Nichiren

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Nichiren : biography

February 16, 1222 – October 13, 1282

Nichiren (日蓮) (February 16, 1222 – October 13, 1282) was a Buddhist monk who lived during the Kamakura period (1185–1333) in Japan. Nichiren taught devotion to the Lotus Sutra (entitled Myōhō-Renge-Kyō in Japanese)— which contained Gautama Buddha’s teachings towards the end of his life — as the exclusive means to attain enlightenment. Nichiren believed that this sutra contained the essence of all of Gautama Buddha’s teachings relating to the laws of cause and effect and karma. This devotion to the sutra entails the chanting of Nam(u)-Myōhō-Renge-Kyō (referred to as "daimoku") as the essential practice of the teaching.

Nichiren Buddhism includes various schools with their own interpretations of Nichiren’s teachings, the most prominent being Nichiren Shu, Nichiren Shoshu and Soka Gakkai; however, despite the differences between schools, all Nichiren sects share the fundamental practice of chanting daimoku. While virtually all Nichiren Buddhist schools regard him as a reincarnation of the Lotus Sutra’s Bodhisattva Superior Practices, Jōgyō Bosatsu (上行菩薩), some schools of Nichiren Buddhism’s Nikkō lineages regard him as the actual Buddha of this age, or the Buddha of the Latter day of the Law.Entry: "Superior Practices" The Soka Gakkai Dictionary of Buddhism, 2002.

Life

Birth

Nichiren was born on February 16, 1222 in the village of Kominato, Nagase District, Awa Province (within present-day Chiba Prefecture). Nichiren’s father, a fisherman,Harvey, 166 was Mikuni-no-Tayu Shigetada, also known as Nukina Shigetada Jiro (d. 1258) and his mother was Umegiku-nyo (d. 1267). On his birth, his parents named him which has variously been translated into English as "Splendid Sun" and "Virtuous Sun Boy" among others. The exact site of Nichiren’s birth is believed to be submerged off the shore from present-day Kominato-zan Tanjō-ji (小湊山 誕生寺), a temple in Kominato that commemorates Nichiren’s birth. In his own words about his birth, Nichiren stated that he was "the son of a chandala family who lived near the sea in Tojo in Awa Province, in the remote countryside of the eastern part of Japan."

Education

Nichiren began his Buddhist study at a nearby temple of the Tendai school, Seichō-ji (清澄寺, also called Kiyosumi-dera), at age 11. He was formally ordained at 16 and took the Buddhist name Zeshō-bō Renchō. He left Seichō-ji shortly thereafter to study in Kamakura and several years later traveled to western Japan for more in-depth study in the Kyoto–Nara area, where Japan’s major centers of Buddhist learning were located. In 1233 he went to Kamakura, where he studied Amidism—a pietistic school that stressed salvation through the invocation of Amida (Amitābha), the Buddha of infinite compassion—under the guidance of a renowned master. After having persuaded himself that Amidism was not the true Buddhist doctrine, he passed to the study of Zen Buddhism, which had become popular in Kamakura and Kyōto. He then went to Mount Hiei, the cradle of Japanese Tendai Buddhism, where he found the original purity of the Tendai doctrine corrupted by the introduction and acceptance of other doctrines, especially Amidism and esoteric Buddhism. To eliminate any possible doubts, Nichiren decided to spend some time at Mount Kōya, the centre of esoteric Buddhism, and also in Nara, Japan’s ancient capital, where he studied the Ritsu sect, which emphasized strict monastic discipline and ordination. During this time, he became convinced of the pre-eminence of the Lotus Sutra and in 1253, returned to Seichoji.

Initial teaching

On April 28, 1253, he expounded Nam-Myōhō-Renge-Kyō for the first time, marking his Sho Tempōrin (初転法輪: "first turning the wheel of the Law"). With this, he proclaimed that devotion and practice based on the Lotus Sutra was the correct form of Buddhism for the current time. At the same time he changed his name to Nichiren, nichi (日) meaning "sun" and ren (蓮) meaning "lotus". This choice, as Nichiren himself explained, was rooted in passages from the Lotus Sutra.