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3. What It Really Means to
Inherit the Lifeblood
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Below, the Nichiren Shoshu
priesthood tries to use Nichiren Daishonin's writings
to instill us with fear and foreboding:
If the person worshipping it [the Gohonzon] slanders the
High Priest of the conferral of the lifeblood of the Law...there
will be no benefits.... What is more, all the benefits
derived from faith up to that point will be extinguished.
This is something to be feared. This is what is meant
by, 'Unless one possesses the lifeblood of faith, even
if one were to embrace the Lotus Sutra, it would be of
no use' (Refuting the Soka Gakkai's Counterfeit Object
of Worship: 100 Questions and Answers, p. 15).
The Gosho passage quoted in the above is from the Daishonin's
famous letter The Heritage of the Ultimate Law of Life
and Death. In The Writings of Nichiren Daishonin it reads:
Even embracing the Lotus Sutra would be useless without
the heritage of faith (WND, 218).
Nichiren Shoshu seems to suggest here that belief in its
high priest is equivalent to the heritage of faith. The
Daishonin, however, never equates the heritage with a
formal lineage, and even less to belief in the primacy
of a religious hierarchy. In this writing he discloses
what it really means to inherit the lifeblood of faith.
Addressed to Sairen-bo, a priest of the Tendai school
who became the Daishonin's disciple, it's a response to
Sairen-bo's question about shoji ichidaiji kechimyaku
the heritage of the ultimate law of life and death. The
Japanese term kechimyaku, literally lifeblood or bloodline,
originally meant the transmission of authority, spiritual
and legal, from master to disciple in Japanese Buddhist
schools.
In the Tendai school, such formal rites of transmission
were veiled in secretive esoteric ritual. They involved
the transfer of doctrine, proprietary knowledge, real
property, and even political power in much the same way
as estates and titles were transferred from father to
son among the nobility. The Daishonin roundly criticized
the Tendai school, originally founded upon the Lotus Sutra-
based teachings of T'ien-t'ai of China, for mixing esoteric
beliefs into its doctrines.
In response to Sairen-bo's question about the heritage
of the ultimate Law, the Daishonin casts an entirely new
light on the idea, defining it as the essence of the Lotus
Sutra and as faith itself.
For example, in this letter he writes: Shakyamuni Buddha
who attained enlightenment countless kalpas ago, the Lotus
Sutra that leads all people to Buddhahood, and we ordinary
human beings are in no way different or separate from
one another. To chant Myoho-renge-kyo with this realization
is to inherit the ultimate Law of life and death. This
is a matter of the utmost importance for Nichiren's disciples
and lay supporters, and this is what it means to embrace
the Lotus Sutra (WND, 216).
The heritage lies in praying with the conviction that
we are no different from the eternal Buddha and the Law
that leads to Buddhahood Nam-myoho-renge-kyo.
Overturning the idea that the heritage of faith is passed
down exclusively or secretly, the Daishonin also writes,
Nichiren has been trying to awaken all the people of Japan
to faith in the Lotus Sutra so that they too can share
the heritage and attain Buddhahood (WND, 217).
In its literature, Nichiren Shoshu often divides the heritage
into two: the heritage of the entity of the Law, which
they say is possessed and passed on by only one person,
the high priest; and the heritage of faith, which they
hold to be inferior. Here, though, they associate the
heritage of faith, as well, to belief in the high priest.
Either way, their arguments contradict the Daishonin's
words, which place primary importance on the faith of
the practitioner.
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(Originally published, World
Tribune, July 20, 2001)
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