There are those who toss their values and beliefs aside during hard times.
There are those who stand up for their beliefs.
And then there is Nichiren.
He hated standing up for your beliefs, because you should be walking too, and fighting,
and getting beat up.
Do you even have beliefs if you’ve never eaten pavement?
For Nichiren, persecution was his drug, a necessary part of faith.
The fog of history has obscured much of Nichiren’s early life, but we do know a few things.
He was born in a small village called Kominato.
His dad was a fisherman.
His family was a minor warrior family that was banished to this village in the middle of nowhere.
They must have done something to piss off the government.
It seemed like Nichi-chan did not get along with other kids,
maybe because being exiled also came with some shame.
He was a quiet and serious boy.
At age 11, he went to study at a nearby temple.
At 21, he traveled west to the famous temple Enryakuji to study Tendai Buddhism,
and immediately ran into a problem.
You see, people from Eastern Japan had a reputation for being uneducated and uncultured.
They couldn’t write a poem if their afterlives depended on it.
And Nichiren’s eastern accent would’ve given him away immediately.
It’s like having a southern accent at a feminist poetry jam in San Francisco.
Everyone knows who doesn’t belong.
Nichiren couldn’t count on the support of his peers, so he sought the support of scriptures.
“Well ah reckon ah can do mah own thang, make mah own path,” he said.
His independent path led him to the truth of the Lotus Sutra.
The Lotus Sutra is one of the main sutras of Buddhism,
so it’s pretty important to many Buddhists.
But Nichiren went further, saying it was the only sutra that mattered, so why were these
Tendai monks flirting with so many practices that had nothing to do with the Lotus Sutra?
True Buddhism meant tossing all these non-Lotus practices away.
They were the “foul weeds” of other Buddhist schools poisoning the Lotus.
In 1253, he took the name of Nichiren, which meant “Sun Lotus,”
everything is Lotus with this guy.
He started his own branch of Buddhism.
He wasn’t pooping on Tendai in his mind, he was guiding people back to true Tendai.
Nichiren went to war on the battlefield of Buddhism, dropping verbal droppings of truth
on bald heads across the land.
This immediately made the other monks mad.
“We’re mad,” they said.
His message was 100% intolerant of the other schools.
He said they were all practicing false Buddhism, they were evil monks,
and other compassionate Buddhist things.
But it was a message built upon kindness.
He looked around the country and all he saw was suffering.
The other schools focused on helping people in the afterlife.
They were like, “Listen, your current life is gonna suck massive balls okay,
but after you die, we gotchu.”
But Nichiren was like, “No, we can make this life a better world where you don’t
have to suck on any balls you don’t want to,
and you can suck on all the balls that you do want to.”
He thought that every person in Japan could attain Buddhahood in this life, then Japan
would become a perfect Buddhaland on earth,
which is like Disneyland, but without the suffering.
Fearing for his safety, and thinking he’s bonkers, the abbot snuck him out of the temple
and told him to get his Lotus ass as far away as possible.
Nichiren ran back east to Kamakura, the seat of power of the uncultured military shogunate.
Realizing that he could have been killed before and that everyone hated him, Nichiren thought,
“Hm...perhaps it would be best for me to GO EVEN HARDER!”
Nichiren continued preaching. The other schools continued seething.
The Lotus Sutra warned of disasters if the people did not follow Buddha’s Law,
things like drought, famine, and foreign invasion.
Nichiren looked around and did see droughts and famines.
He blamed them on the shogunate not following his brand of Buddhism, and also blamed them
on the other schools teaching people dumb trash.
In Nichiren’s time, Buddhism had always been used as a tool to protect the state,
specifically the emperor.
Monks prayed for the emperor’s health and to protect the country in bad times.
Nichiren flipped it and said no it was the ruler’s job to uphold Buddha’s Law,
and in return the state would gain Buddha’s protection.
Nichiren was all about that mixing of church and state.
His Buddhism was always political, demanding changes in government.
Nichiren demanded the shogunate stop financially supporting the Pure Land and Zen schools.
Push them away, by the sword if necessary.
Else, the country would suffer a foreign invasion by the Mongols, just as the Lotus Sutra said.
Nichiren was like that crazy ranting uncle who couldn’t take a hint.
Pure Landers were pissed.
“I’m pissed,” they said, right before burning down Nichiren’s home.
He escaped, but the ruling family of the shogunate, the Hōjō, were followers of Zen Buddhism,
and they were also pissed.
They exiled him to Izu, where he lived in poverty.
When you have nothing to do, you write.
Nichiren was a writing machine.
Over his lifetime, he wrote more than any other religious figure.
Instead of discouraging him, the exile strengthened his faith.
He told his supporters to convert as many people as possible,
and to always speak up if they heard anyone slander the Lotus Sutra.
This was unfortunate for anyone standing next to one of his followers, any mild criticism
of the sutra or saying anything slightly contradictory to it counted as slander.
His followers gained a reputation for being militant and fanatical.
In response, people shoved so much hate and persecution their way that they were
gushing their pants; they loved it.
The sutra said that followers of the Buddha would be persecuted,
and there they were, being persecuted.
What could be more joyful than losing an eye for the Buddha?
To his followers he said, “Do not think of your wives and children and households;
do not be fearful before the authorities!
Make this your opportunity to sever the fetters of births and deaths,
and to attain the fruit of Buddhahood!”
To Nichiren and his supporters, the more you suffered for your beliefs,
the more you knew your path was righteous.
We don’t know why, but he was released from exile after 3 years.
When he came back to Kamakura, some followers urged him to tone it down for his own safety.
But that day, Nichiren had misplaced his s--t, and so he didn’t give any.
He turned super saiyan.
And then suffered an assassination attempt that no one ever saw coming.
Nichiren and his bunch endured more abuse than any other school.
He called himself the “greatest soldier of the Lotus.”
There was a common theme to Nichiren’s writings, that the Japanese would lose their country
and fall into hell if they did not follow his teachings.
His words were ghost peppers.
He once said the temples of the other schools should be burned and their leaders killed.
But he went too far when he called for the beheading of some nobles.
They put him on trial for treason and sentenced him to execution.
Nichiren went quietly to his death, resigned to his fate as a martyr.
Just kidding.
He went kicking and screaming, mostly screaming.
He threatened the Shinto Sun Goddess Amaterasu and the God of War Hachiman.
These Shinto gods were different forms of Buddhist gods according to the Japanese, and
Buddhist gods were supposed to protect those who walked the Lotus path.
So where the Lotus were they?
He vowed that after he died and met the Buddha, he would snitch on them,
telling the Buddha that Amaterasu and Hachiman did not fulfill their duties.
That seemed to work, because Nichiren survived.
According to him, what happened was, as the executioner was about to behead him,
a ball of light flew across the sky, blinding and spooking everyone, stopping the execution.
Sure, Nichiren.
We don’t know what actually happened, but his sentence was reduced to exile.
Nichiren was exiled a second time to Sado, in 1271.
Nichiren escaped death, but he didn’t think so.
He believed that he did die under the executioner’s sword, and was reborn in the form of a bodhisattva.
A bodhisattva is someone who delayed achieving Nirvana,
choosing to stay in this world to help everyone else reach enlightenment.
It was like Nichiren died, but refused to move on,
opting to stay in this world to help the people.
All the benefits of being a martyr, without the drawbacks.
This exile was pretty bad, he suffered hunger and harsh weather, but he was like the Hulk.
The more you hurt him, the stronger he became.
But he did mellow out somewhat afterwards.
His writings actually won him a lot of recognition, and he was released from exile 3 years later.
He returned to a government that was like,
“Hey you know that foreign invasion you predicted years ago? Yeah it’s happening.
My bad for not listening.”
They wanted him to stop his attacks against the other schools and cooperate with them
to pray the Mongol invaders away.
They sweetened the deal with offers of land and temples.
So Nichiren told them to follow the Lotus or risk destruction by the Mongols.
Then said “screw this” and left Kamakura to retire to Mount Minobu.
Nichiren was actually conflicted on the invasion.
On one hand, he didn’t want foreigners to take over his country and bring down horrors
upon his people.
Remember, despite his spicy takes, he was compassionate and wanted to
ease the suffering of the people.
On the other hand, the Lotus Sutra foretold a foreign invasion.
It was a righteous punishment for Japan going down the wrong path.
When Japan beat back the Mongols, Nichiren didn’t seem that happy.
He was like, “Oh my Lotus, now they’re just gonna give themselves credit
for the victory, and continue as before.”
Nichiren has been called nationalistic, but it’s often confused with the nationalism
of Nichiren Buddhist zealots in wartime imperial Japan, who worshipped the emperor and propagandized
for Japan’s military conquests.
To them, Japan could do no wrong.
Nichiren was different. He did love Japan.
He said it was superior to India, China, and 80,000 other countries.
Wow, even countries that didn’t exist.
But he saw the state as subservient to Buddha’s Law.
He was okay with the Mongols winning if it would convince people to convert to his brand of Buddhism.
He was even open to the crazy idea of a Japan not ruled by the emperor.
If the emperor could not lead people to the Buddha, then maybe it was possible to give
the rule to the military leaders in Kamakura.
An emperor who could not bring peace to the nation was an emperor that went to hell after death.
Nichiren died in 1282, after a lifetime of persecution, but I’d imagine he died fully
content that he did everything possible for the Lotus.
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