THE SO-CALLED ‘SHÔJU’ INITIATIVE AND ITS SPONSORS
continued...
View of ocean in Kominato
(Photo taken by S. Polito)part - 6 of 8
Returning to the Nyosetsu shugyô shô, we can see how this Supremacy of the Hokekyô is related to the concept of the proper practice against those who would simply reduce the Hokekyô to a principle of unity which indifferently affirms all teachings and practices:
‘Question: For us to say that someone is the practicer who practices
according to the preaching, in what way should we say he believes?'‘Answer: What the people of the country of Japan of the present age all say
is the person who practices in accordance with the preaching (nyosetsu shugyô) is':“When the Vehicles are sublated (opened and merged) into the One Buddha Vehicle, they are all the Hokekyô and there is no matter of superiority and inferiority, shallowness or profundity. When one believes that saying the Nembutsu, keeping the Shingon (mantras), practicing Zen, and in general keeping and reciting all the sutras and the Names of the Buddha and the bodhisattvas are all the Hokekyô, one is said
to be the person who practices in accordance with the preaching.”‘I say, ‘It is not so. 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':‘Although our Original Teacher, the Tathagata Shakya, thought he would
preach the Hokke (Dharma Flower Sutra), because the capacities of beings were
not yet mature, he first preached the Expedients, which are the Provisional Teachings, during more than forty years and afterwards preached the Hokekyô, which is the Truth. In the Muryôgikyô (Sutra of Immeasurable Meanings), the Preface Section of this Sutra, he points to the boundary marker between the Provisional and the Real and divides the Expedient from the Truth, when he says, ‘By the power of Expedience for more than forty years I have never yet revealed the Truth’ [Muryôgikyô (T.9.386b1-2)]. The Eighty Thousand Great Beings, Daishôgon, and so on, having understood and distinguished the reasons for ‘putting forth the Provisional, opening (sublating) the Provisional, abolishing the Provisional’ [as expounded in the Hokke gengi] and so
on, say as their received understanding, ‘With the Sutras before the Hokke according to which one practices through successive kalpas, ‘in the end they do not attain Supreme Bodhi”’ [Muryôgikyô (T.9.387a28-b1)].‘Moreover, after coming to the Hokke, which is [the Section of] the Principal Significance, He starts by preaching, ‘As to the World Honored One’s Dharma, after
a long time He is certainly about to preach the Truth.’ [The ‘Chapter of Expedience’ 2 (T.9.6a23)], and issues prohibitions: ‘There are neither two nor again three [Vehicles], excluding the Expedient Preaching of the Buddha’, [The ‘Chapter of Expedience’ 2 (T.9.8a)] ‘forthrightly abandon Expedience’ [Ibid. (T.9.10a)], and ‘do not even receive one verse of other sutras’ [The ‘Chapter of the Parable’ (T.9.16a)]. After this, only
the Sublime Dharma of which ‘there is only One Buddha Vehicle’ [The ‘Chapter of
the Transformational City’ 7 (T.9.27b2)] is the Great [Vehicle] Dharma, which makes
all beings Buddhas, and the sutras outside of the Hokekyô cannot have one bit
of benefit; however, the scholars of the present in the Latter Dharma, think that because every [sutra] is the preaching of the Tathagata, they all will have attainment
of Buddhahood, and they believe all and sundry of the sects and sutras, whether Shingon or Nembutsu or the Zen Sect, Sanron, Hossô, Kusha, Jôjitsu, Ritsu and
so on. It was about persons like this that [the Buddha] determined, “If a person
does not believe but disparages and blasphemes this Sutra, such a one at once
cuts off the Buddha seeds of all worlds” and so on to “that person, when life ends,
enters Avici Hell”’ [The ‘Chapter of the Parable’ 3 (T.9.15b)]. The Buddha has determined that the one who takes the bright mirror of these rules as basis and
does not differ one bit and believes that there is only One Buddha Vehicle is the person who practices in accordance with the preaching” (STN, v. 1, 733 l. 12-735 l. 2).This then is the meaning of the ‘Breaking and Subduing’ in the deeper sense: it is closely linked to the concept of the exclusive practice of the Hokekyô (senji Hokke) which, in turn, is based on the concept of the relative sublation (sôdai myô kaie) in which the Hokekyô sublates (opens and merges) the various teachings into itself but always remains in a superior position and denies the other teachings; this position was ‘denial in terms of the sections (the five respective periods and types of sutras
of the Buddha’s Lifetime: yakubu datsu shaku); this negative view was known in Tendai circles and was associated with the Onjôji (Miidera) Temple and can be traced back to Chishô Daishi and ultimately to Myôraku Daishi (Zhanran/Chan-jan) in T’ang China; Nichiren Shônin’s opponents took the opposite view associated with Hieizan, affirmation with regard to the teachings (yaku kyô yo shaku) that the Hokekyô merely affirmed the validity of all Buddhist teachings and this interpretation was later used
by his critics to attack the whole Nichiren Shônin and his whole movement. It is not a question of a mere sectarian superiority or transcending other types of Buddhism as some sort of boast: it goes to the very heart of the Sutra and its fundamental position in Buddhism.Nichiren Shônin simply states that the “Golden Words” of Lord Shakya show that
He did shakabuku once He came to preach the Hokekyô: all other teachings were abolished and the One Truth, the Unique Vehicle of the Hokekyô is proclaimed. Therefore, when the Hokekyô is preached in the last eight years of the Buddha’s Lifetime and again by the messenger of the Buddha sent to the epoch of the Latter Dharma, it ‘breaks and subdues’ all other teachings and is to be practiced exclusively. According to the Sutra, a hellish punishment awaits those who do not accept this fundamental truth. Thus, following in Lord Shakya’s footsteps in preaching the Hokekyô, all those who “practice according to the preaching” (nyosetsu shugyô)
must also do ‘breaking and subduing’ on a fundamental level: they must assert the Absolute Truth and Supremacy of the Hokekyô as against the other teachings:‘And so in the more than two thousand years since Lord Shakya's entering
Extinction, out of the practicers who have practiced according to the preaching we
put aside the three, Lord Shakya, Tendai and Dengyo. Within the Latter Dharma I, Nichiren, as well as my disciples and lay donors are such as these. If they do not say we are the ones who practice according to the preaching, Lord Shakya, Tendai, and Dengyô would not have been people who practiced according to the preaching. If Deva[datta], Kokkuri, Zenshô, Kôbô, Jikaku, Chishô, Shan-dao, Hônen, Ryôkanbô
and so on are said to be the practicers of the Hokekyô, Lord Shakya, Tendai, Dengyô, and I, Nichiren, as well as my disciples and donors would be practicers of Nembutsu, Shingon, Zen, Ritsu and so on; if the Hokekyô is said to be an Expedient Provisional Teaching, then would the sutras of the Nembutsu and so on, on the contrary,
become the Hokekyô? Though east become west and the west become east, though there be examples of the great earth along with the plants and trees which it holds flying up to become heaven and heaven along with the sun, moon, and constellations falling down to become the earth, how could there be this principle [of the Hokekyô and other sutras changing places]?” (STN, v. 1, 736 l. 13 - 737 l. 6)If we compare Nichiren Shônin’s ideals with those of the so-called ‘shôju’ leaders
we can see a clear contrast: the former merely “respectfully guards the Golden
Words of the Buddha” and determines that the Buddha has fixed the true practice of the Sutra as the assertion of the One Buddha Vehicle and the punishment of Avici for unbelief; the latter are uncomfortable with many salient features of the Sutra and wish to change things to suit their own tastes and desire to recruit people who will naively follow them (It is clear where they will follow the ‘shôju’ leaders TO!). Moreover, it is hardly surprising that one of them has already declared his abandonment of Nichiren Shônin and his “return to Shakyamuni”; how sad, for Nichiren Shônin has shown throughout his writings that he is merely following the Decrees of Lord Shakyamuni, as can be seen from of the passages cited above. In reality, of course, this person
is not really trying to “return” to the teaching any more than he really wishes to establish the practice of shôju, for he and his allies will violently attack anyone who disagrees with them. They are reminiscent of the pseudo-Asian martial arts show whose protagonists claimed to practice “selective non-violence.” (Even the armed forces practice “selective non-violence"). These people practice “selective shôju”: they will be very “accepting” as long as one consents to their ideas.
Next....
UDANA NICHIKI - A PROPER ROLE MODEL?
(Compilation and translations by H. Graham Lamont; formatted here by
Steven Polito. Copyright ©2000-2001 Rev. Kubota & H.G.Lamont all
rights reserved)