| The Daishonin laid out no great organizational plan. All he insisted upon was that his disciples chant Nam-myoho-renge-kyo and aspire to teach others that they too possess the Buddha nature. Some may accomplish the latter by actually talking to others about the practice of Nichiren Buddhism. Others may find it more appropriate to develop their own consciousness as Bodhisattvas in order to teach others of the fundamental respect and dignity with which all humans must face each other.
In Nichiren Buddhism, many practitioners talk about "practice for oneself" (jigyo) and "practice for others" (keta.) My point is this: Beware of those who would be too facile in explaining what the Buddhist "practice for others" entails. At times it may indeed be teaching someone to chant Nam-myoho-renge-kyo, i.e. shakubuku. At others, it may be improving yourself for the sake of others, i.e. leading by example and not coercion.
Nichiren Daishonin was not a dogmatist. In some writings he admonishes that chanting Nam-myoho-renge-kyo a million times is not enough while in others he says that a single daimoku will make you enlightened. In some writings he tells people to steadfastly refute the heresy of others, while in others he says that all religious teachings should be accorded respect. This was not a person who reveled in exclusivity and righteousness.
Nichiren Daishonin was simply a man who knew that his mission was to spread a teaching of universal applicability and, over a period of 30 years, he risked both life and limb to do so. He also knew that the proof of the pudding is in the eating -- all a person has to do is chant.
Remember that the woman, Jean, who introduced me to chanting told me she'd been shakubukued and I thought it was an African term? In truth, it is Japanese and literally translates as "break down and supplant." It refers to the process by which the Daishonin would vehemently debate and tear apart the proponents of other Buddhist schools in order to prove their limitations vis-a-vis the Lotus Sutra. He would then compassionately explain that the Lotus Sutra was the vehicle which included all previous teachings and actually went far beyond them in its promise of Buddhahood for all human beings.
In truth, he was simply trying to mercifully bestow real diamonds upon people who were pretty impressed with cubic zirconia. Nevertheless, he did it with such fervor that he acquired quite a reputation. Even today, in the rare English references you may find on Nichiren, you will often find him described as a "militant" Japanese monk.
Please understand that this description of militancy derived from his demeanor and his steadfast refusal to acknowledge any other Buddhist teaching as being equivalent to the Lotus Sutra. He was not a samurai and he did not carry a sword nor did he incite others to violence. As a supreme Buddhist, no matter how much he might disagree with what others were teaching and, at times, predict dire consequences for their behavior, he never indicated a lack of regard for the sanctity of their humanity.
Unlike the medieval Japan that the Daishonin lived in and the Asian world in general, the Western world has had little or no experience with Buddhism. Therefore the militant approach isn't really needed here. We in the West have not been programmed with the erroneous dogma of earlier Buddhist sutras, so there is no need to "break down" our corrupted minds. On the other hand, the Daishonin taught that erroneous religious belief lies at the basis of all suffering.
I have tried to point out the fallacy of transcendence versus immanence when it comes to looking at the Buddha or even God. Additionally, I think it could be said that from the viewpoint of the eternal mystic law and the ephemeral nature of phenomenal reality, materialism is not a safe harbor for religious belief.
Nonetheless, these are reasoned arguments that can be made without jumping up and down while screaming "I am right and you are wrong."
The fallacies inherent in the views of transcendent deities and rampant materialism readily evaporate in the sunlight of very real effects manifest by the invocation of Nam-myoho-renge-kyo. There is always plenty of time to redefine terms and, in Western civilization, there is very little need to proclaim the truth of one's cherished teaching while denigrating the beliefs of others. Far too much of that has been woven into our history already -- the Crusades, the Inquisition, the Pogroms, not to mention the "War on Terrorism," which, from my perspective, sometimes comes dangerously close to a Christian vs. Islam overtone.
The "Japanese" factor
I'm hoping that for those of you who have even a nodding acquaintance with Japan, you might have some sense that Nichiren Daishonin was not really your typical Japanese. I believe that this fact to some extent ameliorates the "Japanese" factor concerning the origins of the religion. If you ask me why this Buddhism originated in Japan, I cannot tell you. If you ask me why the chants themselves are alien and multilingual with a Japanese pronunciation, I can tell you that this is because they originated with a Japanese person. In and of itself, the appearance of the Daishonin and his form of Buddhism does not imply any special capabilities or understanding to the Japanese race. The following story may help to explain.
By 1978 I had become convinced that Japan being the originating point for Nichiren Buddhism was the greatest obstacle to propagating it in the rest of the world. Not only had my years living in Japan provided me first hand evidence of how xenophobic the Japanese are in general, a decade of working with and for them had created in me a more personal antipathy based on what I perceived as both paternalism and arrogance.
Please, please don't get me wrong -- I am telling you what I felt 25 years ago, not today. I have mellowed with age and come to deeply appreciate what the Japanese are about (at least in my limited perception.) In their ability to work for the sake of the whole, to have patience and unify towards a long-term goal, I believe they are unmatched. In their deep sense of gratitude, honor and responsibility, I similarly believe they are light years beyond the average Westerner. In their appreciation of extended family and the elderly, I think the West has much to learn from them.
Nonetheless, we Americans -- despite Japanese perception of the relative youth of our culture -- have things we can also help them with. Our spirit of creativity, of inventiveness, of rugged individualism are all things the Japanese might do well to delve into. Where the American child is taught "any child can become president," the Japanese child is taught, "the nail that sticks out, gets hammered." Don't kid yourself -- these lessons strike equally deep in our respective cultures.
I hope this gives you a little more sense of how unique the Daishonin was. He stood up in the midst of an isolated, completely homogeneous society to declare that grave errors were being made in the development of Japanese Buddhism and that only his righteous interpretation of the Lotus Sutra could save the Japanese from great troubles. It is no wonder that those in power sought to kill him. Failing that, they exiled him. It is also no wonder that his stridency in railing against the corrupt state of Japanese Buddhism at the time has been misinterpreted in our present age and earned him the totally erroneous label of "militant."
Toward the end of my second stay in Japan, I was expressing to anyone who would listen my astonishment at how much chaff of Japanese culture I had to separate from the wheat of the Buddhist teachings. Over and over again, I posed the question, "Why did this wonderful, universal teaching have to start over here?"
I already knew that it didn't have anything to do with language. Mr. Matsuda, my mentor, had explained to me how the essential theories of Buddhism (including the Three Thousand Realms and all of the other teachings to which the Daishonin referred) had been originally expounded in Sanskrit and Chinese -- languages that were closer to English in their origins than to Japanese.
In one fell swoop, Mr. Matsuda disabused me of the notion that the Japanese had attained some pinnacle of understanding regarding Buddhism that was inaccessible to other nationalities or cultures. He also reinforced my almost obsessive desire to find out "why did it start in Japan?"
Finally, probably out of their desperation to get me out of their hair, Mr. Matsuda and other members of the editorial staff wangled an opportunity for me to visit with a gentleman named Yasuji Kirimura. Mr. Kirimura was, at the time, the head of the entire Org study department. You need to understand that we are talking here about an organization that had almost twenty million members in Japan at that time. As the head of its study department, Mr. Kirimura was considered by both laity and priesthood to have a pretty profound grasp of both the Daishonin's teachings and their relevance to Japanese society.
I say this by way of introduction to his answer because I want the reader to be very clear that none of what follows is my own invention. The reason will become evident as I tell you what Mr. Kirimura said in response to my queries about why Nam-myoho-renge-kyo came out of Japan.
Via a translator, Mr. Kirimura looked me in the eye and said, "That's easy -- the Japanese are the most evil people in the world. Because of their great slander of the Buddhist law, the life of Nichiren Daishonin had to manifest in this land and reveal Nam-myoho-renge-kyo. I can see you have some doubts about this, but let me put it this way: Who are the only people in the world to have ever had the nuclear bomb dropped on them? This event by itself demonstrates the deep negative karma of the Japanese people and that's why the Gohonzon had to appear here first. If it will work for a Japanese person, Nam-myoho-renge-kyo chanted to the Gohonzon will work for anyone. This should give hope to people throughout the world that global propagation of this teaching is absolutely viable."
You can see why I wanted the reader to be very clear that I did not make this up. In addition to just sounding racist, from a superficial perspective it's appalling to suggest that the tragic fate of an entire people could be somehow linked to their own evil-doing. It's like saying that Jews were responsible for the concentration camps or that African-Americans were responsible for slavery. Even writing this stuff gives me the willies but, from another point of view, I know that the Buddhist teaching of karma makes these kinds of statements plausible.
It's a lot easier to believe that people have created their own suffering, either individually or collectively, when we see the cause and effect manifest within a generation or two. We have no trouble in believing that the Third Reich sowed the seeds for its ignominious end or that the French aristocracy received their just desserts via the revolution. It's when we perceive bad things happening to good people or atrocities being committed upon seemingly innocent populations that we recoil in horror at the injustice of it all.
Please understand that I am not saying, nor do I believe that Mr. Kirimura was implying, that "people deserve what they get" and Buddhism would have us all stand idly by mumbling about bad karma. I have gone to great lengths to emphasize the fact that Buddhism cherishes human life as the greatest treasure in the universe. Anything that can be done to prevent that life from suffering or being extinguished should and must be done.
The Buddhist doctrine of karma is simply meant to provide a logical explanation for the seemingly random acts of horror and inhumanity we see all too often on this planet.
Please understand the difference between explanation and excuse. At some lofty theoretical level, certainly transcending my emotional capacity, there may be some explanation for nightmares such as the atom bomb and the holocaust. But there is no excuse.
So, as incomprehensible and somewhat distasteful as it was, my question about the reason for the origins of this teaching in Japan had been answered. After recovering from my initial shock, I realized what a great gift I had been given my both Matsuda and Kirimura in liberating me from the bonds of language and culture that had prevented me from seeing the kernel of Buddhist truth. My own chanting, reinforced by epiphanies that were catalyzed by studying the Daishonin's writings, had led me to instinctively understand that Nam-myoho-renge-kyo was truly universal. Now I had some real answers and, like a dog with a bone, was determined to chew at them until there was nothing left to the imagination.
So this was the philosophical conundrum facing me upon my return to the States in 1980. I was very cognizant of the fact that something had gone horribly awry in teaching Buddhism to Westerners. I had always had the sense that, being the independent spirited folk that we are, Americans would have difficulty in learning about Buddhism via a Japanese lay organization.
The Org had placed so much emphasis on both organizational participation and ritual, I had assumed that was part and parcel of the Daishonin's expressed regimen. How ironic that two tours of duty in Japan not only served to help me divest myself of the Japanese ambiance of Nichiren Buddhism, but also provided the key to teaching Buddhism in this country. No longer was I bound by the notion that something about Japan inherently made it the best place for Buddhism or made Japanese people the best people to teach it.
I had, and still have, profound respect for the Japanese in their practice and continuation of the Buddhist tradition, but now realized that only a completely Western mind-set would enable Buddhism to take its proper place in the mainstream pantheon of Western religions.
Propagation and cultural myth
Nichiren Daishonin actually elucidated what he termed the five guides for propagation, yet time and time again these were ignored in favor of traditional Japanese methods and a peculiarly Japanese mind-set which I will get into in a moment. The five guides are:
1. A correct understanding of the teaching.
2. A correct understanding of the people's capacity.
3. A correct understanding of the time.
4. A correct understanding of the country.
5. A correct understanding of the sequence of propagation.
Where the Japanese attempts at propagating Nam-myoho-renge-kyo in the West went wrong were in numbers two through five. Seven centuries of practice did give them, particularly the Nichiren Shoshu priesthood, the upper hand in number one, but the remaining four were sadly lacking. I, on the other hand, may be weak in area number one (only have thirty-five years under my belt), but by dint of both my birth and my studies have become very aware of numbers two through five.
By way of clarification, it is critical to go back to the origins of both the Japanese and the American societies to understand the underlying assumptions each of these respective peoples makes, not only about themselves but about the essential nature of things. Please understand that although I may speak in glittering generalities, I do understand that there are great differences and unique opinions within both cultures. I know that all Japanese are not Shinto or Buddhist, just as I know that all Americans are not Christian or Jewish.
What I am suggesting is that, within both cultures, there are threads that run through their general collective mind as a result of their original mythologies. I say mythologies because, historical facts aside, that is what they are to a great extent.
Most Americans are aware that our founding fathers were homogeneously white, propertied, slave-owning men of questionable morality. This does not affect the greatness of what they accomplished, either in the Declaration of Independence or the Constitution. These were great works that set up a dynamic in American society that benefits its people, the majority of whom are nothing like the founding fathers. In that they probably did not throw coins across the Potomac River, live completely moral lives, or speak with total honesty, these men have become myth.
The Japanese myth, which goes back farther than ours, is contained within two works known as the Kojiki and the Nihongi. To tell the truth, I have read neither of these and so shall summarize the Japanese myth of origin as briefly and accurately as I can. Essentially it tells the story of the Sun Goddess, Amaterasu, who came to earth thousands of years ago and gave birth to the Japanese nation and race. In this sense, the Japanese became both a blessed and "chosen" people, in all likelihood superior to those inhabiting the rest of the earth.
Just as America's historical facts do not necessarily bear out the myths surrounding its origins and "manifest destiny," so too do Japan's historical origins call their myth into question. There are some who say that Japan, much like Australia, was a dumping ground for the prisoners of other Asian nations -- convicts who hunted down the native Ainu (much as we did the natives of our own land) and drove them north toward the island of Hokkaido. This would certainly be a far cry from the notion of divine ancestry.
In my opinion, these originating myths together with logistical realities created some situations that were almost diametrically opposed. America was founded by Protestants, deep believers in a transcendental God, who looked out over a vast expanse of land, full of natural resources, which ignited their pioneering spirit and became the forging ground for rugged individualism. The Japanese indigenous religion was Shinto, based on beliefs of innate divinity (as befits the descendants of a Goddess) and a pantheon of lesser gods and spirits that serve to either bless or vex the human condition. Japan was a tiny nation with a scarcity of resources -- rather than develop their individuality, its population had to continually strive to subjugate their own sense of independent spirit to a deeper sense of commonality -- good for the whole was, of necessity, good for the individual.
So along comes Buddhism to both countries. The Japanese sense of their own divinity, combined with their notions of harmony and introspection, are a fertile breeding ground for its teachings. If there is any place where the Buddhist teachings may have difficulty in taking root in the Japanese mind-set, it lies in the concept of the Bodhisattva. This notion of having respect for all others as though they too are Buddhas does not set well with a "chosen" people.
Additionally, rigid systems of class and gender distinction do not integrate easily with the Lotus Sutra's admonition that all people, without distinction, possess the Buddha nature. The Daishonin had his job cut out for him in the thirteenth century.
Railing against the corruption of a Buddhist teaching that had evolved both as a result of mixing with indigenous Shintoism and bowing to cultural class distinction, the Daishonin vociferously attacked the Japanese religious and social status quo, nearly losing his head as a result. In truth, he lived a life of true austerity. Never well off, he was exiled twice - the second time to a remote island named Sado, with a climate similar to northern Minnesota, where he lived in a hut in the midst of a paupers' graveyard.
It was on Sado that he wrote many of his most moving and important works. He was freed only when the Shogun, fearing that a combination of typhoons and Mongol attacks threatening to decimate Japan at the time might be a karmic effect of his treatment of the priest, Nichiren, gave in and allowed him to return to the mainland.
Flash forward to the twentieth century. Nichiren Shoshu Buddhism in Japan has had slow but steady growth over the years, garnering a few thousand believers and a few hundred priests. At the end of World War II, a man named Josei Toda, who spent years in prison during the war for his belief in Nichiren Shoshu, emerges to spread his religion to a nation reeling from nuclear aftershock. Embodying the spirit of the Daishonin, together with an awareness that may very well have mirrored Mr. Kirimura's above revelations concerning the depth of Japanese karma, Toda raged through Japanese society until his death in 1957. As a result of his efforts, Nichiren Shoshu became the fastest growing religion in Japan, garnering over ten million families by the mid-sixties.
It was in the mid-sixties that the previously mentioned Japanese ladies introduced the Daishonin's Buddhism to America. Their efforts made it possible for the enormous Japanese lay organization known as the Soka Gakkai (the creation of Josei Toda) to initiate its American counterpart known as NSA. NSA was the group that first taught me, along with tens of thousands of others, about the Buddhism of Nichiren Daishonin.
I will forever be grateful to NSA for that introduction, however I am not similarly appreciative of the errors it unknowingly conveyed as a result of not paying close enough attention to the final four of the five guides for propagation set out by the Daishonin himself. As a result of these errors I was, shall we say, improperly programmed to correctly practice the Nichiren Shoshu teaching.
Being a child of the Judeo-Christian American culture, although I had consciously rejected a lot of its dogma and really didn't buy into many of its beliefs, I still was impacted by what, for lack of a better term, might be called the national collective unconscious. Just as the Japanese might have an inborn sense of divine superiority, I as an American have a similar sense of original sin.
It's not that we Americans don't believe that we are great. It's more that we believe our greatness derives from an external source -- the blessings of our God. You hear it in what probably should be our national anthem -- America the Beautiful ("god shed his grace on thee") and our pledge of allegiance ("one nation, under God").
Sigmund Freud, early in the twentieth century, only served to exacerbate the situation. His notions of all kinds of repressed aberrant thought, swirling unnoticed below our conscious mind, only served to make the Western population evermore convinced of its inherent wrongness, requiring salvation from an external source. Is it any wonder that depression seems to be the new "American" malaise?
The converse side to this notion of self-imperfection lies in the wonderful ideal of the samaritan. Americans, unlike the Japanese, have historically been generous to a fault. The concept of Bodhisattva, of being charitable, comes easily to Americans. In our own sense of fallibility, we find it easy to help and forgive others. This is not to say that racism and its attendant horrors have not also been part of the American legacy. However, the reality of the situation provides ample evidence that never, in the history of the world, has there been a nation that was so much of a true melting pot and so materially benevolent to its neighbors, even those vanquished in war.
So, in a statement of sweeping generalization, let me summarize what I'm attempting to say here. From the standpoint of the last four guides for propagation, Japan is a nation steeped in Buddhism for many centuries and populated by people who believed in their own innate divinity with little sense of the Bodhisattva ideal. In contrast, America is a country in which Buddhism was virtually unknown until the 1960s; its people have a profound sense of their own imperfection and live according to the precepts of the samaritan, a strikingly similar, albeit not identical, concept to that of the Bodhisattva.
I don't know, as a nation, who's karma is better or worse, but I'll bet the farm on one thing: what worked to spread the Daishonin's Buddhism in Japan will never truly resonate in Western civilization.
Here's why: What essentially worked in Japan to both establish the Daishonin's Buddhism in the thirteenth century and then widely disseminate it in the twentieth was the traditional method of shakubuku. As I described earlier, this is a process by which people's erroneous belief structures concerning Buddhism are essentially broken down. They are then replaced with the correct teachings of the Lotus Sutra, culminating with Nam-myoho-renge-kyo.
When employed correctly, shakubuku appears to be a very stern procedure in which there is demonstrable intransigence in dealing with the person being shakubukued. The Daishonin himself adopted this kind of attitude and Josei Toda was similarly known for his sternness and solemnity when introducing people to these teachings. Doesn't sound very attractive, does it? That's exactly my point.
"Strictness" tends to dishearten Americans
The intractable aspect of shakubuku may be essential in a culture where Buddhism has already taken root, perhaps even become diseased, and where the people themselves believe they are already little gods. In fact, even after people began chanting in Japan, they were regularly given doses of what was known as "strict guidance" in order to keep them on the straight and narrow. This means they were regularly scolded to ensure they did not backslide into an earlier Buddhist teaching (many of them had centuries of lesser Buddhist practice in their background) or buy into the notions of their own arrogance.
This may sound a bit racist, but these opinions were confirmed by Mr. Kimimura and I am not trying to say that Westerners are in any way, shape or form better than the Japanese. Any Westerner who has done business with the Japanese will tell you that underlying their seeming geniality and social grace is a rock-hard sense of the fact that they always feel they are holding the upper hand. It was this sense of smug superiority that Toda and his Soka Gakkai minions would constantly try to strike down as they awoke their compatriots to the truth of Nam-myoho-renge-kyo and tried to get them to recognize their Bodhisattva responsibilities.
This approach did not work well in America. I already told you of the way in which my personal relationships were interfered with, supposedly in the name of Buddhism. In reality I was being asked to conform to a Japanese set of standards. I could take that to an extent -- I was young and pure and really did want to practice this Buddhism correctly, having realized within that Nam-myoho-renge-kyo did indeed work in amazing ways.
However, over the years, I began to see that what was being asked of me was counter to my very being. I was literally told to put all thought out of my mind except that which would serve to fulfill the agenda of the Soka Gakkai's leader. I was told over and over again that, as an American, I could never truly understand the Daishonin's teaching or his heart. You can see that, following my experiences with the Gosho in 1976 and my dealings in Japan from 1978-79, all of these things I had been told were being proven false.
Of most importance, I discovered that I was going against the Daishonin's mandate in all of this. This is where even my own chanting seemed to fail me. After ten years of chanting, something felt truly stagnant and this is what motivated so much of my questioning while in Japan.
Remember in "On Attaining Buddhahood," the Daishonin says, "even though you chant and believe in Myoho-renge-kyo, if you think the Law is outside yourself, you are embracing not the Mystic Law but some inferior teaching." Similarly, in the "True Entity of Life," he says, "there is a clear distinction between a Buddha and a common mortal, in that a common mortal is deluded while a Buddha is enlightened. The common mortal fails to realize that he himself possesses both the entity and the function of the Buddha's three properties."
What I began to realize was that both my cultural and genetic history had set me up to fundamentally go against these Buddhist teachings. Even though I wanted to believe in the Buddha within, the fact was I had an enormous reservoir of guilt and inferiority built up inside me as the karmic effect of my heritage. Even though I wanted to believe in the purity of Nam-myoho-renge-kyo and the infinite potential of my own human life, the attitudes of shakubuku and strict guidance I was receiving from my senior Buddhists reinforced my own heretical beliefs to the detriment of my progress in the practice.
Lucky for me I was also culturally imbued to perform the good works of the Samaritan. With this Bodhisattva-like intent, I was able to move forward and ultimately discover the truth of things -- that this teaching was both totally unique and accessible to the individual, no matter what his or her circumstance.
So why, you might ask, did the same strictness and intransigence work so well for the Japanese? Because, I would respond, they are coming from a place essentially 180 degrees opposed to the average Westerner. Again, I realize I am speaking in generalities. There are certainly arrogant American jerks just as there are insecure, depressed Japanese. Still, I am addressing that which is both religiously and culturally ingrained and which flows in currents deep below the conscious mind or appearance.
Judging from the growth of the Daishonin's teachings in Japan, the Japanese seem to have blossomed as a result of the repeated scolding required to break down their unjustified arrogance as children of the sun goddess and help them develop greater mercy for others. This same scolding worked to dishearten Westerners who already believed in their original sin and thought they were doing the best they could on behalf of the suffering masses.
Even though hundreds of thousands of Americans received the Gohonzon in the 1960s and early 70s, I would be surprised if even twenty thousand of them continue to chant today (that's a generous estimate.) Is this because Nam-myoho-renge-kyo chanted to the Gohonzon doesn't work unless you're Japanese? Absolutely not. It is because the fundamental truths of Buddhism were never taught to the neonate American Buddhists. As a result these new practitioners found themselves in an alien lay organization which:
1. Insisted they behave according to Japanese, not American, ideals.
2. Played to their deepest fears as Judeo-Christians, resulting in an enhancement of their erroneous beliefs with a corresponding reduction in the power of their Buddhist practice.
3. Completely missed the fact that Americans come to the table replete with Bodhisattva/Samaritan attributes.
In his writing, "The True Entity of Life," the Daishonin states, "When one is praised highly by others, he feels there is no hardship he cannot bear...When praised, one does not consider his personal risk, and when criticized, he can recklessly cause his own ruin. Such is the way of common mortals." Although he was speaking with regard to all people, I truly feel this quote is particularly apropos of Americans.
I am not suggesting that introducing a Westerner to Buddhism need necessarily be a warm and fuzzy encounter full of new-age empathy ("I feel your pain.") Nonetheless, keeping in mind the notions attendant to a deep cultural belief in original sin and the ever-present witness of an all-knowing, and rather strict, external deity, it is critical that Buddhism be presented as a practice of hope, first and foremost.
It takes an enormous leap of faith for a Westerner to even attempt the Buddhist practice, couched as it is in such apparently strange and esoteric concepts and language. The only way this person is going to continue his or her effort will be on the basis of positive reinforcement, flowing from actual results, combined with compassionate teaching that acknowledges and embraces the infinite variety of existence in this world.
Nichiren Daishonin expounded a universal teaching out of exactly this kind of profound compassion -- compassion he shared with other teachers such as Christ and Mohammed and Sakyamuni. In the final analysis, I don't know why he appeared in Japan instead of the Middle East or even New York. It sure would have made my life a lot easier if it had been one of the latter two, but I suspect the convenience of Cris Roman was never part of the universal game plan.
As I have repeatedly stated, although there may have been no qualitative distinction between the compassion and humanity of Christ, Mohammed, Sakyamuni, or the Daishonin, there was certainly a difference in what each of them ultimately wrote down and left as an actual practice.
In the Daishonin's case, no intermediaries need apply, be they Asian or Western.
*
Chapter 1: Looking for a Bridge
Chapter 2: Nichiren and the Lotus Sutra
Chapter 3: Defining Nam-myoho-renge-kyo
Chapter 4: The Benefits of Buddhist Practice
Chapter 5: A Focal Point for One's Faith
Chapter 6: The Gohonzon and Bodhisattva Practice
Chapter 7: A Personal Relationship with the Gohonzon
Chapter 8: Theoretical Underpinnings of the Gohonzon
Chapter 9: Theoretical Underpinnings of the Gohonzon, Part Two
Chapter 10: Gongyo, An Intensely Personal Symphony
Chapter 11: The Moment of Death, and Changing Karma
Chapter 12: Total Responsibility
Chapter 13: Propagating an Individual Practice in America
Chapter 14: Ethics and Morality in Nichiren Buddhism |
