Part 3

On the other hand since the split the Soka Gakkai leadership and membership have been open and generous in granting access to interviews, attendance at meetings, access to the Community Center Library, and talks with leaders both local and national. Perhaps this difference is due to the influence of traditional Japanese culture on the 700-year-old priesthood and the remoteness of the priests that would be expected in Japan. In contrast, the outgoing entrepreneurial style of the Soka Gakkai is in keeping with Japan's new international role in the second half of the twentieth century and makes it very easy for the researcher to gather information.

The purpose of this discussion of research methods is twofold. First, since the Nichiren Shoshu-Soka Gakkai split is so controversial, I want to make clear how my data was gathered. It is impossible for any human being to totally avoid bias, but by revealing as much as I can about the research process I hope to enable the reader to make an informed assessment. Second, in the process of doing research I have found that the "personalities" of the priesthood and the Soka Gakkai organizations are in stark contrast to one another. This in itself is a piece of data, and tells us something about their divergent approaches to Nichiren Daishonin's Buddhism and how these might have resulted in "irreconcilable differences" between the two groups.

The Nichiren Shoshu and the Soka Gakkai
In 13th century Japan a new school of Buddhism was born from the writings and teachings of Nichiren. His self-chosen name meaning "Great teacher of the Sun-Lotus" indicates the single-mindedness of his work — to teach about and disseminate a focus on the Lotus Sutra as the most important Buddhist teaching. Nichiren himself was a reformer. He studied the various Buddhist schools of his day and was not satisfied. Nichiren found the Lotus Sutra and its title, Myoho-Renge-Kyo, to be the essence of all Buddhism. Not interested in the story of the Buddha's enlightenment, the Four Noble Truths, including the Eightfold Path, or more traditional forms of meditation, Nichiren believed that chanting Nam-Myoho-Renge-Kyo alone would bring enlightenment.

Nichiren was not content to teach his truth to the faithful. His understanding of compassion meant that he must show the truth to those who did not yet accept it. He alienated other Buddhist sects and the government as well with his forceful insistence that the Lotus Sutra alone was the Truth. His personal difficulties caused by those who did not accept him, exile to Izu Peninsula and Sado Island and a death sentence that was miraculously stayed by the sudden appearance of a comet, did not trouble him, and in fact were proof of the power of his teachings. Nichiren was a millennialist, and taught that he was the True Buddha of the final stage of history called Mappo. The transient teachings of Shakyamuni Buddha could now fall away and the teachings of true Buddhism could come to the fore. His vision included not only the conversion of Japan but of the rest of the world as well.

Nichiren was a contentious person, inspired as he was by his conviction that through him true Buddhism could now be taught. His method was shakubuku, in which his followers would forcefully convert others to the Truth.

"The practice of the Lotus Sutra is shakubuku (1), the refutation of the provisional doctrines" (from Hokke Gengi, Vol. 9) True to the letter of this golden saying, the believers of all provisional teachings and sects will ultimately be defeated and join the followers of the king of the Law. The time will come when all people, including those of Learning, Realization and Bodhisattva, will enter on the path to Buddhahood, and the Mystic Law alone will flourish throughout the land."

During his lifetime he was available to interpret this truth and hold his followers together. At his death Nichiren Daishonin left a legacy as a teacher that included his writings and calligraphic interpretations of the Lotus Sutra. What he did not leave were clear instructions on who was to have the authority to lead Nichiren Buddhism. Over time, 37 different Nichiren sects were formed. One of these was established by Nikko Shonin in a temple at Mt. Fuji which enshrined the Dai-Gohonzon, a mandala of passages from the Lotus Sutra. This group became the largest of the Nichiren sects, Nichiren Shoshu, and it traces its legitimacy back to this second High Priest (after Nichiren) Byakuren Ajari Nikko Shonin who is regarded as "the great leader of the propagation of true Buddhism who received its pure lineage from Nichiren Daishonin."(2)

Nichiren Shoshu was for centuries one of the many sects of Buddhism which seem to coexist so well in Japan. Despite its insistence that it alone taught true Buddhism, its lay members associated with each Nichiren Shoshu temple did not attempt to proselytize to any great extent. This changed in the 20th century when a new lay organization called Soka Kyoiku Gakkai was founded by Tsunesaburo Makiguchi in 1930. Makiguchi and his friend and protégé Josei Toda took up the mantle of Nichiren Daishonin and intended to reform society based on his teachings. Their faith-inspired refusal to cooperate with the Japanese wartime government landed them in prison. Makiguchi died there, martyr to Nichiren Buddhism.

Josei Toda, now the second President of the renamed Soka Gakkai, took heart from the courageous death of the founder and chanted Nam-Myoho-Renge-Kyo two million times in prison. At this point he was inspired by a "true, clear vision of the Truth" and dedicated his life to the spread of true Buddhism through shakubuku. Perhaps in other eras, this would not have been successful. In postwar Japan, it seemed a perfect answer to the collapse of meaning and structure that followed the defeat in World War II. With the dropping of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, it was no stretch of the imagination to believe that the world had come to the age of Mappo, the final stage of history.

As a result of the war an upheaval in Japan's social, governmental, and economic structures had occurred. How to negotiate a new life from the ashes of prewar Japan? For many millions in the 1950's and 1960's the Soka Gakkai provided an answer. Its teachings were simple but to the members they were life changing. Each member would enshrine a copy of one of Nichiren Daishonin's Lotus Sutra mandalas, called a Gohonzon, in his or her home.

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Notes:

1. Although one possible translation of shakubuku is "break and subdue" this has been most often used by critics of the method. One Soka Gakkai leader told me "The 'break and subdue' translation of shakubuku is misleading, perpetuating the unsubstantiated accusations of violent proselytizing which affected Nichiren himself and the Soka Gakkai centuries later. Even the word 'forceful' suggests physical, rather than moral, strength. Shakubuku does mean to refute (break) another's attachment to provisional Buddhist views and to remove (subdue) the suffering which accompanies such attachments."

2. The Liturgy of Nichiren Shoshu. The Taisekiji version. Nichiren Shoshu Temple, 1979: 40.

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