“In the ages since our original teacher, the Buddha Shakyamuni, preached the three Pure Land sutras, the T’an-luan had originally studied the four treatises but abandoned them and put all his faith in the Pure Land teachings. Similarly, the priest Tao-ch’o ceased to spread the multifarious doctrines of the Nirvana sutra and devoted all his attention to the practices of the Western Region. The priest Shan-tao discarded the incorrect practices and concentrated on the single practice of the Pure land, and the priest Eshin collected passages from various sutras to form his work, stressing the importance of a single practice, the Nembutsu. Such was the manner in which these men honored and respected the Buddha Amida, and uncountable numbers of people as a result were able to gain rebirth in the Pure Land
Of particularnote was the venerable Honen, who as a child entered the monastery on Mount Hiei. By the time he was seventeen, he had worked his way through all sixty volumes of Tendai literature and had investigated all the eight sects and mastered their essentials. In addition, he had read through the entire body of sutras and treatises seven times, and exhausted all the works of exegesis and biography. His wisdom shone like the sun and moon, and his virtue exceeded that of the earlier teachers.
In spite of all this, he was in doubt as to the proper path to salvation and could not make out the true meaning of nirvana. Therefore he read and examined all the texts he could, pondered deeply and considered every possibility, and in the end put aside all the sutras and concentrated on the single practice of the Nembutsu. In addition, he received confirmation of his decision when Shan-tao miraculously appeared to him in a dream, and he proceeded to spread his doctrines among friends and strangers in all four corners of the land. Thereafter, he was hailed as a reincarnation of the Bodhisattva Seishi, or was revered as Shan-tao reborn. In every quarter people of eminent and lowly birth alike bowed their heads in respect, and men and women from all over Japan sought him.
Since that time, the springs and autumns have succeded each other and the years have accumulated. And yet you insist upon putting aside the venerable teachings of Shakyamuni Buddha contained in the Pure Land sutras and willfully speak evil of the writings concerning the Buddha Amida. Why do you try to blame the sacred age of Honen for the disasters of recent years, going out of your way to slander the former teachers of Pure Land doctrine and to heap abuse on a sage like Honen? You are, as the saying goes, deliberately piercing the skin in hopes of drawing blood. From ancient times to the present, the world has never seen such a speaker of evil!
You had better learn a little caution and restraint. When you pile up such grave offenses, how can you hope to escape punishment? I am afraid even to sit here in your company. I must take up my staff and be on my way!
The host, smiling, restrained his guest and said:
“Insects that live on smartweed forget how bitter it tastes, those who stay long in privies forget how foul the smell is. Here you listen to my good words and think them wicked, point to a slanderer like Honen and call him a sage, mistrust a true teacher and take him for an evil monk. Your confusion is great indeed, and your offense anything but light. Listen to my explanation of how this confusion arose and let us discuss the matter in detail.
The doctrines that Shakyamuni Buddha preached in the course of his lifetime can be assigned to five distinct preaching periods. The order in which they were preached can be established, and they can be divided into provisional and true teachings. But T’an-luan, Tao-ch’o and Sahn-tao embraced the provisional teachings and forgot about the true ones went by what had been taught in the earlier period of the Buddha’s life and discarded what was taught later. They were not the kind of men who delve into the deep places of Buddhist doctrine.
Honen in particular, though he followed the practices advocated by these earlier men, was ignorant as to the source from whence they came. How do we know this? Because he lumped together all the 637 mahayana scriptures with the 2,883 volumes of text, and along with them all the various Buddhas and bodhisattvas and the deities of the heavenly and human worlds, and urged people to ‘Discard, close, ignore and abandon’ them, with these four injunctions corrupting the hearts of all people. Thus he poured out perverted words of his own invention and took absolutely no cognizance of the explanations put forth in the Buddhist scriptures.
His is the worst kind of baseless talk, a clear case of defamation. There are no words to describe it, no way to censure it that is not too mild. And yet men all put faith in this baseless talk of his, and without exception pay honor to his Senchaku Shu. As a consequence, they revere the three sutras of the Pure Land and cast all the other sutras aside; they look up to one Buddha alone, Amida of the Land of Bliss, and forget about the other Buddhas. A man such as Honen is in truth the archememy of the Buddhas and the scriptures, and the foe of sage monks and ordinary men and women alike. And now his heretical teachings have spread throughout the eight regions of the country; they have penetrated every one of the ten directions.
You became quite horrified when I blamed an earlier period for the disasters that have occurred in recent years. Perhaps I should cite a few examples from the past to show you that you are mistaken in your feelings.
The second volume of the Maka Shikan quotes a passage from the Shih Chi or Record of the Historian which says: “In the closing years of the Chou dynasty, there were persons who let their hair hang down, went about naked to the waist, and did not observe the rites and regulations.” The Guketsu commentary on the Maka Shikan, in the second volume, explains this passage by quoting form the Two Chuan as follows: “When King P’ing of the Chou first moved his capital east to Lo-yang, he was men by the Yi River who let their hair hang down and performed sacrifices in the fields. Someone who had great understanding said: ‘In less than a hundred years the dynasty will fall, for the rites are already neglected.’”From this it is evident that the portent appears first, and later the disaster itself comes about.
The Maka Shikan passage goes on to say; “Juan Chi of the Western Chin dynasty was a man of extraordinary talent, but he let his hair grow like a mass of brambles and left his belt undone. Later, the sons of the aristocracy all imitated his, until those who behaved in a churlish and insulting manner were thought to be acting quite naturally, and those who were restrained and proper in their behavior were ridiculed as mere peasants. This was a sign that the Ssu-ma family, the rulers of the Chin dynasty, would meet with their downfall.”
Similarly, the Record of a Pilgrimage to China in Search of the Law by Jikaku Daishi records that in the first year of the Hui-ch’ang era (841), Emperor Wu-twung of the T’ang dynasty commanded the priest Ching-shuang of Chang-ching temple to transmit the Nembutsu teachings of the Buddha Amida in the various temples. Ching-shuang spent three days in each temple, going about from one temple to another without ever ceasing.
In the second year of the same era, soldiers from the land of the Uighurs invaded the borders of the T’ang empire. In the third year of the same era, the regional commander in the area north of the Yellow River suddenly raised a revolt. Later, the kingdom of Tibet once more refused to obey orders from China, and the Uighurs repeatedly seized Chinese territory. On the whole, the conflicts and uprisings were like those that prevailed at the time when the Ch’in dynasty and the military leader Hsiang Yu were overthrown, and the towns and villages were devastated by fire and other disasters. What was even worse, Emperor Wu-tsung carried out a vast campaign to wipe out Buddhist teachings and destroyed a great many temples and monasteries. He was never able to put down the uprisings, and died in agony shortly after. (This is the essence of Jikaku’s original passage.”
In view of there events, we should consider the fact that Honen was active during the reign of Emperor Gotoba, around the Kennin era (1201-1203). And, as everyone knows, in 1221 the Retired emperor Gotaba was thwarted in his attempt to assert the authority of the throne, and he and two other retired emperors were forced into exile.
Thus China provided and earlier example of how the Pure Land teachings brought about the fall of an emperor, and our own county offers similar proof. You should not be in doubt about the matter or consider it strange. The only thing to do now is to abandon evil ways and take up those that are good, to cut off this affliction at the source, to cut it off at the root!