my very eyes and bestowed upon me a jewel of wisdom as bright as the morning star. No doubt as a result, I was able to gain a general mastery of the principal teachings of the eight older schools of Buddhism in Japan, as well as of those of the Zen and Nembutsu schools.
During the sixteen or seventeen years since the fifth year (1253) or so of the Kencho era until the present, the seventh year of the Bun’ei era (1270), I have leveled many criticisms against the Zen and Nembutsu schools. For this reason, the scholars of those schools have risen up like hornets and flocked together like clouds, though as a matter of fact their arguments can be demolished with hardly more than a word or two.
Even the scholars of the Tendai and True Word schools, losing sight of the principles laid down by their own schools concerning which teachings are to be adopted and which discarded, have come to hold opinions identical to those of the Zen or Nembutsu school. Because their lay followers hold to such beliefs, they have thought it best to lend support to these schools and their erroneous views by declaring that the Tendai and True Word teachings are the same as those of the Nembutsu and Zen schools. As a result, they join the others in attempting to refute me. But although they might appear to refute me, in fact they are simply destroying their own Tendai and True Word teachings. It is a shameful, shameful thing they are doing!
The fact that I have in this way been able to discern the errors of the various sutras, treatises, and schools is due to the benefit of Bodhisattva Space Treasury, and is owed to my former teacher Dozen-bo.
Even a turtle, we are told, knows how to repay a debt of gratitude,22 so how much more so should human beings? To repay the debt that I owe to
my former teacher Dozen-bo, I desired to spread the teachings of the Buddha on Mount Kiyosumi and lead my teacher to enlightenment. But he is a rather ignorant man, and in addition he is a believer in the Nembutsu, so I did not see how he could escape the three evil paths. Moreover, he is not the kind of person who would listen to my words of instruction.
Nevertheless, in the first year of the Bun’ei era (1264), on the fourteenth day of the eleventh month, I met with him at the priests’ lodgings23 of Hanabusa in Saijo. At that time, he said to me: “I have neither wisdom nor any hope for advancement to important position. I am an old man with no desire for fame, and I claim no eminent priest of Nembutsu as my teacher. But because this practice has become so widespread in our time, I simply repeat like others the words Namu Amida Butsu. In addition, though it was not my idea originally, I have had occasion to fashion five images of Amida Buddha. This perhaps is due to some karmic habit that I formed in a past existence. Do you suppose that as a result of these faults I will fall into hell?”
At that time I certainly had no thought of quarreling with him. But because of the earlier incident with the lay priest Tojo Saemon Renchi,24 I had not seen my teacher for more than ten years, and thus it was in a way as though we had become estranged and were at odds. I thought that the proper and courteous thing would be to reason with him in mild terms and to speak in a gentle manner. On the other hand, when it comes to the realm of birth and death, neither young nor old know what fate awaits them, and it occurred to me that I might never again have another opportunity to meet with him. I had already warned Dozenbo’s elder brother, the priest Dogi-bo Gisho,25 that he was destined to fall into the hell of incessant suffering if he did
