Revealing the object of worship
in terms of the Person

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Nichiren Daishonin again pointed to the sutra itself for evidence of this person’s identity, citing a key passage from the ‘Encouraging Devotion’ (thirteenth) chapter.  This describes the persecutions that ‘the eight hundred thousand million nayutas of bodhisattvas and mahasattvas’ will endure after the Buddha’s death for the sake of the Lotus Sutra.

The Daishonin discusses this passage in many of his writings, including ‘The Opening of the Eyes’, the major treatise he wrote soon after his exile to Sado Island, following the Tatsunokuchi Persecution in 1271.  He states: 

The [‘Encouraging Devotion’ chapter] says: ‘There will be many ignorant people who will curse and speak ill of us, and will attack us with swords and staves, with rocks and tiles.’  Look around you in the world today - are there any priests other than Nichiren who are cursed and vilified because of the Lotus Sutra or who are attacked with swords and staves? If it were not for Nichiren, the prophecy made in this verse of the sutra would have been sheer falsehood.

   The same passage says: ‘In that evil age there will be monks with perverse wisdom and hearts that are fawning and crooked’ and ‘They will preach the Law to white-robed laymen and will be respected and revered by the world as though they were arhats who possess the six transcendental powers.’ If it were not for the teachers of the Nembutsu, Zen and Ritsu sects of our present age, then the World-Honored One would have been a teller of great untruths.

  The passage likewise says: ‘Because in the midst of the great assembly... they will address the rulers, high ministers, Brahmans and householders...[slandering and speaking evil of us].’ If the priests of today did not slander me to the authorities and have them condemn me to banishment, then this passage in the sutra would have remained unfulfilled.

   ‘Again and again we will be banished’ says the sutra.  But if Nichiren had not been banished time and again for the sake of the Lotus Sutra, what would these words ‘again and again’ have meant?  Even T’ien-t’ai and Dengyo were not able to fulfill this prediction represented by the words ‘again and again’, much less was anyone else.  But because I have been born at the beginning of the Latter Day of the Law, the ‘the age of fear and evil’ described in the sutra, I alone have been able to live these words. 

In short, by pointing out that he alone has endured each of the persecutions that the Lotus Sutra predicts for its votary, Nichiren Daishonin implies that he is the person whose mission it is to establish the ‘Lotus Sutra of the Latter Day’ - the true or original Buddha.  Thus, ‘The Opening of the Eyes’ is said to reveal the object of worship in terms of the Person. 

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