Hi Dave,
I would consider that old Gohonzon somewhat of an artifact and keep it. I think it's better to put it under glass and stored somewhere else, and not exposed to the elements. If you know about art restoration, it's best to keep it in storage if it's that old somewhere cold & dry and handled with gloves (acids from your hands). I'm not sure but you should pursue further authenticating it, to see if it came from another Nichiren sect because it's highly unusual for you to get this kind of Gohonzon from any place else.
The gohonzon that we use in the SGI was by Nichikan, the high priest whom we regard as the restorer of Nichiren's Buddhism. It is the same Gohonzon that was bestowed upon Soka Gakkai believers during the 1950s, the same gohonzon that Kansai believers receiving during their incredible shakubuku drive during 2nd Soka Gakkai President Toda's time. Fortunately the woodblock template of the Nichikan Gohonzon was kept in the temple of a chief priest that fully supports the SGI and allows us since the 1990s to give to our current membership. I would strongly encourage you to chant to that when you have members over at your house and enshrined in your butsudan.
Currently as members of SGI, by concensus, we consider the Gohonzon a 'treasure of the body of believers.' The body of believers or Sangha is one of the Three Great Secret Laws (meaning profound, unfathomable, 'hidden' in the Lotus Sutra), the core principle of Nichiren's Teachings. We, as the body of believers, represent the 'sanctuary of the essential teaching' (one of the 3 Secret Laws). We do not allow the gohonzon to be 'marketed', nor 'exploited' in the Soka Gakkai-- thus the little rule about not allowing it to be photographed or photocopied, or distributed as casually as the Minobu sect has done. So that's why its a bit dubious why or how you were able to get this type of Gohonzon. There are also Zen sects of Buddhism that uses a Gohonzon, but because they treat it as an external object, they furthermore put a statue of Shakyamuni Buddha in front it obscuring or covering the gohonzon but THEY do not practice with it. Again, the Gohonzon you have may be a copy but possibly NOT a Gohonzon inscribed by Nichiren himself. ALL Gohonzons (outside of Nichiren's own inscribed Gohonzons) within the Nichiren sects are of course, copies, and often 'transcribed' by a chief priest in the past. The Zen sect's 'Gohonzon' I'll have to inquire further about but probably after Nichiren's passing away it probably came from one of the 5 disciples of Nichiren who in their arrogance & error immediately set about destroying many of Nichiren own writings to his followers because they weren't written in formal Chinese used by scholars & royalty of the day, but in the Japanese common script.
Your Buddhist practice comes from your intent and heart. The Gohonzon is already in you. The physical Gohonzons we have is a representation of Buddha nature but NOT actually our own Buddha natures (or Gohonzon in you) which is vast & unfathomable which is our very lives. Your practice will never be 'tainted' but it's best to use the Nichikan Gohonzon in your daily practice (this was encouraged by a chief priest of the Josho-ji temple (Tokyo), a temple that supports and continues to have the local Soka Gakkai members use its facility today as both a temple & community center. He came to Chicago last week and gave a bit of history about Gohonzons). The Gohonzon is merely an external object but it requires the 'voice' of Buddha (which is you) to activate or actuate the practice for your very life. Again, It's good that you're respecting both Gohonzons. But I would strongly suggest you talk to someone like Mr. Guy McCloskey, or Greg Martin and ask their advice about your artifact Gohonzon. And start using your SGI-issued Nichikan Gohonzon daily instead. Please. If you truly want to understand or you truly support Nichiren's intent in 'inscribing' the Gohonzon as he did, then I would encourage you to read that Gosho over and over again:
http://www.nichirenlibrary.org/en/wnd-1/Content/39
Thanks.
Dan Defensor
Lake Geneva, WI
Southeast Chapter
Milwaukee Area
The SGI Nichikan No-Honzon
Nichikan, the Nichikan Gohonzon, and the Soka Gakkai
SGI members, only see what they want to see and only believe what they want to believe. They have not delved very deeply in the truth of even their own teachings. Perhaps I can help them.
Nichikan wrote:
"We recite the Hoben Pon (2nd chapter) to smash the provisional sutras, we recite the Juryo Hon (16th Chapter) to smash the Hoben Pon, and we recits the daimoku to smash the Lotus Sutra".
Nichiren wrote:
“Nowhere in all the five thousand or seven thousand volumes of sutras listed in the K’ai-yüan era catalog do we find a single scriptural passage that expresses disapproval of the Lotus Sutra and advises one to discard it or to cast it aside, nor any passage that says it is to be classified among the sundry practices and abandoned. If you disagree, you had better find some reliable passage from the sutras that will support your view, so that you may rescue Shan-tao and Honen from their torments in the hell of incessant suffering."(Coversations Between a Sage and Unenlightened Man).
Yet you do Gongyo and chant the Daimoku every day to this slanderer's Gohonzon. Why would you ever think for a moment that you too could escape the torments of hell?
In the "Toke Sanne Sho [On the Three Robes of Nichiren Shoshu]," Nichikan Shonin cites Nikko Shonin and Nichimoku Shonin as the Treasure of the Priest when revealing the Three Treasures of Nichiren Shoshu, and then states, "I say that all the Masters, the successive direct successors to the bestowal of the Law, are in this way included in the Three Treasures." (Seiten, p. 971)
Nichikan's Six Volume Writings" (Rokkan sho) is composed of the following:
1)."The Threefold Secret Teaching" (Sanju hiden sho): In this writing Nichikan exhorts us us to abandon the Lotus Sutra and only embrace Namu Myoho renge kyo. This is bizarre since Namu myoho renge kyo means devotion to the Lotus Sutra (Myoho renge kyo).
2)."The Meanings Hidden in the Depths" (Montei hichin sho). In this equally bizarre writing he changes the Great Secret Law of the Object of Worship in terms of the person from the Original Eternal Buddha Shakyamuni to Nichiren Daishonin.
3)."Interpretations Based on the Law" (Egi hanmon sho). In this equally strange writing, Nichikan teaches that the Lotus Sutra was preached by Shakyamuni to explain Nichiren Daishonin's Buddhism rather than Nichiren Daishonin explaining the Lotus Sutra through his commentaries.
4)."Teachings for the Latter Day" (Mappo soo sho). In this writing, Nichikan attempts to overturn the use of statues as Objects of Worship despite the fact that Nichiren utilized and revered a Statue of Shakyamuni Buddha as an Object of Worship throughout his life, praised both Dozenbo, Toki Jonin, and Shijo Kingo for fashioning statues of Shakyamuni Buddha, and wrote about both "wooden and painted" images.
5)."The Practice of this School" (Toryu gyoji sho). In this slanderous writing, Nichikan says we chant the Daimoku to smash the Juryo Chapter and chant the Juryo Chapter to smash the Hobenpon.
(6) The "Toke Sanne Sho" (The Three Robes of this School) explains the origin and significance of the traditional gray robe, the white surplice and the prayer beads of the Nichiren Shoshu priests. Here, he also goes on to overturn the Three Treasures of the Lotus Sutra and Nichiren by asserting that Nichiren is the Treasure of the Buddha and that the heritage of the Law, the succession, is through the bequethal to one sole individual or the successive High Priests of Nichiren Shoshu (the Treasure of the Sangha). On the Juzu, he wrote:
"The Juzu is a means to guide persons of inferior capacity and force them into ascetic practices."
"Juzu require an eye-opening ceremony before use. This can be done at your local temple." (Six Volume Writings," Rokkan-sho, p. 225)
The Ryokkan Sho, far from being an Enlightened writing, is a bizarre writing.
Nichiren Daishonin, on the other hand, writes:
"When the Great Teacher T’ien-t’ai applied the simile of ghee to the Lotus Sutra, basing himself on a passage in the Nirvana Sutra, he declared that among all the sutras the Lotus Sutra is worthy to be compared to ghee. The True Word teaching was introduced to China from India two hundred years or more after the time of T’ien-t’ai. How then could T’ien-t’ai possibly have stolen the ghee of the True Word teaching and called it the ghee of the Lotus Sutra? Of all strange events, this would be the strangest!
What evidence is there then for calling persons who lived two hundred years or more before the True Word teaching was even introduced to China thieves? Are we to put faith in these writings of the Great Teacher Kobo? Or are we to put faith in the Nirvana Sutra where the Buddha likens the Lotus Sutra to ghee?
If we are to regard the Great Teacher T’ien-t’ai as a thief, then how are we to interpret this passage in the Nirvana Sutra? And if we accept the passage in the Nirvana Sutra as reliable and conclude that the writings of Kobo (Nichikan) are incorrect, then what are we to think of people who put faith in such erroneous teachings? All I can say is that one should compare the writings of the Great Teacher Kobo (Nichikan) and the pronouncements of the Buddha, and then put one’s faith in the one that proves to be correct." (On Prayer).
"But those who follow the teachings of Nichiren honestly discard the mistaken doctrines of the provisional teachings and the incorrect theories of the mistaken teachers, and, with all sincerity, put their faith in the correct teaching and the correct doctrines of the correct teacher. Accordingly they are able to gain the lotus of the entity and to manifest the mystic principle of the entity of the Land of Eternally Tranquil Light. This is because they put their faith in the golden words of the Buddha indicated in the “Life Span” chapter of the essential teaching and chant Namu-myoho-renge-kyo."(Entity of the Mystic Law)
Since the SGI fails, on this one vital criteria of putting "their faith in the golden words of the Buddha indicated in the “Life Span” chapter of the essential teaching", their land is the land of devils and hardships and not the Land of Eternally Quiescent Light. Wherever the teachings of the SGI spread, the people suffer and more tragedies and calamities occur. On the other hand, even one true practicer of the Lotus Sutra in a city or a country will bring good fortune and peace to the people.
Nichikan also wrote:
"The three groups of shomon disciples
accumulated good fortune since sanzen
jintengo [before being guaranteed
enlightenment), and those who received
the seed and reached enlightenment on
hearing the first chapter of the Lotus
Sutra accumulated good fortune since
Gohyaku jintengo. How possibly could
those who first received the seed during
the lifetime of the Buddha all without
exception achieve enlightenment in a
mere two-thousand years? [They
couldn't!] The reason is this: the
effectiveness of Shakyamuni's teachings
begins at Kuon Ganjo, but ends with the
two-thousand years of the Former and
Middle Days of the Law. ... Therefore
the people of the Latter Day of the Law
all innately have yet to possess the seed
and so are of the capacity to receive the
original seed of enlightenment directly."
(Rokkan-sho, p.110)
Who can understand such nonsense? He is like the SGI leaders. He just makes things up out of thin air. What ever pops into his head he writes and calls it the True Teachings. Nichiren says about such men who fail to preach with Sutra in hand, even though they be great bodhisattvas, don't listen to them. Nichikan wasn't even a Bodhisattva. He was a madman and he inscribed the Gohonzon to which SGI members fuse. How could every last member of the SGI fail to become a madman? Here is more proof.
Nichikan writes in his Montei Hichin-Sho ["The Teachings Hidden in the Depths of the Text"]:
"Therefore know this: *"One of Perfect Freedom"* is His true state (honchi). Bodhisattva Jogyo is His transient reflection. And Nichiren is the manifestation of His true state (kenpon).
Nichiren Daishonin never revealed it and he never held back anything. Nichiren Shonin teaches that his true identity is that of Jogyo and hidden in the depths of the Juryohon is that he, as well as we, are Three Bodied Tathagatas, one with the Original Eternal Buddha Shakyamuni, our original teacher.
The Juryo (16) and Jinriki Chapters (21) of the Lotus Sutra and the Goshos, the Entity of the Mystic Law (Totaigi Sho), The Opening of the Eyes, The True Object of Worship, and Repaying Debts of Gratitude, explain why the Nichikan Gohonzon is a demon infested condition for the ruin of the individual, the nation, and the world.
'I likewise am the Father of the World,
The One who saves
from the various sufferings and travails" (Lotus Sutra Chapter 16)
"At that time the Buddha spoke to Superior Practices and the others in the great assembly of bodhisattvas, saying: "The supernatural powers of the Buddhas, as you have seen, are immeasurable, boundless, inconceivable. If in the process of entrusting this sutra to others I were to employ these supernatural powers for a immeasurable, boundless hundreds, thousands, ten thousands, millions of asamkhya kalpas to describe the benefits of the sutra, I could never finish doing so. To put it briefly, all the doctrines possessed by the Thus Come One, the storehouse of all the secret essentials of the Thus Come One - all these are proclaimed, revealed, and clearly expounded in this sutra. (Lotus Sutra Chapter 21)
Nichiren comments on this passage:
Answer: In this passage, Shakyamuni Buddha explains that he is entrusting to the Bodhisattvas of the Earth, his original disciples, the five characters of Myoho-renge-kyo, which is the essence of the Lotus Sutra. Shakyamuni, who attained enlightenment countless kalpas in the past, says elsewhere, "By now the original vows that I made have already been fulfilled. I have converted all living beings and caused them all to enter the Buddha way." Thus, he has already fulfilled his earlier vow. Then, intending to charge his disciples with the task of accomplishing widespread propagation in the fifth five hundred years after his death," he called forth the Bodhisattvas of the Earth and entrusted them with the heart of the sutra, the lotus of the entity of the essential teaching. This passage represents the ultimate purpose for which Shakyamuni Buddha appeared in the world, the secret Law that he attained in the place of meditation. It is this passage that gives proof of the lotus of the entity that, for those of us who live in the Latter Day of the Law, assures the attainment of Buddhahood in both the present and future."
Accordingly, at the present time in the Latter Day of the Law, other than the envoy of the Thus Come One, there can be no one who understands and produces this passage as proof of the lotus of the entity. Truly it is a passage of secret meaning. Truly it is a matter of great concern. Truly it is to be honored and admired. Namu-myoho-renge-kyo, Namu-myoho-renge-kyo!" (Entity of the Mystic Law)
"Answer: 'One: Japan and so on to the whole of Jambudvipa should uniformly take the Master of teachings Lord Shakya of the Original Doctrine as the Object of Worship." (Repaying Debts of Gratitude)
Now, when the Eternal Buddha was revealed in the essential section of the Lotus Sutra, this world of endurance (Saha-world) became the Eternal Pure Land, indestructible even by the three calamities of conflagration, flooding, and strong winds, which are said to destroy the world. It transcends the four periods of cosmic change: the kalpa of construction, continuance, destruction and emptiness. Sakyamuni Buddha, the Lord-preacher of this pure land, has never died in the past, nor will He be born in the future. He exists forever throughout the past present and future. All those who receive His guidance are one with this Eternal Buddha. (Opening of the Eyes)
In the same chapter, another passage reads: ‘The duration of My Life, which I obtained through the practice of the way of bodhisattvas, has not yet expired. It is twice as long as the length of time stated above: 500 dust-particle kalpa.’ This reveals the bodhisattva realm within our minds. The bodhisattvas described in the fifteenth chapter, ‘Appearance of Bodhisattvas from Underground,’ who have sprung out of the great earth, as numerous as the number of dust-particles of 1,000 worlds, are followers of the Original Buddha Sakyamuni who resides within our minds." (The True Object of Worship)
Nichikan asked us to abandon Shakyamuni Buddha and the Lotus Sutra. This is the purport of his Object of Worship. The Nichikan Gohonzon is neither based on the Lotus Sutra (Myoho renge kyo) nor on Shakyamuni Buddha of the Juryo Chapter of the Lotus Sutra. It is not based on the teachings of Nichiren Daishonin. Chanting to this Gohonzon is as if you were to take and revere the offering of a sumptuous meal from the murderer of your parents or praising the one who has kidnapped your child. You along with the offender (Nichikan) will both fall into the Lower Realms and the Sutra's promise of peace and security in this life and a fortunate birth in the next will allude you.
Further Proof of my assertion is the fact that SGI would take up this Gohonzon as their banner of propagation in the first place; the bizarre worldview of the SGI where Daisaku Ikeda is revered and praised at the expense of the Sutra, the Buddha, and Nichiren Daishonin; the misfortune that invariably befalls its leaders; and the lack of insight of the general members.
At the very least, the Nichikan No-honzon is the “banner of propagation of the Soka Gakkai.” Why would anyone who disassociates from the Soka Gakkai embrace the Soka Gakkai banner of propagation? It is as if the US founding fathers would have continued to hold high the flag of England.
No comments:
Post a Comment