008 (Part 1) Questions and Answers about Embracing the Lotus Sutra

Although there are different opinions concerning the date of this letter, it is generally accepted that Nichiren Daishonin wrote it in the third month of the third year of Kōchō (1263), shortly after he had been pardoned and had returned to Kamakura following two years of exile on the Izu Peninsula. The Daishonin was then forty-two years old. As the title indicates, this work discusses the significance of embracing the Lotus Sutra and is written in the form of five questions and answers. In the first section, the questioner asks: Which teaching should one practice in order to attain Buddhahood quickly? In answer, the Daishonin declares that the Lotus Sutra enables all people to achieve Buddhahood without exception and is therefore the highest of all the sutras. In the second section, the questioner objects to such exclusive emphasis on the Lotus Sutra as narrow-minded. The Daishonin replies that his assertion of the sutra’s supremacy among all the Buddhist teachings is based on the Buddha’s own words as they appear in the sutras themselves, and not on the arbitrary theories or commentaries of later scholars and teachers. When the questioner points out that other sutras also identify themselves as “the foremost sutra” or “the king of sutras,” the Daishonin explains that such statements are relative. Only the Lotus declares itself to be supreme among all the sutras preached in the past, now being preached, or to be preached in the future. Next, the Daishonin says that Shakyamuni Buddha did not reveal the truth during the first forty years and more of his preaching, and that only the Lotus Sutra is the true way that leads to Buddhahood. The questioner then asks about an interpretation put forth by the Dharma Characteristics school, which claims that the Lotus Sutra is a provisional teaching, expounded solely for the purpose of leading to Buddhahood the people of the two vehicles, voice-hearers and cause-awakened ones, and not for the sake of the bodhisattvas, who had already gained benefit through the pre-Lotus Sutra teachings. The Daishonin acknowledges that the Lotus Sutra was indeed expounded chiefly for the people of the two vehicles, whose capacity for supreme enlightenment had been denied in the earlier Mahayana sutras. However, he continues, this does not mean that the Lotus Sutra is a provisional teaching, or that it benefits only the people of the two vehicles. Rather, by singling out those of the two vehicles, for whom Buddhahood is especially difficult to attain, and asserting that even these people can become Buddhas through the power of the Lotus Sutra, Shakyamuni made clear that this sutra is the one vehicle that opens the way to Buddhahood for all people. In the last section, the questioner, now convinced, asks how one should embrace the Lotus Sutra in order to reach enlightenment quickly. Nichiren Daishonin replies that one need not master the principle of three thousand realms in a single moment of life, or perfect the threefold contemplation in a single mind, as the Tendai scholars asserted. Rather, the essential thing is simply to have a heart of faith in the sutra. Faith, he explains, is the fundamental cause for attaining enlightenment, and to slander the Lotus Sutra and its votary is an act that invites indescribable misery. A concluding passage of great poetic beauty stresses the fleeting nature of human existence. To be born as a human and, moreover, to encounter the supreme teaching of Buddhism are rare opportunities. Rather than wasting one’s brief yet precious life in the pursuit of worldly fame and profit, the Daishonin says, one should dedicate oneself to faith in the Lotus Sutra and so attain the everlasting joy of enlightenment. He declares that to chant Nam-myoho-renge-kyo oneself and to enable others to do the same are the most important tasks in this present existence. https://www.nichirenlibrary.org/en/wnd-1/Content/8