On Rebuking Slander of the Law and Eradicating Sins

 

Background

Nichiren Daishonin wrote this letter on Sado Island in 1273 to his devoted follower Shijō Kingo, who lived in Kamakura. Though in exile, the Daishonin says in this letter that his overriding emotion is one of joy. He has been banished precisely because he denounced the errors of those who slander the Lotus Sutra. Because he has met this great trial for the sutra’s sake, the Daishonin explains, he is certain to thereby eradicate in this lifetime his evil karma accumulated since the distant past. This is the principle of “rebuking slander of the Law and eradicating sins” referred to in the letter’s title.

The Daishonin goes on to explain that when Shakyamuni Buddha preached the Lotus Sutra he transferred the five characters of Myoho-renge-kyo, the essence of his teaching, only to the Bodhisattvas of the Earth. Though the Daishonin does not state so here directly, he implies that he is the very one carrying out the task of these Bodhisattvas of the Earth in propagating the essence of the Lotus Sutra.

The Daishonin subsequently likens himself to Never Disparaging, a bodhisattva appearing in the Lotus Sutra who revered all people as future Buddhas and met with abuse as a result. The fact that the Daishonin meets persecution just as Bodhisattva Never Disparaging did for the sake of the Lotus Sutra indicates that he is the sutra’s votary in the Latter Day of the Law.

The text then raises a question: In On Establishing the Correct Teaching for the Peace of the Land, the Daishonin interpreted the disasters befalling the country as the effect of widespread belief in misleading teachings. Now he interprets them as omens of the spread of the Lotus Sutra. How are these two views to be reconciled? The Daishonin makes clear that no fundamental contradiction exists. On the one hand, when the time comes for the propagation of the Lotus Sutra, disasters arise when people persist in clinging to provisional teachings that no longer suit the times. On the other hand, when the votary of the Lotus Sutra who is to propagate its teaching points out such errors and is persecuted as a consequence, great calamities are sure to result. The Daishonin adds that in denouncing the errors of other schools he has acted solely out of the bodhisattva spirit of compassion, as expressed by Chang-an: “One who rids the offender of evil is acting as his parent.”

In the final part of the letter, the Daishonin praises Shijō Kingo’s devotion to his deceased mother, and explains that such filial conduct will never fail to be rewarded. He concludes with expressions of gratitude to Shijō Kingo and his family, whose offerings have helped the Daishonin and his companions survive under the harsh conditions of banishment on Sado.

 

 

 

Notes

1. The five cardinal sins: killing one’s father, killing one’s mother, killing an arhat, injuring a Buddha, and causing disunity in the Buddhist Order.

2. According to ancient Indian cosmology, the human life span undergoes repeated cyclic periods of increase and decrease. The calculation here brings the length of a kalpa to 15,998,000 years.

 

 

 

 

 

Notes

3. The true effect refers to the enlightenment attained by the Buddha in the remote past, and the true cause, the cause of that enlightenment. “True effect” and “true cause” also indicate, respectively, the world of Buddhahood (effect) and the nine worlds (cause), which are both eternally inherent in life. Myoho-renge-kyo is the Law that simultaneously contains both cause and effect.

4. Born from the Crown of the Head, or Murdhagata in Sanskrit, appears in several sutras. He is said to have been born from the top of King Uposatha’s head and grew up to become a gold-wheel-turning king. He ruled the four continents surrounding Mount Sumeru and finally ascended to the heaven of the thirty-three gods on the summit of Mount Sumeru. According to the Nirvana Sutra, he was welcomed there by the god Shakra, who seated him by his side in the Hall of the Good Law, a hall located in the southwest outside Shakra’s palace Joyful to See in the heaven of the thirty-three gods.

5. The preaching of the Flower Garland Sutra is described as occurring in eight successive assemblies in seven different locations, beginning at the place of Shakyamuni Buddha’s enlightenment and then shifting to various heavens.

6. Buddhas and bodhisattvas who are pictured in the court of the eight-petaled lotus appearing in the center of the Womb Realm mandala. In this mandala, Mahāvairochana Buddha sits in the center of the lotus.

7. Five Buddhas, centering around Mahāvairochana, and thirty-two bodhisattvas described in the Diamond Crown Sutra.

8. This story appears in the “Introduction” chapter of the Lotus Sutra. In the distant past, Manjushrī appeared as Bodhisattva Wonderfully Bright, a disciple of Sun Moon Bright Buddha. After the Buddha’s demise, Wonderfully Bright continued to embrace the Lotus Sutra that his teacher had expounded. The Buddha had fathered eight sons before renouncing the world. Bodhisattva Wonderfully Bright led these sons to enlightenment. The last of them to attain Buddhahood was called Burning Torch Buddha, under whom Shakyamuni practiced the sutra for enlightenment in a previous existence. In this sense, Shakyamuni was “the ninth to inherit” Manjushrī’s teachings.

9. The Contemplation on the Mind-Ground and other sutras refer to Manjushrī as the mother of all Buddhas. He is so called because he represents the supreme wisdom essential to attaining enlightenment.

10. At the beginning of the “Entrustment” chapter of the Lotus Sutra, Shakyamuni Buddha pats with his right hand the heads of the immeasurable bodhisattvas present and then transfers the Lotus Sutra to all of them.

11. The Words and Phrases of the Lotus Sutra.

12. Ibid.

13. The Annotations on “The Words and Phrases of the Lotus Sutra.”

14. The Supplement to “The Words and Phrases of the Lotus Sutra.”

 

 

Nevertheless, after the Buddha’s passing, during the thousand years of the Former Day of the Law, the thousand years of the Middle Day of the Law, and the two hundred and twenty or more years that have elapsed since the beginning of the Latter Day of the Law, nowhere in India, China, Japan, or any other place throughout Jambudvīpa have these four bodhisattvas so much as once made their appearance. Why is that?

Bodhisattva Manjushrī, though he was not specifically entrusted with the teaching of Myoho-renge-kyo, remained in this world for four hundred and fifty years following the passing of the Buddha to spread the Mahayana sutras, and even in the ages thereafter he from time to time descended from Mount Fragrant or Mount Clear and Cool, assuming the form of an eminent monk in order to propagate the Buddhist teachings.¹⁵ Bodhisattva Medicine King took on the form of the Great Teacher T’ien-t’ai, Bodhisattva Perceiver of the World’s Sounds became the Great Teacher Nan-yüeh,¹⁶ and Bodhisattva Maitreya became Fu Ta-shih.¹⁷ Moreover, Mahākāshyapa and Ānanda worked to spread the teachings of the Buddha after his passing for twenty and forty years, respectively. And yet in all this time, the Buddha’s legitimate heirs, to whom the teaching of Myoho-renge-kyo had been entrusted, failed to make their appearance.

During this period of twenty-two hundred and more years, worthy rulers and sage rulers have honored painted images or wooden images of Shakyamuni, the lord of teachings, as their principal object of devotion. But although they have made depictions of the Buddhas of the Hinayana and the Mahayana teachings; of the Flower Garland, Nirvana, and Meditation sutras; of the theoretical teaching of the Lotus Sutra and of the Universal Worthy Sutra; of the Mahāvairochana and the other True Word sutras; and of the Buddhas Shakyamuni and Many Treasures of the “Treasure Tower” chapter, the Shakyamuni Buddha of the “Life Span” chapter has never been depicted in any mountain temple or monastery anywhere. It is very difficult to fathom why this should be.

The Thus Come One Shakyamuni made specific reference to the last five-hundred-year period and never designated the two thousand years of the Former and Middle Days of the Law as the time for propagating the Lotus Sutra. The Great Teacher T’ien-t’ai said, “In the last five-hundred-year period, the mystic way will spread and benefit humankind far into the future,”¹⁸ indicating that its propagation should be left to the future. The Great Teacher Dengyō wrote, “The Former and Middle Days are almost over, and the Latter Day is near at hand.”¹⁹ In this way, he rejected the end of the Middle Day of the Law as not being the time to propagate the Lotus Sutra.

Are we to assume, then, that the great bodhisattvas as numerous as the dust particles of a thousand worlds who sprang up from the earth intend to remain silent and unmoving and to go back on the promise that they made when the teaching was entrusted to them by Shakyamuni, Many Treasures, and the Buddhas of the ten directions?

Yet even the worthy men described in the non-Buddhist scriptures know that one must await the right time. The cuckoo always waits until the fourth or fifth month to sing its song. Similarly, we read in the sutra that these great bodhisattvas must likewise wait until the Latter Day of the Law to appear.

Why do I say this? Both the Buddhist and non-Buddhist writings make clear that omens will always appear before a certain destined event actually occurs. Thus, when the spider spins its web, it means that some happy event will take place, and when the magpie calls, it means that a visitor will arrive. Even such minor occurrences have their portents. How much more so do major events! Thus the six auspicious happenings described in the “Introduction” chapter of the Lotus Sutra are great omens exceeding in magnitude any other major signs appearing in the entire life of Shakyamuni Buddha. And the omens described in the “Emerging from the Earth” chapter²⁰ are immeasurably greater in magnitude than these.

Therefore, T’ien-t’ai says, “By observing the fury of the rain, we can tell the greatness of the dragon that caused it, and by observing the flourishing of the lotus flowers, we can tell the depth of the pond they grow in.”²¹ And Miao-lo states, “Wise men can perceive the cause of things, as snakes know the way of snakes.”²²

Now I, too, in discerning the significance of omens, will be included among the wise. The great earthquake that struck in the first year of the Shōka era (1257), with the cyclical sign hinoto-mi, on the twenty-third day of the eighth month, at the time when the hour of the dog gives way to the hour of the boar (around 9:00 p.m.), and also the great comet that appeared in the first year of the Bun’ei era (1264), with the cyclical sign kinoe-ne, on the fourth day of the seventh month²³—these are major portents such as have never before occurred during the more than twenty-two hundred years since the Buddha’s passing. I wonder if they are not major signs indicating that those great bodhisattvas are now about to make their appearance in this world, bearing the great Law.

Ten-foot-high waves do not rise up in a foot-wide pond, and the braying of a donkey cannot cause the winds to blow. Though the government of Japan today is in chaos and the common people cry out in distress, such conditions alone could scarcely cause the appearance of such major omens. No one else understands that these are great signs foretelling that though the Lotus Sutra has perished it is in fact eternal.²⁴

 

Notes

15. According to the Nirvana of Manjushrī Sutra, 450 years following the Buddha’s passing, Bodhisattva Manjushrī went to the Snow Mountains, where he expounded the Buddhist teachings for five hundred hermits. Thereafter, he assumed the form of a monk and, descending from the mountains, led many people to salvation. He later lived in a stupa on Mount Fragrant (Skt Gandha-madana), said to lie to the north of the Snow Mountains. According to the Flower Garland Sutra, Manjushrī lives on Mount Clear and Cool (Chin Ch’ing-liang) in the east, which later came to be identified with Mount Wu-t’ai in China.

16. The reappearance of Medicine King and Perceiver of the World’s Sounds as T’ien-t’ai and Nan-yüeh, respectively, is mentioned in The Lotus Sutra and Its Traditions.

17. Fu Ta-shih (497–569) was a lay Buddhist in China. Fu Ta-shih’s biography states that he descended from the Tushita heaven, which is the abode of Bodhisattva Maitreya, to expound the teaching of supreme enlightenment.

18. Words and Phrases.

19. An Essay on the Protection of the Nation.

20. This refers to the ground splitting open and the countless bodhisattvas emerging from the earth.

21. Words and Phrases.

22. On “The Words and Phrases.”

23. This comet first appeared on the twenty-sixth day of the sixth month, began to shine with renewed brilliance on the fourth day of the seventh month, and continued to shine into the eighth month.

24. This indicates that in the Latter Day of the Law, although the Lotus Sutra has become ineffectual, the Law of Nam-myoho-renge-kyo implied in the depths of the sutra’s “Life Span” chapter will spread to benefit all people.

 

 

During the more than two thousand years [since the Buddha’s passing], there have been evil rulers who were cursed by their subjects and traitorous persons who were hated by all. But Nichiren, though guilty of no fault, has without respite for the past twenty years and more been cursed and abused, assaulted with swords and staves, and pelted with rocks and tiles by people both high and low. This is no ordinary occurrence.

Mine is like the case of Bodhisattva Never Disparaging, who, toward the end of the Law of the Buddha Awesome Sound King, was cursed and reviled over a period of many years. Moreover, Shakyamuni Buddha cited the example of this bodhisattva and predicted that, after his own passing, in the Latter Day of the Law, events would unfold in the same manner as in Never Disparaging’s time. And yet, whether here close at hand in Japan or in the distant land of China, such a thing has never been known to happen on account of the Lotus Sutra.

Because people hate me, no one mentions the significance of these things. If I mention it myself, it may seem to be self-praise. If I fail to mention it, however, I will commit the offense of making lies of the Buddha’s words. I speak of it because to hold one’s own life lightly but to value the Law is the way of a worthy person.

I, Nichiren, resemble Bodhisattva Never Disparaging. Whether the ruler of a nation murders his parents, or a lowly subject does away with his father and mother, though the murderers differ greatly in social position, because the cause is identical, both will fall into the hell of incessant suffering. Similarly, though Bodhisattva Never Disparaging and I stand on different levels, we perform the same action. Therefore, if Bodhisattva Never Disparaging is destined to attain Buddhahood, can there be any doubt that I will gain the fruit of Buddhahood as well?

Bodhisattva Never Disparaging was cursed by arrogant monks who observed all the two hundred and fifty precepts. I, Nichiren, am slandered and reviled by Ryōkan, who is known as the foremost observer of the precepts. The monks who cursed Never Disparaging, though they followed him in the end, still had to suffer in the Avīchi hell for one thousand kalpas. But Ryōkan has yet to seek my teachings. Hence I do not know what will become of him. He may be destined to suffer in hell for countless kalpas. How truly pitiful!

 

 

Question: With regard to the great earthquake of the Shōka era, in your remonstrative letter On Establishing the Correct Teaching for the Peace of the Land, which you entrusted to the lay priest Yadoya for submission to His Lordship, the late lay priest of Saimyō-ji, on the sixteenth day of the seventh month in the first year of the Bunnō era (1260), with the cyclical sign kanoe-saru, you stated your opinion that heaven and earth had become angered because the people of Japan were destroying Buddhism by their reliance on Hōnen’s Nembutsu Chosen above All, and that this error would bring about rebellion within the country and invasion from countries abroad. But now you say that the earthquake was an auspicious omen of the propagation of the Lotus Sutra. How do you explain the discrepancy between these two views?

Answer: That is a very good question. The fourth volume of the Lotus Sutra says, “Since hatred and jealousy toward this sutra abound even when the Thus Come One is in the world, how much more will this be so after his passing?”²⁵ And in the seventh volume, referring again to the time “after his passing” when things will be much worse, the Buddha says, “After I have passed into extinction, in the last five-hundred-year period you must spread it abroad widely throughout Jambudvīpa.”²⁶ So we see that the hatred that abounds after the passing of the Buddha will come about in the last five-hundred-year period when Myoho-renge-kyo will spread. And immediately following the above passage, the Buddha warns of dangers from “evil devils, the devils’ people, heavenly beings, dragons, yakshas, and kumbhānda demons.”

When the chief priest Hsing-man laid eyes on the Great Teacher Dengyō, he exclaimed, “The sacred words will not become extinct. Now I have encountered this man! All the doctrines that I have learned I will transfer to this āchārya from the country of Japan.”²⁷ And the situation today is just the same. Now, in the beginning of the Latter Day of the Law, the time has come to propagate the five characters of Myoho-renge-kyo so that all people throughout the country of Japan may receive the seeds of Buddhahood.

When a maidservant becomes pregnant with the ruler’s child, the other women grow resentful. And when a person of humble birth is presented with a jewel from the king’s crown, then great troubles are bound to arise. Thus the sutra says, “It will face much hostility in the world and be difficult to believe.”²⁸

The Nirvana Sutra declares, “If troubles are inflicted upon a sage, then the country where he dwells will be attacked by other countries.” And the Benevolent Kings Sutra states essentially the same thing. If I, Nichiren, am attacked, then from heaven and earth and the four directions, great calamities will pour down like rain, jet up like fountains, or come surging forward like waves. If the many priests, those hordes of locusts who afflict the nation, and the ministers in power in the government persist in their ever-increasing slanders and accusations against me, then great disasters will occur in growing magnitude.

When an asura demon tried to shoot at the god Shakra, his arrow rebounded and pierced him in the eye. And when the garuda birds attempted to attack the dragon king Anavatapta, flames erupted from their own bodies and consumed them. Is the votary who upholds the Lotus Sutra inferior to Shakra or the dragon king Anavatapta?

The Great Teacher Chang-an says, “One who destroys or brings confusion to the Buddha’s teachings is betraying them. If one befriends another person but lacks the mercy to correct him, one is in fact his enemy.”²⁹ He also says, “One who rids the offender of evil is acting as his parent.”³⁰

All the people throughout Japan have been led astray by the wild assertions of Hōnen, who tells them to “discard, close, ignore, and abandon” [the Lotus Sutra], or of the Zen school, which declares its teaching to be “a separate transmission outside the sutras,” so that there is not a single one who is not destined to fall into the great citadel of the hell of incessant suffering. So believing, over the past more than twenty years I have never ceased to cry out in a loud voice against these errors, fearing neither the ruler of the nation nor the common people. I am in no way inferior to the outspoken ministers Kuan Lung-feng and Pi Kan of old. I am like the thousand-armed Perceiver of the World’s Sounds, the bodhisattva of great compassion, who strives to rescue at once all the beings confined to the hell of incessant suffering.

When several children are caught in a fire, though the parents wish to save them all at the same time, having only two arms, they must decide which child to save first and which to leave until after. The Lotus Sutra is a parent with a thousand arms, ten thousand arms, or a million arms. The sutras preached before the Lotus Sutra have only one or two arms, as it were. But the Lotus Sutra, through which the Buddha has “converted all living beings and caused them all to enter the Buddha way,”³¹ is a bodhisattva with innumerable arms.

If we go by the Lotus Sutra and the commentary of Chang-an, then Nichiren is a compassionate father and mother to all the people of Japan. Heaven may be lofty, but it has keen ears with which to hear. Earth may be thick, but it has sharp eyes with which to observe. Heaven and earth by now know [how the situation stands]. And yet I, who am father and mother to all people, am cursed and reviled and sent into exile. The abuses of government that have taken place in this country in the past two or three years are such as have never been heard of in former ages, and exceed all bounds of reason.

 

Notes

25. Lotus Sutra, chap. 10.

26. Ibid., chap. 23.

27. The Biography of the Great Teacher of Mount Hiei.

28. Lotus Sutra, chap. 14.

29. The Annotations on the Nirvana Sutra.

30. Ibid.

31. Lotus Sutra, chap. 2.

 

 

In your letter you mentioned your filial devotion to your deceased mother. Reading it, I was so moved that I could barely hold back my tears.

Long ago in China there were five young men, one of whom was Yüan-chung.³² They had originally been strangers from different districts and had different surnames, but they took a vow to be brothers and never turned against one another, and in time they amassed three thousand treasures.

All the young men were orphans, and, grieved over this fact, when they met an old woman along the road, they decided to honor her as their mother. They did so for twenty-four years, never going against her wishes in the slightest.

Then the mother suddenly fell ill and was unable to speak. The five sons gazed up at the sky and said: “Our efforts to care for our mother have not been appreciated, and she has been seized by an illness that prevents her from speaking. If heaven will grant our filial feelings any recognition, we pray that it will restore to her the power of speech.”

At that time the mother spoke, saying to her five sons: “In past times I was the daughter of a man named Yang Meng of the district of T’ai-yüan. I was married to Chang Wen-chien of the same district, who has since died. We had a son named Wu-i. When he was seven, rebellion broke out in the area, and I do not know what became of him. You, my five sons, have taken care of me for twenty-four years, but I have never told you of this. My son Wu-i had markings like the seven stars of the Big Dipper on his chest, and on the sole of his right foot he had a black mole.” When she had finished saying this, she died.

As the five sons were accompanying her body to the burial ground, they encountered the magistrate of the district along the road. The magistrate had happened to drop a bag containing important documents, and the five young men were accused of stealing it, arrested, and bound. When the magistrate confronted them, he demanded, “Who are you?” whereupon the five young men told him all they had learned from their mother.

When he heard this, the magistrate almost toppled from his seat, gazing up at the heavens, then bowing to the earth in tears. He freed the five men from their bonds, led them to his seat, and said, “I am Wu-i, and it was my mother you cared for! For these past twenty-four years I have known many pleasures, but because I could never stop thinking about my beloved mother, they were never real pleasures to me.” In time he presented the five men to the ruler of the country, and each was appointed to be the head of a prefecture.

In this way, even strangers were rewarded when they came together and treated someone as a parent. How much more so will be the case with actual brothers and sisters when they kindly take care of their own father and mother! How could heaven possibly fail to approve?

 

Notes

32. Yüan-chung was a person from the state of Wei during the Chou dynasty (c. 1100–256 b.c.e.), China. The story of these five persons appears in Miao-lo’s Annotations on “Great Concentration and Insight.”

 

 

 

Notes

33. Details are unknown about Shirō. No other of the Daishonin’s letters indicates that Shijō Kingo had a son. One of his younger brothers was named Shirō, but it is not certain if this is the person to whom the Daishonin was referring.