Namu Myoho Renge Kyo is what we chant as our primary faith practice, our most important ritual practice in Nichiren Buddhism. More than one person has been confused about what is our primary most important practice. It is easy enough to misunderstand that more than chanting the sutra or a portion of the sutra the chanting of Odaimoku is where our practice is supposed to be centered.
Given the nature of time constraints and other factors during services at temples and in group it may sometimes seem as if we spend more time doing other things during our service and less time chanting. Do not be misled by this. During a formal service there are many elements to that service, all the while there are limitations on time to conduct the service and still fulfill other needs such as Dharma talks and teaching. Regardless chanting Namu Myoho Renge Kyo is the most important part of our practice. It is expected that what we may lack during a formal service will be made up by each person’s individual practice at home and during their daily activities.
Let us now examine the elements of the formula Namu + Myoho Renge Kyo.
Namu is the sound of the characters which are appended to the title of the Lotus Sutra. Let me stop here and clarify something. You may be wondering how the Lotus Sutra equals the title. The full formal title to the sutra in Chinese is Myoho Renge Kyo, or Wonderful Dharma of the Lotus Flower Sutra. You might consider Lotus Sutra to be an abbreviated or shortened informal title. We use Lotus Sutra to stand in the place of the longer Wonderful Dharma of the Lotus Flower Sutra as a convenience in writing and conversation. Myoho Renge Kyo does not translate as Lotus Sutra, rather as Wonderful Dharma of the Lotus Flower Sutra.
Namu is the sound of the characters which serve as a place holder for the word Namaste. Since Namaste is not a Chinese or Japanese word the sound as the Japanese hear for Nama/ste. The characters 南無 do not mean anything comprehensible are merely place holders for the sound of Nama/ste or Namu as the Japanese would say it.
Without going into all the details of the complexity of the Japanese language suffice it to say that there is only one way to say this character combination correctly, and that is NaMu. There is no such word in Japanese as nam, there is na and namu but no nam. However in speaking rapidly the final u sound does slip out of the range of hearing for non native speakers. That doesn’t mean it no longer exists, it’s still there.
So when chanting rapidly it can sound like na myoho renge kyo or namu myoho renge kyo. It never becomes nam myoho renge kyo. A fine point perhaps yet important to understand. You can write Na(mu)myohorengekyo or Namumyohorengekyo, or Na(mu) Myoho Renge Kyo, but it would be wrong to write nam myoho renge kyo. At least technically it is incorrect. Whether that matters to you or not is up to you, you can abandon correctness and you can teach incorrect ideas and that is what you have, something that is incorrect.
Does it matter? I suppose it depends on how important it is to fully understand a teaching or how easy it is to accept shortcuts.
That you may consider to be a minor point and I’ll not argue with you on your mindset on this. However what is important is to understand that Namu is not an insignificant word, and more than merely an appendage made to the title of the Lotus Sutra.
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