and Zen schools in the world today?
The Chinese Meditation Master Sanchieh126 stated that the Lotus Sutra, which represents the teachings of the Buddha Shakyamuni, is a doctrine suited for the first and second stages of Buddhism, which correspond to the Former and Middle Days of the Law. For the Latter Day of the Law, however, he asserted that one should adopt the “universal teaching” that he himself had set forth. He declared that, if one should try to practice the Lotus Sutra in these present times, one would surely fall into the great Avichi hells of the ten directions because its teachings do not accord with the nature and capabilities of the people of the latter age.
He carried out prostrations and penances at the proper hours six times each day and observed the four daily meditation periods, conducting himself like a living Buddha. Many people paid him honor, and his disciples numbered more than ten thousand. But one young woman dared to recite the Lotus Sutra and to censure him for his doctrines. As a result, he lost his voice on the spot and was reborn as a huge snake that devoured a number of his disciples and lay supporters, as well as girls and young women. And now Shan-tao and Honen, with their pernicious doctrine that not even one person in a thousand can be saved by the Lotus Sutra, are just like this man San-chieh.
Many years have passed now since these great sources of trouble, the Nembutsu, Zen, and True Word teachings, came into existence, and one should not underestimate their influence. But I feel that, if I speak out against them in this way, there will perhaps be those who will heed my words.
And yet there is something that is more evil than these three teachings, so evil that it is a hundred, thousand, ten thousand, million times more difficult to believe. Though the Great Teacher
Jikaku was the third disciple of the Great Teacher Dengyo, everyone from the ruler on down to the common people believed him to be a more outstanding person than the Great Teacher Dengyo himself. He made an exhaustive study of the teachings of the True Word school and of the Lotus school, and stated in his writings that the True Word teachings are superior to those of the Lotus Sutra. As a result, the community of priests on Mount Hiei, which numbered three thousand, as well as the Buddhist scholars in every province throughout Japan, all came to accept his opinion on this matter.
The followers of Kobo had thought that, although he was their teacher, he had perhaps gone too far when he declared the Lotus Sutra inferior to the Flower Garland Sutra. But when they saw that the Great Teacher Jikaku put forth a similar opinion in his exegetical writings, they took it as an accepted fact that the True Word teachings were indeed superior to the Lotus Sutra.
Mount Hiei ought to have been the staunchest opponent to this opinion established in Japan that the True Word teachings are superior to the Lotus Sutra. Yet Jikaku silenced the mouths of the three thousand priests of Mount Hiei and prevented them from speaking out, and as a result, the True Word school was able to have its way. In effect, the Great Teacher Jikaku was the foremost ally of To-ji, the leading temple of the True Word school.
Though the Pure Land and Zen schools may have flourished in other countries, they would never have been able to spread throughout Japan in countless kalpas if Enryaku-ji temple on Mount Hiei had not given its assent. But the Reverend Annen, known as the first worthy of Mount Hiei, wrote a work called Different Views on the Teaching and the Time, in which he ranked the nine schools of Buddhism in the order of their superiority, plac
