Questions and Answers on the Various Schools

Questions and Answers on the Various Schools

Background

QUESTION: In expounding its doctrines, does the Lotus school make use of the commentaries of T’ien-t’ai, Miao-lo, Dengyō, and the others?

Answer: Indeed it does. These various commentaries serve as a bright mirror to aid in the understanding of its doctrines.

Question: How can they serve as a bright mirror? These various commentaries quote from the sutras preached prior to the Lotus Sutra and from the provisional teachings and do not set these aside. Thus they say, for example, that “the Buddha wisdom shown at the beginning and that at the latter time are alike in representing the principle of perfect and immediate enlightenment.”1 “Concerning the myō, or wonderful, the myō of this teaching and the myō of the other teachings are not different in meaning.”2 They say that the Flower Garland Sutra and the Lotus Sutra both represent the Buddha wisdom, that the Buddha wisdom does not differ in these two, and that the Buddha wisdom set forth in the connecting teaching and the specific teaching can be viewed as identical with that of the Lotus Sutra. How can you hold the Lotus Sutra to be uniquely superior to these other teachings? We cannot agree with such ideas.

Answer: These passages you have cited from the commentary of T’ien-t’ai most certainly fit in with the teachings of the Tendai [Lotus] school. But you must understand that the sixty volumes of T’ien-t’ai’s commentaries3 are made up of two types of approaches, that of the way of doctrine and that of the way of enlightenment. The term “way of doctrine” refers to the doctrinal classification of the sutras, while the term “way of enlightenment” refers to the inner realization of enlightenment.

With regard to the passages from the commentary that you have just cited, we must first ask to which category of writings and ideas they belong. If they belong to the comments that pertain to the doctrinal teachings, then we must note here that, when discussing the doctrinal classification of such teachings, T’ien-t’ai posits three standards of comparison by which one may determine the relative superiority of the Lotus Sutra and the sutras preached before it.

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Next, if they should state that the Thus Come One Mahāvairochana is a Buddha of the Dharma body, point out that among the provisional teachings expounded prior to the Lotus Sutra there are some that speak of a Thus Come One of the Dharma body, but that as far as the Lotus Sutra is concerned, all such teachings have been discarded because they belong to the time when, as the Buddha said, “I have not yet revealed the truth.”25 What, then, is so wonderful about the fact that Mahāvairochana is a Buddha of the Dharma body?

If they reply by saying that he is wonderful because he is without beginning and without end, then point out that this is invariably true not only of the Thus Come One Mahāvairochana but of all living beings, even down to mole crickets, ants, mosquitoes, or gadflies. All in body and mind are without beginning and without end. If they believe that living beings have a beginning and have an end, then they subscribe to an erroneous view put forth by the non-Buddhists! Ask them if their views are the same as those of the non-Buddhists.

Finally, we come to the Nembutsu, which represents the doctrine in use by the Pure Land school. This doctrine is among the most provisional of all the provisional teachings, comparable to a dream seen within a dream. It is a name without a reality. And because there is no reality to it, it could not possibly fulfill the wishes of all living beings for rebirth in the Pure Land. The Buddha of which it speaks is Amida Buddha, who is conditioned in nature and impermanent. How, then, could he surpass a principle that is eternal and imperishable?

Therefore the Great Teacher Kompon [Dengyō] of our country states in his commentary, “The Buddha of the reward body, which exists depending on causes and conditions, represents a provisional result obtained in a dream, while the Buddha eternally endowed with the three bodies represents the true Buddha from the time before enlightenment.”26 Thus with these words he warns against belief in Amida Buddha, a Buddha who is conditioned and impermanent, and rejects him.

And since this Amida Buddha upon whom the Pure Land proponents rely is a name without a reality, something existing in name only, without any body, then though they may expound in great detail the doctrines that promise rebirth in the Pure Land, preaching them so that they sound as lofty as Mount Sumeru or as deep as the great ocean, such doctrines are all utterly useless.

If the proponents of the Pure Land doctrine insist that there are clear and authoritative passages in the sutras and treatises to support their views, point out that these passages appear in works preached when the Buddha had “not yet revealed the truth.”

Not only in the three Pure Land sutras, but in other works, beginning with the Flower Garland Sutra and other sutras, teachings, treatises, and commentaries, there are perfectly clear passages pertaining to the achievement of Buddhahood, are there not? But when they are passages belonging to the provisional teachings, it is surely foolish of you to cling to them as you do! For they represent warped views not found in the true sutras and treatises.

Whatever reasons the Pure Land proponents may put forward to support and ornament their doctrines, whatever sutra passages they may cite, they relate to “a provisional result obtained in a dream realm,” a doctrine that is of no use. Keep repeating this point again and again.

 

Background

This letter, thought to have been addressed to Sammi-bō Nichigyō, a priest-disciple of Nichiren Daishonin, summarizes the approaches to be taken in refuting the doctrines of major Japanese Buddhist schools, the Tendai, Zen, True Word, and Nembutsu, or Pure Land, schools in particular. It was written in Kamakura in 1255, some two years after the Daishonin first publicly set forth his teaching.

Sammi-bō had received his Buddhist education at Enryaku-ji on Mount Hiei, the head temple of the Tendai school and a prestigious center of Buddhist learning, where the Daishonin himself had once studied. This is one of several letters the Daishonin wrote to him over the years concerning how to debate with priests representing the various Buddhist schools.

This letter is unusual in that it is one of the few works written in this early period that addresses the errors in doctrines of the Tendai school. The Daishonin focuses on the school’s misinterpretation of the T’ien-t’ai doctrines that Dengyō had brought to Japan and used to found the Tendai school.

T’ien-t’ai established the doctrinal classification of the eight teachings and five periods. In this letter, first, from the viewpoint of comparative myō, or wonderful, the relative superiority of the sutras is discussed with the criteria of the four teachings of doctrine (from among the eight teachings); in this case a lenient interpretation is applied in order to allow the first three teachings—the Tripitaka, connecting, and specific teachings—to indicate the possible attainment of Buddhahood. Next, when the relative superiority of the sutras is addressed with the criteria of the five periods, a strict interpretation is applied in order to deny the first four periods of teachings—the Flower Garland, Āgama, Correct and Equal, and Wisdom sutras—the possible attainment of Buddhahood.

From the viewpoint of absolute myō, all the sutras are opened up and merged in the Lotus Sutra. However, this viewpoint does not deny that a distinction between the Lotus Sutra, which opens up and merges, and the other sutras, which are opened up and merged, exists.

In this letter, the Daishonin points out the misinterpretation of the above doctrine that was widespread in his time, namely, that “since these provisional teachings of the pre-Lotus sutras enter into the great sea of the Lotus Sutra, there is no longer anything undesirable about them,” and that thus there is not the slightest need “to distinguish them by using the names that they originally bore.” The Tendai school itself was guilty of such a misinterpretation.

On the other hand, in his later criticism of the Tendai school, the Daishonin focuses on its incorporation of the esoteric True Word teachings into its doctrines.

Next the Daishonin addresses some core contentions of the Zen school: it represents a “separate transmission outside the sutras, independent of words or writing,” its teaching was “not transmitted by the Buddha and patriarchs,” the teachings of the Buddhist sutras are comparable to “a finger pointing at the moon,” and “this very body is the Buddha.” He addresses each of these contentions, paying particular attention to the Zen school’s claim that it represents a teaching that is independent of words or writing. Words and writing, he points out, constitute a medium by which human beings convey the nature of their minds; to deny them is to deny the fact that the Zen doctrines must be communicated through the “six sense organs,” that is, through the ordinary faculties of human beings that include speech and writing.

Next, he briefly explains the method to be used in refuting the “six schools of Nara, the southern capital,” representing the long established schools of Buddhism in Japan. These are the Flower Garland, Dharma Characteristics, Three Treatises, Dharma Analysis Treasury, Establishment of Truth, and Precepts schools. These schools were long ago refuted by the Great Teacher Dengyō, he states, and for proof of this he presents the document that the leaders of these schools submitted to the imperial court, acknowledging the supremacy of Dengyō’s teachings based on the Lotus Sutra. Therefore no further argument, he says, is necessary.

The Daishonin then moves on to the True Word teachings, countering that school’s assertion that the Mahāvairochana Sutra and the other sutras upon which it relies are the “same in principle” as the Lotus Sutra, and pointing out that the Mahāvairochana Buddha, who is central to those scriptures and the school, is not a Buddha associated with this world, there being no record or evidence of his actual existence.

Finally he points out the errors of the Nembutsu, or Pure Land, school, whose doctrine he refers to as “the most provisional of all the provisional teachings,” “a dream seen within a dream.” He states, “Since this Amida Buddha upon whom the Pure Land proponents rely is a name without a reality, something existing in name only, without any body, then though they may expound in great detail the doctrines that promise rebirth in the Pure Land, preaching them so that they sound as lofty as Mount Sumeru or as deep as the great ocean, such doctrines are all utterly useless.”

 

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