On Reprimanding Hachiman Chapter6

You should understand that, before the time of the Great Teacher Dengyō, the words and phrases of the Lotus Sutra were read, but that was all; their true meaning had as yet not become apparent.

In the twentieth year of the Enryaku era [801], around the middle of the eleventh month, the Great Teacher Dengyō invited more than ten men, outstanding Buddhist leaders from the seven major temples and six schools of Nara, to meet with him on Mount Hiei, and he lectured to them on the Lotus Sutra. Two court officials, [Wake no] Hiroyo and [his younger brother] Matsuna, listening to the expositions of the Buddhist doctrine given at that time, declared with a sigh, “One regrets that the single vehicle of the Lotus is impeded by provisional teachings, and one grieves that the unification of the three truths has yet to be made manifest.” They also said, “Though both teachers and disciples have broken free from the bonds of the threefold world, you still persist on the road of the enlightenment that takes countless kalpas to achieve.”¹⁰

Later, in the twenty-first year of the Enryaku era [802], on the nineteenth day of the first month, Emperor Kammu paid a visit to the temple called Takao-dera, where he summoned eminent priests from the six schools of Nara and the Great Teacher Dengyō and listened to them as they debated the merits and shortcomings of the various schools. But the fourteen participants from Nara were all incapable of saying a word in their own defense, their mouths as useless as though they had been noses.

Sometime later, they submitted a memorial acknowledging their defeat and apologizing, in which they said: “In the two hundred or more years since Prince Shōtoku spread the Buddhist teachings in this country, a great many sutras and treatises have been lectured upon, and their principles have been widely argued, but until now, many doubts still remained to be settled. Moreover, the lofty and perfect doctrine of the Lotus Sutra had not yet been properly explained and made known.”

When we consider these facts, we can see that in the period before the Great Teacher Dengyō, the true heart and meaning of the Lotus Sutra had not yet become apparent. When Great Bodhisattva Hachiman declared through the medium that he had not previously seen or heard the Buddhist teachings, it is perfectly obvious that this is what he was referring to, perfectly obvious!

The fourth volume of the Lotus Sutra says: “If one of these good men or good women in the time after I have passed into extinction is able to secretly expound the Lotus Sutra to one person . . . , then you should know that he or she is the envoy of the Thus Come One. . . . The Thus Come One will cover them with his robe.”¹¹

In a time to come, the Buddha Maitreya will preach the Lotus Sutra, and therefore Shakyamuni Buddha sent the Venerable Mahākāshyapa as his envoy to present a robe to Maitreya.¹² And similarly, the Great Teacher Dengyō was sent as the envoy of the Buddha to preach the Lotus Sutra, and that is why Great Bodhisattva Hachiman acted as an envoy as well and presented him with a robe.