Chanting Growers Group

[PassTheDoobie]

Great to see you sleepy!

Great to see you sleepy!

We begin our Buddhist practice resolute and diligent about our daily prayers and Buddhist study. However, as time goes by, our initial "aspiration for Buddhahood" tends to wane, especially when we experience disappointments. Also, after we overcome an obstacle, or when things are going particularly well, we tend to relax in our resolve to continue practicing Buddhism. This is like setting out to climb the highest mountain in the world and giving up climbing discouraged by the first steep ascent, or being satisfied with reaching a small ridge half way up the peak.

In this regard, the Daishonin states:

Many hear about and accept this sutra, but when great obstacles arise, just as they were told would happen, few remember it and bear it firmly in mind. To accept is easy; to continue is difficult. But Buddhahood lies in continuing faith. Those who uphold this sutra should be prepared to meet difficulties. It is certain, however, that they will "quickly attain the unsurpassed Buddha way." To "continue" means to cherish Nam-myoho-renge-kyo, the most important principle for all the Buddhas of the three existences. (The Writings of Nichiren Daishonin, p. 471)

 

[Babbabud]

Thanks T Got done early and have the whole weekend to recover now ... thanks Sleepy and all who send encouragement.
Daimoku means time in front of the gohonzon...thats where im headed now........."Daimoku will take you back to where you need to be as fast as your faith will allow it to. It can be as fast as instantaneous. It is up to you. Ultimately, you can count on no one but yourself. Maybe, because ultimately, it is all a reflection of you". Wow what an awesome quote from my buddy PTD. Thanks
nam myoho renge kyo!

 

[PassTheDoobie]

"A hundred years of practice in the Land of Perfect Bliss cannot compare to the benefit gained from one day’s practice in the impure world. Two thousand years of propagating Buddhism during the Former and Middle Days of the Law are inferior to an hour of propagation in the Latter Day of the Law."

(On Repaying Debts of Gratitude - The Writings of Nichiren Daishonin, page 736) Selection source: “Kyo no Hosshin”, Seikyo Shimbun, April 14th, 2006

 

[Guest]

Nam Myoho Renge Kyo!

Hope your feeling better bud.

happy holiday everyone.

 

[Delta9-THC]

Pass~the~D... still checking up on the thread....
Babba .... hope you get well again soon ....
Sleepy ... thankyou for the words of encouragement...
PEACE

 

[PassTheDoobie]

On Repaying Debts of Gratitude / WND pg. 690 (continued)

On Repaying Debts of Gratitude / WND pg. 690 (continued)

Someone might object that the passage in the Nirvana Sutra speaks about the votaries of the Nirvana Sutra being as few as the specks of dirt that can be placed on a fingernail, while I am talking about the Lotus Sutra. I would reply to this as follows.

The Nirvana Sutra itself says, "[When this sutra was preached . . . the prediction had already been made] in the Lotus Sutra [that the eight thousand voice-hearers would attain Buddhahood]." The Great Teacher Miao-lo says, "The Nirvana Sutra is itself pointing to the Lotus Sutra and saying that it (77) is the ultimate." The Nirvana Sutra is calling the Lotus Sutra the ultimate. Therefore, when followers of the Nirvana school state that the Nirvana Sutra is superior to the Lotus Sutra, it is the same as calling a retainer a lord or a servant a master.

To read the Nirvana Sutra means to read the Lotus Sutra. For the Nirvana Sutra is like a worthy who rejoices to see another holding his sovereign in esteem even when he himself is treated with contempt. Thus the Nirvana Sutra would despise and regard as its enemy anyone who tried to demote the Lotus Sutra and praise the Nirvana Sutra instead.

With this example in mind, one must understand the following point. If there are likewise those who read the Flower Garland Sutra, the Meditation Sutra, the Mahavairochana Sutra, or some other sutra, and they do so thinking that the Lotus Sutra is inferior to those sutras, then they are doing violence to the very heart of those sutras. One must also understand the following point. Even though one reads the Lotus Sutra and appears to believe in it, if one thinks that one may also attain the way through any other sutra as well, then one is not really reading the Lotus Sutra.

For example, the Great Teacher Chia-hsiang wrote a work in ten volumes entitled The Treatise on the Profundity of the Lotus Sutra in which he praised the Lotus Sutra. But Miao-lo criticized the work, saying, "There are slanders in it - how can it be regarded (78) as sincere praise?"

Chia-hsiang was in fact an offender against the Lotus Sutra. Thus, when he was defeated by T'ien-t'ai and served him, he no longer lectured on the Lotus Sutra. "If I were to lecture on it," he said, "I could not avoid falling back into the paths of evil." And for seven years, he made his own body a bridge [for T'ien-t'ai to walk on].

Similarly, the Great Teacher Tz'u-en wrote a work in ten volumes entitled Praising the Profundity of the Lotus Sutra in which he praised the Lotus Sutra, but the Great Teacher Dengyo criticized it, saying, "Though he praises the (79) Lotus Sutra, he destroys its heart."

If we consider these examples carefully, we will realize that, among those who read the Lotus Sutra and sing its praises, there are many who are destined for the hell of incessant suffering. Even men like Chia-hsiang and Tz'u-en were actually slanderers of the one vehicle of the Lotus Sutra. And if such can be said of them, it applies even more to men like Kobo, Jikaku, and Chisho, who displayed open contempt for the Lotus Sutra.

There are those like the Great Teacher Chia-hsiang, who ceased giving lectures, dispersed the group of disciples that had gathered around him, and even made his body into a bridge for T'ien-t'ai. But in spite of these actions, the offense of his earlier slanders of the Lotus Sutra was not, I expect, so easily wiped out. The crowd of people who despised and abused Bodhisattva Never Disparaging, although they later came to believe in his teachings and became his followers, still carried the burden of their former actions and had to spend a thousand kalpas in the Avichi hell as a result.

Accordingly, if men like Kobo, Jikaku, and Chisho had lectured on the Lotus Sutra, even if they had repentedof their errors, they would still have had difficulty making up for their former grave offenses. And of course, as we know, they never had any such change of heart. On the contrary, they completely ignored the Lotus Sutra and spent day and night carrying out the True Word practices and morning and evening preaching the True Word doctrines.

The bodhisattvas Vasubandhu and Ashvaghosha were both on the point of cutting out their tongues because of the offense they had committed by ad-hering to Hinayana doctrines and criticizing Mahayana. Vasubandhu declared that, although the Agama sutras of the Hinayana were the words of the Buddha, he would not let his tongue utter them even in jest. And Ashvaghosha, as an act of penance, wrote Awakening of Faith in which he refuted the Hinayana teachings.

The Great Teacher Chia-hsiang in time went to the Great Teacher T'ien-t'ai and begged for his lectures. In the presence of a hundred or more distinguished Buddhists, he threw himself on the ground, and, with sweat pouring from every part of his body and tears of blood streaming from his eyes, he declared that from then on he would not see his disciples any more and would no longer lecture on the Lotus Sutra. For, as he said, "If I were to go on facing my disciples and lecturing on the Lotus Sutra, they might suppose that I have the ability to understand the sutra correctly, when in fact I do not."

Chia-hsiang was both older and more eminent than T'ien-t'ai, and yet, in the presence of others, he deliberately put T'ien-t'ai on his back and carried him across a river. Whenever T'ien-t'ai was about to ascend the lecture platform, Chia-hsiang would take him on his back and carry him up to the platform. After T'ien-t'ai's death, when Chia-hsiang was summoned into the presence of the emperor of the Suidynasty, he is said to have wept and dragged his feet like a little child whose mother has just died.

When one examines Profundity of the Lotus Sutra by the Great Teacher Chia-hsiang, one finds that it is not the kind of commentary that speaks slanderously of the Lotus Sutra. It merely says that, although the Lotus Sutra and the other Mahayana sutras differ in the profundity of their teachings, they are at heart one and the same. Is this statement perhaps the source of the charge that the work slanders the Law?

Both Ch'eng-kuan of the Flower Garland school and Shan-wu-wei of the True Word school declared that the Lotus Sutra and the Mahavairochana Sutra reveal the same principle. Therefore, if the Great Teacher Chia-hsiang is to be blamed for the statement I have just referred to, then the Tripitaka Master Shan-wu-wei can hardly escape being blamed as well.

The Tripitaka Master Shan-wu-wei in his youth was the ruler of a kingdom in central India. But he abdicated the throne and traveled to other lands, where he met two men named Shusho and Shodai from whom he received (81) instruction in the Lotus Sutra. He built hundreds and thousands of stone stupas, and appeared to be a votary of the Lotus Sutra. Later, however, af-ter he had received instruction in the Mahavairochana Sutra, he seems to have concluded that the Lotus Sutra is inferior to the Mahavairochana Sutra. He did not insist on this opinion at first, but came to do so later when he went to China and became a teacher to Emperor Hsüan-tsung of the T'ang dynasty.

Perhaps because he was consumed by jealousy of the T'ien-t'ai school, he died very suddenly and found himself bound with seven cords of iron and dragged by two wardens of hell to the court of Yama, the lord of hell. But he was told that his life span had notreached its conclusion and therefore was sent back to the human world.

While in hell, he suspected that he had been brought before Yama be-cause he had slandered the Lotus Sutra, and he therefore quickly set aside all his True Word mudras, mantras, and methods of concentration, and instead chanted the passage from the Lotus Sutra that begins, "Now this threefold world is all my [Shakyamuni Buddha's] (82) domain," whereupon the cords that bound him fell away and he was returned to life.

On another occasion, he was ordered by the imperial court to recite prayers for rain, and rain did in fact suddenly begin to fall, but a huge wind also rose up and did great damage to the country. Later, when he really did die, his disciples gathered around his deathbed and praised the remarkable way in which he died, but in fact he fell into the great citadel of the hell of incessant suffering. You may ask how I know that this is so. I would reply that, if you examine his biography, you will find it stated, "Looking now at Shan-wu-wei's remains, one can see that they are gradually shrinking, the skin is turning blackish (83), and the bones are exposed."

Shan-wu-wei's disciples perhaps did not realize that this was a sign that after his death he had been reborn in hell, but supposed that it was a manifestation of his virtue. Yet in describing it, the author of the biography exposed Shan-wu-wei's guilt, recording that after his death his body gradually shrank, the skin turned black, and the bones began to show.

We have the Buddha's own golden word for it that, if a person's skin turns black after he dies, it is a sign that he has done something that destined him for hell. What was it, then, that the Tripitaka Master Shan-wu-wei did that would destine him for hell? In his youth he gave up the position of ruler, showing that he had an incomparable determination to seek the way. He traveled about to more than fifty different lands in India in the course of his religious practice, and his unbounded compassion even led him to visit China. The fact that the True Word teach-ings have been transmitted through India, China, Japan, and the other lands of Jambudvipa and numerous practitioners ring bells in prayer is due to the merit of this man, is it not? Those who are concerned about their own destiny after death should inquire carefully as to the reason why Shan-wu-wei fell into hell.

Then there was the Tripitaka Master Chin-kang-chih, who was a son of the ruler of a kingdom in southern India. He introduced the Diamond Crown Sutra to China, and his virtue was similar to that of Shan-wu-wei. He and Shan-wu-wei acted as teachers to one another.

The Tripitaka Master Chin-kang-chih received an imperial order to conduct prayers for rain. Within the space of seven days, rain did in fact fall, and the emperor was very pleased. Suddenly, however, a violent wind arose, and the ruler and his ministers, much disillusioned, sent men to drive Chin-kang-chih out of the country, though in the end he managed to remain in China under one pretext or another.

Sometime later, when one of the emperor's favorite daughters lay dying, he was ordered to pray for her recovery. He selected two seven-year-old girls who served at the court to be substitutes for the dying lady and had piles of firewood lighted all around them so that they burned to death. It was indeed a cruel thing to do. Moreover, the emperor's daughter failed to return to life.

The Tripitaka Master Pu-k'ung came to China together with Chin-kang-chih (84). But perhaps because his suspicions were aroused by the happenings I have just mentioned, after Shan-wu-wei and Chin-kang-chih died, he re-turned to India and studied the True Word doctrines all over again, this time under Nagabodhi. In the end, he be-came a convert to the teachings of the T'ien-t'ai school. But although he ac-knowledged allegiance to these teachings in his heart, he would never do so in his outward actions.

Pu-k'ung, too, was ordered by the emperor to pray for rain, and within three days, rain did in fact fall. The emperor was pleased and dispensed rewards with his own hand. But shortly after, a huge wind descended from the sky, buffeting and damaging the imperial palace and toppling the quarters of the upper noblemen and high ministers until it seemed that not a building would be left standing. The emperor, astounded, issued an imperial command for prayers that the wind be stopped. But though it would stop for a time, it would start blowing again and again, until in the end it blew uninterrupted for a space of several days. Eventually, messengers were dispatched to drive Pu-k'ung out of the country, and then at last the wind subsided.

The evil winds of these three men have become the huge wind of the True Word leaders that blows throughout all of China and Japan. And if that is so, then the great gale that arose on the twelfth day of the fourth month in the eleventh year of Bun'ei (1274) must have been an adverse wind brought about by the Dharma Seal Kaga of the Amida Hall, one of the most learned priests of To-ji temple, when he was praying for rain. We must conclude that the evil teachings of Shan-wu-wei, Chin-kang-chih, and Pu-k'ung have been transmitted without the slightest alteration. What a strange coincidence indeed!

Notes:

77. On "The Words and Phrases."
78. Ibid.
79. The Outstanding Principles of the Lotus Sutra.
80. The emperor of the Sui dynasty refers to the second ruler, Emperor Yang (569-618).
81. This story appears in The Sung Dynasty Biographies of Eminent Priests. Shusho and Shodai were men of India, but their Sanskrit names are not known.
82. Lotus Sutra, chap. 3. The line following in the verse reads, "The living beings in it are all my children."
83. Sung Dynasty Biographies.
84. A comparison of dates would indicate that Pu-k'ung did not meet Chin-kang-chih and become his disciple until after he had arrived in China, but this may not have been known in the Daishonin's time.

(to be continued)

 

[PassTheDoobie]

"One must also understand the following point. Even though one reads the Lotus Sutra and appears to believe in it, if one thinks that one may also attain the way through any other sutra as well, then one is not really reading the Lotus Sutra."

 

[PassTheDoobie]

The Lotus Sutra offers a secret means for leading all living beings to Buddhahood. It leads one person in the realm of hell, one person in the realm of hungry spirits, and thus one person in each of the nine realms of existence to Buddhahood, and thereby the way is opened for all living beings to attain Buddhahood.

[ Letter to Horen, WND Page 512 ]

 

[PassTheDoobie]

Charter of the Soka Gakkai International

Charter of the Soka Gakkai International

Preamble

We, the constituent organizations and members of the Soka Gakkai International (hereinafter called “SGI”), embrace the fundamental aim and mission of contributing to peace, culture and education based on the philosophy and ideals of the Buddhism of Nichiren Daishonin.

We recognize that at no other time in history has humankind experienced such an intense juxtaposition of war and peace, discrimination and equality, poverty and abundance as in the twentieth century; that the development of increasingly sophisticated military technology, exemplified by nuclear weapons, has created a situation where the very survival of the human species hangs in the balance; that the reality of violent ethnic and religious discrimination presents an unending cycle of conflict; that humanity’s egoism and intemperance have engendered global problems, including degradation of the natural environment and widening economic chasms between developed and developing nations, with serious repercussions for humankind’s collective future.

We believe that Nichiren Daishonin’s Buddhism, a humanistic philosophy of infinite respect for the sanctity of life and all-encompassing compassion, enables individuals to cultivate and bring forth their inherent wisdom and, nurturing the creativity of the human spirit, to surmount the difficulties and crises facing humankind and realize a society of peaceful and prosperous coexistence.

We, the constituent organizations and members of SGI, therefore, being determined to raise high the banner of world citizenship, the spirit of tolerance, and respect for human rights based on the humanistic spirit of Buddhism, and to challenge the global issues that face humankind through dialogue and practical efforts based on a steadfast commitment to nonviolence, hereby adopt this Charter, affirming the following purposes and principles:

Purposes and Principles

1. SGI shall contribute to peace, culture and education for the happiness and welfare of all humanity based on Buddhist respect for the sanctity of life.

2. SGI, based on the ideal of world citizenship, shall safeguard fundamental human rights and not discriminate against any individual on any grounds.

3. SGI shall respect and protect the freedom of religion and religious expression.

4. SGI shall promote an understanding of Nichiren Daishonin’s Buddhism through grass-roots exchange, thereby contributing to individual happiness.

5. SGI shall, through its constituent organizations, encourage its members to contribute toward the prosperity of their respective societies as good citizens.

6. SGI shall respect the independence and autonomy of its constituent organizations in accordance with the conditions prevailing in each country.

7. SGI shall, based on the Buddhist spirit of tolerance, respect other religions, engage in dialogue and work together with them toward the resolution of fundamental issues concerning humanity.

8. SGI shall respect cultural diversity and promote cultural exchange, thereby creating an international society of mutual understanding and harmony.

9. SGI shall promote, based on the Buddhist ideal of symbiosis, the protection of nature and environment.

10. SGI shall contribute to the promotion of education, in the pursuit of truth as well as development of scholarship, to enable all people to cultivate their characters and enjoy fulfilling and happy lives.

(from: http://sgi-usa.org/buddhism/resourceguide/resourceguide.html#about )

 

[PassTheDoobie]

Early Buddhism

Buddhism generally is believed to have arisen in what is now India during the sixth or fifth century B.C.E. from the teachings of the historical Buddha, or “enlightened one.” Shakyamuni [1] (literally, “sage of the Shakya tribe”) was kept in isolation during his youth by his father, but excursions beyond the palace walls led to one of his most fundamental realizations: Life inevitably manifests suffering and impermanence. This is represented in Buddhism as the four sufferings of birth, aging, sickness and death which affect every living being, without exception. Choosing to confront this dilemma, Shakyamuni renounced his claim to his father’s throne and embarked on a search for a way to transcend the sufferings of life. After years of practicing the most extreme forms of asceticism and no closer to an answer, he concluded that the path to understanding lay neither in self-denial nor in the pleasure-filled life of his youth, but in between them, in a Middle Way. Abandoning his ascetic practice and meditating deeply through the night, he “destroyed his remaining impurities, eliminated his false views, and experienced the goal of Buddhahood (literally ‘the state of being awakened’).” [2]

Thus began the career of one of the great religious figures of history. By all accounts he was a man of boundless compassion and peace, “a thinker of giant proportions who, for the sake of people in ages to come, persisted in his efforts to ... free human existence from all impediments.” [3] By the time of his death, thousands had been converted to the new wisdom he propounded. Some joined his monastic order, renouncing the secular world; but many did not, remaining as “householders” amidst the flows of society.

Within a year of Shakyamuni’s death, most scholars agree, the first of four Buddhist councils was held. It apparently was highly successful in solidifying the teachings, unifying the Buddhist order and providing a practical foundation for the conduct of its affairs. Approximately 100 years later a second council was convened to resolve a dispute over rules of monastic behavior. Over the ensuing century and a half, as Buddhism continued to spread, further doctrinal disputes arose. By the third council, circa 250 B.C.E., sponsored by King Ashoka [4] , the one thousand monks in attendance sought to clear up confusion and to correct misinterpretations of the Buddha’s teachings.

Within a century of that third council a major new movement had developed, called Mahayana (literally, “greater vehicle”). Rejecting what they perceived as isolationism and exclusivism in the traditional schools, its adherents introduced the idea of a practice exemplified by dedication to the salvation of others as well as the self—the Bodhisattva way—which they believed more accurately reflected the intent of Shakyamuni than the self-oriented practice of the traditionalists. Mahayana spread rapidly along the Silk Road into China, then into Korea and Japan. The schools of the earlier tradition, collectively called the Nikaya sects because they are based on the Nikaya sutras, spread into Sri Lanka and Southeast Asia. [5] Tantric Buddhism, also known as Vajrayana or Esoteric Buddhism, developed around 600 C.E. and became a formalized stream within Mahayana that spread to Central Asia, China, and Tibet, where it has remained an important influence. In India itself, Buddhism was gradually absorbed into Hinduism, virtually ceasing to exist as an independent faith.

The Development and Spread of Mahayana Buddhism

Mahayana, within a few hundred years of its inception, split into two main schools. The first, Madhyamika, is grounded in the work of the great Indian philosopher Nagarjuna (c. 150–250) who elaborated the doctrine of sunyata, the non-substantiality or “emptiness” of all phenomena. (This influential concept is discussed further in the section “Nichiren and the Core of Mahayana Doctrine.”) The second school, Yogachara or Consciousness-Only school was based on yogic practice. For them, all phenomena arise from the vijnana, or consciousness, and the basis of all functions of consciousness is the alaya-consciousness. [6]

Both schools spread into China, where there is a reliable record of a practicing Buddhist emperor by around 250 C.E. T’ien-tai, a major school within the Mahayana tradition, was founded in China by Chih-i (538–597). This school emphasized doctrinal studies amd meditative practices based on the Lotus Sutra. It also taught the doctrine of three thousand realms in a single moment of life, the unification of the three truths and the six stages of practice. After traveling to China for further studies, Saicho (767–822), also known as the Great Teacher Dengyo, returned to Japan in 805 and established what later became known as the Tendai sect.

According to Chih-i’s interpretation, the Lotus Sutra proclaims the Buddha nature to be inherent in all human beings. This provided the theoretical basis for Nichiren’s 13th-century asertion that all people can attain Buddhahood as they are and within the context of the phenomenal world. He taught that everyone has the potential to attain Buddhahood “in this lifetime” and “in one’s present form” without going through countless lifetimes of Buddhist austerities. Nichiren was among the first to embrace the idea that Buddhahood is a real, rather than theoretical, possibility for all human beings and, within the context of feudal Japan, asserted the revolutionary view of the equality of men and women. [7]

Nichiren’s Life and Teaching

Nichiren was born on February 16, 1222, in a small fishing village named Kominato. His parents sent him at the age of 12 to a local temple to begin his formal education. There he perfected his skills in reading and writing in both Japanese and Chinese, the latter being the language of official and scholarly communication at the time. The temple where he studied, Seicho-ji, belonged to the Tendai school which nominally adhered to the teachings handed down from the T’ien-t’ai school in China. In fact, the T’ien-t’ai teachings had become mixed with rituals from other religious schools—a syncretism typical of Japanese Buddhism in the thirteenth century. Nichiren was disturbed by this confusion of doctrines and decided at age 16 to continue his religious studies rather than return to secular life.

Nichiren later recounted that he had prayed to the Bodhisattva Space Treasury to become the wisest person in Japan and had been presented with “a great jewel as brilliant as the morning star.” [8] He set out in 1239 to find documentary confirmation of his understanding at the centers of Buddhist learning elsewhere in Japan. During the succeeding fourteen years that he spent studying Buddhist texts and doctrine, he became increasingly critical of the various Buddhist schools, finally becoming convinced that the Lotus Sutra (Hokekyo in Japanese) was the only teaching that fully expressed the truth to which he had been awakened. He returned to Seicho-ji in 1253 and, shortly afterward, very early in the morning of the twenty-eighth day of the fourth month, chanted the daimoku—the invocation of Nam-myoho-renge-kyo—for the first time, proclaiming that this phrase embodied the essential teaching of the Lotus Sutra, that is, the ultimate truth of all phenomena. [9]

Preaching this doctrine at the temple where he had been educated precipitated the first of many persecutions and attempts on his life. Persevering with equanimity despite such hardships, he continued to teach that chanting the phrase Nam-myoho-renge-kyo would lead practitioners to perceive their essential, enlightened nature and thereby attain Buddhahood. In order to enable people to sustain their practice after his death, he inscribed a mandala called the Gohonzon as the focus for the religious practice of his followers. [10] He taught that chanting Nam-myoho-renge-kyo to the Gohonzon would enable people to discover their own essential unity with the ultimate reality of the universe. According to Nichiren, this practice, when rooted in faith and sustained by study and compassion for others, is the way of enlightenment.

Nichiren spent his life teaching this doctrine, always supporting the spiritual growth of his lay followers as well as training young priests. In his final years Nichiren appointed six senior disciples to carry on his teaching. On his deathbed, he named one of them, Nikko, as his successor. [11] He died on October 13, 1282.

Notes:

[1] His family name was Gautama, “most excellent cow” in the context of cow veneration, and his given name was Siddhartha, “one who has achieved his goal.” See Donald W. Mitchell, Buddhism: Introducing the Buddhist Experience (New York: Oxford University Press, 2002).

[2] Charles S. Prebish, Historical Dictionary of Buddhism (Metuchen, NJ and London: Scarecrow Press, 1993) 4.

[3] Daisaku Ikeda, The Living Buddha: An Interpretive Biography, trans. Burton Watson (New York and Tokyo: John Weatherhill, Inc., 1976) vii.

[4] King Ashoka was seminal in the spread of Buddhism throughout India; he sent Buddhist emissaries as far as Syria, Egypt, and Greece. Though devoted to the spread of Buddhism, he did not enforce Buddhism as a state religion, but protected the religious freedoms of theJains, Brahmans, Ajivikas, and others in his kingdom.

[5] The only surviving sect from this group is the Theravada school.

[6] See the Nine Consciousnesses below in the section “Understanding How and Why Self-Transformation is Possible.”

[7] See “The True Aspect of All Phenomena,” in The Writings of Nichiren Daishonin, 385.

[8] See “Letter to the Priests of Seicho-ji,” in The Writings of Nichiren Daishonin, 650.

[9] A detailed discussion of the meaning of the phrase Nam-myoho-renge-kyo can be found in Richard Causton, The Buddha in Daily Life: An Introduction to the Buddhism of Nichiren Daishonin (London: Rider, 1995) 96–222.

[10] In the Japanese word “Gohonzon,” “go” means worthy of honor and “honzon” means object of devotion.

[11] Within a few years, the other five senior priests had broken with Nikko. They contested—and the surviving sects they founded still contest—the authenticity of the documents naming Nikko as Nichiren’s successor.

(to be continued from: http://sgi-usa.org/buddhism/resourceguide/resourceguide.html#about )

 

[PassTheDoobie]

Nichiren and the Core of Mahayana Doctrine

“All existence is suffering and change.” This is the first of Shakyamuni’s “four noble truths.” The second is, “Suffering is caused by craving.” But why do we selfishly crave? Why are we so foolish? The answer given by Buddhism is that our minds are filled with illusion, fictions that we embrace as true. The aim of Buddhist practice, therefore, is to enable us to see through these illusions, to arrive at a correct understanding of the way things are and free ourselves from selfish craving and, hence, from suffering.

Nagarjuna developed the concept of “non-substantiality” in connection with those of dependent origination and the nonexistence of self-nature. Because phenomena arise only by virtue of their relationship with other phenomena, they have no distinct nature or existence of their own; and there is no independent entity that exists alone, apart from other phenomena. Nagarjuna described a Middle Way that regards the categories of existence and nonexistence as extremes and aims to transcend them. The practical purpose behind the teaching of non-substantiality lies in eliminating attachments to transient phenomena and to the ego, or the perception of self as an independent and fixed identity.

Chih-i asserted that the Buddha nature was possessed by both sentient and non-sentient beings. Thus every individual fully possesses the ultimate truth of the Buddha nature and is interconnected with all of existence. Furthermore, anyone has the potential to discover this reality at any time.

The continuity of this thought is evident in Nichiren’s explication of the Middle Way. Working within the framework established by Nagarjuna and reprised by Chih-i as the doctrine of the “three truths,” Nichiren stated that: “Life is indeed an elusive reality that transcends both the words and concepts of existence and nonexistence. It is neither existence nor nonexistence, yet exhibits the qualities of both. It is the mystic entity of the Middle Way that is the ultimate reality.” [12] In describing the Middle Way in this fashion, Nichiren emphatically affirms that the Buddha nature is the fundamental reality of our lives and of the world in which we live.

It is not necessary to flee from the everyday world or eliminate all desires in order to perceive this reality and attain enlightenment. In place of the very complex and primarily linguistic and philosophical formulations that had developed over the centuries and effectively excluded the general populace from enlightenment—either because they focused on a monastic vocation or simply because they offered no accessible means to achieve this end— Nichiren offered a strikingly new method of self-awakening. Indeed, he sought to demonstrate that all people—female or male, upper class or lower, intellectual or not—can attain enlightenment in this life as they are. [13]

This is possible, according to Nichiren, because a correct understanding of the Middle Way reveals that although a person’s life manifests both impermanence and non-substantiality, it equally manifests the unchanging reality of all existence. Thus it is the fundamental reality of all human existence and in no way the exclusive possession of a select few. For Nichiren, the phrase Nam-myoho-renge-kyo expresses this truth in its purest form since it both invokes and embodies the ultimate reality that pervades the universe. This is the basis for his assertion that reciting the daimoku would enable an individual to connect with this reality of one’s life and the universal Buddha nature.

As mentioned earlier, in order to facilitate this practice Nichiren inscribed the Gohonzon—a written, thus physical manifestation of his life and enlightenment. [14] The Gohonzon serves as the mandala, the “object of devotion,” for those who practice Nichiren Buddhism. It serves as a focus for them in seeking to discover their own enlightened reality through chanting Nam-myoho-renge-kyo and reciting portions of the Lotus Sutra. According to Nichiren, it is not merely the individual’s life that is transformed through this practice; because of the interconnectedness of all life, society and the environment, too, will be reshaped on their most fundamental level. [15]

Understanding How and Why Self-Transformation Is Possible

Two concepts central to Nichiren’s Buddhism that are also keys to an understanding of the connection between the individual, the everyday world and enlightenment are the Ten Worlds and the “nine consciousnesses.” [16]

The expression “Ten Worlds” describes potential states of life, or categories/realms of being, experienced in every human life. They range from the lowest—hell, hungry spirits, animals and asuras (literally, belligerent demons)—through human beings (tranquility), heavenly beings (rapture), voice-hearers (learning) and cause-awakened ones (realization), to bodhisattvas and, ultimately, Buddhas (enlightenment). Not moods we pass through, they are patterns that tend to dominate one’s entire existence. Although each person tends toward one particular state more than any other, whatever one’s life-condition at a given moment, it can instantly fall into a lower state or rise to a higher one. The aim of Nichiren Buddhism is to establish and maintain the predominance of the state of Buddhahood.

The states of hell through heavenly beings are commonly known as the “six paths,” because they are the worlds through which unenlightened beings transmigrate. Hell, for example, is a realm of utter anguish and misery, where rage is often manifested in self-destructiveness and where there seems to be no possibility of positive interaction with the external world. The rapturous state of heavenly beings, on the other hand, might be characterized by someone who has had some personal desire fulfilled. In each of these cases, as in all of the “six paths,” one is unable to recognize the transitory and illusory nature of one’s perceptions.

The four higher realms—learning, realization, bodhisattva and Buddhahood—are also known as the “four noble worlds.” They have in common an effort first to understand, then to transform, oneself and one’s environment. In the worlds of learning and realization, people make an effort to grasp the deeper reality of their own existences and the lasting truth within life. In so doing, they begin to perceive the causes of suffering and work to transform that suffering into the basis for personal growth. While in the world of learning, one strives for self-development by learning from the ideas, knowledge and experience of others. In the world of realization, insight begins to emerge through one’s own contemplative interaction with the surrounding world based on an understanding of causality.

While people in the latter two states are primarily concerned with their own development, those in the higher, altruistic realm of bodhisattvas pursue enlightenment while devoting themselves to compassionate acts for the sake of others. Buddhahood, the highest realm, is characterized by boundless compassion, wisdom, joy and the courage and strength to surmount all hardships in order to help others attain this state. It is important to note that this highest life-state is not at all separate from the other nine. Rather, it manifests itself wholly in the other nine, and functions to transform and harmonize them, making them all the means to compassionate understanding and action rather than potential obstacles to it.

A correlative theory, that of the “nine consciousnesses,” offers a Buddhist explanation of what, in Anglo-Western thought, is usually conceived of as the mind, but it provides a means of understanding subjective and precognitive existence as well as everyday mental functions. The first five in this articulation correspond to the five senses; they are the gateways to the external world. The sixth consciousness integrates the sensory data from the first five and allows us to form judgments and carry out our daily activities.

The seventh consciousness, by contrast, is the site at which a person’s inner life unfolds and is, to a degree, unfettered by external conditions. This abstract mind, or mano-consciousness, allows one to reflect on one’s existence rather than simply to deal with external matters of daily life. This is where one’s sense of self, or separateness, comes into being. Mano-consciousness spans both the conscious and subconscious dimensions of life. [17]

The eighth consciousness is called the storehouse or alaya-consciousness since this is where one’s karma is stored. According to both Hindu and Buddhist traditions, karma is the cumulative effect of the causal forces produced by everything one thinks, says and does. The karmic sum of these actions influences everything a person experiences.

The deepest and, from the Buddhist perspective, most important level of consciousness is called the ultimately pure or amala-consciousness, because this level of consciousness is not affected by one’s karma. It is this ninth level that unites all human beings with the reality of the universe. As already indicated, Nichiren taught that chanting Nam-myoho-renge-kyo enables an individual to reach this level of consciousness and draw forth her or his enlightened nature (the tenth realm). Perceiving life from the vantage point of the ninth consciousness, one is able to purify all the functions of the other eight levels and manifest one’s Buddhahood.

These interrelated concepts, the Ten Worlds and the “nine consciousnesses,” describe the total cognitive faculties and interactive potentials of the individual. Each person always possesses all ten life-states, but the dominant one at any given moment affects the other nine. If Buddhahood dominates, it will function to purify the lower realms. Its counterpart—tapping into the ninth level of consciousness—enables one truly to see and transform one’s reality. The course of one’s life is neither fixed nor preordained, although it is clearly influenced by the causes one has made from the infinite past. These Buddhist concepts suggest that instead of feeling trapped in any given life situation, one can break free of those restrictive circumstances. Because of the inseparability of one’s inner, subjective life and the external, objective world, through Buddhist practice it is possible to positively transform one’s life and environment and create happiness for oneself and others. Nichiren’s teachings aimed to enable all human beings to do precisely this.

Notes:

[12] “On Attaining Buddhahood in This Lifetime,” in The Writings of Nichiren Daishonin, 3–4. The three truths are non-substantiality, temporary existence, and the Middle Way. See Glossary in The Writings of Nichiren Daishonin, 1279.

[13] Nichiren expanded the earlier theoretical understanding that all people possess the truth of the Law into a concrete practice that would enable all people to actively experience this reality. From a Mahayana view, Theravada and most esoteric Buddhist schools lead only those individuals who first purge themselves of desire to attain wisdom and some form of personal enlightenment.

[14] The Gohonzon is inscribed in Chinese and Sanskrit characters. It is kept in an altar and is the focus of the daily religious practice of Nichiren’s followers in the Soka Gakkai International (SGI). Nichiren discusses both the form and significance of the Gohonzon in his treatise, “The Object of Devotion for Observing the Mind Established in the Fifth Five-Hundred-Year Period After the Thus Come One’s Passing,” in The Writings of Nichiren Daishonin, 354–77. He provides a specific description of the meaning and placement of the inscribed characters in “The Real Aspect of the Gohonzon,” The Writings of Nichiren Daishonin, 831–33.

[15] A full discussion of this mutual transformability can be found in Nichiren’s treatise “On Establishing the Correct Teaching for the Peace of the Land” in The Writings of Nichiren Daishonin, 6–30.

[16] See Causton, The Buddha in Daily Life, 35–78.

[17] Scholars of psychology and of Buddhism have posited correspondences between the theory of the nine consciousnesses and concepts elaborated by Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung. Buddhism’s sixth consciousness, for example, has been correlated with Jung’s idea of ego-consciousness, the seventh with Jung’s concept of personal unconscious, and the eighth with Jung’s collective unconscious. For more information concerning these connections, see Thistle N. Stacks, “The Nine Consciousnesses and Jung’s Theory of the Collective Unconscious,” Seikyo Times December 1996: 6–13.

(to be continued from: http://sgi-usa.org/buddhism/resourceguide/resourceguide.html#about )

 

[PassTheDoobie]

The Origins of Soka Gakkai and the Growth of Its Activities

The SGI owes its existence first and foremost to a pair of remarkable men, Tsunesaburo Makiguchi (1871–1945) and Josei Toda (1900–1958), who became the first and second presidents of Soka Gakkai in Japan. In 1928, Makiguchi, a Japanese schoolteacher and philosopher of education, embraced Nichiren Buddhism and persuaded Toda, his friend and supporter in educational matters, to join him in conversion. Two years later, Makiguchi and Toda jointly founded the Soka Kyoiku Gakkai (Value-Creating Education Society), an organization imbued with the spirit of Nichiren Buddhism but dedicated to educational reform based on Makiguchi’s pedagogical ideas. [18] The Society’s inaugural act on November 18, 1930 was to publish Makiguchi’s four-volume work, Soka kyoikugaku taikei (System of Value-Creating Pedagogy)—the expression of a lifetime of educational thought and practice.

In 1937, two notable changes occurred in the Society. The first took place when Makiguchi began to give more attention to the possibilities inherent in organized action and launched a new, more public phase of its growth. [19] The second change was in focus. He had initially regarded educational reform as the basis for social reform, but after 1937, he came to see religious reform as more important. [20] The organization’s primary focus became the propagation of Nichiren’s Buddhism as the basis for personal and societal reform.

In addition to the increasing confidence Makiguchi and Toda gained in their faith, the new focus of the Society was also influenced by the rise of militarism in Japanese social and political life in the 1930s:

The militarists embodied everything Makiguchi had fought against all his life. ... The combination of growing conviction in Buddhism and a growing sense that educational reform could not succeed in the climate of those days led to the transformation of the Soka Kyoiku Gakkai from an educational organization into a religious one. [21]

From the late 1930s to early 1940s, as the organization grew to a membership of about 3,000 followers, the Soka Kyoiku Gakkai and Makiguchi in particular began to attract the attention of the state authorities. Makiguchi, with the support of other leaders in the Society, vigorously opposed the military government’s efforts to impose the overall authority of state Shinto in religious and social affairs. For this he was disavowed by the Nichiren Shoshu priesthood, which chose to cooperate with the wartime regime. Makiguchi also denounced the Japanese war effort, calling it a national catastrophe. In 1943, Makiguchi, Toda, and the entire top leadership of the organization were arrested as “thought criminals,” on charges of lèse-majesté and violating the Public Security Preservation law (Peace Preservation law). [22] Despite frequent interrogation and torture, Makiguchi refused to compromise his beliefs and died at the Tokyo Detention House in 1944 at the age of 73.

Most of the Society’s remaining leadership recanted their faith to gain release from prison, but Toda did not. During his incarceration, profound spiritual experiences convinced him that Nichiren Buddhism was unassailable in terms of both doctrine and practice, and that he himself had a unique mission to spearhead a new movement of unprecedented scale. Rebuilding and expanding the Soka Kyoiku Gakkai as a means to that end became his ultimate goal. Released from prison in July 1945, bankrupt and with broken health, he nonetheless began almost immediately to reconstruct the organization. [23]

One of his first steps was to drop “Kyoiku” (“education”) from the organization’s name. It became simply Soka Gakkai (Value-Creating Society) and definitively shifted its focus from educational reform to the propagation of Nichiren Buddhism. Toda became the organization’s second president in 1951. The Soka Gakkai’s membership expanded rapidly in the following years and by 1957, the year before his death, Toda had led the organization from the few thousand members who gathered after the end of World War II to a membership of 750,000 households … an astounding growth of more than 250 times in a dozen years.

Daisaku Ikeda, Toda’s leading disciple, was inaugurated as the third president of the Soka Gakkai in 1960 at age 32. He held this post until 1979, when he became honorary president of the Soka Gakkai in Japan. He became president of the Soka Gakkai International, formed in 1975 as an association linking the many national organizations around the world, and continues to serve in that capacity, communicating the spirit and practice of Nichiren Buddhism in modern terms.

Two notable trends have marked the era of Ikeda’s leadership. The first is the continued growth of the organization, which currently numbers approximately 12 million individuals, with more than a million practicing in countries other than Japan. [24] Within a few months of his inauguration in 1960, Ikeda traveled abroad, something Toda had never been able to do. He formed the first overseas chapter in the United States, where a few immigrants, primarily the Japanese wives of American servicemen, were struggling to maintain their practice. Current membership in the United States is about 300,000. The large majority is non-Japanese; indeed, the ethnic makeup of the membership is highly diverse. As Clark Strand writes in the Winter 2003 issue of Tricycle: The Buddhist Quarterly: “Soka Gakkai has attracted real diversity among its membership, and no other American Buddhist group has. … Racial diversity is in some sense the birthright of the Soka Gakkai because of its origins in the prophetic, socially engaged Buddhism of Nichiren, and ultimately because of the Lotus Sutra itself, which posits the fundamental equality of all beings.” The organization has grown similarly in other countries.

The second notable trend under Ikeda’s leadership has been the “opening up” of the organization—the development of working relationships worldwide with individuals and organizations on issues of global concern. This cooperation falls into three broad, overlapping categories: peace, culture and education.

Peace activities include the SGI’s active involvement with the United Nations as a non-governmental organization; annual peace proposals by Ikeda submitted to the UN; peace education programs; inter-religious dialogues; fund-raising efforts in support of the UN’s refugee relief and other humanitarian programs; anti-war and anti-nuclear weapon exhibits, petition drives and publications, usually cosponsored with like-minded organizations. [25]

Several affiliated institutions focusing on peace research, peace activities and inter-cultural dialogue have also been established. These include the Boston Research Center for the 21st Century (www.brc21.org), which promotes women’s leadership for peace, supports education for global citizenship, and fosters community-building—locally and globally—through dialogue; the Institute of Oriental Philosophy, which works with university researchers on ways to apply Eastern, especially Buddhist philosophical approaches to contemporary problems; and the Toda Institute for Global Peace and Policy Research (www.toda.org), which promotes peace initiatives at national, regional and international levels by encouraging and proposing concrete strategies that can be translated into action, in areas such as human security, social justice and global citizenship.

In the cultural arena, the SGI sponsors international friendship exchanges as well as world peace and cultural festivals. In Japan, the Soka Gakkai, under the aegis of the Min-On Concert Association, regularly sponsors performance tours by world artists. The Tokyo Fuji Art Museum serves a similar function in the art world. In France, the Victor Hugo House of Literature holds a collection of some 1,900 items related to Hugo’s life and work, including several articles that have been named as national treasures. On a more community-based level, activities in the United States include music, dance, and other creative presentations that serve to foster cross-cultural understanding and appreciation, including the International Committee of Artists for Peace (ICAP) which provides peace education through the performing arts.

Finally, in the area of education, we come full circle. Makiguchi’s thoughts on education [26] are thriving in Japan in the Soka Schools system which extends from kindergarten to university-level education. Soka University of Japan currently has academic exchanges with over 70 colleges and universities around the world. Soka kindergartens have been established in Hong Kong and Singapore. Soka University of America (SUA), an independent, co-educational institution of higher education, consists of a graduate school in Calabasas, California, which offers a master’s degree in second and foreign language education, and a liberal arts college in Aliso Viejo, which offers a bachelor’s program in liberal arts with concentrations in the humanities, international studies and social and behavioral sciences.

SGI’s educational activities focus on global concerns such as ecology and sustainable living, human rights and a culture of peace. [27] Whether exhibits or discussion forums, humanistic learning characterizes this aspect of the SGI’s efforts.

There is a fourth area of activities, though only in Japan: political engagement. From 1955, during Toda’s leadership, the Soka Gakkai fielded individual candidates for elective office on both the local and national levels. Later, under Ikeda’s leadership, the Komei (literally, “clean government”) coalition was organized. It became a full-fledged party, Komeito, in 1964. Given the Soka Gakkai’s experience of religious persecution during World War II, Toda and Ikeda saw the need for such a political party to represent the marginalized voices of the general populace and raise the level of discourse in Japan’s fledgling, postwar democratic system. Komeito formally separated from the Soka Gakkai in 1970. New Komeito is currently the third leading party in Japan and a member of the coalition government. The Soka Gakkai maintains its right to express an ethical stance on political issues.

Break in Relations Between the SGI and Nichiren Shoshu

Just as in other religions with strong lay organizations, conflict and tension existed between the Nichiren Shoshu priesthood and the SGI. A defining event occurred in November 1991, when the high priest of Nichiren Shoshu excommunicated the entire lay association of the SGI, effectively banning the 12 million SGI members from participation in religious activities sponsored by the sect. The clergy also refused to allow new members of the SGI to receive the Gohonzon, which is central to the religious practice instituted by Nichiren. [28]

Although the causes for this separation are complex, and the context colored by Japanese history as well as by traditions within the Nichiren Shoshu sect, the conflict stems from the priesthood’s claim that the lay organization must submit to the absolute authority of the high priest and, further, to the superiority of the priesthood as interpreter of Nichiren’s teachings. The SGI took the position that the priesthood had lost contact with the basic egalitarian spirit of Nichiren’s teaching. This, the SGI claimed, had led away from Nichiren’s injunction to work compassionately for the happiness of all humankind, toward an insular doctrine of priestly heritage that would secure an authoritarian, clerical control over the religious practice and activities of all lay believers—including their right to share their faith with others.

In his book on the development of the SGI in Britain, sociologist Bryan Wilson offers this brief commentary on the situation:

The priesthood was a conservative body, small, secluded, and with horizons narrowly circumscribed by the centuries of Japanese insulation from the external world. Soka Gakkai International was a movement of revitalization, adapted to modern conditions, pursuing from the outset a policy of expansive growth, and quickly acquiring an international clientele and orientation. The priesthood was characteristically authoritarian, status conscious, and hierarchic; the lay organization was populist, egalitarian, and unwilling to concede the sort of status differences, which were endemic in conceptions of priesthood. [29]

The SGI maintains that Nichiren recognized no distinction in capacity or faith between priests and lay persons, and that his fundamental intent was to encourage all people who sincerely seek to follow his teaching. As a result, there seems to be a permanent rupture between the SGI and the Nichiren Shoshu priesthood—they operate as fully independent entities. [30] Given this reality, the SGI independently began to issue the Gohonzon to its members in late 1993. The Nichiren Shoshu priesthood insists that the SGI has no right to disseminate or interpret Nichiren Buddhism or provide the means for individuals to take up their practice of Buddhism, while the SGI continues its worldwide efforts to inform people about this faith and to promote mutual respect and understanding among individuals and communities.

Human Revolution: Encouraging Spiritual Transformation as the SGI Grows

The ongoing efforts of individual SGI members seeking spiritual self-reformation underlie all the activities described above. The term long used by the organization for this self-reformation is “human revolution.” Drawing on Nichiren’s teaching, the SGI affirms that such inner change invariably leads to a transformation of the outer world as well. As Ikeda has written:

The movement that we advocate for a human revolution does not stop at a change of personality, but extends to a change in the most basic attitudes and perceptions about the nature of life itself; it is a change of the entire human being. I know and believe as the firmest article of faith that the human revolution of a single person can change the fate of a nation, our world, and all humanity. [31]

The activities of the SGI-USA and all SGI member organizations currently reflect a renewed awareness that the twofold transformation of self and environment depends on the individual growth and happiness of their diverse membership. In 1995, the SGI adopted a charter that embodies this awareness and now serves as a standard for the future development of its member organizations. [32] While large-scale activities still occur, the self-directed, inner transformation of the individual has unquestionably become the primary focus of the SGI’s activities throughout the world. The SGI maintains that such individual changes, reinforcing each other, can eventually effect a deeply positive change in humanity and the nature of societies worldwide. Since such changes are never easy, the SGI aims to provide an environment in which mutual support for this most challenging endeavor is available.

Bryan Wilson and David Machacek write that: “The concept of ‘human revolution’ encompasses goals of reforming institutional structures, but asserts that the way to reform social institutions—to improve education, promote tolerance, protect the environment, and end war—is through individual enlightenment. Thus, reform is directed foremost to individual lives and by extension from individual lives to communities, nations and the world.”32

Interpreting the Parable of the Medicinal Herbs from chapter 5 of the Lotus Sutra as a poetic depiction of a culture of peace, Daisaku Ikeda writes:

The parable describes a variety of plants watered by a cloud that envelops the Earth: “Though all these plants and trees grow in the same earth and are moistened by the same rain, each has its differences and particulars.” In terms of Buddhism, this image depicts how all people can benefit from the impartial Buddhist law and, like the three kinds of medicinal herbs and two kinds of trees, can attain a state of enlightenment that is expressive of’ their unique character and individuality. …

Here the blessings of the sun and the rain depict equality under the heavens, while the earth that sustains the plants depicts equality on Earth. In Buddhism, this represents the true path of culture whereby we respect each other’s differences and celebrate our diversity while equally sharing the life-sustaining gifts of Earth and the firmament.

The SGI aims to apply a philosophy of humanism, rooted in respect for the sanctity of life, in the fields of peace, culture, and education. In this way, we seek to foster a robust and universal culture of peace. These three fields correspond to the Buddhist concept of the “three virtues,” those qualities inherent in humankind identified by Nichiren as most worthy of respect: a sense of responsibility, compassion, and wisdom. [33]

Notes:

[18] For Makiguchi, the fundamental criterion for value-creation (“soka”) was whether something adds or detracts from, advances or hinders the human condition. The ultimate goal of value-creating education is to foster people of character who strive for the greatest good—peace —and are committed to protecting life’s dignity. Further information on Makiguchi and the other leaders of the Soka Gakkai can be found in Richard Wilson, “The Three Presidents,” Seikyo Times November 1994: 18.

[19] For further information on these events, see Dayle M. Bethel, Preface to Makiguchi the Value Creator (New York and Tokyo: Weatherhill, Inc., 1994) 96.

[20] Richard Wilson, 19.

[21] Ibid.

[22] For more information on the historical events surrounding this episode, see Tsuyoshi Nakano, “Religion and State,” in Religion in Japanese Culture: Where Living Tradition Meets a Changing World, ed. Noriyoshi Tamaru and David Reid (Tokyo and New York: Kodansha International, 1996) 115–36.

[23] Toda regarded General Douglas MacArthur as embodying the function of the Buddhist deity, Brahma, because he established religious freedom in Japan. See “The Thousand-mile Journey,” in The Human Revolution, Volume 1:95 (New York: Weatherhill, 1972)

[24] As of 2004, there are SGI members in 188 countries and territories around the world.

[25] A fundamental impulse for these activities comes from Toda’s 1957 declaration calling for the total abolition of nuclear weapons.

[26] The philosophy of value constructed by Makiguchi underlies all of his pedagogical work. For a succinct discussion of its basic elements, see Bethel, Makiguchi, 49–57. A detailed elaboration of his theories can be found in Education for Creative Living: Ideas and Proposals of Tsunesaburo Makiguchi, ed. Dayle M. Bethel and trans. Alfred Birnbaum (Ames, IA: Iowa State University Press, 1989).

[27] For information on SGI exhibits and activities in the United States, contact the SGI-USA Communications Department, 606 Wilshire Blvd., Santa Monica, CA 90401 or see <www.sgi-usa.org>.

[28] In response to these actions, virtually the entire membership of the SGI signed petitions requesting that the high priest resign.

[29] Bryan Wilson and Karel Dobbelaere, A Time to Chant: The Soka Gakkai Buddhists in Britain (London: Oxford University Press, 1993) 233.

[30] In Japan, reformist priests have supported the SGI and aligned their temples with the position of the lay organization. Beyond this, the schism has prompted a dramatic increase in the freedom with which the SGI is able to pursue interfaith dialogue on peace, human rights and environmental concerns.

[31] Daisaku Ikeda, “The Human Revolution: A Prerequisite for Lasting Peace,” The McGill Journal of Education Fall 1987: 257.

[32] Global Citizens (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000) 3.

[33] “The SGI’s Peace Movement” in Buddhist Peacework: Creating Cultures of Peace, ed. David W. Chappell (Boston: Wisdom Publications, 1999) 133.

(from: http://sgi-usa.org/buddhism/resourceguide/resourceguide.html#about )

 

[PassTheDoobie]

Introducing others to Nichiren Buddhism
is the most difficult thing to do.
Therefore, the great benefits that we receive
through challenging it are immeasurable.
Let’s do our very best to courageously talk to others
and share the pure and simple truth just as it is!

* Ikeda: He (President Makiguchi) says that we should spread the teaching with the compassion of a parent – that is shakubuku. This makes it very easy to understand. It’s not a matter of increasing numbers or promoting our name, nor is it simply engaging in theoretical debate. Always warmly, sometimes strictly, sometimes soothingly – this is how we should guide the other person. When sharing Buddhism with others, if we allow ourselves to be pulled into an emotional confrontation, then we are no longer behaving as an emissary of the Buddha. We need to firmly gird ourselves in the “armour of perseverance” (LS13, 194). On the other hand, asking someone to “please just give it a try,” as if begging, amounts to degrading the Law. President Toda said, “Shakubuku means helping the other person overcome the evil in their minds, and enabling them to live according to the good in their minds.” Parents cannot look on in silence and watch their children enter a mistaken path that will lead to misery. There are times when a parent is firm. Such compassion is shakubuku. In short, it is an act of the greatest justice and courage. It is not easy for people to exhibit compassion. Many people who claim to have compassion are actually hypocrites. That is why courage is a more apt word than compassion. Courage and compassion are like two sides of the same coin. (The Wisdom of the Lotus Sutra, Volume 5, page 243)

 

[PassTheDoobie]

Even if the sun and moon should never again emerge from the east, even if the great earth itself should turn over, even if the tides of the great ocean should cease to ebb and flow, even if broken stones are made whole, and even if the waters of the streams and rivers cease to flow into the ocean, no woman who believes in the Lotus Sutra could ever be dragged down by worldly faults and fall into the evil paths.

[ Recitation of the "Expedient Means" and "Life Span" Chapters, WND Page 70 ]

 

[PassTheDoobie]

"Many hear about and accept this sutra, but when great obstacles arise, just as they were told would happen, few remember it and bear it firmly in mind. To accept is easy; to continue is difficult. But Buddhahood lies in continuing faith."

(The Difficulty of Sustaining Faith - The Writings of Nichiren Daishonin, page 471) Selection source: SGI President Ikeda’s speech, Seikyo Shimbun, April 17th, 2006

 

[PassTheDoobie]

"Thus, when someone who is superior declares that he is superior, it may sound like arrogance, but that person will in fact receive great benefits [because he is actually praising the Law that he embraces]."

(The Selection of the Time - The Writings of Nichiren Daishonin, page 581) Selection source: Buddhist study, Seikyo Shimbun, April 16th, 2006

 

[PassTheDoobie]

Were it not for the presence of the "Life Span" chapter among all the teachings of Shakyamuni, they would be like the heavens without the sun and moon, a kingdom without a king, the mountains and seas without treasures, or a person without a soul. This being so, without the "Life Span" chapter, all the sutras are meaningless.

[ The Essence of the "Life Span" Chapter, WND Page 183 ]

 

[PassTheDoobie]

What Is Karma?

What Is Karma?

HUMAN BEINGS HAVE LONG ASCRIBED TO FATE, destiny or even God’s will problems they felt powerless to resist, resigning themselves to these perceived forces. The ancient Greeks envisioned three elderly goddesses—the Fates—who controlled people’s lives. The goddess Clotho determined birth, spinning the thread of human life; Lachesis dispensed that thread, steering the path a person would follow in life; and Atropos cut the thread thus determining an individual’s moment of death.

This attitude—that all in life is predetermined or inalterable—is not limited to people of old; it exerts an influence on the hearts and minds of many living today. Expressing frustration over this tendency, British author and essayist George Orwell wrote: “For the ordinary man is passive. Within a narrow circle . . . he feels himself master of his fate, but against major events he is as helpless as against the elements. So far from endeavoring to influence the future, he simply lies down and lets things happen to him.” [1]

The idea that something other than ourselves controls our destiny can in one sense be seen as a form of avoidance—a rationalization to escape facing and challenging real problems and suffering. It may also be an expression of a deep, subconscious sense of helplessness.

Buddhism teaches the solution to human suffering and provides a way to overcome or transform this sense of helplessness. Ultimately, it teaches that the cause of misery lies not with any external force or circumstance, but with ourselves. Buddhism looks nowhere beyond the sufferer for both the cause and the solution to suffering.

According to Shakyamuni Buddha: “If a person commits an act of good or evil, he him-self becomes the heir to that action. This is because that action actually never disappears (Udana).”

The Sanskrit word karma means action. And Buddhism divides the actions that constitute karma into three categories: actions of the body (behavior), actions of the mouth (speech, language) and actions of the mind (thoughts).

The latent force of both our good and bad actions remains in our lives.

ONCE committed, any human action, whether good or bad, does not simply vanish into the past with time. Each act remains in one’s life at the present as a potential force or energy, influencing the course of one’s existence from the point of that action forward. In this sense, rather than simply viewing karma as “action,” it may be more appropriate to think of it as action plus that action’s potential influence on one’s life. Or, in simpler terms, karma may be seen as life’s ingrained habits, leanings or tendencies—actions that tend to repeat themselves, or that we tend to repeat.

Buddhism teaches of the eternal or unending nature of life as a cycle of birth and death. So when people speak of “past karma,” they really mean the present influence on one’s life of actions taken in the past (in past lives). Buddhism also teaches that actions (karma) can be either good or bad; good actions (good karma) give rise to happy, positive effects, and bad actions (bad karma) give rise to unhappy, negative effects.

Further, some actions yield specific results that will appear at a set time—this is known as fixed or immutable karma. Other actions yield results that are not set or specific in their nature or timing—this is non-fixed or mutable karma. Immutable karma is often used to describe a person’s life span, because the time of one’s death is viewed in Buddhism as fixed or set by the influence of past karma.

What kind of actions form immutable karma? In the Buddhist scripture A Treasury of Analysis of the Law (Jpn. Kusha Ron), they are described as:

Actions arising from strong earthly desires (delusions, illusions); or conversely, actions arising from a very pure heart and mind.
Actions that are continually repeated over time.
Actions taken toward the correct teaching of Buddhism.
Actions taken toward one’s mother or father.

While human beings cannot avoid the results of their actions in past lives, Buddhism does not teach that we should simply resign ourselves to the effects of karma, be they good or bad. Submission to fate, to “one’s lot in life” or to some will outside our own is not a correct Buddhist view. Rather, Buddhism is correctly understood as a forward-looking, empowering teaching that stresses personal responsibility and hope. “If I am the one who made myself what I am today, then I am the one who will create the ‘me’ of the future,” is the ideal attitude of a Buddhist.

Karma, then, does not so much apply to our circumstances as to our thoughts, words and deeds. Things do not happen to us, we make them happen—or we act in a habitual way when they do happen that leads us to habitual situations. We made what we are and experience now, and we are at this moment making what we will be and experience in the future. That is karma. So to change karma means to change our lives right now; that is, the way we think, speak and do things. The best way to positively transform the effects of our past bad karma, enjoy the effects of past good karma, and create good karma for the future is to inform our actions with fresh life force and wisdom.

Fortunately, the Daishonin’s Buddhism provides us with a way to bring forth this powerful life force and wisdom. The power of our Buddhist practice also enables us to transform negative karma or circumstances into a motivating force for creating great future benefit and reward.

Faith and practice enables a change of destiny and the accumulation of good fortune.

THE key to breaking through the wall of our bad karma and creating future happiness lies only in ourselves—in our own actions.

Nichiren Daishonin writes in “On Prolonging Life” that “sincere repentance will eradicate even immutable karma, to say nothing of karma which is mutable” (The Major Writings of Nichiren Daishonin, vol. 1, p. 229).

“Sincere repentance” here means to repeatedly refresh our determination to dedicate ourselves to the Law of Buddhism by continually carrying out the practice of chanting Nam-myoho-renge-kyo for our sake and for that of others. This is the purpose of our SGI organization—to provide many people with support in doing just this. When we freely engage ourselves in chanting daimoku and in SGI activities, powerful vitality will emerge from within us. Not only will we break the restraints of our past karma, we will also build a rock-solid foundation of good fortune and happiness for the future.

By Jeff Kriger, SGI-USA Vice Study Department Leader
Based on the book Yasashii Kyogaku [Easy Study].
Tokyo: Seikyo Press.
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[1] George Orwell (1903–50), British author. Inside the Whale and Other Essays, “Inside the Whale” (1940).

 

[PassTheDoobie]

karma (Skt)
[業] (Jpn.: go; Pali.: kamma)

Potentials in the inner, unconscious realm of life created through one's actions in the past or present that manifest themselves as various results in the present or future. Karma is a variation of the Sanskrit karman, which means act, action, a former act leading to a future result, or result. Buddhism interprets karma in two ways: as indicating three categories of action, i.e., mental, verbal, and physical, and as indicating a dormant force thereby produced. That is, one's thought, speech, and behavior, both good and bad, imprint themselves as a latent force or potential in one's life.

This latent force, or karma, when activated by an external stimulus, produces a corresponding good or bad effect, i.e., happiness or suffering. There are also neutral acts that produce neither good nor bad results. According to this concept of karma, one's actions in the past have shaped one's present reality, and one's actions in the present will in turn influence one's future. This law of karmic causality operates in perpetuity, carrying over from one lifetime to the next and remaining with one in the latent state between death and rebirth.

It is karma, therefore, that accounts for the circumstances of one's birth, one's individual nature, and in general the differences among all living beings and their environments. It was traditionally viewed as a natural process in which no god or deity could intervene. The Hindu gods, in fact, were subject to the same law of karma as people, having become gods supposedly through the creation of good karma. The idea of karma predates Buddhism and was already prevalent in Indian society well before the time of Shakyamuni. This pre-Buddhist view of karma, however, had an element of determinism, serving more to explain one's lot in life and compel one to accept it than inspiring hope for change or transformation. The Brahmans, who were at the top of the Indian class structure by birth, may well have emphasized this view to secure their own role. The idea of karma was further developed, however, in the Buddhist teachings.

Shakyamuni maintained that what makes a person noble or humble is not birth but one's actions. Therefore the Buddhist doctrine of karma is not fatalistic. Rather, karma is viewed not only as a means to explain the present, but also as the potential force through which to influence one's future. Mahayana Buddhism holds that the sum of actions and experiences of the present and previous lifetimes are accumulated and stored as karma in the depths of life and will form the framework of individual existence in the next lifetime. Buddhism therefore encourages people to create the best possible karma in the present in order to ensure the best possible outcome in the future. In terms of time, some types of karma produce effects in the present lifetime, others in the next lifetime, and still others in subsequent lifetimes. This depends on the nature, intensity, and repetitiveness of the acts that caused them. Only those types of karma that are extremely good or bad will last into future existences. The other, more minor, types will produce results in this lifetime. Those that are neither good nor bad will bring about no results.

Karma is broadly divided into two types: fixed and unfixed. Fixed karma is said to produce a fixed result-that is, for any given fixed karma there is a specific effect that will become manifest at a specific time. In the case of unfixed karma, any of various results or general outcomes might arise at an indeterminate time. Irrespective of these differences, the Buddhist philosophy of karma, particularly that of Mahayana Buddhism, is not fatalistic. No ill effect is so fixed or predetermined that good karma from Buddhist practice in the present cannot transform it for the better. Moreover, any type of karma needs interaction with the corresponding conditions to become manifest.

See also: fixed karma; unfixed karma

fixed karma
[定業] (Jpn.: jogo)

Also, immutable karma. The opposite of unfixed karma. Karma that inevitably produces a fixed or set result, whether negative or positive. The Dharma Analysis Treasury lists the four causes of fixed karma. They are (1) actions motivated by exceptionally strong earthly desires or by a profoundly pure mind; (2) actions, whether good or evil, done habitually; (3) actions, whether good or evil, performed in relation to such sources of benefit as the three treasures of Buddhism; and (4) actions causing harm to one's parents. Fixed karma may also be interpreted as karma whose effects are destined to appear at a fixed time.

In this case, fixed karma may be of three types depending on when its effects will appear: (1) karma whose effects are destined to appear in the same lifetime; (2) karma whose effects are destined to appear in the next lifetime; and (3) karma whose effects are destined to appear in a third or even later lifetime. As a general rule, lighter karma is said to manifest itself in the same lifetime that it was created, while exceptionally good or bad karma will be carried over into subsequent lifetimes. Fixed karma was traditionally considered unchangeable, but Nichiren states in his writing On Prolonging One's Life Span, "Karma also may be divided into two categories: fixed and unfixed. Sincere repentance will eradicate even fixed karma, to say nothing of karma that is unfixed" (954).

unfixed karma
[不定業] (Jpn.: fujo-go)

Also, mutable karma. The opposite of fixed karma. Karma that does not necessarily produce a specific kind of result or reward, or yields an effect that is not destined to appear at or within a certain fixed time. It is regarded as lighter and easier to change than fixed karma.

From source: The Soka Gakkai Dictionary of Buddhism

 

[PassTheDoobie]

"You should revere a teacher of the Law who engages in its propagation as a sacred priest, even though he may be your junior.”

*As the testimony of priests who have severed ties with the head temple makes clear, discrimination along hierarchical lines pervades the priesthood to an extreme degree. The current priesthood is totally out of accord with Nikko Shonin's admonition that persons excelling in faith and practice should be respected, even though they may be of low rank or junior in age or position. The SGI, by contrast, treasures those who practice in earnest, even though they may have joined only recently, prays for their growth and seeks to give them guidance and training in faith. For precisely this reason, we have succeeded in creating a steady stream of capable people for kosen-rufu and have raised many young successors. The appellation a teacher of the Law who engages in its propagation refers to the SGI. However, inspired by contempt for the SGI, the priesthood excommunicated us. ( http://www.sgi-usa.org/buddhism/library/SokaGakkai/Study/26Adm/ )

(Nikko Shonin’s 26 Admonitions – Gosho Zenshu, page 1618) Selection source: SGI President Ikeda’s speech, Seikyo Shimbun, April 18th, 2006