"The proponent of the Lotus school should then say, “Do you admit, then, that you do not put faith in the Lotus Sutra? Slandering means none other than this failure to have faith. For faith may be called the source of the way and the mother of blessings.” The fifty-two stages of bodhisattva practice have their basis in the first ten stages, the stages of faith. In these ten stages of faith, one begins by cultivating a mind of faith, for evil actions and earthly desires have their source in the lack of faith." -- Nichiren
Believing that a living mentor in the seat of the Law is the prime point of the Lotus Sutra is to lack faith. Practicing interfaith in this time of Mappo is to lack faith. Believing that a Nichiren inscribed Gohonzon is valueless because it has not been sanctioned by the Soka Gakkai is to lack faith. Teaching contrary to Nichiren regarding earthly desires is to lack faith. Throwing out a character of the Daimoku is to lack faith.
Teaching that if one forgets the way of 'mentor-disciple' one cannot attain buddhahood is a lack of faith and a direct, major slander of the Lotus Sutra. Yet this is exactly what the SGI and Daiseku Ikeda explicitly teach, essentially "have faith in the person (the mentor) and his way (follow him)", rather than faith in the Lotus Sutra.
ReplyDeleteHas Daiseku Ikeda attained buddhahood to teach thus? Has he enabled any of his followers to do thus? Is the attainment of material wealth, status, etc. any indication of attaining buddhahood? If so, are we saying that the founders of Microsoft, Facebook, Amazon, Apple or Edison, Stevenson, Bell were buddhas? If you win the lottery, are you a buddha? Have a lucky escape from an accident, are you a buddha? Bump into your childhood sweetheart, (who you were thinking about recently after going through a difficult seperation) and then go on to rekindle a loving relationship with, does that make you a buddha? Or if you give up your free time to help out with the elderly. at a soup kitchen, or campaign for disarmament, do that make you a buddha?
The latter are very worthy causes and it's likely that you're quite a socially engaged and responsible person but does it make you a buddha? If so, why bother practicing? And why bother with "activities for recruitm...sorry 'kosen-rufu'"?
Why not just throw yourself into advancing your career, buying lottery tickets, campaigning or volunteering, just like billions of other people do? Lots of people have good luck, good relationships, good families, success, nice houses, cars, things. Lots if peopke go from the bottom to the top, from drug addked waste lands or family tradgedy to happiness by their own efforts, are they all buddhas? Even if they don't have any religious faith?
Good call Mark, the Lotus Sutra and Nichiren's teaching is about much more than this. But it seems SGI woukd have everyone think that it's just about fairly mundane aspects of life that get the label buddha attached to them, so long as you pay for the privilege of belonging to an organisation that will brand it so for you.
Course they win't want to know if its not going so well, it would damage their brand "bring us sucess and we'll stamp it 'genuine buddha' (made by the SGI) for you, "keep your failure to yourself"...
What a contrast to the way Nichiren was.
"Good call Mark, the Lotus Sutra and Nichiren's teaching is about much more than this. But it seems SGI woukd have everyone think that it's just about fairly mundane aspects of life that get the label buddha attached to them, so long as you pay for the privilege of belonging to an organisation that will brand it so for you. "
ReplyDeleteThe SGI calls this *down to earth enlightenment*-- the sufferings of birth, illness, aging and death-- are *easier* to negotiate when one has $$, privilege, power--.
What the SGI doesn't say is that acquiring these *benefits* from the devil of the 6th heaven, employing the means of slandering the Lotus Sutra worsens one's fate to an unimaginable duration of unspeakable suffering.
I suggest that the SGI add *informed consent* to their membership applications, fully disclosing that SGI believes in the easy to understand teachings,comfortable aspects of the Lotus Sutra, but does not believe the difficult to understand warnings the Buddha preached in the Lotus Sutra for discarding ANY of the teachings in the Lotus Sutra.
Furthermore, SGI should add the disclaimer that all admonitions from Nichiren regarding the doctrines adopted by SGI, are considered inappropriate for our present day cultural predispositions.
Summarizing for the hard of hearing (LOL)-- SGI should declare itself NOT affiliated with Nichiren , the Lotus Sutr or, Shakyamuni Buddha. Admit and show remorse for stealing the daimoku and distributing counterfeit Gohonzons in Nichiren's name.
In my humble opinion,
~Katie
Yes. They should stop calling themselves Nichiren Buddhists.
ReplyDeletethey also lack face! too bad. GMW would not be pleased.
DeleteOh it gets worse. I was flicking through the infamous 2009 "lecture" on Heritage of the Ultimate Law, just after pulling quotes from Buddhism in Action, to refresh myself on the changes. Not only does the former have a whole chapter on Mentor Disciple that includes the concept of the Buddha of the SGI and the explicit "following the instructions of the mentor", control statement - it's got the extraordinary "Sutras of the future will say" of the SGI and it's leaders, statement. Why would such a book make such statemnts? Make no mistake, this is the SGI project, the setting up of a new rival to Scientology. That ground work has been laid very carefully and they've been at it since 2009.
DeleteIn a way, I wished I'd paid more attention at the time and gotten around to reading it, rather than just skimming it at the time. I'd have left then. On the other hand, maybe it worked out right, now is the right time, in 2009, it would have been too easy for them to defend, now it's almost impossible. I'll post referenced quotes in the next week or so and contrast it with BiA. Hopefully that'll wake some more of the sleepers up! :)
It will.
ReplyDelete"Sutras of the future will say" of the SGI... For example, the New, Newer, Newest Human Revolution "Sutra".
ReplyDelete