The advent of Shakyamuni in 3000 years ago
The first Buddha to make his appearance on earth was Siddhartha Gautama, who born in Lumbini (which is geographically located in Nepal) approximately 3000 years ago. He was a prince of the Shakya clan At the age of thirty, while deep in meditation, Shakyamuni had a profound awakening/enlightenment, and he went on to teach various teachings for another 50 years until he was 80. The wisdom he had attained was initially far beyond the capacity of common men and women to understand, so he started to teach the lower teaching for the people who couldn’t comprehend his enlightenment straight away, and then took the teaching to a higher and deeper level. In fact, that was the preparation for revealing the Lotus Sutra, which he had understood from the start, that every single human being can become Buddha. Before Shakyamuni Buddha revealed the Lotus Sutra, he manifested in Muryogi Sutra (The prologue of the Lotus Sutra) said, ‘I haven’t told the true teaching yet during the last forty years.’ and also in the second chapter of the Lotus Sutra said, ‘Those who honestly discard the expedient teaching, and put faith in the Lotus Sutra’, which means the varieties of sutras he taught were all expedients and weren’t the true teaching, and that the Lotus Sutra would be the one that would reveal Buddha’s true enlightenment.
Shakyamuni’s prediction
Shakyamuni made some crucial predictions within his 50 years of teachings. One prediction in Daishikkyo (Mahasamnipata Sutra) He foretold that by 2000 years following his death (around AD1000), his teachings would be like an out of date medical prescription for a patient whose disease had turned far more serious, which is called ‘Byakuho-Onmotsu’ (Disappearance of White dharma)’, and this period is called ‘Latter Days of the Law’
Another prediction Shakyamuni made was that at that time another great practitioner of the Lotus sutra who, after overcoming severe persecutions, would reveal the true cause of original enlightenment.
This person would be the incarnation of the eternal true Buddha and sow the seed of enlightenment in the lives of all beings.
Lotus Sutra and Nichiren Daishonin
The advent of Nichiren Daishonin
After entering ‘Latter Days of the Law’, Nichiren Daishonin was born the son of a fisherman on 16th Feb 1222 in the Kamakura period in Japan.
Since he entered the priesthood in the Buddhism temple at the age of twelve, he studied hard and travelled to the Kyoto and Kamakura areas visiting the major temples and centres of Buddhist study. He investigated all the existing sects and their teachings concluding that the Lotus Sutra is indeed the highest among Shakyamuni’s sutras. He was enlightened to the entity of the mystic law the words of the Lotus Sutra described. The corrupt state of the temples and priests exactly matched the description in Shakyamuni’s predictions.
Also realising that he himself was the very one of whom the sutras spoke, Nichiren Daishonin determined to take on the awesome challenge of confronting the entrenched, established sects and religious authorities. Calling upon the people of his age and the future to take faith in the wonderful mystic law of the Lotus Sutra, he boldly declared the founding of his true Buddhism on April 28, 1253.
He established the school of chanting ‘Nam-Myoho-Renge-Kyo’ based on the Shakyamuni Buddha’s supreme teaching; Lotus sutra.
‘I, Nichiren, inscribed the Gohonzon by infusing my life into it with Sumi ink.‘ (Gosho, p. 685; for reference, see also MW, Vol. 1, p. 120)
Beginning with this declaration, Nichiren Daishonin struggled unceasingly to propagate the heart of the Lotus Sutra, the profound law which he cherished in the depths of his life. True to the sutra’s predictions, he endured and overcame persecutions unprecedented in the history of Buddhism, including two exiles and an attempt by the military government to execute him. Fulfilling his life’s mission on October 12, 1279 with the establishment of the True Object of Worship manifesting the totality of the enlightenment of the True Buddha and the cause for enlightenment of all mankind, Nichiren Daishonin peacefully passed away on October 13, 1282.