A New Buddhist Dialectic - Divergences of the Great Rock Temple
Part 7 of an ongoing series.
Note: As with the other essays in this series, it is not necessary to read the prior entries in order to understand this one. However, there will be some callbacks to those earlier pieces which may be confusing sans the proper context, so if you enjoy this work, I highly encourage you to check out the other “A New Buddhist Dialectic” posts, which can be found here:
In a 2019 YouTube video called “Orlando Bloom on Buddhism,” the famous actor reminisces about a deeply cherished memory, his eyes distant and glossy, and the sides of his mouth curled into a bashful smile:
I had this opportunity that was presented to me, kind of, out of the blue, in a really remarkable way, to have a meeting with Daisaku Ikeda; with Sensei. And I was like, “wow!” My first encounter with Sensei was, obviously, through many of the daily guidance writings. It was one of those “aha moments”… This is meeting my mentor. Meeting somebody who I’ve looked up to so much, you know, and had been studying and reading around, was obviously a dream, really…
And, I bounded off the bus and gave Sensei the biggest hug, and he returned the hug, and then he held me by the shoulders, and he clasped his hands around my cheeks, and he sort of woke me up to this moment…
He closes out the video with his summation of his sensei’s teachings, saying: “It’s about being yourself, and the best version, the most authentic version of yourself... Because only by excavating through Daimoku and really looking at your life can you reveal the best version of yourself.” To anyone with casual knowledge of Buddhism, it becomes clear that he’s not there to discuss general Buddhist teaching, but something far more specific. In truth, he is one of Soka Gakkai International’s (SGI’s) notable celebrity converts, ranked alongside names like Herbie Hancock and the late Tina Turner.
In other corners of the worldwide web, the perspective on Soka Gakkai is not so positive. “Recently, on social media platforms, we have frequently observed posts that infringe on the copyrights of Soka Gakkai.” reads a post on the X account for Soka Gakkai’s Youth Division. “We strictly prohibit the unauthorized uploading of videos and other materials for which our organization holds the copyright to SNS and other platforms.” In the replies and quote-tweets are Japanese users gleefully posting heavily-edited meme videos of a dancing Daisaku Ikeda, some of which have been predictably struck down through copyright claims.
The celebrity endorsements, obvious cult of personality around Daisaku Ikeda, and heavy-handed approach to managing their public image have often resulted in comparisons to the American Scientology cult. However, even as someone who generally dislikes Soka Gakkai, I must admit that such comparisons are uncharitable, and that Soka Gakkai indeed represents something with far more substance than L. Ron Hubbard’s pseudo-scientific ramblings.
But what does Soka Gakkai represent? Compared to Reiyukai, they are more up-front about their Nichiren and Lotus Sutra influence, even hosting a “Nichiren Library” on their website featuring all of Nichiren’s writings in English. Yet the source of said influence is not so straight forward. The complex history of Soka Gakkai is, in fact, the reason I decided to dedicate an entire essay to them rather than lump them in with the other New Religions in the previous chapter. Understanding Soka Gakkai’s position relative to the mainstream Nichiren Buddhist school, however, requires us to rewind back to the era immediately following Nichiren’s death and recount the origin of Soka Gakkai’s previous parent organization, Nichiren-shoshu.
The third of the six disciples to whom Nichiren bestowed his legacy was a priest named Nikko, who had originally studied Tendai doctrine alongside Nichiji, another of Nichiren’s six disciples (discussed in the previous essay). Nikko had become a follower of Nichiren relatively early in the latter’s career, meeting him at Jisso-ji while he was gathering source material for his famous manifesto “Rissho Ankoku Ron” and becoming impressed with his breadth of knowledge regarding Buddhist doctrine.
Upon Nichiren’s death, Nikko and the other five major disciples were tasked with propagating the Lotus doctrine in different regions of Japan. However, this left Nichiren’s temple of Kuonji at Mt. Minobu without a proper caretaker. A plan was then formulated to address the issue: each of the major disciples would return to Mt. Minobu for one month of the year, with six lower-ranking disciples assigned to the remaining six months. This was easier said than done, however, and it naturally fell to Nikko, whose domain was the closest to Mt. Minobu, to care for the spiritual center of Nichiren faith on a permanent basis… at least that was how it seemed for a while.
In truth, Nikko’s unfailing loyalty to his late master, combined with his disagreeableness and abrasive personality, led to conflict with Kuonji’s landowner. Daniel Montgomery writes in his book “Fire in the Lotus”:
… Lord Nambu of Hakiri, the landowner at Minobu, built a home shrine for himself and installed in it a statue of the Buddha Shakyamuni. When Nikko saw the image, he could not suppress his indignation. Where were the accompanying images of the Four Great Bodhisattvas? Did Nambu not realize that unless the figure of Shakyamuni was escorted by the Four Great Bodhisattvas, it was a figure of the historical Buddha rather than the eternal Buddha Shakyamuni? No, Nambu had not realized it, and he was embarrassed (and probably somewhat annoyed) to have his error pointed out to him. He also did not want to go to the expense of paying for four additional statues.
Another of the six Senior Disciples, Sado Ajari Niko, who had recently arrived at Minobu, had a solution: all that was necessary to convert the figure of the historical Buddha into one of the eternal Buddha was to place a copy of the Lotus Sutra in front of it. It was as simple as that. Nambu was delighted with this way out of his dilemma, and promptly had it done. Needless to say, Sado Ajari Niko went up in his estimation while the stubborn Nikko went down.
The next conflict arose when Nambu went to a Mishima shrine to pray, as was customary for his family. Nikko took issue with this, citing the aforementioned Rissho Ankoku Ron where Nichiren claimed that, due to Japan’s loss of faith in the Lotus Sutra, “protective deities and sages have abandoned the country and will not return… [allowing] various evils and devils to invade, causing disasters and calamities” (per Kyotsu Hori’s translation). In Nikko’s determination, this meant that it was only proper to worship at Nichiren temples, otherwise one could be paying their respects to a demon in the guise of a deity.
“Again Sado Ajari Niko disagreed,” writes Montgomery. “The gods had sworn to protect any believer in the Lotus of the Wonderful Dharma; he could pray anywhere he liked. After all, Nichiren himself had done so. What mattered was his own faith, not the official designation of the shrine.”
The final straw came when Nambu donated lumber for charity, finding out later that is was to be used for a Nembutsu (i.e. Pure Land) pagoda. This led to him, once again, being chastised by the cantankerous Nikko, and the feud between them once again blazed red hot. At this point, it became clear that the current situation was untenable, and Nikko left Mt. Minobu, accompanied by his nine disciples, while Nambu appointed Niko as head priest of Kuonji in his stead. Nikko bemoans this state of affairs in his “Hara Dono Gohenji,” or “Letter to Lord Hara,” which reads:
I can hardly tell you how ashamed I was and how sorry I was for leaving Minobu creek [where Nichiren’s tomb is located]. However, on further consideration of the matter, it’s not important where I am; it is important to accede to the teachings of Nichiren Shonin and to spread it all over the world. All of the [other] disciples are against the Master. They disobeyed the teacher [i.e. Nichiren Shonin]. I believe that only I, Nikko, am the one who protects the Shonin’s doctrine and practices according to his original intention…
Nikko would go on to found two major temples near Mt. Fuji: Taisekiji (or “Great Rock Temple”) and Honmonji (or “Temple of the Original Gate”), and remained in the latter until his death at the ripe age of 87. It’s not clear why exactly he favored Honmonji over Taisekiji, but it’s commonly thought that he feared repeating his prior feud at Mt. Minobu with Taisekiji’s landlord, Nanjo Tokimitsu, thus he preferred a location where he could be more independent.
His death, however, led to further division, as he did not specify which of the two temples would be the center of his newly-founded “Fuji Branch” of the Nichiren school. Since he spent most of his time at Honmonji, his disciples there claimed that they were the legitimate heirs, leading to objections from Taisekiji and the Nanjos.
From here, the fractured Nichiren lineage only became ever more so, as a dispute over succession led to a division within Honmonji as well. “Another dispute arose at Kitayama Honmonji [i.e. the original temple] because the patron of the temple, Ishikawa Sanetada, wanted to remove [the head priest] Nichidai,” writes Nichiren Bay Area in an article about the Fuji School. “He eventually succeeded and replaced him with Nichimyo. Nichidai went to Nishiyama and founded a new temple with the name Honmonji in 1343. That temple is known as Nishiyama Honmonji as opposed to Kitayama Honmonji.”
This division continued until the seventeenth century, when the various Fuji temples managed to finally come to an agreement and achieve a relative sense of doctrinal unity… except for Taisekiji. “By then it had developed distinctive doctrinal characteristics which set it apart from the others,” writes Montgomery. This divide was further exacerbated in the year 1900 when Taisekiji removed themselves from a merger with other Fuji school temples:
Late in the nineteenth century Hommon-ji, Taiseki-ji, and other Nikko branch temples attempted to merge, calling themselves the Hommon Sect. Leadership was rotated among the several head temples. The merger was short-lived, however, and by 1900 Taiseki-ji had withdrawn, naming itself the Fuji branch. In 1913, the Fuji branch renamed itself Nichiren Shoshu (‘Orthodox Nichiren Sect’), stressing its distinction from any other branch of Nichiren Buddhism.
Thus 1913 marks the official founding of what we now know as “Nichiren Shoshu.” However, the question remains: what exactly are the doctrinal divergences which prompted this separation from not only mainline Nichiren-shu, but all of the other Fuji temples as well? The first pertains to a pair of “transfer documents” naming Nikko Nichiren’s sole heir, considered forgeries by the bulk of Nichiren Buddhists temples. A 2012 blog post by the Nichiren-shu priest Ryuei McCormick entitled “Three Divergent Doctrines of Nichiren Shoshu” explains these documents as follows:
The first reference to these transfer documents is in a work called the Hyaku-gojikka-jo written by Nikkyo (1428-1489?) at Taisekiji Temple in 1480. Nikkyo was originally a priest at Juhonji in Kyoto (a precursor of Yoboji Temple), but he moved to Taisekiji and became the disciple of Nichiu, the ninth high priest of Taisekiji. However, there are said to be discrepancies between the text of the transfer letters cited in Nikkyo’s writing and the copies that exist today at Taisekiji…
According to the Nichiren Shoshu priesthood, the original copies of the transfer documents were kept in a storehouse at Kitayama Honmonji until March 17, 1581 when they and other treasures were allegedly stolen by followers of Nishiyama Honmonji and the lord of Kai, Takeda Katsuyori and his soldiers. Neither Kitayama Honmonji nor Nishiyama Honmonji were affiliated with Taisekiji at that time. The originals of the two transfer documents were thus lost to history if they in fact ever existed at all.
The second, and more extreme, doctrinal divergence is that of Shoshu’s belief in the supremacy of their “Dai-Gohonzon.” The “Gohonzon,” as previously explained, is the mandala developed by Nichiren during his exile on the island of Sado and refined later throughout his life. The “Dai-Gohonzon,” or “Great Gohonzon,” would be a sort of master mandala, theoretically meant as the principal object of worship for the entire Nichiren sect.
The supposed piece itself is a mandala similar to those Nichiren comped near the end of his life, just engraved onto a large plank of wood rather than painted onto a sheet of paper. While not mentioned in Nichiren’s known writings, Taisekiji and Nichiren-shoshu believe that Nikko, as Nichiren’s sole true heir, was bestowed this all-important creation, which ended up at Taisekiji after Nikko’s subsequent ejection from Mt. Minobu. Nichiren-shoshu writes on their official website:
Nikko Shonin decided to leave Mount Minobu in the spring of 1289, carrying with him the foundation of true Buddhism, the Dai-Gohonzon of the High Sanctuary of the Essential Teaching, together with the ashes of Nichiren Daishonin.
Ryuei McCormick disputes this claim, writing in his blog post:
The first mention of the Dai-Gohonzon is during the tenure of Nichiu, the ninth high priest of Taisekiji. He allegedly revealed it’s [sic] existence in 1488. Nichiu claimed that it had been given to Taisekiji by Yashiro Kunishige, who the Dai-Gohonzon is [dedicated] to, but Nichijo a contemporary of Nichiu and the head priest of Kitayama Honmonji actually accused Nichiu of forging the Dai-Gohonzon himself. Again, no one has been able to determine who Yashiro Kunishige was. He could not have been one of the Atsuhara peasants who were being persecuted since peasants did not have family names. And why would Nichiren inscribe a Dai-Gohonzon for all mankind to anyone but one of his major disciples or perhaps the ruler of the country? In any case, the story of Yashiro Kunishige bestowing the Dai-Gohonzon contradicts the story that it was kept at Mt. Minobu until Hakken-bo carried it there on his back when Nikko left for the environs of Mt. Fuji.
Regardless of its origin, belief around the Dai-Gohonzon places Taisekiji, in the thought of Nichiren-shoshu, as the spiritual center of not just Nichiren Buddhism, but for all of mankind, as the Dai-Gohonzon is a representation of Taisekiji’s eminence in Nichiren Buddhism (i.e. correct Buddhism) as well as a physical embodiment of both the supreme mystic law and Nichiren himself, a claim which will make more sense after the following paragraphs.
The third major doctrinal divergence is the claim that Nichiren was not just a priest or a bodhisattva, but a manifestation of the true eternal Buddha himself, surpassing even Shakyamuni Buddha in authority. This was a theory which had developed over time, starting with the aforementioned head priest of Taisekiji Nichiu. Ryuei McCormick explains:
Nichiu… and Nichiu’s disciple Nikkyo… believed that Shakyamuni Buddha as the teacher of the true effect of Buddhahood was too sublime for those at the very beginning stages of practice to comprehend or imitate. Therefore, it was more appropriate to revere and emulate Nichiren Shonin who was the teacher of the true cause for buddhahood. The 26th high priest of Taisekiji refined this teaching further and made it a key dogma of the Taisekiji lineage. He claimed that Nichiren was actually the Buddha of the True Cause who has been enlightened since the infinite past of “kuon ganjo” and was the actual teacher of Shakyamuni Buddha himself in the remote past of “kuon jitsujo.”
By contrast, the other Nichiren schools (including the other Fuji lineages of Nikko) do not use the term “kuon ganjo” but understand the remote past of chapter 16 to actually be the beginningless past. Furthemore [sic], the reference in chapter 16 to the bodhisattva practice of Shakyamuni Buddha is taken to refer to the mutual possession of the worlds of bodhisattvahood and budddhahood [sic] as Nichiren himself does in [his work] Kanjin Honzon Sho. The Nichiren Shoshu, however, take it to refer to Shakyamuni Buddha’s training under the Buddha of Kuon Ganjo.
Due to this supreme importance given to Nichiren, Nichiren-shoshu sees a text called “Shu-Ju Hokke-Kyo Ongi Kuden,” or “The Record of the Orally Transmitted Teachings,” as authoritative scripture. The work is believed by Shoshu and some in the Fuji lineage to be Nichiren’s oral teachings, written down by Nikko after his master’s passing. The text itself is formatted as a chapter-by-chapter commentary on the Lotus Sutra, and seems heavily saturated with influence from Tendai esotericism.
The combination of all of these doctrinal divergences not only works to set Shoshu apart as a totally different faith from Nichiren-shu, but has the effect of attracting very driven and fervent adherents. In their view, they have what is essentially the physical embodiment of the eternal Buddha himself (Nichiren) and his doctrine, as well as the sole right to the true teachings. This gives Nichiren-shoshu belief a sense of physicality and imminence that is only hinted at by Nichiren in his concept of the “Honmon no Kaidan,” or “national ordination platform”; it’s the spiritual and theoretical made tangible and immediate. “We have here the seeds of a dynamic religion in which the absolute penetrates the physical,” writes Daniel Montgomery. He further writes:
This Dai-Gohonzon is the heart of the Nichiren Shoshu religion; it is described as the ‘reality’ of the god worshipped by Christians, Jews, and Moslems. Atheists as well as Christians and Mohammedans can neither hear nor see what they believe to exist, says Nichiren Shoshu apologist Einosuke Akiya. “This very ‘reality’ is the Gohonzon we, Nichiren Shoshu believers, worship. God is, so to speak, a faint shadow on the frosted glass. I think Christians are anxious to grasp the concrete image of God, but actually they cannot… (Guide to Buddhism 72-3).”
This concreteness is probably why Nichiren-shoshu, despite being a minority school in the realm of Nichiren Buddhism, has grown to be a surprisingly significant force in Japanese religion over the past hundred years and some change, spawning several popular lay organizations in the process. However, it is this same element which would eventually become a thorn in the side of its world-famous bastard child, Soka Gakkai.
To be continued…