Part IIa – Periods in the Spread of Buddhism
When looking at the dynamics of any group or organization, and certainly religion can be looked at in this way, it is helpful to understand that there is no stasis. The Buddha recognized this, even if unspoken, when he elucidated the progression of Buddhism through three periods of what has been called, True, Semblance, and Counterfeit Dharmas.
When we look at the progression of organizations we see that initially as the group is comprised of original founders there is a trueness of spirit or ideal. People have come together around an ideal which is central to each or most and has been discussed at great length, usually. Then as time goes on and the members of the group become comprised of more people who were not part of the initial founding. The ideas may become altered over time. Eventually as time goes on the membership of the group so greatly changes that it is inevitable that the dynamics change as well, even affecting the core mission of the group. Even if the mission isn’t changed frequently the interpretation of the mission changes. We need only look back 200 plus years at the Constitution of the United States to see how time changes things. The meanings of words change, people’s priorities change, even people’s outlook changes. So today, seemingly simply worded passages from the Constitution are passages that people argue about to the point of going to the Supreme Court to figure it out, and even that changes.
A few years ago I came across a book titled The Rise and Fall of Soul and Self: An Intellectual History of Personal Identity by editors Raymond Martin and John Barresi which I found really fascinating, and helps illustrate this ‘change dynamic’. In this book the editors have laid out without comment the changes that have taken place in the Christian doctrines concerning death, resurrection, soul and self throughout the ages. It is clear as one reads this book that the views held today by Christians about these subjects was not the same views held by Christians or Christian scholars throughout the ages.
Given all of this it should be no surprise that Buddhism would also undergo changes. The remarkable thing I see here is that the Buddha saw this stated this and accounted for it from the very beginning. Here we are in the 21st Century and there are people who have specialized in theories surrounding these dynamics and the resultant changes, and some three thousand years ago the Buddha and Buddhists had already foreseen this.
“In the Sutra of Great Assembly Sakyamuni Buddha speaks to Bodhisattva Moon Pitaka, predicting the future ages after His death.” 1 Nichiren then proceeds to recount the various periods of Buddhism and the corresponding practice appropriate to each era. Nichiren goes on to show that Honen and Chinese Masters Tao-ch’o and T’ang claim that only the recitation of the name of the Buddha of Infinite Life of the Pure Land teachings all claim this is the appropriate practice for the age 2500 years beyond the death of the Buddha. But Nichiren has refuted this claim and again asserts that the “pure dharma of ‘Namu Myoho Renge Kyo,’ the gist of the Lotus Sutra, should spread widely among all the people and subjects of 80,000 kings of 80,000 lands in the world, just as today in Japan people all recite the name of the Buddha of Infinite Life. This has been decided by the Buddha, so we must make it a reality.” 2
So, Nichiren is saying that though Honen claims that the practice of the time should be reciting the name of the Buddha of Infinite Life, it is wrong and in fact the only appropriate practice for this age is the heart of the Lotus Sutra. In response to being questioned about proof for this claim he offers this quote from the Lotus Sutra, Chapter 23, “It will spread throughout the world in the fifth 500-year period after the death of the Buddha lest it should be lost.” 3 (The actual quote as translated in the Murano translation reads: “Propagate this chapter throughout the Jambudvipa in the later five hundred years after my extinction lest it should be lost…”4) Nichiren goes on to site four specific references from the Lotus Sutra that all talk about spreading the Lotus Sutra in the fifth 500-year period after the Buddha’s death, or the Later Age of Degeneration. He then goes on to describe the predictions of the condition of Buddhism during this age citing both the Sutra of the Great Assembly as well as the Lotus Sutra.
In short Nichiren is saying that we have the outline of the eras of Buddhism after the Buddha’s death as it appears in the Sutra of the Great Assembly. Then we have within the Lotus Sutra various quotations instructing future practitioners of Buddhism as to exactly which sutra should be taught during the fifth 500-year period or 2500 years after the passing of the Buddha.
He goes further to use the sutras, the Buddha’s teachings themselves to describe the conditions that practitioners of the Lotus Sutra would face in this Later Age of Degeneration. He is laying out a clear case for showing that since we know the time we live in, we can also know what is the correct teaching to follow. And we should not be surprised by the difficulties being experienced and instead we can actually use the occurrence of these difficulties to further verify the accuracy of the Buddha’s predictions.
Nichiren says;
“Suppose a wise man appears then. Those high priests haunted by a devil’s spirit would induce the king and his ministers and populace into speaking ill of him, abusing him, beating him with sticks or pieces of wood, throwing stones or tiles at him, and banishing or even executing him. Then Sakyamuni Buddha, the Buddha of Many Treasures and Buddhas in all the worlds in ten directions would order the great bodhisattvas appearing from underground, who in turn would order the King of the Brahma Heaven, Indra, the sun, the moon, and the Four Heavenly Kings to inflict strange phenomena in the sky and natural calamities on earth. If those kings do not heed the divine punishments, their neighboring countries would be ordered to chastise those evil kings and monks, resulting in the most terrible war the world has ever had.”5
Wow! What can we say here? Nichiren is clearly coming back to his thesis and claims he presented in the Rissho Ankoku Ron. To me this really underscores the single purpose that Nichiren held in his heart throughout his entire life. He consistently comes back to the issue of what will be the most effective way of ensuring the happiness of all people. By working backwards through this statement we seek that since those very calamities are or have occurred then perhaps they might have been the result of heavenly deities and various phenomena and Buddhas failing to receive the proper nourishment of the Dharma of the Lotus Sutra. And if they have failed to receive the proper nourishment is it because they have perhaps persecuted the single wise person who has been trying to teach them all these years. Instead of suffering all the problems the Japanese society at the time had suffered, Nichiren points out once again how easy it would be to solve these problems.
—–footnotes——-
1. Senji-Sho, p. 191
2. Senji-Sho, p. 193
3. Senji-Sho, p. 193
4. trans. Murano, Lotus Sutra, p. 307
5. Senji-Sho, p. 194
