"They will not be destroyed by evil persons, non-Buddhist teachers, the heavenly devil Pāpīyas, or wielders of the five transcendental powers. Rather it will be those who appear to be Buddhas or who appear to be arhats who possess the six transcendental powers, monks who observe the precepts, wrapping their bodies in the three robes permitted by monastic discipline and holding a begging bowl reverently before their eyes, high-ranking monks whose renown is like a great wind sweeping over the grass and trees—these it will be who will destroy the correct teaching of the Buddha.
When that time comes, the Buddha predicted, Brahmā, Shakra, thegods of the sun and moon, and the four heavenly kings, angered by these events, will cause great changes in the heavens and portents on the earth to occur as a warning. And if these warnings are not heeded, they will see that the seven disasters break out within the nation. Parents, siblings, ruler and subject, and the mass of common people will attack one another with great fury and, as if they were the owl that eats its own mother or the hakei beast that kills its own father, they will bring ruin upon their own nation, and in the end it will be attacked by enemy states from abroad.
Now I, Nichiren, use the sacred teachings of the Buddha’s lifetime as a bright mirror in which to observe the situation in this country of Japan. And this mirror reveals that without a doubt there are persons here who are enemies of the nation and enemies of the Buddha.
Among the sacred teachings of the Buddha’s lifetime, the Lotus Sutra is not only a bright mirror but a divine mirror. A bronze mirror will reflect the form of a person but it will not reflect that person’s mind. The Lotus Sutra, however, reveals not only the person’s form but that person’s mind as well. And it reveals not only the mind; it reflects, without the least concealment, that person’s past actions and future as well.
The seventh volume of the Lotus Sutra states: “After the Thus Come One has passed into extinction, this person will know the sutras preached by the Buddha, their causes and conditions and their proper sequence, and will preach them truthfully in accordance with principle. As the light of the sun and moon can banish all obscurity and gloom, so this person as he advances through the world can wipe out the darkness of living beings.”
The meaning of this passage is that a person who presumes to expound even one word or phrase of the Lotus Sutra must have a very clear understanding of the relative profundity of the various sacred teachings of the Buddha’s lifetime and of their proper sequence. The case is comparable to a calendar for a year with its 360 days: if there is a mistake in the numbering of even one day, then all the other days in the calendar will be thrown off. Or it is like the thirty-one syllables that make up a poem: if even one word or syllable is wrong or out of place, then the thirty-one syllables will not combine to form a poem.
And in the same way, though one may read and recite only one sutra, if one is confused or mistaken regarding the sequence in which the sutras were preached, beginning with that expounded at the Buddha’s place of enlightenment and ending with that preached at the very end when he lay between the sal trees, or if one does not understand their relative profundity, then, though guilty of none of the five cardinal sins, one will fall into the hell of incessant suffering, and the lay believers who rely upon such a person’s guidance will likewise fall into the great citadel of the Avīchi hell.
How much worse is the situation, then, when a wise man appears on the scene who fully understands the relative merit and profundity of the various sacred teachings of the Buddha’s lifetime. At that time certain priests, handing on confused and mistaken doctrines inherited from the founders of their respective schools, become national teachers or teachers to important families and, distressed at the thought that their own shortcomings may be brought to light or that they may be despised by others, they proceed to slander the above-mentioned wise man to the ruler of the nation, or tempt others to speak ill of him. When that happens, the heavenly deities who guard and protect the nation will rain down destruction upon it like a fierce wind tearing the leaves of the flimsy plantain or great waves overturning a small boat."
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