is limited
to the five-hundred-year period which constitutes its beginning (STN, v. 2, 1481)
(If they should then argue that they do not accept Nichiren Shônin’s argument
on this and wish to go back to the Tendai Sect ---and not a few of them really wish
to do so---, they should know that the argument broached there is based on the interpretation of the Tendai Patriarch Myôraku Daishi (Hokke mongu ki 1B T.34.157b)).Moreover, elsewhere Nichiren Shônin asserts that the degenerate age of the Latter Dharma last for ten thousand years: “After the Counterfeit Dharma the Latter Dharma is ten thousand years” (STN, v. 1 322).
“Furthermore, it is not that one should personally speak differing principles (doctrines). The Tathagata reflected on the future and [ said “I ] separate and assign
the people who would spread My Doctrine as well as the various sutras each and
every one during the one thousand years of the True Dharma, the one thousand
years of the Counterfeit Dharma, and the ten thousand years of the Latter Dharma after My Extinction. However, when people who turn against this appear in the
world, even though they be wise ones or worthy kings, one should not employ
them’” (STN, v. 2, 1316).... and of his own mission he says:
“If Nichiren’s compassion is broad and great, “Namu Myôhô renge kyô” will flow
on to the future, beyond ten thousand years” (STN, v. 2, 1248).And in a surviving fragment (STN, v. 3, 2477 frag. 1) Nichiren Shônin specifically
says the teaching of widely spreading and diffusing in the fifth five hundred years will not be cut off into the entire future until Lord Ajita (Maitreya, the next Buddha) comes forth in the world.No where does the Sutra or Nichiren Shônin predict or state that there will be
a change after so many years and the world shall revert to the better times of
the Lord Buddha in ancient India when “Subsuming and Accepting” (shôju), i.e,
a gradual preparation of capacities (ki) by means of provisional and expedient teachings, is to be put to the fore.Our times may seem more “advanced” to these people but, from the point of view
of the Buddha, where is the change? It is all mappô, the degenerate age of the Latter Dharma, predicted by the Buddha; speaking of a prophecy of the Great Nirvana Sutra Nichiren Shônin says:“In this sutra text the World-honored One prophesied the future. Now Lord Shakya
is for us, on top of being a Worthy Father, an Enlightened Teacher, a Sagely Lord.
In the prophetic text wherein He reflects on and prophesies the future evil age by means of the Buddha Eye of the Buddha Who in one body is endowed with the Three Virtues He says, “After My Nirvana in immeasurable hundreds of years’: it appears to be after the two thousand years after the Extinction of the Buddha” (STN, v,. 2, 1319).Why did not the Buddha, endowed with omniscient Buddha Eye, predict a return
to the age of gradual teaching and shôju after just the first five hundred years of mappô? And if the Buddha’s “Golden Words” are wrong, then why did Nichiren Shônin believe in them implicitly? And if he was wrong why do these ‘shôju’ people claim him as their master?Nichiren Shônin advises: “In sum, when one would practice the Buddha Dharma,
one may not use the words of humans. One should just respectfully guard the Golden Words of the Buddha” (STN, v. 1, 734 ll. 2-3). And Nichiren Shônin warns against this very kind of twisting of his words which are themselves merely respectfully guarding the “Golden Words of the Buddha” when he said:“However, when people who turn against this appear in the world, even though they be wise ones or worthy kings, one should not employ them” (STN, v. 2, 1319, cited above).
Is he not warning against the very kind of argument being put forth by these
‘shôju’ people: in effect, they are saying that our time is not the mappô predicted
by the Buddha and recognized by Nichiren Shônin as the time of shakubuku.If we look at our time, how can we deny that it is the time of mappô?
Look at the type of Buddhism or what frequently passes for Buddhism is
propagated? Japanese Buddhism has largely ossified into sects that simply
repeat the rituals of the past without any understanding. In the U.S. people flock to Tibetan Buddhism, even though it is clear most of them have no idea what they are embracing; Hollywood stars give money to Tibetan religious groups who “recognize” them as tulkus or reincarnated lamas. Lamas of the Vinaya-observing Gelugpa Order attend cocktail parties where they are hugged and kissed by scantily clad starlets under the gaze of the Dalai Lama himself. (Such touching is strictly forbidden according [to] the Vinaya).Tibetan Buddhism itself, a form of Esoteric Buddhism appropriate, at best, only
to an earlier age, clearly led to the downfall of Tibet as a political entity at the hands
of China (cf. The Mongol invasions in Nichiren Shônin’s writings); Tibetan Buddhism proper is only a shadow of what it used to be within living memory. (For those who
still uphold an idealistic view of Tibetan Buddhism, I suggest you read Orville Schell’s Virtual Tibet, Donald S. Lopez’ Jr.’s Prisoners of Shangri-La, and Peter Bishop’s Dreams of Power and The Myth of Shangri-La).Moreover, just recently were not the Taliban Muslims firing explosives at ancient statues of the Lord Buddha Shakyamuni in Bamiyan Province in Afghanistan? Consider that in the True and Counterfeit Dharma eras that same land was a flourishing center of Buddhism; now it is a land of non-Buddhists, who are so fanatically anti-Buddhist that cannot even abide the sight of the image of the Lord Buddha. How can the ‘shôju’ partisans say that it is a not the terrible age of Mappô!?
We need not even review what passes for Zen in the West but we must ask: has Zen itself suddenly become something good in light of Nichiren Shônin denounced to the Ikegami brothers:
“the evil [spiritual] friends that persuaded them to the Zen Sect: Dharma (Datsuma: Bodhidharma), Hui-k’o are these”(STN, v. 1, 923 l. 2).
“These { Zen and other ‘evil friends’ ] are [ instances of ] the Demon King of the
Sixth Heaven entering into the persons (or bodies) of Wise Ones and deluding good people. When in the fifth fascicle of the Hokekyô it is preached, ‘great evil demons have entered their bodies’ [T.9.36c] refers to this” (STN, v. 1, 923 ll. 3-4).Has this moral and spiritual situation suddenly changed now? Do Zen and pseudo-Zen now do no spiritual evil?
What of the spiritual evil which comes from those “Nichiren Buddhists” who deny the clear teaching of the Sutra and of the Patriarch? In order to avoid the teaching of the Hokekyô, one group has declared it to be a “modern teaching” not by the Buddha and even say that Nichiren Shônin recognized this fact and did not rely on the Sutra. On the other hand, there are others who say the Hokekyô is not the absolutely Supreme Sutra but much like the other Mahayana Sutras. Still others have attacked the Master of Teachings Lord Shakya and deny the Eternal Buddha on the excuse “too much like Krishna” or “like Santa Claus.”
Moreover, is our age, for all its marvels, even an era of even material perfection: is there not the ever increasing threat of global warming and the persistent destruction of species after species and the very basis of life in this world? Is our food supply safe from the pollution of terrible diseases? Read the news: I do not think I need say more on this aspect.
Next....
UDANA NICHIKI - A PROPER ROLE MODEL?
(Compilation and translations by H. Graham Lamont; formatted here by
Steven Polito. Copyright ©2000-2001 H.G.Lamont all rights reserved)