The Daimoku of the Lotus Sutra

AM-MYOHO-RENGE-KYO.Question: Is it possible, with-

out understanding the meaning of theLotus Sutra, but merely by chantingthe five or seven characters of Nam-myoho-renge-kyo once a day, once amonth, or simply once a year, once adecade, or once in a lifetime, to avoidbeing drawn into trivial or serious actsof evil, to escape falling into the fourevil paths, and instead to eventuallyreach the stage of non-regression?

Answer: Yes, it is.Question: You may talk about fire,

but unless you put your hand in aflame, you will never burn yourself.You may say “water, water!” but unlessyou actually drink it, you will neversatisfy your thirst. Then how, just bychanting the daimoku of Nam-myoho-renge-kyo without understanding whatit means, can you escape from the evilpaths of existence?

Answer: They say that, if you play akoto strung with a lion’s sinews, thenall the other kinds of strings will snap.And if you so much as hear the words“pickled plum,” your mouth will be-gin to water. Even in everyday lifethere are such wonders, so how muchgreater are the wonders of the LotusSutra!

We are told that parrots, simply bytwittering the four noble truths of the

Hinayana teachings, were able to bereborn in heaven,1 and that men, sim-ply by respecting the three treasures,were able to escape being swallowed bya huge fish.2 How much more effec-tive, then, is the daimoku of the LotusSutra, which is the very heart of allthe eighty thousand sacred teachingsof Buddhism and the eye of all theBuddhas! How can you doubt that bychanting it you can escape from thefour evil paths?

The Lotus Sutra, wherein the Bud-dha honestly discarded expedientmeans, says that one can “gain entrancethrough faith alone.”3 And the NirvanaSutra, which the Buddha preached inthe grove of sal trees on the last dayof his life, states, “Although there areinnumerable practices that lead to en-lightenment, if one teaches faith, thenthat includes all those practices.”

Thus faith is the basic requirementfor entering the way of the Buddha. Inthe fifty-two stages of bodhisattva prac-tice, the first ten stages, dealing withfaith, are basic, and the first of theseten stages is that of arousing pure faith.Though lacking in knowledge of Bud-dhism, a person of faith, even if dull-witted, is to be reckoned as a person ofcorrect views. But even though onehas some knowledge of Buddhism, ifone is without faith, then one is to be

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The Daimoku of the Lotus Sutra

Nichiren, follower of the Great Teacher Kompon [Dengyo]

N

considered a slanderer and an icchan-tika, or person of incorrigible disbelief.

The monk Sunakshatra observed thetwo hundred and fifty precepts, mas-tered the four stages of meditation, andwas versed in all the twelve divisions ofthe scriptures, while Devadatta memo-rized the sixty thousand non-Bud-dhist teachings and the eighty thousandBuddhist teachings, and could manifesteighteen miraculous powers4 with hisbody. And yet it is said that these men,because they had knowledge but nofaith, are now in the great citadel ofthe Avichi hell. Mahakashyapa andShariputra on the other hand lackedknowledge but had faith, and the Bud-dha accordingly predicted that theywould become the Thus Come OnesLight Bright and Flower Glow, re-spectively. The Buddha stated, “If oneshould harbor doubt and fail to be-lieve, one will fall at once into theevil paths.”5 These words refer to thosewho have knowledge but are withoutfaith.

And yet contemporary scholars ask,“How is it possible, simply by chantingNam-myoho-renge-kyo with faith butno understanding, to avoid the evilpaths?” If we accept the words of thesutra, these scholars themselves canhardly avoid falling into the great cita-del of the Avichi hell.

Thus, as we have seen, even thosewho lack understanding, so long asthey chant Nam-myoho-renge-kyo, canavoid the evil paths. This is like lotusflowers, which turn as the sun does,though the lotus has no mind to directit, or like the plantain that grows withthe rumbling of thunder, though thisplant has no ears to hear it.6 Now weare like the lotus or the plantain, and thedaimoku of the Lotus Sutra is like thesun or the thunder.

People say that, if you tie a piece ofliving rhinoceros horn to your bodyand enter the water, the water will notcome within five feet of you.7 They

also say that, if one leaf of the san-dalwood tree unfurls, it can eradicatethe foul odor of the eranda trees fora distance of forty yojanas. In thiscase, our evil karma may be likened tothe eranda trees or the water, and thedaimoku of the Lotus Sutra may belikened to the rhinoceros horn or thesandalwood leaf.

Diamonds are so hard that almost nosubstance will cut them, and yet theycan be cut by a sheep’s horn or a tur-tle’s shell. The limbs of the nyagrodha8

tree are so stout that the largest birdscan perch on them without breakingthem, and yet they are vulnerable tothe tailorbird,9 which is so tiny it couldalmost build its nest on the eyelashes ofa mosquito. Here, our evil karma isanalogous to the diamond or the nya-grodha tree, and the daimoku of theLotus Sutra, to the sheep’s horn or thetailorbird. Amber draws dust, and amagnet attracts iron particles; here ourevil karma is like the dust or iron, andthe daimoku of the Lotus Sutra is likethe amber or the magnet. If we con-sider these [analogies, we can see why]we should always chant Nam-myoho-renge-kyo.

The first volume of the Lotus Sutrastates, “Throughout incalculable, innu-merable kalpas it is rare that one mayhear this Law.”10 And the fifth volumesays, “As for this Lotus Sutra, through-out immeasurable numbers of landsone cannot even hear its name.”11 Thusit is an extremely rare thing to hear thename of the Lotus Sutra. Though theBuddhas Sushanta12 and Many Trea-sures made their appearance in theworld, they did not utter so much asthe name of the Lotus Sutra. Andthough the Thus Come One Shakya-muni made his advent expressly for thepurpose of preaching the Lotus Sutra,he kept the name of that sutra a secretand never referred to it for a period offorty-two years. It was only when hereached the age of seventy-two that he

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THE DAIMOKU OF THE LOTUS SUTRA

first began to intone Myoho-renge-kyo, the daimoku of the sutra. How-ever, the people of faraway countriessuch as China and Japan were unable tohear of it at that time. It was over athousand years before China heard somuch as the name of the sutra, andanother three hundred and fifty ormore years before it was heard in Japan.

Thus, encountering this sutra is asrare as the blossoming of the udumbaraflower, which occurs but once in threethousand years, or the one-eyed turtlefinding a floating piece of sandalwood,which happens only once in innumer-able, boundless kalpas.

Suppose one were to place a needlein the earth point up and throw downtiny mustard seeds at it from the palaceof the great king Brahma in the heav-ens. One could sooner impale a mus-tard seed on the point of a needle inthis way than encounter the daimokuof the Lotus Sutra. Or suppose onewere to place a needle upright on topof the Mount Sumeru in one worldand then, standing atop the MountSumeru of another world on a verywindy day, were to try to cast a threadso that it reached the other mountainand passed through the eye of the nee-dle. One could sooner thread a needlein this way than encounter the dai-moku of the Lotus Sutra.

Therefore, when you chant thedaimoku of this sutra, you should beaware that it is a more joyful thing thanfor one who was born blind to gainsight and see one’s father and mother,and a rarer thing than for a man whohas been seized by a powerful enemy tobe released and reunited with his wifeand children.

Question: What passages of proofcan be cited to show that one shouldchant only the daimoku?

Answer: The eighth volume of theLotus Sutra of the Wonderful Lawstates that one who accepts and up-holds the mere name of the Lotus Sutra

will enjoy immeasurable good fortune.The Lotus Sutra of the Correct Lawsays that, if one hears this sutra andproclaims and embraces its title, onewill enjoy merit beyond measure. Andthe Supplemented Lotus Sutra of theWonderful Law says that one whoaccepts and upholds the name of theLotus Sutra will enjoy immeasurablegood fortune. These statements indi-cate that the good fortune one receivesfrom simply chanting the daimoku isbeyond measure.

To accept, uphold, read, recite, takedelight in, and protect all the eightvolumes and twenty-eight chapters ofthe Lotus Sutra is called the compre-hensive practice. To accept, uphold, andprotect the “Expedient Means” chapterand the “Life Span” chapter is calledthe abbreviated practice. And simplyto chant one four-phrase verse or thedaimoku, and to protect those whodo so, is called the essential practice.Hence, among these three kinds of prac-tice, comprehensive, abbreviated, andessential, the daimoku is defined as theessential practice.

Question: How great are the bless-ings contained within the five charac-ters of Myoho-renge-kyo?

Answer: The great ocean contains allthe numerous rivers that flow into it,the great earth contains all sentient andinsentient beings, the wish-grantingjewel is capable of showering down in-numerable treasures, and the heavenlyking Brahma rules over all the three-fold world. The five characters ofMyoho-renge-kyo are comparable tothese. All beings of the nine worlds, aswell as those in the world of Buddha-hood, are contained within them. Andsince all beings of the Ten Worlds arecontained within them, so are theirenvironments.

Let us first examine the fact that thefive characters, Myoho-renge-kyo, con-tain within them all teachings. The sin-gle character kyo, or “sutra,” is the king

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of all sutras, and all the other sutras areencompassed by it. The Buddha ap-peared in the world and over a periodof fifty years preached eighty thousandsacred teachings. At that time the lifespan of human beings is said to havebeen one hundred years. The Buddhapassed away in the middle of the nighton the fifteenth day of the secondmonth of the year with the cyclical signmizunoe-saru.13 Thereafter, during someninety days of summer, or the periodfrom the eighth day of the fourth monthuntil the fifteenth day of the seventhmonth of the same year, one thousandarhats gathered at the compilation halland set down all the sutras.

After that, during the one thousandyears of the Former Day of the Law, allthese various sutras spread throughoutthe five regions of India, but they didnot reach as far as China. It was only inthe fifteenth year of the Middle Day ofthe Law [, years after the Buddha’spassing] that Buddhist sutras were firstintroduced to China. This was in theyear with the cyclical sign hinoto-u, thetenth year of the Yung-p’ing era (C.E.) in the reign of Emperor Ming ofthe Later Han dynasty. From that timeuntil the year with the cyclical signkanoe-uma, the eighteenth year of theK’ai-yüan era (C.E. ) in the reign ofEmperor Hsüan-tsung of the T’angdynasty, a total of translators wentover to China, taking with them ,sutras, works on discipline, and treatisescomprising , volumes containedin scroll cases. All of these sacredwritings are followers of the singlecharacter kyo of the Lotus Sutra.

Among the sutras that the Buddhapreached during the more than fortyyears before he expounded the LotusSutra, there is one called the Great andVast Buddha Flower Garland Sutra.This sutra is preserved in the dragonking’s palace in three versions. The firstversion contains as many chapters asthe dust particles of ten major world

systems. The second version contains, verses, and the third versioncontains , verses in forty-eightchapters. Outside of these three ver-sions, only the smaller texts such asthe eighty-volume and sixty-volumeversions14 are preserved in China andJapan.

In addition, there are the HinayanaAgama sutras, and the various Maha-yana sutras of the Correct and Equaland the Wisdom periods. Among thelatter, the Sanskrit text of the Ma-havairochana Sutra devotes a total ofthirty-five hundred verses simply to theexplanation of the five characters of themantra avarahakha,15 to say nothing ofthe countless verses it uses to describethe seeds, august forms, and samayas16

of the various honored ones. In China,however, the text exists in a mere six-or seven-volume form. The NirvanaSutra, which the Buddha preached inthe sal grove on his last day, is pre-served in China in a version that isonly forty volumes long, though in thiscase, too, the Sanskrit versions of thetext have many more volumes. Allthese various sutras are followers of theLotus Sutra, the most profound teach-ing of the Thus Come One Shakya-muni. In addition, all the sutras ex-pounded by the seven Buddhas of thepast,17 the thousand Buddhas, or theBuddhas of countless kalpas ago, as wellas those expounded by the Buddhaspresently living in the ten directions,are followers of the single character kyoof the Lotus Sutra.

Thus, in the “Medicine King” chap-ter of the Lotus Sutra, the Buddha ad-dresses Bodhisattva Constellation KingFlower, saying that, just as the ocean isforemost among all the rivers, streams,and other bodies of water, just asMount Sumeru is foremost among allthe mountains, and just as the moon isforemost among the heavenly bodies,[so the Lotus Sutra is likewise amongall the sutras]. The Great Teacher

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Miao-lo says in his commentary thatthe Lotus Sutra is “foremost among allthe sutras preached in the past, nowbeing preached, or to be preached inthe future.”18

Within this single character kyo arecontained all the sutras in the worldsthroughout the ten directions. It is likethe wish-granting jewel that containswithin it all manner of treasures, or thevastness of space that encompasses allphenomena. And because this singlecharacter kyo of Myoho-renge-kyo isthe supreme achievement of the Bud-dha’s lifetime of teaching, the otherfour characters, Myo-ho-ren-ge, like-wise surpass all the other eighty thou-sand doctrines that the Buddha taught.

Coming now to the character myo,the Lotus Sutra says, “This sutra opensthe gate of expedient means and showsthe form of true reality.”19 The GreatTeacher Chang-an states, “Myo meansto reveal the depths of the secret store-house.”20 The Great Teacher Miao-losays of this, “To reveal means toopen.”21 Hence the character myo meansto open.

If there is a storehouse full of trea-sures but no key, then it cannot beopened, and if it cannot be opened,then the treasures inside cannot beseen. The Buddha preached the FlowerGarland Sutra, but he did not thereinexpound the key to open this sutra.Likewise, in the more than forty yearsthat followed, he preached the sutras ofthe Agama, Correct and Equal, andWisdom periods as well as the Medita-tion Sutra, but he did not reveal theirmeaning. Their doors remained closed,and therefore no one could understandthese sutras. Even though peoplethought they understood, their under-standing was in fact distorted.

But then the Buddha preached theLotus Sutra and in this way opened thestorehouses of the sutras. And for thefirst time in more than forty years, allthe people of the nine worlds were able

to view the treasures that lay within.To give an analogy, even though thereare people and animals, plants and treeson the earth, without the light of thesun or moon, even those with goodeyes cannot make out their shapes andcolors. It is when the sun or moonrises that one can discern for the firsttime what these things really look like.The sutras that preceded the LotusSutra were shrouded in the darknessof a long night, and the essential andtheoretical teachings of the Lotus Sutrawere like the sun and moon.

Among the bodhisattvas with theirtwo good eyes, the cross-eyed peopleof the two vehicles, ordinary peoplewith their blind eyes, or icchantikaswho have been blind since birth, therewere none who could make out thetrue color or shape of things by meansof the earlier sutras. But when theLotus Sutra was preached and themoon of the theoretical teaching cameforth, first the bodhisattvas with theirtwo good eyes gained enlightenment,and then the cross-eyed people of thetwo vehicles. Next the blind eyes ofordinary people were opened, and theneven icchantikas, who had been blindfrom birth, were able to establish arelationship with the Lotus Sutra thatassured them that their eyes would oneday open. All this was due entirely tothe virtue of the single character myo.

There are two myo, or mystic, prin-ciples expounded in the Lotus Sutra,one in the first fourteen chapters,which constitute the theoretical teach-ing, and one in the latter fourteenchapters, which constitute the essentialteaching.22 From another point of view,there are twenty mystic principles,23

ten in the theoretical teaching and tenin the essential teaching; or there aresixty mystic principles,24 thirty in thetheoretical teaching and thirty in theessential teaching. From yet otherpoints of view, forty mystic principles25

may be discerned in each half of the

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Lotus Sutra. By adding these to theforty mystic principles concerning theobservation of the mind,26 the singlecharacter myo will be found to containfully one hundred and twenty myo, ormystic, principles.

One fundamental myo, or mystic,principle underlies every one of the, characters that make up theLotus Sutra. Hence the Lotus Sutracomprises a total of , mystic prin-ciples.

Myo in India is rendered as sad, andin China, as miao. Myo means to befully endowed, which in turn has themeaning of “perfect and full.” Eachword and each character of the LotusSutra contains within it all the ,characters that compose the sutra. Toillustrate, one drop of the great oceancontains within it the waters of allthe various rivers that flow into theocean, and a single wish-granting jew-el, though no bigger than a mustardseed, is capable of showering down thetreasures that one could wish for withall the wish-granting jewels.

To give another analogy, plants andtrees are withered and bare in autumnand winter, but when the sun of springand summer shines on them, they putforth branches and leaves, and thenflowers and fruit. Before the preachingof the Lotus Sutra, the people in thenine worlds were like plants and treesin autumn and winter. But when thesingle character myo of the Lotus Sutrashone on them like the spring andsummer sun, then the flower of the as-piration for enlightenment blossomed,and the fruit of Buddhahood or rebirthin the pure land emerged.

Bodhisattva Nagarjuna in his Treatiseon the Great Perfection of Wisdom says,“[The Lotus Sutra is] like a great phy-sician who can change poison intomedicine.” This quotation occurs ina passage in Great Perfection of Wisdomthat explains the virtues inherent inthe character myo of the Lotus Sutra.

The Great Teacher Miao-lo remarks,“Because it can cure what is thought tobe incurable, it is called myo, or won-derful.”27

In general, there are four kinds ofpeople who have great difficulty in at-taining Buddhahood or rebirth in thepure land. First are those predestined forthe two vehicles,28 second are icchan-tikas, third are those who cling to thedoctrine of void,29 and fourth are thosewho slander the Law. But through theLotus Sutra, all of these people are ableto become Buddhas. That is why theLotus Sutra is called myo.

Devadatta was the eldest son of KingDronodana and a nephew of KingShuddhodana [the father of the Bud-dha Shakyamuni], which made him theBuddha’s cousin. He was also the elderbrother of the Buddha’s disciple, theVenerable Ananda. He was thus by nomeans a person of low station in thesouthern continent, Jambudvipa. Hebecame a disciple of the monk Sudaya30

and entered the religious life. From theVenerable Ananda he learned the eigh-teen miraculous powers, and he com-mitted to memory the sixty thousandteachings of the non-Buddhist schoolsand the eighty thousand teachings ofBuddhism. He observed the five asceticpractices31 and appeared almost moresaintly than the Buddha himself. Think-ing to make himself a leader like theBuddha, he dared to commit the crimeof disrupting the Buddhist Order byestablishing his own ordination platformon Mount Gayashirsha32 and inviting theBuddha’s disciples over to his side. Heconfided to Crown Prince Ajatashatru:“I intend to kill the Buddha and becomethe new Buddha. You must kill yourfather, the king [Bimbisara], and be-come the new king in his place!”

After Crown Prince Ajatashatru hadin fact killed his father, Devadatta keptwatch on the Buddha’s activities andwith a large stone caused his blood toflow. He also struck and killed the nun

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Utpalavarna who had reached the stateof arhat. Thus he committed fully threeof the five cardinal sins.

In addition, with the VenerableKokalika as his disciple and King Ajata-shatru as his patron, Devadatta began toattract followers from everywhere, untilthroughout the five regions of Indiawith its sixteen great states, five hun-dred middle-sized states, and ten thou-sand small states, every soul guilty ofone, two, or three of the cardinal sinswas a member of his group. They gath-ered about him as the various riversgather in the great ocean, or as plantsand trees gather on a great mountain.As the wise gathered about Shariputra,and those with transcendental powersflocked to Maudgalyayana, so did evilpersons throw in their lot with Deva-datta.

As a result, the great earth, which is, yojanas thick and rests on awindy circle33 as hard as a diamond,nevertheless split open, plunging Deva-datta alive into the great citadel of thehell of incessant suffering. His leadingdisciple Kokalika also fell into hell alive,as did the Brahman’s daughter Chincha,King Virudhaka, and the monk Sunak-shatra. Moreover, the people of Indiawith its five regions and sixteen greatstates, five hundred middle-sized states,and ten thousand small states all ob-served this. Those in the six heavensof the world of desire and in the fourmeditation heavens, all beings in boththe worlds of form and formlessness,34

including Brahma, Shakra, the devilking of the sixth heaven, and KingYama, likewise witnessed their fate.

All the beings throughout the majorworld system and the worlds of the tendirections heard about this, and unani-mously concluded that, even though asmany kalpas should pass as there aredust particles of the land, Devadatta andthe others would never escape from thegreat citadel of the hell of incessant suf-fering, and that, though the stone that

marks the duration of a kalpa might beworn completely away, they would con-tinue to suffer in the Avichi hell. Howastounding, then, that in the “Devadat-ta” chapter of the Lotus Sutra Shakya-muni Buddha should reveal that Deva-datta was his teacher in a past existenceand should predict that he would attainenlightenment in the future as a ThusCome One called Heavenly King! If thesutras preached before the Lotus Sutraare true, then the Lotus Sutra mustbe an outrageous lie. But if the LotusSutra is true, then the previous sutrasmust be guilty of perpetrating the wild-est deceptions.

If Devadatta, who committed threeof the five cardinal sins and in additionwas guilty of countless other grave of-fenses, could become the Thus ComeOne Heavenly King, then there can beno doubt that the other evildoers whocommitted only one or two of the car-dinal sins will surely attain the way aswell. For if the great earth itself couldbe overturned, then the plants andtrees on it would as a matter of coursebe overturned. And if one can crushthe hardest stone, one can certainlybend the pliant grasses. Therefore, theLotus Sutra is called myo.

Coming now to the subject ofwomen, we find that they are stronglycondemned in both the Buddhist andnon-Buddhist writings. The worksknown as the Three Records and the FiveCanons of the Three Sovereigns andFive Emperors of ancient China depictthem as fawning and crooked. For thisreason, disaster is said to have comeabout because of the three women ofantiquity.35 Thus women are identifiedas the cause of the downfall of a nationand its people.

The Flower Garland Sutra, the firstgreat teaching that the Buddha preach-ed following his enlightenment, states,“Women are messengers of hell whocan destroy the seeds of Buddhahood.They may look like bodhisattvas, but at

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heart they are like yaksha demons.”36

The Nirvana Sutra, the Buddha’s lastteaching that he delivered in the groveof sal trees, says, “All rivers and streamsare invariably winding and devious, andall women are invariably fawning andcrooked.” It also says, “If all the desiresand delusions of all the men through-out the major world system werelumped together, they would be nogreater than the karmic impediment ofone single woman.”

When the Flower Garland Sutra saysthat women “can destroy the seedsof Buddhahood,” it means that theyscorch and burn the seeds that wouldotherwise allow them to become Bud-dhas. When clouds mass in the sky ina time of great drought and heavyrain falls to earth, then countless with-ered plants and trees everywhere willput forth blossoms and bear fruit. Butthis is not true of seeds that havebeen scorched. They will never sprout;rather the heavy rain makes them rot.

Now the Buddha is like the massesof clouds, his teachings are like theheavy rain, and the withered plants andtrees are like all living beings. Whenthey are watered by the rain of theBuddhist teachings and observe the fiveprecepts, the ten good precepts, andthe meditational practices, all of whichbring merit, they will put forth blos-soms and bear fruit. The scorchedseeds that never sprout even though therain falls on them, but instead rot, arecomparable to women, who, thoughthey encounter the Buddhist teachings,cannot free themselves from the suffer-ings of birth and death, but insteadturn away from the truth of Buddhismand fall into the evil paths. This is whatthe sutra means when it says thatwomen “can destroy the seeds of Bud-dhahood.”

The passage in the Nirvana Sutracited above says that, just as all riversand streams twist and wind, so too arewomen perverse and devious. Because

water is a pliant substance, when itspath is blocked by some hard objectsuch as a rock or a mountain, it willsplit into two streams or turn aside,flowing now this way, now that. Wom-en are the same; their minds are softand weak. Though they may believethat a certain course is right, if theycome up against the strong will of aman and find their way blocked, thenthey will turn in some direction quitedifferent from the one they originallyintended.

Again, though you may trace pic-tures on the surface of the water, noth-ing of what you have drawn willremain. Women are the same, for lackof steadfastness is their basic character.Hence they will think a certain way atone moment, and then a moment laterhave quite a different view. But thebasic character of a Buddha is honestyand straightforwardness. Hence wom-en, with their devious ways, can neverbecome Buddhas.

Women are doomed to the five ob-stacles and the three types of obedi-ence. Hence the Silver-Colored Wom-an Sutra says that, even if the eyesof the Buddhas of the three existenceswere to fall to the ground, no womancould ever attain Buddhahood. GreatPerfection of Wisdom says that one couldsooner catch the wind than grasp themind of a woman.

Yet though all female beings wereso despised in the various sutras, whenBodhisattva Manjushri spoke the singlecharacter myo, a woman was instantlyable to become a Buddha. So extraor-dinary was this occurrence that Bodhi-sattva Wisdom Accumulated, the fore-most disciple of the Buddha ManyTreasures in the World of TreasurePurity, and the Venerable Shariputra,who was known among the ThusCome One Shakyamuni’s disciples asthe foremost in wisdom, protested.They said that, according to all theMahayana and Hinayana sutras that the

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Buddha had preached in the previousforty years and more, the dragon king’sdaughter could not possibly become aBuddha. And yet in the end their argu-ments were of no avail, and in fact shedid become a Buddha.

Thus the passage in the Buddha’sfirst sutra declaring that women “candestroy the seeds of Buddhahood,” andthat in his final sermon in the sal groveabout how “all rivers and streams areinvariably winding and devious,” wereutterly contradicted, and the viewsreflected in the Silver-Colored WomanSutra and Great Perfection of Wisdomwere proven to be nonsense. WisdomAccumulated and Shariputra wereobliged to still their tongues and shuttheir mouths, while all the human andheavenly beings present at the greatgathering where the Lotus Sutra waspreached pressed their palms togetherin an excess of joy. All this was dueentirely to the virtue of the single char-acter myo.

In this southern continent of Jam-budvipa there are twenty-five hundredrivers, and every single one of themis winding. They are devious like theminds of the women of Jambudvipa.And yet there is one river called theSahaya37 that follows a course as straightas a taut rope, flowing directly into thewestern sea. A woman who has faith inthe Lotus Sutra will be like this river,proceeding directly to the Pure Landin the west.38 Such is the virtue inher-ent in the single character myo.

Myo means to revive, that is, toreturn to life. For example, it is saidthat, though the chick of a yellowcrane may die, if the mother crane callsthe name of Tzu-an,39 then the deadchick will come back to life. Or, in thecase of the fish and shellfish that havebeen killed because a poisonous birdcalled a chen40 has entered the water, itis said that, if they are touched witha rhinoceros horn, they will all bebrought back to life. Similarly, persons

of the two vehicles, icchantikas, andwomen were described in the sutrasthat preceded the Lotus Sutra as hav-ing scorched and killed the seeds thatwould have allowed them to becomeBuddhas. But by holding fast to thissingle character myo, they can revivethese scorched seeds of Buddhahood.

T’ien-t’ai says: “The icchantikas, orpersons of incorrigible disbelief, never-theless have minds, and so it is stillpossible for them to attain Buddhahood.But persons of the two vehicles haveannihilated consciousness, and there-fore cannot arouse the mind that aspiresto enlightenment. And yet the LotusSutra can cure them, which is why it iscalled myo, or wonderful.”41 Miao-losays: “The reason that the other sutrasare called ‘great’ but not myo is simplythat it is easy to cure those who have amind, but difficult to cure those whoare without a mind. Because it [theLotus Sutra] can cure what is thoughtto be incurable, it is called myo, or won-derful.”42

These passages refer to the fact thatsutras such as the Great and Vast Bud-dha Flower Garland Sutra, the GreatCollection Sutra, the Great Perfectionof Wisdom Sutra, and the Great Nir-vana Sutra all have the character “great”in their titles but not the character myo,or wonderful. This is because they canonly cure the living but are unable tocure the dead. The Lotus Sutra, how-ever, can cure the dead as well as theliving, and therefore it has the charac-ter myo in its title [Myoho-renge-kyo].

Thus, with the other sutras, personswho should by rights become Buddhascannot do so. But with the Lotus Sutra,even those who would ordinarily findit impossible to do so can attain Bud-dhahood, not to mention those forwhom it is relatively easy. This beingthe case, in the time since the LotusSutra was preached, there ought not tobe a single person who adheres to theother sutras.

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Now the two thousand years of theFormer and Middle Days of the Lawhave passed, and we have entered theLatter Day of the Law. In such an age,it is a hundred, thousand, ten thousand,million times more difficult for ordinarypeople to attain Buddhahood or rebirthin the pure land than it was for even thepersons of the two vehicles or icchan-tikas who lived when the Buddha wasalive. And yet people nowadays thinkthat, by relying on the Meditation Sutraor some other of the sutras preached inthe more than forty years before theLotus Sutra, they can escape the suffer-ings of birth and death. How futile, howutterly futile!

Women, whether they live at thetime of the Buddha or in the Former,Middle, or Latter Day of the Law, can-not attain Buddhahood through anyteaching but the Lotus Sutra. None ofthe other sutras expounded by any ofthe Buddhas anywhere can help them.The Great Teacher T’ien-t’ai Chih-che, who heard the Buddha’s teachingsat Eagle Peak43 and later attained anawakening in the place of meditation,has stated unequivocally, “The othersutras only predict Buddhahood . . . formen, but not for women; . . . This sutrapredicts Buddhahood for all.”44

The Thus Come One Shakyamuni,in the presence of Many TreasuresBuddha and the Buddhas of the tendirections, preached the Lotus Sutraover a period of eight years at the placecalled Eagle Peak northeast of Raja-griha in the kingdom of Magadha.The Great Teacher [T’ien-t’ai] Chih-che was present and heard him preach.“During my fifty years of teaching,”said the Buddha, “I have preachedvarious sacred doctrines, all in orderto bring benefit to living beings. Inthe sutras of the first forty-two years,I taught that it was not possible forwomen to attain Buddhahood. Butnow with the Lotus Sutra, I declarethat women can become Buddhas.”

Northeast of Eagle Peak, at a dis-tance of some , ri beyond themountains and seas, there is a countrycalled Mahachina [in Sanskrit]. Weknow it as China. Some fifteen hun-dred years after the Buddha’s passing,there appeared in this country a mes-senger of the Buddha called the GreatTeacher T’ien-t’ai Chih-che, who de-clared that women could never attainBuddhahood through any teachingother than the Lotus Sutra.

Three thousand ri to the east ofChina, there is a country called Japan.Some two hundred years after theGreat Teacher T’ien-t’ai passed away,he was reborn in this country andbore the name of the Great TeacherDengyo.45 He then wrote a work en-titled The Outstanding Principles of theLotus Sutra in which he stated: “Nei-ther teacher nor disciples need undergocountless kalpas of austere practice inorder to attain Buddhahood. Throughthe power of the Lotus Sutra of theWonderful Law they can do so in theirpresent form.” Thus he made clearwhy the dragon king’s daughter wasable to become a Buddha.

It may seem somewhat difficult forwomen of the age we live in to attainBuddhahood in their present form. Butif they put their trust in the LotusSutra, there is no doubt that they willbe reborn in the Pure Land of PerfectBliss. They will reach it more readilythan the rivers and streams flowing intothe great ocean, or more swiftly thanthe rain falling from the sky.

And yet we find that the womenthroughout Japan do not chant Nam-myoho-renge-kyo. Instead they puttheir faith in works such as the Two-Volumed Sutra or the Meditation Su-tra, which can never lead women tothe pure land or to Buddhahood. Theyintone the name of the Buddha Amidasixty thousand or a hundred thousandtimes a day. Amida is indeed the nameof a Buddha, and to invoke it would

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seem to be a laudable practice. But be-cause the women who do so are rely-ing upon sutras that can never leadwomen to Buddhahood or to rebirthin the pure land, they are in effectmerely counting other people’s riches.This comes about solely because theyare led astray by evil teachers. All thewomen of Japan face an enemy morefearful than tigers or wolves, mountainbandits or pirates at sea, their parents’foes or their husbands’ concubines.Their real enemies are those who, in-stead of teaching them the Lotus Sutra,teach them the Nembutsu.

Only after chanting Nam-myoho-renge-kyo sixty thousand, a hundredthousand, or even ten million times aday, may women who put their faith inthe Lotus Sutra, if they still have sometime to spare, now and then murmurto themselves the name of Amida orone of the other Buddhas. But womenthese days spend their whole lives con-stantly reciting the name of Amida andbusying themselves with matters con-cerning the Nembutsu. They neverrecite the Lotus Sutra or give alms forits sake. True, there are a few who havethe Lotus Sutra read by those whouphold its teachings. But they look upto the Nembutsu priests as though they

were their parents or brothers, and treatthe upholders of the Lotus Sutra withless respect than they would theirretainers or followers. And yet theyclaim that they are believers in theLotus Sutra.

By contrast, Lady Pure Virtue gavepermission for her sons, the twoprinces, to enter the Buddhist Orderand encouraged them to propagate theLotus Sutra. Moreover, the dragonking’s daughter took a vow, saying, “Iunfold the doctrines of the great vehi-cle to rescue living beings from suffer-ing.”46 These women surely took novow to practice only the teachings ofthe other sutras and to neglect thepractice of the Lotus Sutra. Neverthe-less, that is what the women of todaydo, paying all their attention to thepractice of other sutras and none tothat of the Lotus Sutra. You mustreform your thinking immediately.Nam-myoho-renge-kyo, Nam-myoho-renge-kyo.

Nichiren

Completed at the hour of the sheep(:–: P.M.) at Seicho-ji templeon the sixth day of the first monthin the third year of Bun’ei (),cyclical sign hinoe-tora.

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Background

This letter was written in the firstmonth, , for a woman of advancedyears. Nothing is known about herother than that she was a new believerin Nichiren Daishonin’s Buddhism andlived in Amatsu of Awa Province. Thisletter explains in plain terms the re-wards of the simple practice of Nam-myoho-renge-kyo by saying that thisphrase and its components contain allthe powers of the Buddha, and that onewho chants it can tap all the benefits of

Buddhism and thus revitalize one’s life.In the fall of , one year after he

had been pardoned from his exile inIzu, Nichiren Daishonin returned tohis birthplace in Awa Province. Newsof his mother’s grave illness and thelessening of official pressures promptedhis decision to return home. However,Tojo Kagenobu, the steward of this dis-trict and a passionate believer in theNembutsu, was still incensed over theDaishonin’s refutation of the Pure Land

teachings eleven years earlier and waslying in wait for him.

The Daishonin’s primary concernwas to visit his mother, and their re-union seems to have had a great effectupon her and she quickly recovered.Kudo Yoshitaka and the other disciplesin the area were anxious to see himand urged him to visit Kudo’s manor.On the eleventh day of the eleventhmonth, , accompanied by messen-gers sent to guide them, the group setout. When they reached a place knownas Komatsubara, they were ambushedby Tojo Kagenobu and his Nembutsufollowers. Kudo, who came rushing tothe Daishonin’s aid, and another dis-ciple lost their lives. The Daishoninsuffered a sword slash on his foreheadand had his left hand broken.

At considerable personal risk, theDaishonin remained in Awa from through and conducted vigorouspropagation activities, working withand among the people. In , theDaishonin stayed for a while at hisold temple, Seicho-ji, where he wroteseveral doctrinal treatises, including thepresent letter.

This letter consists of two sections.In the first section, the Daishoninaddresses the question of whether ornot one can benefit from chantingthe daimoku (Nam-myoho-renge-kyo)without understanding the meaning ofthe Lotus Sutra, and stresses the neces-sity of faith in attaining Buddhahood.

Citing the examples of Mahakashyapaand Shariputra, he states that, evenwithout understanding, one can eradi-cate any evil karma and accumulateboundless benefit, as long as one car-ries out the practice of chanting thedaimoku with firm faith.

In the second section, the Daishoninclarifies the great blessings contained inthe five characters of Myoho-renge-kyo, the title of the Lotus Sutra. Heexplains three meanings of the charac-ter myo: to open, to be fully endowed,and to revive. Finally, he states thatonly the Lotus Sutra enables women toattain Buddhahood, and urges therecipient of this letter to chant Nam-myoho-renge-kyo and forsake her at-tachment to the Nembutsu.

At the beginning of this letter, theDaishonin calls himself a “follower ofthe Great Teacher Kompon.” Kompon,meaning fundamental, is another namefor the Great Teacher Dengyo. He wasthe founder of the Japanese Tendaischool, which he based on the teach-ings of T’ien-t’ai of China. He traveledto China to master T’ien-t’ai’s doc-trines and, after returning to Japan,repudiated all the schools based on theBuddha’s provisional teachings and de-voted himself to propagating the Lo-tus Sutra. The phrase “follower of theGreat Teacher Kompon” implies thatthe Daishonin is the legitimate succes-sor to the Buddha’s teaching containedin the Lotus Sutra.

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Notes1. This story appears in the Sutra on the

Wise and the Foolish. According to thesutra, while Shakyamuni was staying atShravasti, his disciple Ananda one daytaught the four noble truths to two parrotskept at the house of the Buddha’s patronSudatta. That evening, an animal attackedand ate them, but they were said to havebeen reborn in the heaven of the fourheavenly kings because of the benefit ob-tained by repeating the four noble truths.

2. This story appears in the Great Com-passion Sutra. According to the sutra, oncewhen a merchant was sailing the ocean, ahuge fish called a makara was about toswallow up his ship. Although the otherpeople aboard were in despair, he fixed hismind upon the three treasures and calledupon the mercy of all the Buddhas. Seeinghim, the others joined him in sincereprayers with their palms joined, and themakara ceased attacking them.

3. Lotus Sutra, chap. .4. The eighteen miraculous powers are

a variety of actions and appearances thatBuddhas and bodhisattvas manifest in orderto lead people to enlightenment. Explana-tions vary depending on the sutra.

5. Lotus Sutra, chap. .6. The Nirvana Sutra says, “Though the

plantain grows with the rumbling of thun-der, it has neither the ears to hear it nor themind to feel it.” The sight of plantainsrefreshed after a thundershower may wellhave given rise to the belief that “the plan-tain grows with the rumbling of thunder.”

7. According to Pao-p’u Tzu, when putinto the water, a rhinoceros horn madeinto the form of a fish keeps the wateraway by three feet.

8. The banyan tree, which is found intropical and subtropical Asiatic regions,usually around thirty to forty feet tall. Itsabundant foliage offers cool shade from thesun.

9. An imaginary bird. It is also said tobe the name of a kind of worm. Thesource of this passage has not been traced.

10. Lotus Sutra, chap. .11. Ibid, chap. .12. A Buddha mentioned in the Larger

Wisdom Sutra and The Treatise on the GreatPerfection of Wisdom.

13. According to The Record of Wondersin the Book of Chou, Shakyamuni died onthe fifteenth day of the second month inthe fifty-second year of the reign of KingMu ( B.C.E.) of the Chou dynasty.

14. The eighty-volume Flower GarlandSutra, called the new translation, was trans-lated by Shikshananda (–) in theT’ang dynasty, and the sixty-volume FlowerGarland Sutra, called the old translation,was translated by Buddhabhadra (–)in the Eastern Chin dynasty.

15. The five characters of a, va, ra, ha,and kha indicate, respectively, the five uni-versal elements of earth, water, fire, wind,and space. The esoteric True Word schoolholds this to be one of the secret truthsrevealed by Mahavairochana Buddha. Thisone word was used as a mantra (secret wordor syllable) and was said to express theBuddha’s quality, wisdom, appearance, andpractice.

16. The seeds refer here to Sanskritorthographic symbols used to representvarious Buddhas and bodhisattvas in theesoteric teaching. The samayas are various

attributes of Buddhas and bodhisattvas, inparticular, their vows to lead all people tosupreme enlightenment. The term is oftenused in the esoteric teaching.

17. The seven Buddhas of the past areShakyamuni and the six Buddhas who pre-ceded him.

18. The Annotations on “The Words andPhrases of the Lotus Sutra.”

19. Lotus Sutra, chap. .20. Preface by Chang-an to The Pro-

found Meaning of the Lotus Sutra.21. The Annotations on “The Profound

Meaning of the Lotus Sutra.”22. The mystic principle of the theoreti-

cal teaching is that the Buddha discards theprovisional teachings and reveals the trueteaching, the Lotus Sutra, which allowspeople of the two vehicles to attain Bud-dhahood. The mystic principle of theessential teaching is that the Buddha dis-cards his transient status and reveals his trueidentity as the Buddha who attained en-lightenment countless kalpas ago.

23. Principles set forth by T’ien-t’ai inhis Profound Meaning. The ten mystic prin-ciples of the theoretical teaching are basedon the concepts of the true aspect of allphenomena and the replacement of thethree vehicles with the one vehicle of Bud-dhahood. The ten mystic principles of theessential teaching are set forth on the basisof the revelation of the Buddha’s originalenlightenment numberless major world sys-tem dust particle kalpas ago, as expoundedin the “Life Span” chapter.

24. Added to each of the two sets of tenmystic principles—the ten mystic princi-ples of the theoretical teaching and the tenmystic principles of the essential teach-ing—are the ten mystic principles graspedfrom the relative standpoint and the tenmystic principles grasped from the absolute,or all-encompassing, standpoint.

25. Thirty mystic principles related tothe life of sentient beings, the BuddhistLaw, and the nature of one’s mind, or theLaw within, plus ten in either the theoreti-cal teaching or the essential teaching.

26. To perceive or awaken to the ulti-mate reality inherent in one’s life. This isparticularly stressed in T’ien-t’ai’s practice,in which meditation is focused on the truenature of one’s mind rather than some ex-terior object.

27. The Annotations on “Great Concentra-tion and Insight.”

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28. This refers to the two of the fivegroups into which people are by naturedivided according to the Dharma Charac-teristics school. People in these two groupscan eventually attain the state of arhat andthat of pratyekabuddha, respectively.

29. This refers to non-Buddhists whoheld fast to the view of void, denying thecausal law, and, according to the pre-LotusSutra teachings of Buddhism, could not at-tain Buddhahood.

30. Sudaya was a Brahman master whotaught Devadatta occult powers, accordingto the Increasing by One Agama Sutra.

31. Here, austerities established and prac-ticed by Devadatta. According to The GreatCommentary on the Abhidharma, they were:() wearing only clothing discarded by oth-ers after washing and mending it; () ob-taining food only by begging; () eatingonly once a day; () always seating oneselfoutside under a tree; and () never eatingsalt or other food possessing the five tastes.

32. A mountain whose summit resem-bled an elephant’s head, located about .km southwest of Gaya in Magadha. In Chi-na it was translated as the Elephant-HeadedMountain.

33. The circle formed first when aworld takes shape and living beings appearin it in the kalpa of formation. Accordingto The Dharma Analysis Treasury, the powerof the karma of living beings first causesa small wind to arise in space. This windgrows and forms the windy circle thoughtto lie at the base of a world. Upon this cir-cle a watery circle and then a gold circletake shape, and upon them the land itself isformed, with its Mount Sumeru, seas, andmountains.

34. The two divisions of the threefoldworld, the realm where unenlightenedbeings transmigrate within the six paths.Beings in the world of form have materialform but are free from desires, and those inthe world of formlessness are free fromboth desire and the restrictions of matter.

35. Mo Hsi of the Hsia dynasty, Ta Chiof the Yin dynasty, and Pao Ssu of theChou dynasty. All were favorites of the

ruler and helped bring about the downfallof the state.

36. This statement is not found in theextant Chinese versions of the Flower Gar-land Sutra. However, A Collection of Trea-sures written by Taira no Yasuyori duringthe Jisho era (–) cites it as a quota-tion from the Flower Garland Sutra.

37. A legendary river in the continentof Aparagodaniya located to the west ofMount Sumeru.

38. The Daishonin elsewhere teachesthat faith in the Lotus Sutra will enableanyone, man or woman, to attain Buddha-hood in one’s present form as an ordinarymortal. However, because the recipient ofthis letter was still strongly attached to theviews of the Pure Land school, the Daisho-nin explained his teaching in a way that shecould readily understand.

39. A figure described in a Chinese leg-end. When he saw a yellow crane beingsold on the road, he felt pity for it, offeredhis clothes in exchange for it, and set itfree. When he died, the crane flew downto his grave and continued calling his namefor three years. As a result, he came back tolife.

40. A hawk-like bird with poisonousfeathers that appears in Chinese works.

41. Great Concentration and Insight.42. On “Great Concentration and Insight.”43. T’ien-t’ai is said to have been the

reincarnation of Bodhisattva Medicine King,who was present at the assembly on EaglePeak, because he attained an awakeningthrough the “Medicine King” chapter ofthe Lotus Sutra.

44. The Words and Phrases of the LotusSutra.

45. In the early ninth century, Dengyowent to China and learned the T’ien-t’aiteachings. After returning to Japan, heestablished the Tendai (Chin T’ien-t’ai)school and devoted himself to upholdingT’ien-t’ai Buddhism. It is said that Tao-sui,one of Dengyo’s masters in China, identi-fied him as the reincarnation of T’ien-t’ai,referring to T’ien-t’ai’s prediction.

46. Lotus Sutra, chap. .

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The Daimoku of the Lotus Sutra

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Transcript of The Daimoku of the Lotus Sutra