Guidance from Sixty-eighth High Priest Nichinyo Shonin On the Occasion of the September Kosen-rufu Shodai Ceremony
September 7, 2008
Reception Hall, Head Temple Taisekiji
On the occasion of the September Kosen-rufu Shodai Ceremony, conducted today at the Head Temple, I would like to express my heartfelt appreciation to the large number of participants in attendance, including those who are on the chapter tozan.
The month of September has arrived in this "Year of Great Advancement." I imagine you are devoting yourselves day and night to achieve your shakubuku goals. Your shakubuku efforts during the remaining four months will be absolutely crucial to our success.
As I said before, in the first half of this year, the Kick-off Meetings for the Advancement of the Great Assembly of the Bodhisattvas of the Earth were held at four venues, and each meeting was completed with great success thanks to your overwhelming support. Now, we have entered into the second half of the year. With the great success and the increasing momentum of the Kick-off Meetings, both the priests and the lay believers of each chapter throughout the country are making united efforts and striving for the accomplishment of this year's shakubuku goals.
I read in a recent Daibyakuho newspaper that many chapters, seizing the opportunity of the Kick-off Meetings, have carried out great shakubuku efforts based on unity between priesthood and laity and have already achieved their shakubuku goals for this year. There are also many other chapters that have not yet accomplished their shakubuku goals but are close to achieving them.
In particular, one chapter in Hokuriku district already achieved its shakubuku goal for this year during the first four months of the year. The members then challenged themselves to achieve the number of this year's shakubuku goal again during the second four months of the year, from May to August, and they did a beautiful job of accomplishing the goal. Thus, this chapter has already achieved 200 percent of its shakubuku goal.
To put it simply, this chapter can be characterized as "being on the move." Since the members are active, they are highly spirited. Because they are highly spirited, they are powerful. This is generating a synergetic effect and has a good influence in helping to create huge waves across the chapter. Moreover, the chief priest, playing a leadership role, is taking great pleasure in helping each lay believer to practice shakubuku. This is not an activity that just certain people are doing. Everyone in the chapter is practicing shakubuku without sleeping or resting.
The Daishonin teaches:
Even if a medicine is prepared with one hundred or one thousand ingredients, one's illness will not be cured unless one takes it. Even if one owns treasures in the storehouse, one will stay poor unless one opens it. Even if one carries medicine in his pocket, he will die, unless he takes it. (Gosho, p. 110)
Shakubuku is an actual Buddhist practice. Or, I should rather say, our faith itself is the actual practice. One's attainment of Buddhahood can only be achieved through experiencing the Buddhist practice. It can never be accomplished if it remains in the realm of theory.
The Daishonin teaches in "Letter to Priest Nichiro in Prison" ("Tsuchiro gosho"):
Others read the Lotus Sutra with their mouths alone, reading only the words, but do not read it with their hearts. And even if they read it with their hearts, they do not read it with their actions. Praiseworthy indeed are those like you who read the sutra with both body and mind. (Gosho, p. 483; MW-5, p. 127)
This Gosho passage itself will be meaningless if one understands the meaning of it but has gained no actual experience or practice. Without actual practice, one cannot receive and absorb the boundless benefits of the Dai-Gohonzon.
The auspicious year of the 750th Anniversary of Revealing the Truth and Upholding Justice through the Submission of the Rissho ankoku-ron is four months away. I think that now is the essential time for each Nichiren Shoshu priest and lay believer to carry out a great shakubuku practice, accumulating our own experiences while aiming toward the goal of "Doubling the Number of the Bodhisattvas of the Earth."
One can easily understand the importance of this by looking at today's chaotic world. There is political turmoil, economic recession, corruption in education from fraudulent teacher recruitment examination procedures, increased crime among the youth and increasingly atrocious crimes, regional disaster from torrential rain, frequent earthquakes, worldwide abnormal weather due to global warming, terrorism and civil strife breaking out in many parts of the world, violence, and wars. When I view such conditions, I deeply feel we must devote our hearts and souls to carry out shakubuku in order to realize the Buddha's will of securing the peace of the land through the propagation of true Buddhism, based on the principles of the Rissho ankoku-ron.
The Daishonin expounds in "A Comparison of the Lotus Sutra and Other Sutras" ("Shokyo to hokekyo to nan’i no koto"):
Because Buddhism has by now become thoroughly confused, the secular world has also been plunged into corruption and chaos. Buddhism is like the body and society like the shadow. When the body is crooked, so is the shadow. (Gosho, p. 1469; MW-3, p. 307)
Convulsions of nature, disastrous events, tragic accidents, wars and famine, or corruption and confusion in the world of politics, economy, medicine, education and such are exclusively caused by a powerful disorder with regards to Buddhism—in other words, the people falling into heresy and slandering the true Law.
The Daishonin teaches:
If one desires peace to reign throughout the entire nation without delay, he should first and foremost put an end to the slanders that prevail around the country. (Gosho, p. 247; cf. MW-2, p. 39)
We must put these golden words into action and stand up with the spirit of Mahayana Buddhism, which teaches, "while pursuing one's personal enlightenment, one leads others to enlightenment (jogu bodai, geke shujo)." Then, we must save the many people who are suffering from the evil influence of slandering the true Law. We must save the society, the country, and the world. This is the true, great practice of the bodhisattvas of the earth and the mission given to us.
Nichiren Daishonin teaches in "The Meaning of the Entity of Myoho-Renge-Kyo" ("Totai gi-sho"):
Those who honestly discard the expedient teachings, put faith only in the Lotus Sutra, and chant Nam-Myoho-Renge-Kyo will transform the three paths of earthly desires, karma, and suffering into the three virtues of the dharma body, wisdom and emancipation. The threefold contemplation and the three truths will immediately manifest in their minds. The place where they dwell will become the land of eternally tranquil light. The Buddha who is the entity of Myoho-Renge-Kyo of the Juryo chapter of the essential teaching, who is both inhabiting subject and inhabited realm, life and environment, body and mind, and who is eternally endowed with the uncreated and unadorned three enlightened properties—he is to be found in the lives of the disciples and followers of Nichiren. (Gosho, p. 694; MW-7, p. 64)
I would like to conclude my address today by sincerely praying that each of us will take these golden words to heart and will carry through with our shakubuku efforts during the remaining four months of this year, so that we will have no regrets.