@Honolulu Myohoji (Nichiren Shu priest replies) Thank you for your comment. Please be safe!
Response:
Truly, is that all you have to say to defend your sect? There is a concept in medicine, one can diagnose many disease by virtue of exclusion. Likewise Nichiren teaches:
"Putting all this aside, I will point out the truth for the sake of my followers. Because others do not choose to believe it now, they are persons who thereby form a reverse relation. By tasting a single drop, one can tell the flavor of the great ocean, and by observing a single flower in bloom, one can predict the advent of spring. One does not have to cross the water to far-off Sung China, spend three years traveling to Eagle Peak in India,180 enter the palace of the dragon king the way Nāgārjuna did, visit Bodhisattva Maitreya [in the Tushita heaven] the way Bodhisattva Asanga did,181 or be present at the two places and three assemblies when Shakyamuni preached the Lotus Sutra, in order to judge the relative merits of the Buddha’s lifetime teachings. It is said that snakes can tell seven days in advance when a flood is going to occur. This is because they are akin to dragons [who make the rain fall]. Crows can tell what lucky or unlucky events are going to take place throughout the course of a year. This is because in a past existence they were diviners. Birds are better at flying than human beings. And I, Nichiren, am better at judging the relative merits of sutras than Ch’eng-kuan of the Flower Garland school, Chia-hsiang of the Three Treatises school, Tz’u-en of the Dharma Characteristics school, and Kōbō of the True Word school. That is because I follow in the footsteps of the teachers T’ien-t’ai and Dengyō. If Ch’eng-kuan and the others had not accepted the teachings of T’ien-t’ai and Dengyō, how could they have expected to escape the sin of slandering the Law?"
He also teaches:
“‘The monks [whom you are speaking of] preach various teachings, but still they are not able to utter “the lion’s roar.”... Nor are they able to refute and convert evil persons who go against the correct teaching. Monks of this kind can bring no benefit either to themselves or to the populace. You should realize that they are in fact shirkers and idlers. Though they are careful in observing the precepts and maintain spotless conduct, you should realize that they cannot achieve anything. [Then a monk raises “the lion’s roar.”...] Those who break the precepts, upon listening to his preaching, are all enraged to the point where they attack him. This preacher of the Law, though he may in the end lose his life, is still worthy of being called a person who observes the precepts and brings benefits to both himself and others.’”
The true disciples and believers win the argument by default.
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