After a couple of weeks of illness let me get back to this writing.
There are some myths floating around that Nichiren was the fist person to chant Namu Myoho Renge Kyo, or that it was his creation. There is no to support these myths. In fact there is a wealth of scholarly research to the contrary. Before Nichiren the practice of chanting Namu Myoho Renge Kyo was engaged in as a death bed ritual, a practice to help a dying person smoothly transition from life to the next phase of life, that of death.
Some have speculated that Nichiren may have copied Dogen’s formula for Nembutsu. I find that hard to believe since Nichiren did not ‘invent’ Namu Myoho Renge Kyo. However it could be said that Nichiren’s idea that Namu Myoho Renge Kyo should be a formal way of actively practicing the Lotus Sutra as ritual may have stemmed from the Nembutsu. Regardless there is something unique about what Nichiren did do that does not rely on copying or an original creation of the phrase Namu Myoho Renge Kyo.
What Nichiren did on April 28, 1253 was proclaim that this phrase Namu Myoho Renge Kyo represented the crystallization of the most effective way to ritually practice the Lotus Sutra and that as such it was the most efficacious practice for people to engage in for this time, roughly 2000 years since the death of the Buddha.
Nichiren proclaimed publicly and forcefully that no other teaching or practice was appropriate for the time in which he, and also us, lived in. With out any equivocation and with out any doubt he declared that no other Buddhist teaching has any power or relevance to living beings and that only this practice will enable the attainment of enlightenment.
Through his various letters and teachings he clearly laid out his reasoning for this claim. Some of the most vociferous arguments against Nichiren’s claim were made by other Buddhist teachers of his time and they for the most part fell along two general points. One was the argument that the teachings in the Lotus Sutra were too complex and difficult for people to understand and so it would be harmful to teach this teaching to people who may slander or misunderstand. The other main core of arguments mostly dealt with the loss of influence experienced by other Buddhist teachers within society and government.
The second of those were clearly refuted and called out for the nature of their deceit and cunning. Those arguments were not ones that spoke to ordinary beings but rather sought to influence government and the favorable treatment by government officials for one denomination or another.
The first set of arguments Nichiren refuted repeatedly reminding people that the fact of the complexity of the teaching of the Lotus Sutra was in fact a proof for why they should indeed be taught and given supremacy. The Buddha repeatedly says that this Lotus Sutra is the most difficult and complex of all the Buddha’s teachings and also the most effective way to attain enlightenment for all living beings in the age of confusion about which teaching is supreme.
Nichiren wrote and taught that this difficult teaching is the most complete of the Buddha’s entire canon of teachings and the only one suitable for the people of this time. To fail to teach the Lotus Sutra was to fail to understand the heart of the Buddha and to fail in a teacher’s responsibility to ensure the transmission of the path to Buddhahood the Buddha wished to make available to all living beings.
On April 28, 1253 Nichiren did not chant Namu Myoho Renge Kyo for the first time, rather he proclaimed the Odaimoku as the sole path to enlightenment for all living beings in this world. It was through the Odiamoku that all beings no matter how smart or how rich or poor could become equally endowed with Buddhahood. Never before this moment had anyone made such a proclamation.
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