Nichiren, Soka Gakkai and Komeito - Religion and Politics in Contemporary Japan - page 46

Buddhist Law of cause and e ect (as expounded in the Lotus Sutra) becomes

the rationale that informs how the process of social change take place. Soka
Gakkai is in the first instance an organisation that promotes social change

through the individual change people experience from practising Nichiren
Buddhism, or to be more precise, Soka Gakkai

s reading of Nichiren. Nichiren
is referred to as Nichiren Daishonin, or Nichiren the Great Sage, indicat-
ing the status attributed him. 10 He is promulgated as the person who estab-
lished a Buddhist practice for people in the Latter Day of the Law that would
enable universal attainment of Buddhahood. Yet, Nichiren is not regarded as
the founder of a new religion, but rather as the reviver of the practice of the
Lotus Sutra suited for his age as compared to the ages of Tientai and Sha-
kyamuni. As indicated in the previous section, there are various views and
interpretations of Nichiren

'

s teachings. There have been some in previous
decades, such as Davis (1991), who described Nichiren as a megalomaniac.
Nichiren more famously is treated in Uchimura Kanzo

'

is book Representative
Men of Japan (1941). Uchimura praised Nichiren for his ability to stand up
for his beliefs even at the hands of state persecution, but he simultaneously
criticised his methods of remonstration, most succinctly exhibited in his writ-
ing the Rissh - Ankoku Ron. Uchimura interprets Nichiren

'

s remonstration
with the government as a battle cry for war that is indistinguishable from
madness. This nationalist image of Nichiren previously prominent, undoubt-
edly underlies the assumptions behind the portrayal of him as a mega-
lomaniac by Davis for instance. Davis analyses Soka Gakkai in similar ways
as a dangerous social movement bent on achieving state power.
Soka Gakkai, however, has more precisely promoted Nichiren as a decisive

'

' internationalist ' , as a person whose select focus on the Lotus Sutra was not a

sign of or nationalism but of a champion of the view of human

beings as inherently noble, digni

' exclusivism '

ed, and with unlimited potential, the pri-
mary message of the Lotus Sutra. As we shall see, this view underlies Maki-
guchi ' s understanding of Nichiren, which was decisively di erent from the

nationalist views prominent during his time. This di erent view is also repre-

sented in the way Soka Gakkai interprets Nichiren s remonstrations with the

thirteenth-century ruling government for which he was frequently persecuted
and nearly beheaded. 11 Rather than

'

' madness ' , Soka Gakkai interprets such

remonstrations as borne out of Nichiren s strong desire for people and gov-

ernments to live by the ideals of the Lotus Sutra. In the canonical text titled
The Object of Devotion for Observing the Mind (May 1273), Nichiren declared
that the practice of chanting Namu-my - ho-renge-ky - with faith in his honzon
leads a person to summon forth and have the wisdom to perceive the inherent
potential (Buddhahood) as the true

'

' reality ' . Ikeda ' s reading of Nichiren

always returns to this point of seeing the potential of present in

each person, in each social action and at each moment (the theory of ichinen
sanzen). Emphasising the potentially positive and mutually bene

' Buddhahood '

cial out-
come to any situation is the basis for the concept of is - ka, creation of value,
which is the name of the organisation. The most fundamental idea is that to