Hi my friends,
Well I look out of my study window on this blogging morning and once again I have to say the sky is blue, paler than last week but still definitely blue, and what's more there's just the very first hint of flower buds on two cherry trees. Now whose to say that that isn't the first hint of spring. I live very close to Kew Gardens, and when I get talking to the gardeners there they have no doubt that spring is coming earlier, certainly to southern Britain anyway. They think as much as three weeks earlier. Their hands on, mud-on-the-wellies contribution to the great global warming debate if you like.
But back to The Case for Buddhism, and last week we reached the point of introducing this extraordinary man called Nichiren Daishonin, whose huge legacy in terms of an everyday Buddhist practice, is still having a huge influence, in the West now, as well as in the East.
' Nichiren was born in 1222 into an ordinary family living in a fishing village on the south eastern coast of Japan. He went into a monastery at the age of 12, essentially because a monastery was about the only place where a boy could receive an edication. He became a priest at the age of 16, and clearly he had very unusual qualities of commitment and perseverance, in that he devoted the next phase of his life, virtually his entire youth, to a personal quest to unravel the confusion in thinking and the conflict between the various Buddhist schools that prevailed at that time in Japan. He spent 15 long years travelling round the leading monasteries in the country, to study the collections of ancient Buddhist texts that they held. Painstakingly he traced the central thread of Shakyamuni's teachings back through Japanese and Chinese and Indian commentaries, to the heart of the Lotus Sutra itself. So we could say that Nichiren's teachings and writings, which are still extant, and now widely translated into many other languages, put us directly in touch with Shakyamuni's original words and his intent.
That personal quest led to Nichiren becoming, very much like Shakyamuni before him, the most outspoken and persitetn religious reformer of his day. And he was utterly fearless. He was living in a rigidly fuedal society ruled over by a powerful and ruthless military dictatorship, within which various sectarian priesthoods had immense power and influence over the detail of the lives of ordinary people. Women and those in the bottom layers of society had virtually no rights. Yet here was Nichiren, actively preaching a Buddhism that spoke of absolute equality in the rights of man, men and women alike, respect for the individual regardless of his or her status in society, and the potential for all men and women to create a better and more fulfilling life for themselves, no matter where they sat in the social hierarchy. It was genuinely revolutionary stuff, and inevitably he became a marked man. In the event he was pursued and persecuted in various ways by the military authorities and the religious establishment virtually throughout his life.
Despite these severe and constant challenges to this mission that he'd taken on, to communicate these revolutionary truths far and wide, Nichiren spent his entire life, living among ordinary people, peasants and farmers and craftsmen, clarifying the essence of Shakyamuni's teachings, encouraging these people to see their Buddhism as a wholly practical approach to living, not a thing apart, but part of the daily detail of their lives. That was always his central message. He wrote to them constantly and as I've said, these letters, or gosho as they're called in Japanese, still exist to be read today, supporting and encouraging and guiding ordinary people through countless ordinary everyday problems. Everyday then and just a s everyday now; anxiety over a sick child, grief at the death of a husband, conflict with an employer, uncertainty about how to handle a really challenging circumstance.
Always his message is realistic and down-to-earth, always the positive one of hope and optimism. But always seeking to deepen their grasp of the paradox that lies at the very heart of Buddhism; the understanding that although we instinctively reject and shy away from the troubles of life, the plain fact is that it is only by facing up to them, embracing them, challenging them as they occur, that we can build the courage, and the strength of spirit, and the enduring self-confidence, that we all seek. We can only learn that we are immensely capable of overcoming problems...by overcoming them. There is no other way.
So he taught that when we feel ourselves to be low in spirits, or when we lack the self-belief and the courage we've just been talking about, almost any problem can seem huge and overwhelming. Whereas when we've built up our courage and our confidence by challenging and overcoming problems, even the most difficult situations no no longer seem so daunting or insuperable. The essential issue on which we should focusn our minds therefore, is not how to eliminate problems from our lives, which is a manifest delusion, a sheer impossibility, there is no such life. What we should be seeking he argued, is that inner strength of spirit, that inner confidence that we can overcome them, which is eminently acchievable.
That in essence, is the very faith that Buddhism asks us to have belief in.
Nichiren's legacy
When he died at the age of 60 Nichiren left an extraordinary legacy, in the sense that his personal quest to re-establish the primacy of the message wrapped up in the Lotus Sutra provided the essential basis for the modern spread of Mahayana Buddhism out from Asia into the western world. Although it lay locked up inside Japan, until the widespread liberalisation and opening up of Japanese society that occurred immediately after the Second World War.
But it could be argued that Nichiren went further than any other Buddhist teacher in that from the depths of his own enlightenment, and his profound understanding of human nature gained from all those years living and working among ordinary working people, he created an immensely practical, down-to-earth method,to enable ordinary people to establish an effective Buddhist practice, as part of their ordinary daily lives. No matter how busy they might be. No matter what demands were pressing in upon them from other areas of their lives. That was his great, in many ways, incomparable contribution, creatign a model of Buddhist practice that is wholly accessible to ordinary people today for example, living busy, active, time-slicing lives in a modern society. That is why he is sometimes known as The Buddha for the Modern Age.'
That's enough for today I think. It's always a difficult judgment when to stop, and I'm never sure whether or not I've got it right! It has to be long enough to make a coherent argument I feel, but not so long as to bore the reader. Writing has always presented that problem of course, but blogs I feel, just bring it into sharper focus.
Anyway, hope you managed to get to the end of this episode. Next time we pick up the theme of chapter 4, Buddhism and happiness. See you then.
Best wishes,
William
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