Nembutsuand the Hellof Incessant Suffering

Main Text

Nembutu is a practice that leads to the hell of incessant suffering. The Lotus Sutra is the direct road that leads to Buddhahood and the attainment of the way. As soon as possible one should therefore abandon the Pure Land school, embrace the Lotus Sutra, free oneself from the sufferings of birth and death, and gain enlightenment.

It is my sincere hope that now in this latter age the followers of the Pure Land school will, like the patriarchs Shāriputra and Ānanda, who lived when the Buddha was in the world, cast aside the Pure Land school and embrace the Lotus Sutra, and in that way fulfill their long-cherished desire for enlightenment.

Nembutsuand the Hellof Incessant Suffering

Background

NEMBUTSU is a practice that leads to the hell of incessant suffering. The Lotus Sutra is the direct road that leads to Buddhahood and the attainment of the way. As soon as possible one should therefore abandon the Pure Land school, embrace the Lotus Sutra, free oneself from the sufferings of birth and death, and gain enlightenment.

In the second volume of the Lotus Sutra the “Simile and Parable” chapter states: “If a person fails to have faith but instead slanders this sutra, immediately he will destroy all the seeds for becoming a Buddha in this world. . . . When his life comes to an end he will enter the Avīchi hell, be confined there for a whole kalpa, and when the kalpa ends, be born there again. He will keep repeating this cycle for a countless number of kalpas.”

As may be seen from this passage, if one puts faith in the Nembutsu, an expedient means, and fails to have faith in the Lotus Sutra, which represents the truth, one will fall into the hell of incessant suffering.

Followers of the Nembutsu may say, “We do not have the innate capacities needed to embrace the Lotus Sutra and therefore we do not put faith in it, that is all. We do not go so far as to slander it. What fault are we guilty of that we should fall into hell?”

The proponent of the Lotus school should then say, “Do you admit, then, that you do not put faith in the Lotus Sutra? Slandering means none other than this failure to have faith. For faith may be called the source of the way and the mother of blessings.”1 The fifty-two stages of bodhisattva practice have their basis in the first ten stages, the stages of faith. In these ten stages of faith, one begins by cultivating a mind of faith, for evil actions and earthly desires have their source in the lack of faith.

Therefore the fourteen slanders described in the “Simile and Parable” chapter represent the embodiment of a lack of faith. The Nembutsu doctrine taught today may be termed a lack of faith, and hence a form of slander. How then could the words of the Lotus Sutra, “He will enter the Avīchi hell,” fail to apply to it?

Moreover, the Pure Land school abandons Shakyamuni Buddha, the lord of teachings, who is the father of our present world, and instead puts faith in a stranger, Amida Buddha. It is therefore guilty of committing the five cardinal sins and its followers must inevitably fall into the great citadel of the hell of incessant suffering.

——————————————～omitted～———————————————–

Letter of instruction from the prime minister:

Some days ago an edict was issued to the five provinces of the capital area and the seven circuits with instructions to halt for all time the exclusive practice of the Nembutsu. Nevertheless, it has been learned that such activities are still being carried on in the provinces. A complaint has been received from Mount Hiei urging that the stewards and constables of the various regions be ordered to comply with the instructions contained in the imperial edict. You are hereby informed of the matter. It is the prime minister’s wish that the edict be strictly complied with. You will proceed as indicated above.

The tenth day of the tenth month in the third year of Karoku

From the hand of the consultant Norisuke22

To the lord of Musashi23

Letter submitted by the Interpreter of Doctrines, Yōson:24

On the eleventh day the priests of Mount Hiei, after examining the matter, concluded that Nembutsu Chosen above All, written by the priest Hōnen, is a work that slanders the correct teachings and that it should not be permitted to exist anywhere in the realm. Accordingly copies of the work, along with the wood blocks from which it was printed, were gathered from various locations and brought to the great lecture hall, where they were burned as an expression of gratitude for the kindness shown by the Buddhas of the three existences. In addition, the grave of the Honorable Hōnen was placed in the custody of the menials of Kanjin-in Shrine25 and was duly destroyed.

The fifteenth day of the tenth month in the third year of Karoku

As the Dharma Bridge Ryūshin has stated, there is clear evidence, documentary and theoretical, that the exclusive practice of the Nembutsu can lead to the downfall of the nation.

Letter sent from Mount Hiei to Ungo-ji temple:

The erroneous teacher Genkū, while he was alive, was for a long period sentenced to severe punishment, and now, after his demise, his dead bones have been hacked to pieces. His erroneous associates Jūren and Anraku have been put to death in the wilderness, and Jōkaku and Sasshō have been sentenced to exile in a distant region as their penalty. If this is the punishment these persons received in their present existence, one may surmise what fate awaits them in their next.

Alas! In terms of the laws of the secular world, these persons have violated the imperial edicts. They have been condemned by the ruler of the nation, and even now there is no sign that they have been forgiven for their actions. How can anyone among the conscientious vassals of the ruler and common people of the nation bear to give alms and lend support to the people of this Pure Land school?

In terms of the Buddhist teachings, they are guilty of slandering the correct teachings, an action that destines them for the hell of incessant suffering. How could anyone think of honoring and paying obeisance to these Nembutsu doctrines?

It is my sincere hope that now in this latter age the followers of the Pure Land school will, like the patriarchs Shāriputra and Ānanda, who lived when the Buddha was in the world, cast aside the Pure Land school and embrace the Lotus Sutra, and in that way fulfill their long-cherished desire for enlightenment.

Nichiren

Back to Top

Background

Written by Nichiren Daishonin in 1255, two years after he preached his teaching for the first time, this document appears to be directed to his followers in general. Since he declared his teaching on the twenty-eighth day of the fourth month in 1253, the Daishonin had criticized the doctrines of the Pure Land school in particular. The school promised rebirth in the Pure Land of Amida Buddha through repeated chanting of that Buddha’s name, a practice known as the Nembutsu. Hōnen, the founder of the Pure Land school in Japan, urged people to abandon all Buddhas except Amida, all sutras except the three Pure Land sutras, and all practices other than the Nembutsu. The Daishonin asserted that, because believers in the Nembutsu slandered the Lotus Sutra, which Shakyamuni Buddha declared to be the purpose of his preaching, they were destined for rebirth not in the Pure Land but in the hell of incessant suffering. In this document he presents the reasoning behind his refutation of the Nembutsu teaching, backed by citations from various Buddhist sources.

In the opening section, he says that, while belief in the Nembutsu forms a cause that will lead one to the hell of incessant suffering, the Lotus Sutra constitutes the path that leads directly to the attainment of Buddhahood. For that reason, he urges people to discard their practice of the Nembutsu, embrace the Lotus Sutra, and thereby gain unsurpassed enlightenment. He then explains that the teachings of the Pure Land school encourage disbelief in the Lotus Sutra—the teaching Shakyamuni Buddha expounded for the enlightenment of all people. Thus the Pure Land doctrine represents a betrayal of Shakyamuni Buddha, the founder of Buddhism, and disregards the three virtues the Buddha embodied in order to enlighten the people—those of sovereign, teacher, and parent. As a result of this rejection of the Lotus Sutra, Pure Land believers are condemned to fall into the evil paths of existence.

Further on in the text he cites the case of Shakyamuni’s major disciples. Shāriputra and Ānanda bore some relationship to the Pure Land scriptures as key figures in the assembly when those sutras were expounded. But when they heard the Buddha state, “In these more than forty years, I have not yet revealed the truth,” they ultimately rejected those teachings and their reliance on Amida and took faith in the Lotus Sutra. At that time Shakyamuni predicted that they would become Buddhas. How could ordinary persons such as ourselves fail to follow the example of such esteemed disciples of the Buddha, the Daishōnin asks.

Next, he condemns as false the teachings of Shan-tao, a leading Chinese patriarch of the Pure Land teaching, who asserted that not even one person in a thousand can attain enlightenment through the Lotus Sutra. He also cites a tragic account of Shan-tao’s attempt at suicide in his final days, which he interprets as proof that Shan-tao had destined himself for hell because of his slander of the Lotus Sutra. He then counters the assertions made by Hōnen in his principal work, The Nembutsu Chosen above All. The Daishonin mentions the fact that the Buddhist community of that time had appealed for a banning of the Nembutsu practice, as well as this work by Hōnen, considering that it would be destructive to Buddhism in general. He also cites the text of various official documents illustrating the response from the imperial court and the shogunate to those petitions, which was to issue orders outlawing propagation of the Nembutsu teaching.

In closing, he states that the Nembutsu teaching has, as the documents he listed demonstrate, been found to violate imperial edicts in terms of the secular law, while in Buddhism it violates the Buddha’s will. This is why he urges people to abandon this teaching and embrace the Lotus Sutra, as Ānanda and Shāriputra did, and thereby attain enlightenment.

Home
Copied title and URL