implication included therein.” By this he means that, although for the sake of brevity only the title of the sutra is spoken, the entire sutra is contained in the title alone.
Everything has its essential point, and the heart of the Lotus Sutra is its title, or the daimoku, of Nam-myoho-renge-kyo. Truly, if you chant this in the morning and evening, you are correctly reading the entire Lotus Sutra. Chanting daimoku twice is the same as reading the entire sutra twice, one hundred daimoku equal one hundred readings of the sutra, and one thousand daimoku, one thousand readings of the sutra. Thus, if you ceaselessly chant daimoku, you will be continually reading the Lotus Sutra. The sixty volumes2 of the T’ien-t’ai doctrines give exactly the same interpretation. A teaching this easy to uphold and this easy to practice was expounded for the sake of all living beings in the evil world of this latter age. A passage from the Lotus Sutra reads, “In the Latter Day of the Law . . .”3 Another reads, “If a bodhisattva or mahasattva in the latter age hereafter, when the Law is about to perish, should accept and embrace, read and recite this sutra . . .” A third states, “In the evil age of the Latter Day of the Law if there is someone who can uphold this sutra . . .”4 A fourth reads, “In the last five-hundred-year period you must spread it [the Lotus Sutra] abroad widely.”5 The heart of all these passages is the admonition to embrace and believe in the Lotus Sutra in this Latter Day of the Law. The learned authorities in Japan, China, and India have all failed to comprehend this obvious meaning and have slandered the sutra. They follow and practice the Hinayana and the provisional teachings upheld by the Nembutsu, True Word, Zen, and Precepts schools, thereby discarding the Lotus Sutra. They misunderstand the Buddha’s teachings, but the people are ignorant of their mis
takes. Because they appear to be true priests, the people trust them without the slightest doubt about what they preach. Therefore, without realizing it, the people who follow them have become enemies of the Lotus Sutra and foes of Shakyamuni Buddha. It is obvious from the sutra that not only will all their wishes remain unfulfilled, but their lives will be short, and after this life, they will be doomed to the great citadel of the hell of incessant suffering.6
Even though one neither reads nor studies the sutra, chanting the title alone is the source of tremendous good fortune. The sutra teaches that women, evil men, and those in the realms of animals and hell— in fact, all the beings of the Ten Worlds— can attain Buddhahood in their present form. [This is an incomparably greater wonder than] fire being produced by a stone taken from the bottom of a river, or a lantern lighting up a place that has been dark for a hundred, a thousand, or ten thousand years. If even the most ordinary things of this world are such wonders, then how much more wondrous is the power of the Buddhist Law! We ordinary beings are fettered by evil karma, earthly desires, and the sufferings of birth and death. But due to the three inherent potentials of the Buddha nature— innate Buddhahood, the wisdom to perceive it, and the actions to manifest it— we can without doubt reveal the Buddha’s three bodies— the Dharma body, the reward body, and the manifested body. The Great Teacher Dengyo states, “Through the power of the Lotus Sutra of the Wonderful Law they can do so in their present form.”7 He is referring to the example of the dragon king’s daughter, who achieved Buddhahood in her reptilian form through the power of the Lotus Sutra. Do not doubt this in the least. Please tell your husband that I will explain this in detail when I see him.
