SGI-USA Study Curriculum

Learning from the Gosho: The Eternal Teachings of Nichiren Daishonin
by SGI President Ikeda

Lecture 18 - Reply to Myoho Bikuni (2)

Courage --- The Key to Happiness

When people encounter great obstacles, it's a sure sign they are creating tremendous positive change. This is as true today as it certainly was in Nichiren Daishonin's time.

At the start of 1268, an incident occurred that no one in Japan anticipated. An official letter arrived from the Mongol Empire. Unless Japan did as instructed and submitted to a tributary relationship, the Mongols would attack. People became racked with fear. As the Daishonin says, "Everyone from the ruler above to the people below quaked and trembled with fear" (Gosho Zenshu, p. 172). The country was thrown into turmoil; it was as though the world had turned upside down.

Only one person, Nichiren Daishonin, surveyed these events and the great commotion that ensued calmly. The warning that he had made eight years prior in his "Rissho Ankoku Ron" (1) had now become a reality.

This turn of events resulted in a clear change in people's attitudes toward the Daishonin. "This is incredible," people thought. "His teaching must really be correct." From then on, people began chanting daimoku in increasing numbers. In a letter to one believer, the Daishonin says, "Now one tenth of the people in Japan chant only Nam-myoho-renge-kyo" (The Major Writings of Nichiren Daishonin, vol. 5, p. 294).

But it was precisely then, in 1271, that great oppression bore down on the Daishonin with the Tatsunokuchi Persecution --- where he was nearly executed by the authorities --- and his subsequent exile to Sado Island. That was three-and-a-half years after the arrival of the letter from the Mongols.

Just what had happened? Why had the Daishonin had to encounter such great persecution? This will be the subject of our discussion this time.

Jealous Priests Acting in Collusion with the Authorities.

This [the Daishonin's having encountered persecutions incomparably greater than those which Bodhisattva Never Disparaging faced] is entirely because of the charges made [against the Daishonin to the rulers] by high-ranking priests of the Shingon, Nembutsu and Zen sects.

Accordingly, their offense is more weighty than the earth. Therefore, the earth shakes more violently than a ship on the sea in the midst of a great storm. The 84,000 stars glare down from the heavens, day and night there are abnormal phenomena in the heavens and the sun and moon also show great irregularities.

Already 2,227 years have passed since the Buddha entered nirvana. Even when King Mihirakula (2) burned all the Buddhist halls and monasteries of the five regions of India and murdered all the monks of the 16 major states, (3) or when Emperor Wu-tsung (4) of T'ang China destroyed Buddhist temples and pagodas in China and broke up the Buddha images, or when Mononobe no Moriya (5) burned the girded bronze statue of the Buddha with charcoal and persecuted the monks and nuns, forcing them to return to secular life, never have such comets [as the great comet of 1264] or such great earthquakes [as the great earthquake of 1257] occurred.

The evil of people today is hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands of times more severe. In these earlier cases, the evil mind of a single ruler [was the cause of the persecution]; the persecution did not arise from the hearts of the ministers on down [who merely carried out the king's wishes]. Moreover, King Mihirakula and the others were enemies of the provisional Buddha and sutras. And the monks [who were persecuted] did not practice the Lotus Sutra.

Now, however, the persecutions are completely against the Lotus Sutra and they represent a great evil spirit that arises not only from the heart of the ruler himself but from the hearts of wise people throughout the entire land and of the entire populace. (Gosho Zenshu, p. 1416) (6)

The Daishonin says that scheming was behind the great persecutions that befell him. These attacks arose as a direct result of accusations made against him by respected priests. From various Buddhist schools, priests acting in collusion with government officials leveled accusations against the Daishonin that could not possibly have been true. This was in order to have him done away with.

At the root of this was jealousy. These priests feared people would recognize that the Daishonin was correct. And they alone wanted to have people's respect. They could not match the Daishonin in debate, though. So even though the Daishonin sought a public confrontation, they refused to comply.

By rights, these priests ought to have devoted their lives to the well-being of the people, the good of the country and Buddhism itself. Getting caught up in petty emotionalism is a great mistake. But the higher people's standing --- when they feel that their position is in jeopardy --- the more likely they are to ignore reason and trample on justice.

The first Soka Gakkai president, Tsunesaburo Makiguchi, said: Generally speaking, people who pride themselves on being good or extraordinarily good are most concerned with whether someone superior to them in character may appear. Or whether a method other than theirs will be proven superior. In that case, the higher a person's position, the more directly he or she is destined to make the causes for great evil or extraordinarily great evil....

Had Nichiren Daishonin not appeared, then Ryokan, (7) Doryu (8) and others [who were regarded as respected priests by society in the Daishonin's day] would likely have ended their lives revered as living Buddhas. Unfortunately for them, unable to accept the supremacy of the Daishonin's teaching, consumed by concern for their personal interests, they became priests of the greatest evil. (9)

And so, behind the great persecutions that befell the Daishonin were the dark machinations of people jealous of the advance of kosen-rufu, the widespread propagation of the True Law.

The Daishonin describes the mind-set of his persecutors as follows: When a woman becomes envious, a great fire burns in her heart, and as a result her body turns red. The hair on her body stands on end, her limbs shake and a flame rises to her face, which turns vermilion. Her eyes open wide like the eyes of a cat glaring at a mouse. Her hands tremble, resembling the leaves of an oak blown by the wind. To those nearby, she resembles a great demon. This is the state of the ruler and high-ranking priests of Japan, as well as the monks and nuns. When they hear Nichiren declare that the invocation of the Nembutsu to Amida Buddha, on which they rely, leads to the hell of incessant suffering, that Shingon is a teaching that destroys the country and that Zen is the practice of devils, they grind their teeth [in a fit of rage] while counting their prayer beads and bobbin" their heads [in exasperation] while ringing their prayer bells.

Although they appear to uphold the precepts, they harbor an evil spirit [to do away with the Daishonin]. Saint Ryokan of Gokuraku-ji temple, who is revered as a living Buddha, has made charges to the government on folded paper [official stationary folded in half]. Saint Doryu of Kencho-ji has ridden on a litter and kneeled before magistrate officials. Nuns of high standing who have received all of the 500 precepts [from Ryokan and others] write their accusations down on the finest silk and present them to high officials. (Gosho Zenshu, p. 1416)

The ancient Greek tragedian Euripides (484-406 B.C.E.) characterizes envy as the greatest of human ills. The flames of envy are directed toward others --- but the envious person is consumed in the flames. The second Soka Gakkai president, Josei Toda, said:

It is a great mistake to suppose that only women are envious. Men are envious, too. In Japanese, the word envy (shitto) [is written with two Chinese characters both containing the element for woman but it] could just as easily be written using the element for man .... It is often male jealousy that wreaks havoc in the world. (10)

That's right. The envy of evil priests directed toward the Daishonin plunged Japan into turmoil. Ryokan, who reverently presented his slanderous accusations to the government, and Doryu. who rode on a magnificent litter to make his appeals to government officials, groveled before those in power. What shameful hypocrisy they displayed, while passing themselves off as saints!

Why, then, did the government become a willing accomplice in their schemes? There were strong ties between the respected priests and the country's rulers. Ryokan and the others had many influential followers. Also, as the Daishonin indicates, women of high social standing who trusted these priests took action behind the scenes to turn key people in the government against the Daishonin.

And the country's rulers had their own agendas. In fact, they took advantage of the national crisis, of the impending attack by a foreign power, to quickly expand their sphere of influence. Proclaiming the need to unify the nation to respond to the crisis, officials steadily worked to augment the government's autocratic powers. Those in positions of authority never miss an opportunity to increase their clout.

For example, the ruling Hojo clan used the attack threatened by the Mongols as a pretext to appoint members of their own clan to governorships in provinces throughout western Japan. Even areas where the government's footing had formerly been weak came under Hojo control.

There was an increasing consolidation of power. This government, a military regime to begin with, became increasingly militaristic. Under such circumstances, the government was most aggressive toward people and groups critical of the regime. So it was that Nichiren Daishonin and his followers caught the authorities' attention. Other schools, following the decrees of the government or imperial court, offered prayers for the "defeat of the foreign invaders."

The Daishonin alone cried out that it was useless to offer such prayers; that the prayers offered by adherents of erroneous schools, far from doing any good, would in fact produce an opposite result. His cry struck a chord of sympathy with the people. To the ruling authorities, championing the need to unify the country and concentrate power, nothing could have been more vexing.

From 1268 through 1271, the government's autocratic powers increased. And the Mystic Law also proceeded to spread widely. In other words, the authoritarian government and the rising tide of people seeking justice and peace came head to head. There was a collision between the "top-down" repressive power of the government and the "bottom-up" popular movement critical of that power. This culminated in the Tatsunokuchi Persecution and Sado Exile of 1271.

Certain events illustrate this vividly. The day after the Tatsunokuchi Persecution (which took place on Sept. 12, 1271), the government issued a notice to warriors in the Kanto region, which includes the capital, Kamakura, that those with lands in Kyushu (11) should set out for that domain in all haste to prepare for the Mongol invasion. It instructed them to take measures to defend the realm from the foreign power and also suppress anti-establishment elements within their territories. That these two events, the Tatsunokuchi Persecution and the notice, took place at exactly the same time was no coincidence. For the government, severe suppression of the Daishonin's followers was part of the strict 11th-hour policy it had implemented in anticipation of the Mongol invasion.

Behind the imposition of stricter martial law, there was, in addition to the foreign threat, an internal power struggle. As the Hojo clan consolidated its control, conflict with other forces opposed to its dominion grew fierce.

People were filled with suspicion and vied to undercut one another. Thus, even though the leaders appealed to the people to unify the country, embers of civil strife and schisms --- the disaster of internal strife which the Daishonin predicted in the "Rissho Ankoku Ron" --- smoldered under their feet.

The system of open deliberations that had become a tradition of the Kamakura regime broke down under these circumstances. The affairs of government began to be conducted behind closed doors. Government meetings consisted of important officials of the ruling Hojo clan gathering together at the home of the most powerful person of the day. The most important policy decisions were made at such secret councils.

With this system of closed door government, Hei no Saemon (12) and others who wanted to persecute the Daishonin came to wield tremendous influence as retainers of the Hojo clan. There is a record of the period when Hei no Saemon wielded dictatorial powers that says, "People could not help but live in fear." (13)

In such an authoritarian regime, there is no correct reasoning. Nor is there the compassion to put the people's minds at ease. Self-interest and ambition dominate everything.

Because the government had fallen into such a corrupt state, it was easily moved by the slanderous words of people who hated the Daishonin. The leaders lacked any public accountability, so all it took was a single malicious accusation for them to engineer someone's downfall or death. They may have tried to take a person's life merely because someone else had related there was a rumor about the person going around.

People's hearts were in turmoil. It was a tumultuous age. In the absence of any hope for the future, the sense of foreboding only intensified.

Evil priests took advantage of these conditions to start false rumors about the Daishonin. Ordinary people, unaware of the truth, readily believed what they heard.

Even a small lie, through countless repetition, became absurdly exaggerated. People somehow came to accept it as the truth.

This is analogous to how the ingestion of small amounts of poison can gradually and innocuously incapacitate the body, rendering it defenseless. Thus when the false rumors spread that the Daishonin's disciples were starting fires. people accepted it as true (MW-1, 184).

The behind-the-scenes scheming of evil priests dovetailed with the self-interest of those in power. This resulted in great persecution of the Daishonin. These priests were the very image of the third of the three powerful enemies (14) the Lotus Sutra describes.

Nichiren Daishonin, fully aware of this pattern, dared to enter the maelstrom. In the "Letter From Sado," he says, "When an evil ruler in consort with heretical priests tries to destroy true Buddhism and banish a man of wisdom, those with the heart of a lion will surely attain Buddhahood as Nichiren did" (MW-1, 35). The Daishonin indicates that when great persecution arises, caused by the collusion of an evil ruler and erroneous priests who make slanderous accusations, it represents an opportunity to attain Buddhahood.

We must have the spirit of a lion. The Daishonin says, "The lion fears no other beast" (MW-1, 241). Courage is the absolute condition for attaining Buddhahood. Courage is the absolute condition for becoming happy. President Makiguchi said, "A single lion will triumph over a thousand sheep." (15)

We are direct followers of Nichiren Daishonin, a person of the greatest courage. We have to stand alone with the courageous spirit of lions. Like lions, we have to fight courageously and win the laurel of victory.

Notes:

1. "Rissho Ankoku Ron" (On Securing the Peace of the Land Through the Propagation of True Buddhism), Nichiren Daishonin's first official remonstration with the authorities urging them to reject erroneous practices end place their faith in the True Law.
2. Mihirakula: a king of the ancient kingdom of Cheka in India. According to the Daito Saiiki Ki (Record of the Western Regions of the Great T'ang Dynasty), he destroyed temples and stupas in many parts of India. As a result, when he was about to die the earth trembled and a storm arose. He fell into the hell of incessant suffering.
3. Sixteen major states: the countries in ancient India --- Anga Magadha, Kashi, Kosala, Vriji Malla, Chedi, Vatsa, Kuru, Panchala, Ashmaka, Avanti, Matsya, Shurasena, Gandhara and Kamboja.
4. Wu-tsung (814-46): the 15th emperor of the T'ang dynasty. In 845 he initiated a sweeping persecution of Buddhism throughout his domains.
5. Mononobe no Moriya (d. 587): an official who opposed the adoption of Buddhism. When an epidemic broke out, he declared it was because of the new religion and attempted to halt all Buddhist practice.
6. "Myoho Bikuni Gohenji" (Gosho Zenshu, pp. 1406-19), written in September 1278 when the Daishonin was 57.
7. Ryokan (1217-1303): a priest of the Shingon-Ritsu sect during the Kamakura period (1185-1333).
8. Doryu (1213-78): a priest of the Rinzai sect of Zen, also called Rankei. In 1246, he came to Japan from China. He opposed the Daishonin and, with Ryokan and others, plotted against him.
9. Makiguchi Tsunesaburo Zenshu (Collected Writings of Tsunesaburo Makiguchi) (Tokyo: Daisan Bunmeisha, 1987), vol. 10, p. 33.
10. Toda Josei Zenshu (Collected Writings of Josei Toda) (Tokyo: Seikyo Shimbunsha, 1988), vol. 8, p. 359.
11. Kyushu: the westernmost of Japan's four major islands, situated closest to the Asian continent.
12. Hei no Saemon (d.1293): an official of the Hojo regency He served two successive regents, Hojo Tokimue and Hojo Sadatoki, and wielded tremendous influence in political and military affairs as deputy chief of the Office of Military and Police Affairs. He collaborated with Ryokan and other leading priests to persecute Nichiren Daishonin and his followers.
13. Takayuki Okutomi, Kamakura Hojoshi no Kisoteki Kenkyu (Basic Research on the Kamakura Hojo Clan) (Tokyo: Yoshikawa Kobunkan, 1980) p. 229.
14. Priests revered as saints and respected by the general public who, in fear of losing fame or profit, induce the secular authorities to persecute the votaries of the Lotus Sutra.
15. Makiguchi Tsunesaburo Shingenshu (A Collection of Tsunesaburo Makiguchi's Sayings), ed. Takehisa Tsuji (Tokyo: Daisan Bummeisha, 1979), pp. 26-27.

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