teaching preached immediately following the Buddha’s enlightenment. It is a sutra that embodies the complete and perfect teaching; yet it was entrusted to four bodhisattvas, including Dharma Wisdom, to expound.5 The Wisdom sutras, though not on the same level as the Flower Garland Sutra, nevertheless represent the loftiest among the other sutras that the Buddha had preached thus far. And yet Subhuti was the one entrusted with the task of expounding them.
Only the Lotus Sutra represents the wonderful teaching preached directly from the golden mouth of Shakyamuni Buddha, who is perfectly endowed with the three bodies. Therefore, even Universal Worthy and Manjushri were hardly able to expound so much as a single phrase or verse of it. How much more difficult then must it be for us, who are no more than ordinary people living in this latter age, to embrace even one or two words of this sutra!
Because the founders of the various schools read the Lotus Sutra, their respective disciples all assumed that their own teacher had grasped the sutra’s heart. However, if we look carefully into the essence of the matter, we find that the Great Teacher Tz’u-en read the Lotus Sutra while making the Profound Secrets Sutra and The Treatise on the ConsciousnessOnly Doctrine his teachers, and the Great Teacher Chia-hsiang read the Lotus Sutra while making the Wisdom sutras and The Treatise on the Middle Way his teachers. Men like Tu-shun and Fa-tsang read the Lotus Sutra while making the Flower Garland Sutra and The Commentary on the Ten Stages Sutra their teachers. And Shan-wu-wei, Chin-kang-chih, and Pu-k’ung read the Lotus Sutra while making the Mahavairochana Sutra their teacher. All these men thought that they had read the Lotus Sutra. But in fact they had not read so much as a single phrase or verse of it.
In the end, it is as the Great Teacher Dengyo meant when he said, “Though he praises the Lotus Sutra, he destroys its heart.”6 They were like nonBuddhist believers who, though they read the Buddhist sutras, interpret them to be the same as non-Buddhist teachings; or like bats that, in their blindness, mistake day for night. Or they were like a red-faced man who, looking into a clear mirror, supposes that the whole mirror has turned red, or like a roundfaced man who, seeing his reflection in a narrow sword blade, thinks that his face has become long and thin.
But I am different from such persons. I firmly uphold the teaching that the Lotus Sutra is supreme among the sutras the Buddha has preached, now preaches, and will preach.7 Moreover, I chant the daimoku, which is the heart and core of the entire sutra, and I urge others to do likewise. Although the mugwort growing in a hemp field or wood marked for cutting with an inked line8 may not be straight to begin with, they will as a matter of course become so.
In the same way, one who chants the daimoku as the Lotus Sutra teaches will never have a twisted mind. For one should know that, unless the mind of the Buddha enters into our bodies, we cannot in fact chant the daimoku.
The Buddhist teachings that have been disseminated by others are in all cases those that have been learned and received from their respective teachers. It is like the case of fiefs possessed by immediate vassals of the ruling house of Kamakura, or estates administered by the stewards of the districts. Though their lands may measure no more than one or two cho, in all cases they received them through the favor of the late shogun.9 How much more indebted to him are those whose holdings measure a hundred cho, a thousand cho, a whole province, or two whole provinces!
