The Four Dictums
Why do so many Nichiren schools and practitioners come across as rigid, intolerant and bellicose? Why is the Nichiren Tradition so fragmented? Perhaps, a reason for this is that too many Nichiren schools, teachers and practitioners use an aggressive method of propagation called "shakubuku" – literally “to break and subdue” - giving Nichiren Buddhism a reputation for belligerence, authoritarianism, and sectarianism.
Perhaps Nichiren’s most misunderstood propagation method is his strong criticism of the Buddhist traditions from his time in the form of the “Four Dictums.”
1. Nembutsu leads to the hell of incessant suffering.
2. Zen is the teaching of devils.
3. Shingon will ruin the nation.
4. Ritsu (precepts) is traitorous.
These are from various writings of Nichiren. A deeper understanding of these criticisms is lost if the context of the times and personal situations of those to whom he wrote is not considered. Understanding the deeper meaning behind his thinking can help make sense why he criticized these traditions, helping us apply them not only to our own method of practice but to society as a whole.
I believe the problem is that people try to imitate Nichiren without the genuine personal understanding and experience of the Dharma that would guide them in the proper application of either breaking and subduing false beliefs or embracing and receiving provisional levels of understanding that people need on the way to understanding the true Dharma.
I will always remember asking the head abbot of Kuonji during an audience he held with all the novices during seminary training how we should interact with other Buddhists in America, esp. since Nichiren was so critical of Zen and Pure Land, etc. He said that in Nichiren's day no one was listening to each other. They were appealing to the authorities to enforce their power. But today Buddhists of different schools are listening to each other. In fact, people of all religions must listen to each other for the sake of world peace.
There are aspects about each of those four traditions that are positive and aspects that are problematic motivating Nichiren to admonish them.
The fundamental problem with each of these traditions was their teachings that undercut the direct practice of the Lotus Sutra leading people to become dependent on some external authority. That which undermines your confidence in your own buddha-nature and becoming one-sidedly dependent on some external person, entity, rite, ritual, object, or institution is not in accord with the Buddha’s teaching. It is vitally important to understand that this was the driving force behind Nichiren’s critiques when analyzing any system of psychology, philosophy or religion.
The Lotus sutra teaches that we all receive the Dharma directly from the teaching of the Lotus Sutra as manifest through the authenticity of our own practice, realization, and actualization. Our faith in the Dharmakaya, the reality of interdependent arising lies deeper than words and concepts. It is an inner expression by which we entrust ourselves totally and unconditionally to life—life perceived as our own, yet as a power greater than ourselves. The mysterious moment-by-moment creative unfolding of Life or “Myo.” The Buddha says in Chapter Two, “Yui Butsu Yo butsu,” which means “only a buddha together with a buddha,” to point out that even for buddha’s it is not a matter of a single individual realizing or actualizing the truth, but an intersubjective awakening of all phenomena as buddhas and buddhas becoming buddhas.
Yet, at all times, when we engage in analysis and discussion, we must apply skillful means to the situation, asking ourselves what words need to be said and in what way which will reach the person you are talking to. Rarely does it work - as in never - to say, “you’re wrong,” “You’re stupid,” or “You’re going to hell.”
Saying to a Christian there is no “God,” or to a Pure Land believer, “Amida is evil,” will quickly end the conversation and you have lost the opportunity to “sow the seed of Buddhahood.” In fact, that kind of rhetoric is unskillful and accrues negative karma because it is using harsh speech and unnecessarily turning someone away from the Lotus Sutra when they may have been receptive to a more civil and thoughtful dialogue about the deeper meaning of our respective faiths and adequacy of our respective belief systems to enable us to awaken to and live from our deepest sense of what is authentic and beneficial.
In the 21st Century when our various governments’ constitutions codify religious freedom, we have to be very skillful in how we engage individuals and societies. I suggest we begin any interfaith dialogue with those things we have in common and understand that most of these systems have positive aspects as well.
Let’s break down the four traditions that Nichiren Focused on and at the end of this essay I will extrapolate to how we can apply the Four Dictums to a broader context.
The Pure Land movement for Nichiren represented a teaching that says this world is hopeless and that people are too sinful or corrupted to even be able to help themselves or others or transform the world. Instead, it offers an otherworldly escape dependent on a transcendent being, which also invalidates the fundamental teaching of Dependent Origination (cause and effect) that some other power outside oneself can intervene absolving one of their personal responsibility for their actions (karma). Obviously, most forms of theism (esp. Western monotheisms) hold similar views. However, even in Nichiren Buddhism there are those who believe that in this Latter Age (far removed from the time and place of the historical Shakyamuni Buddha) we can't achieve buddhahood and that we must rely on the Eternal Shakyamuni Buddha to be reborn in the Pure Land of Eagle Peak. It is what I consider the Pure-Landizing of Nichiren Buddhism. Those who were/are opposed to “Original Enlightenment” thought were/are especially prone to a Pure Land interpretation of Nichiren Buddhism.
However, there are things about Pure Land and even from some monotheists we could learn from. Their teachings do reveal the depths of our weaknesses, the conceits and arrogance that creep into and corrupt our practice to be selfless, and they present a transcendent vision to uplift the hopes and imagination of those who have seen too much suffering in this world. That is why even Nichiren used "pure land" rhetoric at times. Also, some of the more mystical teachings of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam might as well be Buddhism.
Shingon or esoteric Buddhism for Nichiren represented an overdependence on initiations, empowerments, and also secret inside knowledge, superstition and magical thinking, uncritical reliance and dependence on gurus. The goal of Nichiren Buddhism is to guide people away from superstition, elitism, and guru worship.
However, there is a great value in how esoteric teachings can challenge people to engage symbols in a more visceral, imaginative, and even personal way. While I have issues with magical thinking, there are unseen mysterious ways in which the world works (through dreams, visions, synchronicities, serendipity and so on). Some people just have a disposition for this kind of approach. The problem is that trustworthy grounded and accomplished guides who can keep people on track are needed for delving into these intricately symbolic aspects of Buddhist practice, because some people can lose their perspective and get very lost in their own fears and mental phantasmagoria.
Discipline or the Precepts school of Buddhism represents those who emphasize ethical practice above all.Nichiren, however, had an issue with the claim that you could not attain buddhahood without relying on outmoded precepts. I also agree that uncritical acceptance of rules and regulations is not the point. In fact, as mature adults, I believe our conscience and compassion should be what we rely upon, not some culturally bound set of rules.
However, it is also true that we need to take seriously the ethical guidance of Buddhism such as the five major precepts, the ten courses of wholesome conduct and so on. We go against these at our own risk. While they can't by themselves bring up awakening, I think people do need to hear and reflect on these general guidelines because judging by how many people act it would seem they have not developed their conscience or compassion.
Zen for Nichiren represented the problem of uncritical overreliance on masters. Zen rhetoric also tends to outstrip its actual practice in that the rhetoric insists that Zen always points to direct realization but often beginners are instructed to count the breath or to simply follow the breath, which is no different than how other schools will teach beginners in meditation. In addition, a person sitting in meditation is not necessarily sitting with bodhicitta (the aspiration to attain buddhahood) or even any kind of Buddhist mindset. Obviously, it is easy to say that all one need do is just sit and directly realize the truth, but to do so in practice is something else altogether. In any case, even the Tiantai teaching of “perfect and sudden calming and contemplation” claims that one can just sit (or stand or walk…) and directly realize the inconceivable true reality of all existence, while at the same time providing methods such as breath counting for beginners. Unfortunately, the reductionist rhetoric of some Zen teaching is that all a practitioner needs to do is "just sit,” and caters to an anti-intellectualism that refuses to learn the Buddhist teachings and context for this kind of cultivation. Of course, in Nichiren Buddhism we have those who say "just chant" who also have an aversion to any serious study of Buddhism generally to the point where they misread the Lotus Sutra through their own biases and have no clue as to the actual context of the sutra or the practice of its Odaimoku. The point is that Buddhist practice should be informed by Buddhist teachings, and the teachings need to be lived out in practice so that we can see for ourselves whether they are effective or not. We should have trained, educated, and experienced teachers to guide us in our practice, but as Buddhists we primarily look to the Buddha’s teachings and must trust in our own good sense and authentic experience.
Zen has many good qualities though - it challenges people to go beyond the surface words of the sutras and teachings to a real existential assimilation of what is being taught. The koans or “case study” anecdotes of the Zen tradition can all be taken as challenges to understand the Dharma in a way that goes beyond the merely conceptual. Also, of course, Zen has cribbed Tiantai methods of meditation. They have also shown how the Dharma can be expressed in a way that is witty, poetic, and more down-to-earth.
Each of these four kinds of Buddhism, in terms of Nichiren’s Four Dictums, should be thought of as representing and emphasizing a tendency that has helpful and unhelpful qualities that can be found in Nichiren Buddhism itself one way or another. So, we have to discern what to cultivate and what to weed out. Also, the schools that Nichiren criticized may themselves have changed over the centuries since those critiques were made. Nothing ever stays still. We can see this today in most Buddhist schools who take for granted that everyone, and everything, has buddha nature, and that everyone can become a buddha in this life. This is religionist revisionist thinking, as in Nichiren’s time this was only found in the Lotus sutra.
A lack of development in a school or tradition means stagnation and eventually the disappearance of that school or tradition. A school that does not reform, refine, and improve itself will become moribund and decline. This applies to those schools and to Nichiren Buddhism itself.
Shakyamuni Buddha and Nichiren taught that wrong views lead to suffering and that part of our practice as Buddhists - as Bodhisattvas of the Earth - is to be engaged in the world challenging wrong views and helping others overcome their wrong views in order to be happy, well, safe and at ease.
So, what does this mean to us today:
1. Don't practice Buddhism with an escapist otherworldly attitude - that will lead to hellish denial.
2. Don't claim to be a Buddhist simply because you practice silent sitting meditation or have joined a particular lineage and study under some revered teacher and then disregard or downplay Shakyamuni Buddha's teachings, and esp. not in favor of uncritically following a cult of personality around a guru, lama, master, "living buddha," senior leader, president for life or whatever. This is to project a heavenly guise upon an infallible person and result in being misled by the devilish nature that is at work in all of us; rather than trusting in the Dharma and the cultivation of one’s own authenticity or buddha-nature
3. Don't buy into magical thinking instead of looking at the real systemic problems facing one's country and instead of trying to do the real personal and social change that may be required. If you do buy into magical thinking or miracle seeking or trying to find a silver bullet instead of working for real change you will contribute to the destruction of the nation (and the world).
4. Don't turn your back on your own actual integrity and the actual needs of your society to follow some idealized way of life from another country in another time (which they may not even have really lived up to), esp. not some pre-modern patriarchal code. If you do that you will be a traitor to yourself and your society.
In addition to the above four tendencies that can distort our Buddhist practice that Nichiren warned us about, there are other tendencies we should beware of. The three great evils of our modern world that need to be challenged are:
Self-Interest as the basis of morality - by which I mean any ideology, religion, philosophy, or social system that promotes the idea that we can only be happy by pursuing our own good to the exclusion of the happiness or even needs of the people around us, and that we should always strive to get the most and give the least. This is to make greed and selfishness our guiding principles.
Fundamentalism - by which I mean any fear based divisive religion or ideology that cultivates an aversion for empirical science and views those who don’t agree with them as enemies to be converted, shunned, or even killed. I do not mean by “fundamentalism” simply taking a naive view of traditional stories and cosmologies and beliefs, but to hold to them in such a way that one cannot tolerate any challenge to them and that any who would contradict them must be eliminated, even to the point of trying to use the political system to impose one’s views on others.
Racism and other “isms” - by which I mean those who hold a view that their own particular group is somehow inherently different and superior to others, who are held to be a lesser other that must be avoided, oppressed, or contained. All of these categories by which people judge themselves superior (and therefore privileged) and others as lesser (to be treated as such) arise from the delusion that any particular individual can be reduced to a generality or stereotype and that there are inherent essences by which people can be judged. Racism and other such deluded views give rise to bigotry and oppression and fail to see the conditioned nature and uniqueness of each being. They most especially to fail to see the true interdependent dignity of all life, which means they do not understand the interdependent and fluid nature of their own.
These are the views that I believe are most in need of being broken and subdued through our Buddhist teaching and practice.
Namu Myoho Renge Kyo,
Ryuei