The Mind of Faith is the Mind of the Buddha

According to Nichiren, “We, ordinary people appearing now in the Latter [Age of Degeneration], can arouse faith in the Lotus Sutra because the human realm possesses the buddha realm.” (CMFD, 23) He wrote this in Kanjin Honzon-sho (On the Contemplation of the Mind and the Focus of Devotion), one of his five major writings, in response to doubts about whether we ordinary human beings contain the realm of the Buddha within us. To say that the buddha realm is already integral to the human realm is to say that our human nature includes the buddha-nature. If that is so, then what does it mean? For Nichiren, one thing it means is that we can take faith in the Lotus Sutra.

In a letter to the Ikegami brothers, supporters whose father was pressuring them into giving up their faith in the Lotus Sutra, Nichiren defined having a “right mind” as having a mind that puts faith in the Lotus Sutra in his comments upon Great Master Tiantai’s teachings. He wrote:

“Great Master Tiantai explains this in his Profound Meaning of the Lotus Sutra, Fascicle Six, “Upon meeting an evil friend, people lose their right mind.” Right mind refers to the mind of putting faith in the Lotus Sutra, and losing the right mind means abandoning faith in the Lotus Sutra and putting faith in other sutras.”

(WNS6, p. 77, adapted)

In a thank-you letter written to a supporter named Lord Matsuno Rokurozaemon, Nichiren even claimed that having the mind of faith in the Lotus Sutra is only possible for those in whom the spirit of Shakyamuni Buddha lives.

“As the time has come for you to inevitably attain buddhahood in your next life, you are inspired. Besides, according to the [Lotus] Sutra, he whose body is taken over by [evil] spirits cannot have faith in this sutra, while the person in whom the honorable spirit of Shakyamuni Buddha has entered can have faith in this sutra.”

(WNS7, p. 66, adapted)

The mind of faith in the Lotus Sutra is, therefore, a manifestation of the buddha-realm, an expression of our buddha-nature, it is to be in our right mind, and it is to have the same spirit as Shakyamuni Buddha. To doubt or denigrate the Lotus Sutra is to reject the buddha realm, to not be in our right mind but under the sway of evil friends, and to be possessed by a spirit of evil. For Nichiren, everything depends upon our attitude towards the Lotus Sutra. Do we have faith in it or do we doubt and reject it?

For some people it might seem strange, maybe even crazy, to claim that whether one has faith in a book, even a sacred scripture, determines whether one is in one’s right mind or is possessed by an evil spirit. I am sure that we are familiar with many people, especially those with a fundamentalist mindset, who do believe that whether one believes or disbelieves in the particular sacred scripture of their religion, whether the Torah, the Gospels, or the Koran, or some such scripture, really is a matter of salvation or damnation. Isn’t this more of the same? Didn’t many of us leave the religions we grew up in and come to Buddhism to avoid this kind of thinking? Isn’t this not bibliolatry? Isn’t that just as bad as idolatry?

Perhaps this is something peculiar to Nichiren. What does the Lotus Sutra itself say? In Chapter Ten, “Teachers of the Dharma,” the Buddha states:

Medicine King, there are many laypeople and monastics practicing the bodhisattva way. But you should know that if they are unable to see, hear, read, recite, copy, embrace, and revere this Dharma Flower Sutra, their practice of the bodhisattva way will still be insufficient. However, should they hear this sutra, they will become able to fully practice the bodhisattva way. You should know that if living beings seeking the Buddha Way see or hear this Dharma Flower Sutra and, upon hearing it, believe, understand, receive, or embrace it, they will have succeeded in nearing Supreme Perfect Awakening.

For example, Medicine King, suppose an extremely thirsty man is digging for water on a highland plateau. Seeing that the soil is dry, he knows that water is still far below. Continuing his efforts, in time he sees damp soil, and when he at last reaches mud, he knows for certain that water is at hand.

So is it also with bodhisattvas. You should know that if they have not yet heard, understood, or been able to practice this Dharma Flower Sutra, they are still far from Supreme Perfect Awakening. You should know that if they can hear, understand, ponder, and practice it, they are certainly nearing Supreme Perfect Awakening. Why is this? The Supreme Perfect Awakening of all bodhisattvas is stored within this sutra, which opens the approaches to skillful means and reveals the truth of their ultimate reality. The treasury of this Dharma Flower Sutra is so far away and deeply concealed that no one has been able to reach it. Now the Buddha is opening and revealing it to teach, transform, and perfect bodhisattvas.

Medicine King, if there are bodhisattvas who, on hearing this sutra, are startled by it, or doubt and fear it, you should know that they are novice bodhisattvas. If there are shravakas who, on hearing this sutra, are startled by it, or doubt and fear it, you should know that they are among the prideful and arrogant.

(Threefold Lotus Sutra, pp. 212-213)

The teaching of the Buddha as found in the Lotus Sutra itself claims that those who have the good fortune to be able to see and hear, read, recite, copy, embrace, and revere the Lotus Sutra are very near to attaining supreme perfect awakening, which is to say buddhahood. They are likened to a person digging for water who finally reaches mud and is assured that not only are they digging in the right place but they will soon reach groundwater. On the other hand, those who doubt and fear it are either novice bodhisattvas who are far from buddhahood or voice-hearer disciples who are proud and arrogant and have not embraced the Mahayana teachings much less the Lotus Sutra.

Why should embracing or rejecting a scripture matter so much? One thing to make clear is that the Buddha, and Nichiren, are not concerned with a mere text or scripture. The scripture that we call the Lotus Sutra is just one manifestation of that which it is named for. The Lotus Sutra as a scripture is about a particular kind of discourse, which is what the word “sutra” means, that is taught by all buddhas and which enables all buddhas to attain buddhahood. This particular kind of discourse is called the Lotus Flower of the Wonderful Dharma. One could also translate the title Myoho Renge Kyo as the Discourse on the Blossoming Lotus of the Wonderful Dharma. The finest and purest flowering or blossoming of the ultimate truth is this particular discourse, which enables bodhisattvas, even those who do not yet realize they are bodhisattvas, to quickly attain buddhahood when they hear and rejoice in it. This is made clear in the very first chapter of the Lotus Sutra wherein a buddha in the past known as Light of the Sun and Moon taught the Sutra of the Lotus Flower of the Wonderful Dharma for sixty kalpas to a bodhisattva named Wondrous Light (a past identify of Manjushri) who taught the sutra for eighty kalpas after that buddha entered final nirvana and by teaching it enabled the eight sons of that buddha to attain buddhahood. There are two things to consider carefully regarding this story told by Manjushri right at the beginning of the current Lotus Sutra. The first is that the Sutra of the Lotus Flower of the Wonderful Dharma is not just a single scripture of a mere twenty-eight chapters, but is a discourse that has been given before by other buddhas and their disciples in different forms (much more extensive forms apparently). It is not just a single text, but a particular teaching that is given a myriad of different presentations by a myriad of other buddhas and their disciples throughout time and space. Secondly, it is not the buddhas themselves who enable other people to become buddhas, but hearing, embracing, and practicing in accordance with this sutra that enables bodhisattvas to become buddhas, even if they are taught it by other bodhisattvas and not directly by a living buddha.

What is the real claim here? The claim is that all these Lotus Sutras convey something crucial about the true nature of our lives. According to Nichiren in his treatise Kaimoku-sho (On the Opening of the Eyes), there are two things taught by the Lotus Sutra that distinguish it from all teachings:

Now in my humble opinion, there are many differences between those scriptures expounded [by the Buddha] during the first forty years or so and those expounded during the last eight years. However, what scholars consider to be most important, with which I certainly agree, are the concepts of the attainment of buddhahood by adherents of the two vehicles and the attainment of buddhahood in the remotest past.

(OE, 26)

In brief, the “attainment of buddhahood by adherents of the two vehicles” means that anyone can attain buddhahood, even those disciples of the Buddha who seemingly settled for lesser goals. Because those disciples could no longer strive to attain buddhahood because they had cut off the cycle of birth and death it was thought that it was impossible for them to ever attain buddhahood. If they could attain buddhahood after all, then so can anyone else. Buddhahood is in fact the final and only goal of Buddhist practice according to this teaching, and all sentient beings are capable of attaining it.

The “attainment of buddhahood in the remotest past” means that Shakyamuni Buddha’s buddhahood did not begin at a specific point in time, such as when Siddhartha Gautama was sitting beneath the Bodhi tree some forty years before teaching the Lotus Sutra. In Chapter Sixteen of the sutra, the Buddha states that he attained buddhahood in the remotest past and that his lifespan as a buddha is unquantifiable. In the verse of that chapter the Buddha says, “Such is the power of my wisdom that its light shines infinitely. My life span is of countless kalpas, attained through long cultivation of practice.” (Threefold Lotus Sutra, p. 283) In other words, the fruition of buddhahood is not something limited by time or space, it is itself an expression of the unconditioned, which is unborn and deathless. This means that the buddhahood that we all seek is not something that comes or goes. We have not lost it for it has not gone anywhere, we cannot wait for it because it does not arrive. It is somehow the reality that we already living but our doubt and confusion blinds us from seeing and recognizing it.

The Lotus Sutra is this world’s current expression of the discourse of all buddhas that concerns the possibility of the buddhahood of all beings and the actuality of buddhahood that does not come and does not go but is ever present in our lives through the activity of skillful means. Whether we accept or reject this matter very much. In our current situation, this message has manifested through these causes and conditions: 300 millennia of development a human being, Siddhartha Gautama, awakened to the pervasiveness of suffering, the causes of suffering, the end of suffering, and the way to end suffering. This awakened human being taught that other people could also awaken as he did. Centuries after the Buddha’s passing, a Sanskrit discourse called the Saddharmapundarika coalesced over roughly three centuries expressing the deepest meaning of Shakyamuni Buddha’s awakening and its implications for all of us. Some centuries later this discourse was translated by Kumarajiva and then interpreted by Tiantai Zhiyi in terms of such doctrines as the three thousand realms in a single thought-moment and the mutual possession of the ten realms. This teaching was brought to Japan where Nichiren Daishonin, the founder of our school, discovered that the Lotus Sutra could be distilled into the verbal and written expression that is the Odaimoku. The Odaimoku encapsulates the principle of all the discourses of the past, present, and future buddhas that go by the name the Lotus Sutra. As Nichiren explains in Shishin Gohon-sho (The Four Depths of Faith and the Five Stages of Practice):

The two characters in the name Japan bring together all 66 provinces, with all their people, animals, and wealth without a single exception. Likewise, don’t the two characters for India bring together all 70 of its countries? Miaole says, “As a summation of the whole sutra, the entirety of the Lotus Sutra is included in the daimoku.” He also says, “By way of summary the ten realms or ten aspects are used to indicate the entirety of the three thousand realms.” Bodhisattva Manjushri and the Venerable Ananda used the daimoku of Myoho Renge Kyo to indicate the entirety of the teaching of the Lotus Sutra in three assemblies over the period of the last eight years of the Buddha’s teaching, and to indicate that this is what they meant, they began the sutra with the words “Thus have I heard.”

(WNS, pp. 112-113)

For Nichiren, chanting the Odaimoku is an act that stems from the right mind of the buddha-nature within. It is an expression that means right here and now we can confidently believe the teaching of the One Vehicle in the first half, or Trace Gate, of the Lotus Sutra: that we all have it in us to manifest the selfless compassion of buddhahood. Furthermore, because our human nature includes buddha-nature we can confidently believe the teaching concerning the unquantifiable lifespan of the Buddha in the latter half, or Original Gate, of the Lotus Sutra: which means that the Eternal Buddha does not come or go but is always actively at work in our lives.

Probably many of you who are hearing this talk or reading it are already practicing the Odaimoku, the chanting of the Sacred Title of the Lotus Sutra. If you are doing this, then you have already encountered the Lotus Sutra as the Odaimoku and accepted this Wonderful Dharma that expresses the ever-present possibility and actuality of buddhahood. This means that the buddha-realm has already manifested in your life, that the right mind of buddhahood is already maturing within, that you have already, at least momentarily, turned away from evil influences that denigrate the worth and value of life and taken in the spirit of Shakyamuni Buddha. May we all continue to grow in our faith and joy and ever more deeply establish in ourselves the right mind of the Eternal Buddha and bring forth the Buddha-realm for ourselves and all beings.