Nichiren Shu praises Shingon USA

                            

A Father Takes Faith

"According to the teachings of the true sutra, when the latter age has begun and Buddhism has fallen into complete disorder, a great sage will appear in the world. For example, the pine tree, which withstands the frost, is called the king of trees, and the chrysanthemum, which continues to bloom after other plants have withered, is known as a sacred plant. When the world is at peace, worthies are hard to distinguish. It is when the age is in turmoil that both sages and fools come into view. How pitiful that Hei no Saemon and the lord of Sagami failed to heed me! If they had, they would surely not have beheaded the envoys from the Mongol empire who arrived a few years ago. No doubt they regret it now.

The great ruler Emperor Antoku, the eighty-first sovereign, commissioned several hundred teachers of the True Word school, including the Tendai chief priest, Myoun, to offer prayers in an attempt to subdue the General of the Right Minamoto no Yoritomo. But their curses “rebounded upon the originator,” as the sutra says. Myoun was beheaded by Yoshinaka, and Emperor Antoku drowned in the western sea. The eighty-second, eighty-third, and eighty-fourth sovereigns, that is, the Retired Emperor of Oki, the Retired Emperor of Awa, and the Retired Emperor of Sado, as well as the reigning emperor— these four rulers had the Tendai chief priest and Administrator of Priests Jien, and forty or more other eminent priests, including those of Omuro and Mii-dera temples, offer prayers to subdue the Taira general Yoshitoki. But again, the curses “rebounded upon the originator,” and the above-mentioned four rulers were banished to various islands.

Concerning this great evil teaching [of the True Word school]: The three great teachers — Kobo, Jikaku, and Chisho — violated Shakyamuni Buddha’s golden words that the Lotus Sutra is supreme, interpreting them to mean that the Lotus Sutra ranks second or third and the Mahavairochana Sutra ranks highest. Because the rulers put their trust in these distorted views, they destroyed both the nation and themselves in this life and are destined to fall into the hell of incessant suffering in the next.

This next special prayer ritual will be the third. Those among my disciples who have already passed away are probably now observing this with their Buddha eye. And those whose lives have been prolonged, watch with your own eyes! The ruler and other high-ranking officials will be captured and carried off to a foreign land, and those who conducted the prayer ritual will either die insane, or end up in a foreign land, or hide themselves in the mountains and forests.

The messenger of Shakyamuni Buddha, the lord of teachings, has twice been paraded through the streets, and his disciples and other supporters have been thrown into prison, killed, injured, or driven from the provinces where they lived. Therefore, the guilt of those offenses will unfailingly extend to each one of the inhabitants of those provinces. Also, people will be afflicted with white leprosy, black leprosy, or all kinds of other terribly grave illnesses. My disciples, understand the reasons for this."

Were we to enter into discussions with this Shingon priest, he would neither be smiling nor posing for a picture. He would have been praying to Mahavairochana to punish us, the modern day messengers of Shakyamuni Buddha. His curses would have "rebounded to the originator" and he would have fallen into hell alive.