January–June 2018, Volume 45
Features
Buddhism’s One Vehicle in a World of Many Religions
The Buddhist term “One Vehicle” (Skt., ekayāna) means a supreme vehicle for liberating all people from suffering. The Lotus Sutra teaches that in Buddhism there is only One Vehicle, unifying earlier teachings that the Buddha taught as skillful means to bring all people to buddhahood.
In a modern context, Rissho Kosei-kai teaches that the One Vehicle represents all the Buddha’s teachings for leading all people to buddhahood. The world of the One Vehicle is a world of harmony, where all national, racial, and religious differences are overcome.
In today’s multicultural world, in which people of diverse values and ways of thinking often live side by side without sharing a common religion or culture, it is essential for people of different ethnic, national, and religious backgrounds to acquire the art of harmonious coexistence, not by rejecting or assimilating one another but by respecting and accommodating each other.
For this aim, interreligious dialogue has become more crucial than ever. Rissho Kosei-kai shares a keen awareness of this need.
How should we understand the One Vehicle in the context of the present-day need for interreligious dialogue and cooperation? Does it provide us with conceptual resources for negotiating unity and diversity in our world? Or can it be viewed as an inclusivist concept embracing all religious traditions within one’s own set of religious principles?
How should we understand the One Vehicle in the context of the present-day need for interreligious dialogue and cooperation? Does it provide us with conceptual resources for negotiating unity and diversity in our world? Or can it be viewed as an inclusivist concept embracing all religious traditions within one’s own set of religious principles?
Interreligious Dialogue from the Viewpoint of the One Vehicle
by Koichi Kawamoto
One and All: The Single Vehicle and Universal Salvation in Tendai Buddhism
by Matthew McMullen
The single vehicle signifies the ultimate truth that, despite the differences in our abilities and knowledge, everyone, from the most advanced bodhisattvas to the lowliest denizens of hell, will eventually attain enlightenment.
Tiantai, Tendai, and the Lotus Sutra: Religious Diversity and Change
by Aaron P. Proffitt
Religious texts are not inert. They have a kind of life of their own, as they are continually reinterpreted by later generations of disciples. This is especially the case for the Lotus Sutra, as within its pages we see a number of distinct views on a variety of topics—religious diversity and change in particular
Aligning Religion with Reality Itself
by Joseph S. O’Leary
As skillful means at the service of universal salvation, religions are vehicles whose worth is measured by their capacity to heighten awareness of reality itself. Reality itself is the One Vehicle, and all religions are skillful means generated by it.
Two Stories of a Rich Father and a Poor Son: An Exercise in Interreligious Dialogue
by Ernest Valea
Wearing a label, such as Buddhist or Christian, is never enough if it lacks the proper mind-set and lifestyle that prove we are a poor son or daughter who has been truly found by the Father.
Essay
Kenji Miyazawa: Embodying the Lotus Sutra, with Mistakes and Failures (2)
by Gene Reeves
He [Miyazawa] thought of himself as trying to embody the bodhisattva path of the Lotus Sutra. Others, too, saw a bodhisattva in him. While still living, Miyazawa came to be known by locals as “Kenji Bosatsu,” Kenji Bodhisattva, in large part because of his extraordinary generosity and kindness.
Seminar Report
Understanding the One Vehicle for Today
by Aura Di Febo
This is a report on the International Lotus Sutra Seminar, held June 28–July 1, 2017, at Rissho Kosei-kai’s headquarters in Tokyo.
Niwano Peace Prize
The Role of Religion Today
The Thirty-Fourth Niwano Peace Prize Acceptance Address
by Bishop Munib A. Younan
The Niwano Peace Foundation awarded the thirty-fourth Niwano Peace Prize to Bishop Munib A. Younan, president emeritus of the Lutheran World Federation and bishop of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Jordan and the Holy Land, for his perseverance and compassion in his work to encourage dialogue between interreligious groups in the Holy Land. The award ceremony took place on July 27, 2017, at the International House of Japan, Tokyo. The recipient’s acceptance address follows.
Founder’s Memoirs
The Niwano Peace Foundation
by Nikkyo Niwano
Essay
The Forgotten Genocide: The DR Congo in the Geostrategic Battle of Information Technology
by J. P. Mukengeshayi Matata
The unforgotten genocide in Congo calls for an international solidarity in protecting human life and forging our conscience to do to other people what we would like others to do for us.
Rissho Kosei-kai Buddhism
Skillful Means
by Dominick Scarangello
Reflections
Moving Forward through Suffering and Hardship
by Nichiko Niwano
Skillful means are certainly not ad hoc temporary solutions or stopgaps, nor are they “provisional” in the sense of being something entirely different or separate from ultimate truth. Instead, skillful means are, as skillful means, part and parcel of ultimate truth.
