Over the past couple of weeks both online and in offline conversations with Zen Buddhists and other advocates of silent sittiing I have had to discuss the role of meditation in the context of Nichiren Buddhism. Here is my current response:
In the Nichiren Shu, silent sitting can be used as a supportive practice. There are times when we sit silently to get calm, focused, and settled before chanting
Odaimoku, and then we sit silently after chanting Odaimoku to quietly abide in the power of our Odaimoku chanting. This is done for instance in Shodaigyo meditation. We would not, however, teach that silent meditation is in and of itself sufficient for attaining or expressing buddhahood. In fact, we would not even say it was necessary if one is chanting Odaimoku. But we certainly see it as a legitmate supporting practice.
Other Buddhists and "spiritual types" are extremely doubtful about the efficacy
of such a practice as chanting in Sino-Japanese. They feel that it is too culturally bound (and therefore a conditioned practice rather than a gate to the unconditioned), they feel it is still to much of a willful and therefore ego assertive practice, or that it is too conceptual or symbolic and thus demands clinging to something. They feel that it is too pious, or too goal oriented. They feel that nonconceptual awareness that neither clings to nor rejects anything is the only sensible way to enlightenment, in fact such a nonconceptual awareness is in and of itself expressive of enlightenment. This would be the case with shikan taza of Zen, or Mahamudra, or Dzogchen, or certain interpretations of vipassana practice. It would be the case with the teachings of Krishnamurti and probably Eckhart Tolle. If you
I think that Nichiren Buddhists need to find a coherent response to such a challenge from serious and sincere meditation practitioners. And of course such a response will be dismissed if the responder can not honestly say that they have not themselves tasted such a state of nonconceptual nondual awareness in quiet sitting. I have been doing my best to come up with such a response over the years - based on my own personal practice experience and my reading of the Buddhist canon.
To date my response is this:
1. Buddhism does teach that form is emptiness, but it also teaches that emptiness is also form. Therefore one should not be biased towards a practice that seems more empty. Emptiness can and in fact needs to be sought within the very forms that are empty.
2. Many meditation practitioners do in fact use mindfulness of the breath as a
focus in order to cut through obstructive mental states like greed, anger, restlessness, sleepiness, and debilitating self-doubts. But breath is only one of many possible ways of focusing and calming the mind - mindfulness of the Dharma (which is certainly an aspect of what Odaimoku is) is also a traditional method that long predates Nichiren. Now if Zen, Vipassana, and Tibetan practitioners can use the breath (an object of awareness) to attain to nonceptual awareness than certainly they, as Buddhists, should not look down
on or begrudge those who use mindfulness of the Dharma for this purpose.
3. The argument can still be made that even though a particular form can be used to realize the formless which is liberation, at a certain point the practitioners should be able to let go of any particular form and find the Middle Way in whatever phenomena is arising and ceasing in the moment - without willfully imposing a particular focus. My response to this is that after a certain point the Odaimoku is no longer something that we are consciously having to do - it is just there and we are in it. In other words, our ego and its grasping and rejecting and imposing stands aside even though the verbal expression of Odaimoku continues.
4. There is also this - Nichiren certainly lauded the merits of Odaimoku over and above even the first five of the six perfections that includes meditation. The Lotus Sutra itself extolls the merits of Odaimoku in this way. However, Nichiren also spoke of living and reciting the Lotus Sutra during all the hours of the day. He spoke of reading the Lotus Sutra with his body. So even Nichiren recognized that the deepest practice of Odaimoku involves living in the spirit of Odaimoku even when one is not verbally reciting it. It is this constant living awareness of Namu Myoho Renge Kyo that I believe is the unadulterated uncondtioned direct expression of the perfection of wisdom. It is also the consummation of faith in the Lotus Sutra. It is the consummation of the first five perfections. And it is only found in the way we live our lives and that includes when we do our formal daily practice wherein one consciously orients oneself to this way of living.
That may not be as rational and coherent as some would like. But I keep working on it. And of course the main way to work on it is to endeavor to go deeper and deeper into actual practice.
Namu Myoho Renge Kyo,
Ryuei
http://smibbo.livejournal.com/28937.html?mode=reply
Posted by: smibbo at October 25, 2006 07:24 AMand lastly;
http://not-hothead-yet.livejournal.com/profile
all three are mine, because I'm mysteriously prolific like that.
Posted by: smibbo at October 25, 2006 07:37 AMRight now, I am working on "Why the Daimoku" in the context of the Rikkyo Kaishu-e. Given Nichiren's sources for learning about the Daimoku; it seems he was looking at purifying the six faculties.
If our mind and 5 senses are excessively impure, then acheiving direct insight via breath meditation seems dicey.
Somehow, the Daimoku seems to elicit direct insight regardless of one's motive or skill at mindfulness. I have no idea why this mantra. I do have some ideas on how it works.
I have chanted other mantras. They all do nice, practical things. But not the same things.
Anyway, I also see mindfulness as a useful skill. But it does not, in and of itself, lead to insight
and awakening.
I think some people acheive the four cornerstones
of mindfulness and think that sort of 'spacious awareness' is Awakening. Others acheive the concentrated meditative states called jhanas and think they have it.
It seems like Theravada Vipassana teachers often teach mindfulness and also metta cultivation, but
only as supplements; not as the goal. I think that
makes sense.
Nichiren seems to imply we can gain the merits of mindfulness, metta, etc; without consciously culivating them. That is not my experience either.
But, it was through chanting Daimoku that I saw a need, for me, to do some mindfulness meditation and also metta cultivation.
There are still many holes in my views; that is my
take right now.
Good job.
We had the good fortune to have a Tendai practitioner give a dharma talk at our last Nichiren Shu meeting here in Atlanta. I was struck by the fact that the "single practice" schools of the Kamakura period stripped one practice out of Tendai and gave it supremacy. In today's setting I feel that in the "single practice" schools this notion of the sole efficacy of a certain practice over others has become ossified. By this I mean that the single practice is taken as the ulimate method with out any idea about the inclusive practices of Tendai that preceded the Kamakura schools. I think it would be instuctive if more American Zen and Nichiren practitioners looked at Tendai teachings and history and tried to understand what they have in common rather than how the practices are at odds.
Both Nichiren and Zen American practitioners seem to feel that their own Dharma practices are the "original" practice of the Buddha. Rather, (I feel) they are practices that evolved over time and where practiced in unison before the Zen and Nichiren schools were founded.
Namu Myoho Renge Kyo,
Joriki-Marcus
Posted by: Marcus Barlow at October 31, 2006 04:40 AMHi Joriki,
Actually my response to this really warrants a whole separate blog entry and I am sorry I didn't get to address this when I was in Atlanta.
People need to understand that Nichiren's critique of the Tendai school was not of the school as a whole. In many ways Nichiren was a Tendai partisan and reformer (though I think he saw himself as going beyond that from the Sado Exile on). His problem with Tendai as it existed in Japan at that time was that the Lotus Sutra had become overshadowed to the point of neglect by esotericism. Then, because esotericism was not something that would be accessible to those other than monks and wealthy nobles the Pure Land and Zen spun off of Tendai and became mass movements that also neglected the Lotus Sutra. Nichiren felt that if Tendai had upheld the Lotus Sutra as central the way they were supposed to then this would not have happened.
I can not say how the Lotus Sutra is viewed today in Tendai. My understanding from Pia is that it is given pride of place and that there is quite a lot of study of it. Anyway, I can't comment on Tendai today and so I will refrain.
I will say this though - the historical trend in Buddhism has always been to sideline complicated teachings and long texts in favor of direct and accessible practices. Even the tantric traditions tend to come down to Dzogchen or Mahamudra which is basically the practice of unadulterated awareness of what is - a practice that is so simple and straightforward that it is in fact extremely difficult for most people. Nichiren realized this. He knew that if people could not engage the Lotus Sutra through a direct practice that would make its teachings accessible and come to life for everybody, then the Lotus Sutra would be continually sidelined in favor of simpler practices based on other teachings (teachings that might not emphasize or might even contradict the One Vehicle and the Eternal Buddha teachings of the Lotus Sutra). And so he came up with the Three Great Hidden Dharmas of the Odaimoku, Gohonzon, and Kaidan of the Essential Teaching as a way whereby one could directly put the Lotus Sutra into practice as the guiding spirit in one's life.
This is not to denigrate all the other practices. In fact, I agree that people need to realize how many tools are in fact in the toolbox. Many of those tools can be adapted by Nichiren Buddhists as supportive practices and/or as ways to appreciate particular aspects of Odaimoku. At the same time, I think that Nichiren Buddhism's strength is that it provides a streamlined and accessble direct form of Lotus Sutra practice.
Namu Myoho Renge Kyo,
Ryuei
Hi Michael:
I've written about this in my essay "Chanting as a Meditation Practice." But one additional observation I'd like to make is that Zen practitioners are wrong when they assert that silent sitting is not part of a cultural context. It is every bit as much a culturally conditioned and placed form of practice as any other practice. It is also a sectarian practice, not a univeral one (I'm not using sectarian negatively here; just that it is sect specific). To see this look at Quaker silence in comparison to other forms of Christian practice and gatherings. Clearly Quakers and their silence make a specific statement that is sect specific. The same is true of Zen.
One additional note; a lot of Nichiren practitioners I've met have, unfortunately, accepted the idea that Daimoku is not a form of meditation. Implicitly they have accepted that only silent forms such as zazen and vipassana are meditation. But this does not really accord with the Buddha's view. If meditation is understood as cultivation, "bhavana", which I think is the best sanskrit word for the topic, then diamoku is definitely cultivation; and if seen as cultivation then one can begin to make comparison between what happens while practicing daimoku and what happens in zazen, vipassana, visualizations, metta, etc.
Finally, perhaps it's time to produce a book devoted to the practice of daimoku as a form of meditation?
Best wishes,
Dharmajim