What It Means to Slander the Law

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If a person has wisdom but lacks a believing heart, he will simply become more and more enmeshed in erroneous views.

What It Means to Slander the Law

Nichiren, the shramana of Japan

Background

THE first section elucidates the causes that lead one to be reborn in the eight great hells. The second section makes clear the gravity of the offenses that lead one to fall into the hell of incessant suffering. The third section uses the dialogue form to clarify various points. The fourth section describes the attitude of mind that should characterize the votary of the Lotus Sutra when he strives to propagate its teachings.

First, to examine the causes that lead one to be reborn in the eight great hells. The first of the eight great hells is called the hell of repeated rebirth for torture. It is situated a thousand yojanas underneath the continent of Jambudvīpa. This hell is ten thousand yojanas in both length and breadth.

The persons being punished in this hell are intent upon doing harm to one another. Once they catch a glimpse of one another, they go after each other like dogs and monkeys, each using iron claws to snatch and tear at his opponent, until all their flesh and blood has been torn away and only bare bones remain. Or else the wardens of hell, taking iron clubs in their hands, pummel the offenders from head to foot until their bodies have been crushed to particles no bigger than grains of sand, or they use sharp knives to hack away the flesh chunk by chunk. But each time all this has happened, the offenders are restored to their original form, being reborn again and again in the same hell.

As to the life span of dwellers in this hell, fifty years of ordinary human life are equivalent to one day and one night in the life span of the four heavenly kings, and the four heavenly kings have a life span of five hundred years. But the five hundred years of the four heavenly kings is equivalent to no more than one day and one night in the life of the sufferers in the hell of repeated rebirth for torture, and they have a life span of five hundred such years.

The action that causes one to be reborn in this hell is the taking of life. Even if one kills no more than a tiny insect such as a mole cricket, an ant, a mosquito, or a gadfly, if one does not repent of the crime, one will invariably fall into this hell, as surely as a needle, no matter how small, will sink if it is placed on the surface of water. And even if one should repent, if one then goes on to commit the same offense again, then it will be very hard for one to escape punishment even though one should repent a second time. It is like the case of a man who has been sent to prison for stealing. Though he may in time be freed by the authorities and allowed to leave prison, if he once more steals and is sent to prison again, it will be very hard for him to get out a second time.

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Question: What about those who understand but do not believe? Are they slanderers of the Law?

Answer: They belong to the first type of persons in the Ganges River.

Question: What scriptural passages can you cite?

Answer: Volume thirty-six of the Nirvana Sutra, speaking of persons of this first type, says: “If a person listens to the Great Nirvana Sutra describing the Buddha who is permanently abiding, knows no change, and enjoys the virtues of eternity, happiness, true self, and purity, and yet in the end that person fails to believe that all living beings alike possess the Buddha nature, he is an icchantika. A person may slander the correct and equal sutras, commit the five cardinal sins, and go against the four grave prohibitions, and yet in the end he will attain enlightenment. Persons who have reached the stage of stream-winner, the stage of the once-returner, the stage of the non-returner, or the stage of arhat,54 and pratyekabuddhas will invariably attain supreme perfect enlightenment. But one who is an icchantika, when he hears these facts expounded, will give way to disbelief in his heart.”

Question: This passage deals with those who do not believe, but it does not say anything about those who understand but do not believe. What passage can you cite that pertains to the latter?

Answer: The passage from the Nirvana Sutra cited above that deals with the first type of person concludes by saying, “If a person has wisdom but lacks a believing heart, he will simply become more and more enmeshed in erroneous views.”

 

Background

Nichiren Daishonin wrote What It Means to Slander the Law in 1262, while in exile in Itō on the Izu Peninsula. In this work he addresses the subject of slander of the Law, an essential issue of Buddhist faith.

Generally speaking, the people of Japan in the Daishonin’s time believed that all the Buddhist teachings represented a single truth, and that no matter what school one followed, if one studied and practiced that “truth,” one could free oneself from the sufferings of birth and death. But the Daishonin declared that those schools that contradicted or rejected the Lotus Sutra, the only sutra in which the Buddha revealed the ultimate truth, were in fact committing slander of the Law.

The present work is divided into four sections. In the first, the Daishonin outlines the nature of, and the causality pertaining to, the eight great hells described in Buddhist scriptures. His intention is to emphasize the degree of suffering in the Avīchi hell, also known as the hell of incessant suffering, and to prevent people from committing slander of the Law, which dooms them to rebirth in this hell.

In the second section, he points out that slander of the Law is far graver than the five cardinal sins that were generally regarded as the major cause for falling into the Avīchi hell.

In the third section, the Daishonin employs a question-and-answer format, and though usually in such cases the “opponent” asks the questions and the Daishonin supplies the answers, in one part the Daishonin acts as the questioner. (In this translation, the shift in perspective is indicated.) The Daishonin defines the act of slander as follows: turning one’s back on the Law, or the correct teaching, hating the Law, or causing others to reject it. Moreover, he explains, “Although one may simply be following the teachings of the sutra that one believes in, if one attempts to use that sutra to refute a sutra that is superior to it, then one will be slandering the Law.”

Next he discusses various aspects of slander. He distinguishes the true teaching from the provisional teachings, in which, as Shakyamuni declared, the truth has not yet been revealed. And he refutes the arguments of the Pure Land and Flower Garland schools that their doctrines do not belong to the category of teachings that have not yet revealed the truth. Then he answers these questions: Why did Shakyamuni expound the provisional teachings, which do not lead to Buddhahood, and why does he himself not preach the provisional teachings as Shakyamuni did? He says that this seeming discrepancy may be explained by the difference in the capacities of the people being instructed.

He concludes that the founders and patriarchs of the various schools have surely fallen into the evil paths because they failed to turn their hearts to the Lotus Sutra. Then, citing the Nirvana Sutra, he warns of the pitfall of allowing oneself to be influenced by erroneous teachers, who are described here as evil friends.

In the fourth section, he refers to what he calls the five guides for propagation—the teaching, the people’s capacity, the time, the country, and the sequence in which the Buddhist teachings are to be propagated—as a guideline that practitioners who aspire to propagate Buddhism should always bear in mind. Among other issues, he discusses what it means to know the teaching. Though the various schools assert that their teachings may differ but that they nevertheless constitute the path to enlightenment, the Daishonin says that if what they insist were true, there would be no slander of the Law, something to which many sutras refer. He demonstrates the superiority of the Lotus Sutra, citing a passage from the Lotus that places it above any other sutra among Shakyamuni’s lifetime teachings. He states that the essential doctrines of the sutra are the attainment of Buddhahood by persons of the two vehicles and Shakyamuni Buddha’s original enlightenment in the remote past, and that these doctrines are not found in any other sutra.

In conclusion, the Daishonin cites a sutra passage describing the mutual possession of the Buddha nature by all living beings, and says that while believing in this and in the true sutra enables one to attain Buddhahood, wisdom without faith in the true sutra characterizes one as an icchantika, or slanderer of the Law.

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Notes

54. A reference to the four stages of Hinayana enlightenment. See Glossary.

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