It was in 1935, when I was twenty-eight, that I heard a lecture on the Lotus Sutra by Arai Sukenobu. Right away, I knew intuitively that the Lotus Sutra was the teaching that would bring happiness to all people, and my heart leapt with joy.
Mr. Arai was eager to teach the Lotus Sutra to someone, and I was just as eager to listen. Our aspirations matched perfectly, exactly as in the old Zen saying about the teacher and the disciple: “The hatchling and mother hen peck at the eggshell at the same time” (i.e., the teacher seizes the opportunity when the student is ready), and so I went to Mr. Arai’s home every day to hear him speak. It was with his encouragement that the two of us later founded Rissho Kosei-kai, which practices the teachings of the Lotus Sutra.
The Buddha’s teachings are often styled the “84,000 Gates to the Dharma,” and while the teachings are so high in number, the one that matters the most is the teaching that “Everyone should follow the Way to become a buddha.”However, according to ordinary common sense in East Asia, a buddha is some kind of extraordinary being, so it’s hard for people to imagine that a person could ever become a buddha. This is no surprise.
When it comes to the word “Buddha,” there is one image that many people hold in common. They seem to think of the Buddha as the Great Life of the Universe: the one who gives the gift of life to everything in the world, whose body has the thirty-two features of a superior being, who rescues all people from suffering, and who has the great compassion and mercy to fulfill people’s wishes to be happy. The statue of The Eternal Buddha Shakyamuni—Great Benevolent Teacher, World-Honored One—that is enshrined on the altar of Rissho Kosei-kai’s Great Sacred Hall in Tokyo embodies that image of the Buddha in artistic form.
Therefore, based on common sense, thinking that it’s impossible to become a buddha, no matter how hard a person practices, is absolutely correct. However, the Lotus Sutra explicitly teaches that the aspiration of the Buddha is to make all people into buddhas. In the “Skillful Means” chapter of the Lotus Sutra, we find the words, “ ‘You should know, Shariputra, / That from the beginning I made a vow, / Desiring all living beings / To be my equals, with no distinction between us.’ ” In this passage, the Buddha is vowing “I will make all people buddhas, just like myself.” Also, in the “Lifespan of the Eternal Tathagata” chapter, the Buddha explains: “ ‘I am ever thinking: / “ How can I cause living beings to / Embark upon the unsurpassable Way / And quickly accomplish embodiment as buddhas?” ’ ” Here, the Buddha is saying “I am always thinking about how I can help people become buddhas without them ever losing their way.”
Because the Buddha wishes that we, too, become buddhas, it is the natural endeavor of human beings to accept the Buddha’s wish for us with gratitude and make great strides on the Way to buddhahood with confidence.
Bodai no me o okosashimu [Germinating the Seeds of Awakening] (Kosei Publishing, 2018), pp. 24–25
Nikkyo Niwano, the founder of Rissho Kosei-kai, was born in Niigata Prefecture, Japan, in 1906. A longtime advocate of cooperation and dialogue between the world’s religious faiths, Rev. Niwano promoted interreligious understanding as honorary chairman of Shinshuren (Federation of New Religious Organizations of Japan), honorary president of Religions for Peace, and in various other capacities. He is the author of several books on Buddhism, the Lotus Sutra, and spirituality, such as Buddhism for Today, Lifetime Beginner, Buddhism for Everyday Life, and more. Rev. Niwano passed away in 1999 at the age of 92.
