Therefore, I say to you, my disciples, try practicing as the Lotus Sutra teaches, exerting yourselves without begrudging your lives! Test the truth of Buddhism now! 

The Selection of the Time

Nichiren, disciple of Shakyamuni Buddha

The Great Teacher Dengyō says: “Those who praise him will receive blessings that will pile up as high as Mount Calm and Bright, while those who slander him will be committing a fault that will condemn them to the hell of incessant suffering.”¹⁷¹ And the Lotus Sutra states, “If this person [should slander a sutra such as this], or on seeing those who read, recite, copy, and uphold this sutra, should despise, hate, envy, or bear grudges against them . . . When his life comes to an end he will enter the Avīchi hell.”¹⁷²

If these golden words of Shakyamuni Buddha, the lord of teachings, are true, if the testimony to their truth given by Many Treasures Buddha is not false, and if the sign of assent given by the Buddhas of the ten directions when they extended their tongues is to be trusted, then there can be no doubt that all living beings in Japan at the present time are destined to fall into the hell of incessant suffering.

The eighth volume of the Lotus Sutra says, “In later ages if there are those who accept, uphold, read, and recite this sutra, . . . Their wishes will not be in vain, and in this present existence they will gain the reward of good fortune.”¹⁷³ It also says, “If there is anyone who offers alms to them and praises them, then in this present existence he will have manifest reward for it.”¹⁷⁴

In these two passages are the words “in this present existence they will gain the reward of good fortune” and “in this present existence he will have manifest reward for it.” These two statements in their Chinese original each comprise eight characters. If these sixteen characters are meaningless, and if Nichiren does not receive some great reward in this present life, then these golden words of the Thus Come One will be in the same category as the empty lies of Devadatta, and the testimony of Many Treasures Buddha that guaranteed their truth will be no different from the baseless assertions of Kokālika. Then none of the people who slander the correct teaching will ever be condemned to the Avīchi hell, and the Buddhas of the three existences will not exist! But could such a thing be possible?

Therefore, I say to you, my disciples, try practicing as the Lotus Sutra teaches, exerting yourselves without begrudging your lives! Test the truth of Buddhism now! Nam-myoho-renge-kyo, Nam-myoho-renge-kyo.

Question: In the Lotus Sutra we find this passage “We care nothing for our bodies or lives but are anxious only for the unsurpassed way.”¹⁷⁵ And the Nirvana Sutra says: “For example, it is like a royal envoy skilled in discussion and clever with expedient means who, when sent on a mission to another land, would rather, even though it costs him his life, in the end conceal none of the words of his ruler. Wise persons too do this. In the midst of ordinary people and without begrudging their lives, those who are wise should without fail proclaim the Thus Come One’s prize teaching from the correct and equal sutras of the great vehicle, that is, all living beings possess the Buddha nature.” But under what circumstances should one be prepared to sacrifice one’s life and safety? I would like you to explain the matter to me in detail.

Answer: When I first embarked upon the Buddhist practice, I supposed that the statement “We care nothing for our bodies or lives” meant receiving the imperial command and traveling to China the way men like Dengyō, Kōbō, Jikaku, and Chishō did, or that it meant setting out from China as the Tripitaka Master Hsüan-tsang did, traveling all the way to India, dying six times in the attempt and striving again with each rebirth. Or I thought that it meant throwing away one’s life the way the boy Snow Mountains did in order to learn the second half of a verse, or burning one’s arms as an offering for seventy-two thousand years the way Bodhisattva Medicine King did. But if we go by the passage of scripture that you have quoted, these are not the kind of thing that is meant.

As to this passage in the sutra, “We care nothing for our bodies or lives,” the sutra earlier describes the three types of enemies who will vilify and attack one with swords and staves, and in all likelihood deprive one of life and body. And to understand the passage in the Nirvana Sutra that speaks of carrying out one’s duty “even though it costs him his life,” we should look at the passage later on in the same sutra that says, “There are icchantikas, or persons of incorrigible disbelief. They pretend to be arhats, living in deserted places and speaking slanderously of the correct and equal sutras of the great vehicle. When ordinary people see them, they all suppose that they are true arhats and speak of them as great bodhisattvas.”

Speaking of the third of the three types of enemies, the Lotus Sutra says, “Or there will be forest-dwelling monks wearing clothing of patched rags and living in retirement . . . they will be respected and revered by the world as though they were arhats who possess the six transcendental powers.”¹⁷⁶ And the Parinirvāna Sutra says, “There are also icchantikas who resemble arhats but who commit evil deeds.”

These passages from the sutras speak of powerful enemies of the correct teaching. Such enemies are to be found not so much among evil rulers and evil ministers, among non-Buddhists and devil kings, or among monks who disobey the precepts. Rather they are those great slanderers of the Law who are to be found among the eminent monks who appear to be upholders of the precepts and men of wisdom.

The Great Teacher Miao-lo, speaking of such men, says, “The third [group] is the most formidable of all. This is because the second and third ones are increasingly harder to recognize for what they really are.”¹⁷⁷

The fifth volume of the Lotus Sutra says, “This Lotus Sutra is the secret storehouse of the Buddhas, the Thus Come Ones. Among the sutras, it holds the highest place.”¹⁷⁸ In this passage we should note the words “it holds the highest place.” The phrase comprises four characters in the original. If we are to believe this passage, then we must say that the votary of the Lotus Sutra is one who proclaims the Lotus Sutra to stand supreme above all the other sutras.

Let us suppose now that there are many people who are held in great respect by the ruler, and that these people claim that there are sutras superior to the Lotus Sutra, disputing with the votary of the Lotus Sutra on this point. They enjoy the trust and support of the ruler and his ministers, while the votary of the Lotus Sutra is a person of low station and humble learning; therefore, the whole nation joins in heaping abuse on him. If at that time he conducts himself in the manner of Bodhisattva Never Disparaging or the Scholar Bhadraruchi and continues to assert the superiority of the Lotus Sutra, he will almost certainly lose his life. To practice with such resolve in the face of this threat is the most important thing of all.

Now I, Nichiren, am confronting just such a situation. Though I am a humble man, I have proclaimed that the great teachers Kōbō and Jikaku, the Tripitaka masters Shan-wu-wei, Chin-kang-chih, and Pu-k’ung, and others of their kind are potent enemies of the Lotus Sutra, and that, if the words of the sutra are to be trusted, they have without doubt fallen into the hell of incessant suffering. To proclaim such a thing as this is a very grave step. It would be easier to walk naked into a raging fire, easier to take up Mount Sumeru in one’s hands and toss it away, easier to hoist a great stone on one’s back and walk across the ocean, than to do what I have done. To establish the correct teaching in this country of Japan is indeed a difficult thing.

If Shakyamuni Buddha, the lord of teachings, of the pure land of Eagle Peak, Many Treasures Buddha of the World of Treasure Purity, the Buddhas of the ten directions who are Shakyamuni’s emanations, the bodhisattvas as numerous as the dust particles of a thousand worlds who sprang up out of the earth, Brahmā and Shakra, the gods of the sun and moon, and the four heavenly kings do not, conspicuously or inconspicuously, give me their protection and lend me aid, then they will never know a single day or a single hour of peace and safety!