Daily Gosho - The Essentials for Attaining Buddhahood

This Gosho extract explains the concept of the mentor and disciple relationship.

As President Toda writes, ““The Lotus Sutra teaches that a mentor and his disciple will be reborn at the same time, lifetime after lifetime, thanks to the beneficial power of the Lotus Sutra, and they will spend time together in living its teaching. So, all I did was to put into action this time-honored principle of the Lotus Sutra. My teacher, Mr. Makiguchi, and I are not merely a mentor and his disciple in this lifetime alone. When I was a mentor, he was my disciple. When he was a mentor, I was his disciple. We were always together in the past, and we will be together too in the future.” (excerpt from the letter President Toda wrote to his wife’s father on March 23, Wakaki Hi no Shokan [Accounts of Youthful Days—Memoirs in Imprisonment])

How fortunate we SGI members are to have found the 'true teaching', and to be able to strive for kosen-rufu, alongside our mentor. Bodhisattvas of the Earth, who made a vow in the distant past, to be reborn together.

 "The sutra states, 'Those persons who had heard the Law dwelled here and there in various Buddha lands, constantly reborn in company with their teachers.'"

 (The Essentials for Attaining Buddhahood - The Writings of Nichiren Daishonin, Vol. 1, page ) Selection source: Kyo no Hosshin, Seikyo Shimbun, July 16th, 2012

http://www.sgilibrary.org/view.php?page=746

Background

This letter is addressed to Soya, a lay follower who lived in Soya Village in Shimosa Province. His full name and title were Soya Jiro Hyoe-no-jo Kyoshin, and he is thought to have been an officer of the high court of the Kamakura shogunate. He had converted to Nichiren Daishonin’s teachings around 1260 and became one of the leading believers in the area, together with Toki Jonin and Ota Jomyo.

In 1271, Soya became a lay priest and was given the Buddhist name Horen Nichirai by the Daishonin. Horen built two temples and lived at one of them until he died in 1291 at the age of sixtyeight.

In this letter, the Daishonin first quotes the “Expedient Means” chapter of the Lotus Sutra and states, “The way to Buddhahood lies within the two elements of reality and wisdom.” Reality indicates the ultimate truth that the Law permeates all phenomena in the universe. Wisdom, on the other hand, means the ability to perceive and understand this truth. When this wisdom exists — when the “water of wisdom” fills the “riverbed of reality”— it is known as the fusion of reality and wisdom. This is enlightenment. In other words, one illuminates and manifests the Law in one’s own life.

The Daishonin stresses that Nam-myoho-renge-kyo is the Law that unites both reality and wisdom; it is the seed of Buddhahood for all people in the Latter Day. This Law is to be propagated by Bodhisattva Superior Practices at the beginning of the Latter Day. The Daishonin states that he is the first one to embark on this great mission, by which he is really indicating that he is the original teacher who will lead all people to enlightenment.

Next, he points out that any teacher or disciple who ignores those who commit slander of the Law will fall into hell. This amounts to a compassionate warning about the responsibility believers have to protect the Buddha’s teaching.