“Letter from Sado” was written in 1271 by Nichiren Daishonin, the Buddhist scholar and prophet, from the island of Sado, then a remote and scarcely populated rock popular for exiling trouble-makers and rebels. The charge against Nichiren was “treason” but in reality Nichiren had – for a lack of a better term – declared war on the slanderous sects of Buddhism that were ruining the fortune of the Country of Japan.
Religion is a curious human phenomenon. In some cases religious systems are no more than that which is created out of thin air, straight out of human imagination. Much of what Nichiren speaks of in his body of writings are ancient Asian fables and mythology. As a Western audience we basically accept these in good faith, though they are alien to us and no more historical than "Goldie Locks and the Three Bears" or "Jack and the Bean Stock".
What makes Nichiren’s Buddhism so real is the same thing that is the heart of real Buddhism, actual human experience. This is largely what separates us from the Judeo-Christian traditions as well.
Throughout Nichiren’s life as he preached true Buddhism - the Lotus Sutra (Nam Myoho Renge Kyo) he was seriously persecuted by the Government and other Buddhist priests. He was exiled twice and very nearly beheaded on one occasion. Nichiren realized that this persecution was proof that he was the votary of the Lotus Sutra, or in non-lingo, the one whose mission it was to clarify the true teaching of the Buddha. It wasn’t, as many new-agers would think, that he was “reborn” or “reincarnated” as some previous personality, it was simply that the circumstances and opportunities of his life lead him to become that guy who was going to go up against the established and heretical teachings that had come into existence by priests and temples seeking political favor and monetary gain.
Ok, that is a tremendous over-simplification, but this isn’t the point I’m trying to make so go with me here….
The bottom line was that at this time Nichiren was exiled on an island that barely had enough on it for him to exist. His lodging was a shack that barely kept out the wind and rain. He was truly and effectively being spanked for speaking against the religious and political powers-that-be.
The point he makes in “Letter from Sado” was that only through persecution can we erase and transform the extreme negative karma we created in the past and the remote past. There it is. Hate the message not the messenger.
Stay tuned for part II…..
Ok, Part II
It is still less than 800 years since the advent of the life of the man named Nichiren. Eventually like other religious pioneers his name will begin to enter into the remote past and become part, then complete mythology, or perhaps not. The age of Shakyamuni was in fact pre-history, a time when written languages were not in full employ. Perhaps the more carefully recorded history of Japan will allow Nichiren to escape the fate of Jesus and Shakyamuni.
Unfortunate occurrences have already naturally occurred, for instance the invention by the Fuji School of the Daigohonzon, thought by some to be a magical object and thus robbing understanding and focus from the true teaching of the Buddha, the Lotus Sutra, as verified and re-transmitted by Nichiren’s life and teachings.
It’s a natural assumption by humans, being not so changed since we were huddled in caves, that anything ancient has some talismanic power attached to it. In reality I believe – since it is generally accepted that we are evolving as opposed to DE-evolving, we know more now rather than less and that ancient secrets are largely a myth. And yet there will be those who wish to disagree with me as there are those who believe in Atanltis and other such legends. So be it. Our own imagination is our most ready and willing means of entertainment.
And so we're forever searching for the ancient - ancient texts, Buddhist, Hindu and even Brahman not to mention those such as the lost passages of the Bible and other creations of the Judeo-Christian tradition. This is what Scholarism has done to us, sending us searching in the fain hope of what? Finding something previously uncovered? Something long ago ignored? Something learned then unlearned?
Buddhism is about self-discovery. I say this time and time and those who are around me nod in agreement, most likely because "self-discovery" is not really a disagreeable term in itself. What I think we, and I mean myself as well, often fail to realize is that self-discovery is you, it's us, each in our own individual worlds and with our own individual life-experience.
This is why we of the latter day must come to understand that we already possess everything we need in order to realize Buddhahood in our own lives. It isn't Nichiren's life, it's ours. And it isn't Daisaku Ikeda's life that waits to be worshiped and adored by us, it's our own. We don't need to be exiled or beheaded, we already have all the persecution from our own karma to validate our existence as Bodhisattvas of the Earth. When we shift our focus to outside ourselves we fail to understand Buddhism, and begin to fail as the diciples of our masters in faith. And having said this I come to the final point I wish to make.
The Lotus Sutra is in fact the sutra of self-discovery.
While even as I type there are those who consider the LS as some literal document, a flowery version of something that actually happened, like some Christians view the Bible (only worse because the LS is like some bizarre science fiction) I have come to understand that the Lotus Sutra represents the drama of each individual human life.
It is the ultimate teaching of self-discovery. Every character, every Bodhisattva, every prediction, even the treasure tower, the whole shebang - it's you, and it's I, regardless of whether or not we chant Nam Myoho Renge Kyo.
And when we chant Nam Myoho Renge Kyo it is our lives from which the rays of light shoot forth as they did from the brows of Shakyamuni Buddha in the first chapter thus illuminating the thousands of world systems that are the thousands of individual human lives waiting to be....
Self discovered....
Rev. Greg, Shidoshi