Nichiren, the shramana of Japan
Background
Nichiren Daishonin completed this work, one of his most important, in the fourth month of 1273, during his exile at Ichinosawa on the island of Sado. It was addressed specifically to Toki Jōnin, a leading disciple who lived in Shimōsa Province, and its cover letter instructed that because it revealed the Daishonin’s ultimate teaching it should be shown to only those with strong faith.
In another of his major works, The Opening of the Eyes, written on Sado Island a year earlier, the Daishonin explains the object of devotion in terms of the Person. He declares that he is endowed with the three virtues of sovereign, teacher, and parent, implying that he is the Buddha of the Latter Day of the Law who leads all people to Buddhahood. In the present work, the Daishonin explains the object of devotion in terms of the Law and declares that the Gohonzon that embodies the Law of Nam-myoho-renge-kyo is the object of devotion in the Latter Day. Faith and practice based on the Gohonzon enable everyone to perceive the Buddha nature in his or her own life and attain Buddhahood.
Four important elements are contained in the full title of this work, The Object of Devotion for Observing the Mind Established in the Fifth Five-Hundred-Year Period after the Thus Come One’s Passing. They are the time, the Buddha’s teaching, the people’s capacity, and the Law. Concerning the time, a Buddha appears in accordance with the deep desire of the people to see him. The time for his advent is defined as the “fifth five-hundred-year period after the Thus Come One’s [Shakyamuni’s] passing.” Concerning the Buddha’s teaching, this is indicated by the word “established.” In establishing the Gohonzon, Nichiren Daishonin, considering the people’s capacity, depicted the essence of the Lotus Sutra, or the Law he perceived. The people’s capacity means that “for observing [the true nature of] the mind.” The Law is indicated by the phrase “the object of devotion.”
Nichiren Daishonin embodied in the object of devotion the state of life he enjoyed as the eternal Buddha so that people could attain the same condition of enlightenment. A description of the Gohonzon in the text includes a depiction of the ceremony of the transmission of the Law: “Myoho-renge-kyo appears in the center of the tower with the Buddhas Shakyamuni and Many Treasures seated to the right and left, and, flanking them, the four bodhisattvas, followers of Shakyamuni, led by Superior Practices”.
The text may be broadly divided into four sections. The first section explains the doctrine of three thousand realms in a single moment of life. The Daishonin elucidates this doctrine by referring to the works of the Great Teacher T’ien-t’ai of China, who based his exposition on the Lotus Sutra, and to the works of other Chinese scholars.
The second section discusses the meaning of “observing the mind.” T’ien-t’ai established a complex practice of meditation as a means to perceive the true nature of one’s own life. This was to observe one’s mind, or to perceive all the three thousand realms in a single moment of one’s own life.
Here the Daishonin proclaims that the practice of observing one’s mind in the Latter Day of the Law is none other than to chant Nam-myoho-renge-kyo with firm faith in the true object of devotion, saying: “Shakyamuni’s practices and the virtues he consequently attained are all contained within the five characters of Myoho-renge-kyo. If we believe in these five characters, we will naturally be granted the same benefits as he was”. This is the principle that embracing the true object of devotion is in itself enlightenment.
The third section describes the Gohonzon, the object of devotion, by classifying the entire body of the Buddhist teachings into three categories: preparation, revelation, and transmission. In terms of the Daishonin’s teachings, preparation includes all the teachings of all Buddhas throughout time and space; revelation is Nam-myoho-renge-kyo, the Law implied in the depths of the “Life Span” chapter; and transmission, the teachings of all Buddhas seen in the light of Nam-myoho-renge-kyo.
The Daishonin asserts that Shakyamuni’s is the Buddhism of the harvest, meaning that he expounded his enlightenment as an effect only, without revealing the cause. The Daishonin’s teaching, however, is called the Buddhism of sowing, for it teaches the cause for attaining enlightenment directly, thus guiding people compassionately in their quest for the ultimate state of life.
In this section, Nichiren Daishonin identifies the object of devotion implied in the “Life Span” chapter as the entity of the Law for propagation in the Latter Day. He states that the Bodhisattvas of the Earth will surely appear in the world to establish this supreme object of devotion.
The fourth section brings the treatise to a close by declaring that the eternal Buddha who appears in the Latter Day of the Law will establish the Gohonzon of Nam-myoho-renge-kyo out of profound compassion for the people of that age, who are ignorant of the principle of three thousand realms in a single moment of life.