On Establishing the Correct Method of Meditation (1) 立正観抄 一

On Establishing the Correct Method of Meditation

Japanese

■Writing date: February, 12th year of Bun'ei (1275 A.D.), age fifty-four (54). It was addressed to his disciple Sairen-bo.

■Place of writing: In a hermitage in the Minobu Mountains.

■Background of writing: Sairen-bo, a Tendai monk, became a disciple of Daishonin on January 16, Bun'ei 9, while he was exiled to Sado Island, after hearing of the Tsukahara controversy between Daishonin and the monks of other sects.

　The Tendai sect on Mount Hiei at the time formulated the doctrine that the Tendai meditation practice was superior to the Lotus Sutra and that it was therefore acceptable to abandon the Lotus Sutra. In response, Saorenbo sent a letter to Daishonin in Minobu, asking for guidance on whether this doctrine was correct or incorrect. Daishonin wrote this book in response.

　Daishonin replied, "All cessation of observation is founded on the Lotus Sutra. The practice of single-hearted three meditations is to realize the depth of the Myoho, and therefore those who abandon the Lotus Sutra, and only make meditation the correct method, are guilty of great slander, great evil and evil thinking, and are the result of demons.

Autograph: Not extant. Ancient copy: By Nissin, in the collection of Minobu Mountain; by Niccho, in the collection of Tomikyuseiji Temple, Nichiren Shoshu.

Copy by Niccho

[On Establishing the Correct Method of Meditation. Text]

　　Determining the Similarities and Differences between the Lotus Sutra and the Teaching of Concentration and Insight

Written by Nichiren

　　Among those who study and practice the teachings of the Tendai school at present place the greatest emphasis upon the practices associated with the observation of the mind and to cast aside the doctrines set forth in the theoretical teaching and essential teaching of the Lotus Sutra.

Now we may ask whether these so-called “practices associated with the observation of the mind” are based upon the teaching of meditation set forth by the Great Teacher Tendai in his Great Concentration and Insight, which reveals “the teaching that Tendai Chih-che himself practiced in the depths of his being,” namely, the principles of threefold contemplation in a single mind and three thousand realms in a single moment of mind. Or are they based upon the teaching of Zen contemplation set forth by Bodhidharma that is being spread abroad in the world today?

If they are based on the teaching of Bodhidharma’s Zen meditation, then there are two kinds, doctrinal Zen and patriarchal Zen. Doctrinal Zen is a kind of provisional meditation founded on expedients taught by the Buddha, when he had “not yet revealed the truth,” a type of meditation cast aside when the excellent meditation based on the Lotus Sutra is set forth, as the sutra says, “honestly discarding expedient means.” Patriarchal Zen, named after Bodhidharma, the patriarch of the Zen school, is a kind of meditation that describes itself as a “separate transmission outside the sutras,” a work of the heavenly devil. Both types of meditation represent methods based on falsehoods that will never lead one to the attainment of the way and hence must not be employed.

But if these practices are based on the threefold contemplation in a single mind that is set forth in Tendai’s Great Concentration and Insight, then of course it would not go against Tendai’s original intention expressed in that work with regard to which meditative practices are to be adopted and which discarded. If these procedures are based on the contemplation of the mind, the practice expounded in Great Concentration and Insight, then they cannot conflict with the Lotus Sutra. Because the entire Great Concentration and Insight is founded upon the Lotus Sutra. The practices associated with the threefold contemplation in a single mind are designed for the purpose of perceiving the excellent Law, which is ordinarily beyond one’s power of perception.

Therefore one should understand that those who advocate that the Lotus Sutra be cast aside and the method of meditation be regarded as the only correct procedure are committing great slander of the Law, holding a seriously mistaken view, and doing the work of the heavenly devil. I say this because Tendai’s threefold contemplation in a single mind represents a method of concentration and insight that is based upon the Lotus Sutra and enables one to gain insight through meditation, an awakening to the truth of one’s own mind.

Continued

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