NST | Sokagakkai | Ikeda | Fuji School
The Gosho the "Heritage of the Ultimate Law of Life" states:
I have just carefully read your letter. To reply, the ultimate law of life and death as transmitted from the Buddha to all living beings is Myoho-renge-kyo. The five characters of Myoho-renge-kyo 2 were transferred from the two Buddhas inside the Treasure Tower, Shakyamuni and Taho, to Bodhisattva Jogyo, carrying on a heritage unbroken since the infinite past. Myo represents death and ho represents life. Life and death are the two phases passed through by the entities of the Ten Worlds, the entities of all sentient beings which embody the law of cause and effect (renge).T'ien-t'ai said, "You must realize that the interrelated actions and reactions of sentient beings and their environments all manifest the law of simultaneity of cause and effect."3 Sentient beings and their environments" here means the reality of life and death. The law of simultaneity of cause and effect is clearly at work in everything that lives and dies.
For more on this see my essay; on this same Gosho. But you can see from this quote how important "heritage" is to Buddhism, both Nichiren Buddhism and it's origins. The definition of "Kechimyaku" as heritage or "life blood" carries a connotation of it's importance to believers in Buddhism. Understanding this concept is important.
The questions we, as Buddhists, have to ask ourselves are:
Furthermore, we can look at this subject from the point of view of both the history of Nichiren Buddhism, it's inheritance from Tientai and Tendai Buddhism, and from Japanese Culture.
Nichiren and his early followers obviously attached importance to carrying out the "heritage" of True Buddhism. It is said that they placed so much importance in this that some of them actually "ate" copies of his works and all of them tried to emmulate his example. This identity of "heritage" with "lifeblood" also points to the importance that we understand the role of our "relationship" with other practitioners and with the Daimoku of the Lotus Sutra. President Ikeda lectured on this Gosho years ago, in his lecture he claimed a heritage from his mentors Makiguchi and Josei Toda. I deal with this more in the section on the Gakkai. This was so important an assertion that it caused the priests of Nichiren Shoshu to see red about it. They threatened to expell the Gakkai over various deviations, central of which was this claim of a "heritage" outside of their own. Indeed, the priests made him apologize and resign his position on account of his claim and "clarify" that the heritage of the Gakkai was within that of Nichiren Shoshu. For more on this follow the links to the Issues Discussion.
In it's simplest and most common sense the "heritage" is simply a transmission. All of us are involved in "heritages." In this country we owe a debt of gratitude to all our teachers who have transmitted life altering or important things to us. When doctrines, "spirit", "words" or the "dharma" are transmitted from one to another, the receiver receives a "transmission" from his teacher. In Buddhism, teacher and student are ultimately one but not one (shitei funi), and so with a transmission the "receiver" of a transmission is as important as the "transmittor." Transmissions are only as good as the quality of the transmission and the receptivity of the one receiving it. In the Letter to Akimoto Nichiren describes how the "vessel" that receives a transmission (or teaching) can have four faults. These are the faults of:
These "faults" are faults that cause the mind or spirit to be unable to properly benefit from the "heritage" or "transmission" received by it. So seeking to correctly receive and transmit Buddhism is very important to our lives. The importance of a "correct" understanding of Buddhism is very important
Here I am quoting from the heritage of the Ultimate Law of Life, and yet it is alleged to be a forgery. Why? Because it doesn't have a proper "holograph" (signed original) and follows certain conventions which other forged Gosho follow. Does that invalidate it's message. I don't think so. Yet it does point up the central problem we need to consider when examining Buddhist Texts (See literal.html). In the essay Language and Logic of the Lotus Sutra. Which I saved a copy of (so I could put in html and make it more useful on the web). In this essay she quotes the following:
Thus it is pretty clear that, in Buddhism, literalmindedness is not the key to understanding. There is no need to either be literal-mindedly enslaved to the founder of Buddhism, to the founder of our sect (Nichiren) or to any later day "authority". At the same time, it is extremely important that we are all on the same sheet of music. This is why this subject of "kechimyaku" is so important to understand right! We need to be aware, that no single authority is so important as the acquisition of wisdom and direct knowledge of the truths of Buddhism.
This leads us to our next topic:
Then where does the teaching of Nichiren Shoshu, that there is a "general heritage of the Law" (kechimyaku) and a "specific" one come from and what does it mean? Where does the notion of a special "kechimyaku of the Law" come from, is it so special? And where does the notion that there should be a differentiation between a heritage of faith and a heritage of the law? What does this mean?
If you surf the internet or visit a NST temple you will find pamphlets explaining the priests doctrines about this matter. They will quote you in depth and out of context, because their real source is the traditions of Nichiren Shoshu. Of course this gets sticky, when you start to realize that many of the teachings of Buddhism have started out with such "oral traditions." And the Shoji Ichidaiji Kechimyaku itself, may well have started out in a similar manner!
For example they quote: 'The Minobu Transfer Document' reads:
'Order of Kechimyaku(Transmission): from Nichiren to Nikko.' As this dcocument indicates, the Kechimyaku of the Law is a specific transfer, made from Nichiren Daishonin to Nikko Shonin, and to each successive high priest of Nichiren Shoshu in accordance with the principle of transmission to a single individual.(See literal.html for discussion on the "apocryphal" nature of this document)
Understanding this requires one to understand that the lineage of Nichiren Shoshu is and has been a primarilly oral heritage. To understand their notion of a specific heritage of the Law and a general heritage of faith one has to understand the principle of so and betsu (see sobetsu.html) which are the principle of "General and specific." A specific instance of a thing is always a limited, relative, (tennuous) and transitory manifestation. A General thing is "general" true, and universal, but not necessarily "real" or even applicable in every case. When something is put into specific form it is taken from an abstract or "general" level and put into "play" in the "real world." This Buddhism is for instance, the religion of "Ji no Ichinen Sanzen." The specific transfer therefore is referring to individual transfers made from one teacher to the next. Nichiren Shoshu would like to turn this into something else entirely, and it does so by interpreting the "transfer" as the movement of a "lifeblood" or "entity of the law." But this is a tradition of the school. Almost everything that Nichiren Shoshu says about it's doctrines, was developed by the teachers of it's schools based on their own insights, arguments, and prior learning. Just like the rest of us. The "specific heritage of the Law" is this corpus of oral and written teachings as understood by the current high priest. The notion that his understanding should be superior to that of any other laymen is empty of independent authority. That is, if he is, in fact, correct it is so. If he is mistaken, he is still mistaken. His "specific heritage" makes it more likely that he is on track, but to the extent that his lineage may have inherited errors, it can make it harder for him to be right about some matters. Like all authority it is "relative truth" and only shines to the degree that it "smiles on or properly "illuminates" the Lotus Sutra, which is our original text in this religion. The General Transmission of faith is available to all of us, specific transmissions depend on whether or not we are given them or are capable of understanding what we have received when we get them. The quality of his specific heritage, in fact, depends on the quality of his general heritage of faith. Nikken will achieve enlightenment depending on his faith in the Lotus Sutra and chanting of the Daimoku, not on this "specific heritage."
Recently, the Gakkai has been reasserting teachings that were popular in the 1970's. This makes me glad that I saved President Ikeda's lecture on the Heritage of the Ultimate law of life that was written into a three pamphlet study guide back then. It is copy-righted in 1977, and I consider it an inheritance in my own understanding of Buddhism. It was disavowed in his apology in 1979, but while it deserved critique, it didn't deserve the way it was treated then.
President Ikeda writes therein;
"The Bodhisattvas of the Earth Need not be forced or told to do anything by anyone. They work spontaineously for the benefit of the people and society, upholding the philosophy of the Mystic Law. This is the natural duty they sense within their own life. Where does this sense of mission come from? Where in our hearts do the Bodhisattvas of the Earth dwell?"
"Nichiren Daishonin explains this by quoting T'ien-t'ai's interpretation that they dwell in the 'ultimate depth of life, that being the ultimate reality.' In other words, the Bodhisattvas of the Earth dwell in Nam Myoho Renge Kyo. We bring it's life force from within oursleves. We manifest the ultimate entity of our life and use our inner life force to improve our own lives and society as we carry out our mission as Bodhisattvas of the Earth. In the final analysis, the functions of the Bodhisattvas of the Earth are those of Myoho Renge Kyo. It follows, therefore, that when we manifest ourselves as the entities of Nam-Myoho-Renge-Kyo, our behavior will be that of Bodhisattvas of the Earth. We are the people who continue this unparralleled odyssey in the eternal currents of life.4
What is President Ikeda saying here? Well the entire essay is very long and I've only cut a single snippet. But I believe he was exhorting us to practice this buddhism and join into the "heritage of faith" as a result of this. He was also staking out a claim to the unique heritage of the Gakkai. And he next sought to ground this heritage in the experience of his teacher and mentor, Josei Toda: "The organization had cast off it's transcient aspect and revealed it's true identity."
The problem with the explaination of lineage, is not that the Gakkai or that Nichiren Shoshu don't have valid lineages. Nor is it that we aren't or shouldn't be tied by bonds of transmission. Rather, the problem is only to the extent that they might see that lineage as a fixed or static thing or the property of only one way to do things. What works in Kansai, may not work in Northern Island, or Washington DC. Indeed, Toda recalls being among many Bodhisattvas of the earth and many captains. The important thing is the "mind of faith that joins them." In the essay that President Ikeda wrote, he talked about the great benefit of this heritage, but he also talked a lot about "parasites" and how those who have a different spirit than Nichiren are making an extremely grave sin. This is true. However, the definition of a disciple of Nichiren transcends sectarian boundaries, so it is dangerous to overgeneralize or give this a convenient meaning. Just as it is wrong for Nichiren Shoshu to insist that it is the only lineage of Nichiren's disciples to have a "true" kechimyaku, so it is also true that it is the Dharma that defines the Kechimyaku and not the title of the Sangha.
The admonitions in this Gosho are important for us to keep in mind. And, in truth whether one lives up to them or not depends on whether one is "slandering" or following the teachings of the Lotus Sutra and regularly chanting the Daimoku. It is also dependent on whether we are continuing to dialogue and grow, learning from and sharing with our fellow practitioners the "kechimyaku" of our faith. Keep watching this website. In the future I'll go into more detail on these things.
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- Kechimyaku
- Heritage of the Law: Also "lifeblood." The transmission of the Law from a master to a disciple, or more generally, from the Buddha to the people. Also the Law or teaching which is transmitted.
- The "Shoji Ichidaiji Kechimyaku Sho" (Heritage of the Ultimate Law of Life) states,
- "the ultimate law of life and death as transmitted from the Buddha to all living beings is Myoho-renge-kyo."
- The "Nichiren Ichigo Guho Fuzoku Sho" reads in part,
- "Order of the heritage: from Nichiren to Nikko."
- (See Transfer page)
- This is called in Nichiren Shoshu the heritage of the entity of the Law (Japanese, hottai no kechimyaku), or the specific transmission from Nichiren Daishonin to his immediate successor Nikko Shonin, and in turn to each of the successive high priests. On the basis of the heritage of the entity of the Law, the more general heritage of faith (Japanese, shinjin no kechimyaku) flows within the lives of those who carry out Buddhist practice correctly, following the guidance of the person who has received the heritage of the entity of the Law. Receiving the heritage of faith means attaining Buddhahood.
- Ikeda's lectures on Kechimayku:
- Recent:
- ttp://www.laureldistrictstudy.homestead.com/files/Heritage_of_Ultimate_Law_of_Life_pdf.pdf
- Past
- To be scanned
- Definition is above
- The language and meaning of the lotus Sutra
- Page 73 of volume 3 of President Ikeda's essay on Heritage of the Ultimate Law of life
- Ibid:Page 74/75
Links
The priests view of the two kinds of Kechimyaku.http://www.proudblackbuddhist.org/Alan_Billups_D/two_types_of_kechimyaku.htm