- published: 26 Jan 2014
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Nichiren (日蓮) (February 16, 1222 – October 13, 1282) was a Buddhist monk who lived during the Kamakura period (1185–1333) in Japan. Nichiren taught devotion to the Lotus Sutra, entitled Myōhō-Renge-Kyō in Japanese, as the exclusive means to attain enlightenment and the chanting of Nam-Myōhō-Renge-Kyō as the essential practice of the teaching. Nichiren Buddhism includes various schools with diverging interpretations of Nichiren's teachings. While virtually all Nichiren Buddhist schools regard him as a reincarnation of the Lotus Sutra's Bodhisattva Superior Practices, Jōgyō Bosatsu (上行菩薩), some schools of Nichiren Buddhism's Nikkō lineages regard him as the actual Buddha of this age, or the Buddha of the Latter day of the Law.
Nichiren was born on February 16, 1222 in the village of Kominato, Nagase District, Awa Province (within present-day Chiba Prefecture). Nichiren's father was Mikuni-no-Tayu Shigetada, also known as Nukina Shigetada Jiro (d. 1258) and his mother was Umegiku-nyo (d. 1267). On his birth, his parents named him Zennichimaro (善日麿?) which has variously been translated into English as "Splendid Sun" and "Virtuous Sun Boy" among others. The exact site of Nichiren's birth is believed to be submerged off the shore from present-day Kominato-zan Tanjō-ji (小湊山 誕生寺), a temple in Kominato that commemorates Nichiren's birth. In his own words about his birth, Nichiren stated that he was "the son of a chandala family who lived near the sea in Tojo in Awa Province, in the remote countryside of the eastern part of Japan."
He beat the drum and lit the fires
He sent the messages in vain
But the sound of his philosophy
Rose above the falling rain
And to you who find it difficult
To believe in anything
I praise you for the outrage
At the horror you have seen
So I'm trying to remember
I try to understand
Every holocaust has meaning
Not set in stone but drawn in sand
And in some cold and barren place
He spoke the phrase and thus I heard
With every small decision