On the Importance of the “Expedient Means” and “Life Span” Chapters—Chapter3
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But I will say no more regarding this doctrine. You state that this is a dangerous year for you. Long ago, in the reign of Fu Hsi, a water creature known as a turtle emerged in the Yellow River, floating on the surface, and on its shell it bore the markings known as the eight trigrams.3 When the people of the time took up these markings and examined them, they found that they could clearly distinguish which years were “dangerous” or unlucky in the course of people’s lives from the year they were born to the year of their death.
The danger that confronts a person in one of these so-called unlucky years is like the danger from kites or magpies that fish face when they are in shallow water, or like that faced by summer insects when they are around a torch and may bumble into the flame.
Demons may hover around the spirit of the person in a dangerous year and seek to do it harm. When the gods are “at home,” it means that the various gods are dwelling in your body, and hence all affairs go as you wish them to. But when the gods are “abroad,” it means that these gods have left the house that is your mind or consciousness and are observing affairs on the outside. The year that you are now in can be called one in which the gods are abroad. They have gone off on a journey to other lands, and so you must be careful and pray that you may escape peril and gain happiness.
[According to the theory of the five phases4], you belong to the agent wood, but, although this year is a dangerous year for persons whose nature is dominated by wood, you will probably not encounter any difficulty in the spring and summer [when trees flourish].
The scripture called The Supreme Gate to the Nature of Reality5 states: “When wood encounters metal, it is broken; when fire meets up with water, its light is extinguished; when earth comes into contact with wood, it is depleted; when metal enters fire, it melts away; and when water encounters earth, its progress is halted.”
This is a scripture passage that is hardly worth citing, but when I am dealing with doctrinal matters I try to keep in mind the four ways of preaching, and so I have cited it. So long as it does not go against the principles for the attainment of Buddhahood, it may be of use in understanding the ordinary ways of secular life.
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Background
This is Nichiren Daishonin’s reply to a letter from his follower Ōta Saemon-no-jō, also known as Ōta Jōmyō, who lived in Shimōsa Province. From the content it is clear that in 1278 Ōta sent offerings with a letter to the Daishonin at Minobu. In the letter, Ōta had reported his recent sufferings, physical and spiritual, and his concern that his present age, fifty-seven, was considered a “dangerous year,” or an “unlucky age,” in Japanese and Chinese tradition. He was the same age as the Daishonin.
The Daishonin responds that various sufferings are unavoidable, but that the Lotus Sutra provides “good medicine” to alleviate the sufferings of body and mind.
Suffering is a result of the karma one created in past existences, the Daishonin explains. He then cites the Buddhist principle of the twelve-linked chain of causation, which defines the links of causation between the previous existence and the present, between the present existence and the future.
He also discusses the yin and yang theory of the five agents, sharing some knowledge of a dangerous year with Ōta based on the so-called precept of adapting to local customs.
The Daishonin tells Ōta that he is copying for him two chapters of the Lotus Sutra. They are the second chapter, “Expedient Means,” and the sixteenth, “Life Span,” the core chapters respectively of the theoretical teaching and the essential teaching. He also addresses errors and falsehoods promulgated by the True Word and Flower Garland schools, which stole the T’ien-t’ai school’s principle of three thousand realms in a single moment of life. This principle, the Daishonin says, is found only in the Lotus Sutra, and it was expounded by Shakyamuni Buddha when he originally attained enlightenment. The Daishonin identifies himself as “a disciple of the Buddha in his true identity,” that is, as a Bodhisattva of the Earth.
In closing, the Daishonin advises Ōta to trust in him concerning “this year of danger that you face,” and see whether the promises of Shakyamuni and all the other Buddhas made in the Lotus Sutra to protect its believers are trustworthy.
Notes
3. Eight signs that form the basis of the I-ching, or Book of Changes, and from which sixty-four symbolic hexagrams are derived. Each trigram consists of three lines, each of which may be either yin or yang. According to tradition, a dragon horse rose from the Yellow River with extraordinary markings on its back and a turtle emerged from the Lo River, carrying diagrams on its back. From these markings and diagrams the legendary emperor Fu Hsi derived the eight trigrams.
4. A concept from ancient Chinese cosmology, used to explain the nature of all things including the progress of change in the universe. The five agents are metal, water, wood, fire, and earth. In the cycle of the five phases, each phase is considered to produce the next in the above cycle, and to restrict the one following it in the cycle of wood, earth, water, fire, and metal.
5. Little is known about this scripture.