January 20, 2025
Nichiren Shonin and His Lay Followers(2)
By Rev. Kanji Tamura
Toki Jonin (2)
According to Nichiren’s letters, Toki Jonin assisted Nichiren Shonin to continue studying from his younger days. This means that Toki Jonin was acquainted with our Founder even before he became a follower of Nichiren.
It is confirmed that Nichiren wrote more than 40 letters to Jonin and his wife. Since Jonin was specially well versed in the teachings of Nichiren among his followers, Nichiren often showed his teachings to his followers through the letters addressed to Jonin. Let me take up the “Bojikyoji (Forgetting the Personal Copy of the Sutra),” a letter addressed to Jonin.
In March 1267, Jonin visited Minobusan to dedicate the ashes of his mother who died a month earlier to the mountain. Nichiren then was 55 years old and Jonin, 61. After holding the memorial service for his mother, Jonin started for home. Discovering that Jonin had left his sutra behind, Nichiren, dispatched a messenger to take it to Jonin with an attached letter.
Referring to famous forgetful persons, Nichiren ridiculed Jonin saying, “Now, Jonin Shonin left behind his own sutra. He may be the most forgetful person in Japan.” Then Nichiren criticized the priests of other sects of Buddhism who slander Nichiren while forgetting the true intent of the Buddha. Showing how worthwhile were the deeds of past saints who sought for the Buddha’s teaching even risking their own lives, Nichiren then praised Jonin’s deed of filial piety even though Jonin was not a saint but an ordinary man, saying:
“Now Mr. Jonin, you are a foolish person in the Latter Age of Degeneration, and an unenlightened person unable to renounce worldly desires. You are not a layman nor a monk, but a layman in the appearance of a priest. Your mind is not good nor evil, but is like an idiotic sheep.
“Nevertheless, you had a merciful mother. In the morning, you report to the office to work for your master, and come home in the evening. Your daily life was dedicated to your mother. Your mind is nothing but filial piety.
“However, toward the end of last month, showing the mutability of ‘life and death,’ your mother went to the land of the dead. I, together with you, grieved over it. Reaching the age of 90, it is orderly for a parent to go away and leave an offspring behind. Thinking it over, your lost mother will not return.”
In an overwhelming grief at the loss of his mother, Jonin, hanging the ashes of his mother from his neck, traveled from Shimousa (present Chiba) to Minobusan and visited Nichiren Shonin in his hermitage. In the hermitage, Nichiren was chanting the sutras and lecturing on them. Nichiren continues:
“Shown the way into the hermitage by a guide, Jonin placed the ashes of his mother in front of the altar enshrining a statue of Sakyamuni Buddha, threw his entire body on the floor, put his hands together and opened both eyes to pay respect to Him. Then, the grief of Jonin disappeared all at once when he realized that his head was the head of his parents, his legs were the legs of his parents, his ten fingers were the ten fingers of his parents and his mouth was the mouth of his parents; they were like the seed and fruit and body and shadow.”
Thus Nichiren Shonin taught that Jonin and his parents achieved “the attainment of Buddhahood with their present bodies” by having the same faith. Jonin was fully satisfied with the memorial services for his mother on Minobusan and started out on his way home.
In his letter, Nichiren Shonin teaches us many things: 1. leaving ashes of the deceased in the care of an acquainted priest and asking him to conduct memorial services; 2. Nichiren Shonin was loudly chanting sutras and making lectures on them daily; 3. Sakyamuni Buddha lies at the root of our faith in the Lotus Sutra; 4. our mind and body always reside with our parents, and we are living with our ancestors, making it important for us to hold memorial service for our ancestors; 5. the attainment of Buddhahood by our deceased parents realizes our attainment of Buddhahood through prayers for the deceased.
How do you interpret this letter of Nichiren Shonin?
(Trans. K. S.) (to be continued)