Total Pageviews

Thursday, August 9, 2018

Did Nichiren write On Establishing the Correct Teaching for the Peace of the Land to instruct his disciples on the value of Dialogue?

"Nichiren wrote the Rissho Ankoku Ron to teach his disciples the value of dialogue" -- SGI leader

"The first essays that Nichiren wrote were doctrinal expositions intended to explain the Dharma to a trained audience of priests. But the “RisshoAnkoku Ron” represents the type of writing at which Nichiren excelled and for which he is famous: the explication of doctrine for an individual, with anecdote, analogy, and detail chosen to appeal to that one person. The essay consists of a series of questions and answers comprising a dialogue between a Buddhist scholar and his visitor. During the conversation the scholar leads his quest to a correct understanding of the relationship between the establishment of the true Buddha Dharma (“rissho”) and the peace of the country (“ankoku”)

The dialectic form had often been used for essays in China and earlier Japanese Buddhist doctrinal expositions (cf. Takagi, “Nichiren:sono kodo to shiso” p.73) and Nichiren himself had used the style in some earlier compositions, but never with such skill and effect. The dramatic presentation suits Nichiren’s spirit, and the lively, conversational form allows for insertion of other doctrines which may be effectively refuted. The position that Nichiren urged was one of repression. The Amidists, whose faith was single out by Nichiren for repression as “heretical, evil teaching” and “slander of true Buddhism” soon learned of the contents of the Rissho Ankoko Ron, which demanded that the Amidist’s faith be outlawed. Six weeks after Nichiren submitted the Rissho Ankoku Ron, his house on the outskirts of Kamakura was burned to the ground. A few months later, Nichiren was arrested and, with no trial, was exiled to Izu by order of Hojo Shigetori, an Amidist.

In the Rissho Ankoku Ron Nichiren had predicted a foreign invasion. In 1268, Kublai Khan sent his first letter threatening Japan with invasion by the Mongol Empire (which had already taken control of China and Korea). Overnight, Nichiren’s reputation as a prophet grew. So did the opposition to his teachings. In 1271, Nichiren and his followers were accused of ten misdeeds, quoted from the Rissho Ankoku Ron. Taken before Taira Yoritsuna, (head of the retainer’s bureau and chief administrator for the Hojo household) Nichiren announced:

“The Kencho-ji, Jufuku-ji, Gokuraku-ji, Daibutsu, Choraku-ji--all the Nembutsu and Zen temples--should be burned to the ground and their priests beheaded at Yuigahama, or Japan will be destroyed.”

Nichiren was found guilty of sedition and sentenced to exile on Sado. In the second month of the following year, another prediction made in the Rissho Ankoku Ron proved accurate, further restoring confidence in Nichiren’s fame as a prophet. Hojo Tokisuke plotted a rebellion against his younger brother, Hojo Tokimune.....fulfilling the prophecy of internal rebellion and internecine fighting that Nichiren had found in the sutras. The Rissho Ankoku Ron proved to be the most inflammatory and far reaching of all of Nichiren’s writings. Clearly, this work was the touchstone that sparked a long series of persecutions in Nichiren’s life.

Years later, while on his deathbed at Ikegami, Nichiren lectured extensively on the Rissho Ankoku Ron to his followers who had gathered there from September to October 13th of 1282, when, at around 8 AM, Nichiren finally died at the age of sixty. He was cremated and his remains were taken to Minobu.

Nichiren did not write it to teach his disciples the value of “dialogue”, as the above history surrounding the Rissho Ankoku Ron clearly demonstrates." -- Stephanie Maltz

No comments:

Post a Comment