Hi Everybody,
We're talking about the Gohonzon, what it is and what it does and we've come to the famous passage from Nichiren's letters when he writes.
' I Nichiren have inscribed my life in sumi ink, so beleive in this Gohonzon with your whole heart.'
I have inscribed nothing less than my life he says, his life as a Buddha. With that simple phrase Nichiren sums up the scale of the task he has accomplished; he regarded the creation of the Gohonzon as the fulfilment of his life -long mission as a teacher of men. The characters on the scroll, in Chinese and Sanskrit script are held to represent the reality of human life. Right down the centre of the Gohonzon in bigger and bolder characters than the rest, and as it were illuminating all of the human life those characters represent are the characters, nam myoho renge Nichiren.
That bold central inscription is the key to understanding the nature and the intent of the Gohonzon. When Nichiren wrote these words he was, as I've said, talking about his life as a Buddha or in the state of Buddhahood. So when we are chanting we have it there in front of us, a representation of what it is that we are seeking to draw out from within our own life, our highest life state, our Buddha nature. It is his great legacy if you like to all of humanity, this representation of the Buddha Nature, and in that sense it embodies the fundamental principle first revealed in the Lotus Sutra, namely that all ordinary human beings have the potential for Buddhahood inherent within their lives.
It is difficult to think of a meaningful analogy that come sclose to expressing what it is that is going on when we chant in front of the Gohonzon. One that might come close is perhaps the musical one. When Beethoven or Mozart for example sat down to write a piece of music, they too were expressing their life state, their passion, their spirit, their elation or their melancholy, at that moment in time. A supremely inner world transmuted into bold marks in black ink on whit epaper. Wgatever happens subsequently to that piece of paper, the spirit that flowed through the writer's inner world has been indelibly inscribed on it for all of time. The sheet of paper with the ink marks could rest unnoticed on a dusty library shelffor decades on end. It could be copied out lovingly by a clerk's hand, or it could be put through a digital copier to churn out a thousand copies. But whatever journey it travels, when the thousandth copy is placed in fron tof a musician and played, then the spirit embodied in the original ink marks all those years ago is, to a greater or a lesser extent, brought back to life, to fill the room with its sound and its vibration, and to recreate in those who hear it, some measure of the spirit that went into it when it was first written.
The Gohonzon in this analogy, is the musical score that presents to us the life state of the writer when he first wrote it. We occupy the role of the musician seeking to recreate to the very best of our ability...no more can be asked of us...the spirit or the life state embodied in the original. '
Enough for one episode. I have to say I love that analogy, and it took so long to find it in my head!!
Thank you for reading thus far.
See you next time,
William
PS The Case for Buddhism is available, in Englsh and Spanish now on Amazon, or as a download on Kindle.
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