Here is another couple of excerpts from the Rissho Ankoku Ron Commentary. This time from Nichiren's Critique of the Senchaku Shu Part 2.
Today, what is the state of Buddhism? As mentioned before, there are very few countries that could be considered primarily Buddhist today. Mainland China’s reigning ideology is the dialectical materialism of communism. The same is true in Vietnam and North Korea. While there are many people who are nominally Buddhists in South Korea, Japan, Taiwan, and Hong Kong, free market capitalism is more or less the reigning ideology. Buddhism has become little more than a cultural trapping, a moribund tradition relegated almost solely to the performance of funeral or memorial services. Most Buddhists in East Asian traditions consider Buddhism to be nothing more than a way of making sure that those who die are able to pass on to the Pure Land of Amitabha. This is the case for Chinese, Korean, Japanese and Vietnamese Buddhists. The Lotus Sutra is revered, but usually only for the recitation of chapter 25 that deals with Kuan Yin Bodhisattva, the Goddess of Compassion, who can be called upon to help overcome worldly troubles and concerns and who is considered the handmaiden of Amitabha Buddha. The central points of the Lotus Sutra are not a part of the average teaching or practice of East Asian Buddhism, though occasionally Zen teachers might make reference to it. Shakyamuni Buddha, whether in his historical aspect or as the Eternal Buddha of chapter 16 of the Lotus Sutra, takes a distant second place to the veneration of Amitabha Buddha, and the teaching that this world is the actual pure land, the Pure Land of Tranquil Light, is reserved only for the few who delve into Zen practice and the demythologization of the Pure Land teachings and practices. Except for the minority who practice Nichiren Buddhism, it would seem that Nichiren’s fear that the veneration of Shakyamuni Buddha and the Lotus Sutra would be overcome by Pure Land piety and otherworldliness has come true. Attaining enlightenment in this life and thereby overcoming the sufferings of birth and death, the main point of Buddhism, has indeed taken second place to the goal of attaining rebirth in the Pure Land after death and to attaining worldly benefits in this life. Nichiren’s Lotus Sutra inspired vision of a society focused on bringing out the buddhahood in all beings in this life has not been realized.
Nichiren concludes his critique of Honen by pointing out that people have become very confused about what is an incidental teaching, such as rebirth in a pure land, and what is the primary point of Buddhism, attaining enlightenment through devotion to the Wonderful Dharma. They have turned away from Buddhism as a whole, to embrace a very small and relatively insignificant part of it.
Namu Myoho Renge Kyo,
Ryuei