Minobu wrote: ↑Mon May 03, 2021 6:17 pm
According to Rev. Murano in his book he explains that the two siddham characters and various Bodhisattvas on Gohonzon are Emanations of the Eternal Buddha Lord Sakyamuni Buddha .
At least this is how I read it.
This thread is as much a question as a possibility of me realizing something.
So if the Four Leaders of the Bodhisattvas of the Earth are Emanations of The Eternal Buddha , then Bodhisattva Jogyo is an emanation of Lord Sakyamuni Buddha The Eternal Buddha .
which would make Him an emanation of the Eternal Buddha making him essentially The Eternal Buddha.
thoughts?
When you suggest anything is "essentially" something, you are reducing it to one thing, and that's not tenable. Nothing compounded is something simpliciter, ie. nothing is just a rock, or a person, or a buddha, or whatever. So long as the thing we are talking about is compounded, its not essentially anything in particular. Its a provisionally organized confluence of causes and conditions, which are in turn provisionally organized confluences of causes and conditions, ad inifinitum, until you relent and admit that there's no core in this mystical matroyshka doll we call the self.
You'd be on firmer ground if you'd just take what Nichiren wrote about himself as your starting point.
In a sense, of course, we are all emanations of buddha. That is the point of buddhanature teachings. Sure, we could in some sense say Nichiren is an emanation of Shakyamuni. He never made such a claim, instead suggesting he was an emissary, specifically, Bodhisattva Visistacaritra. He also likened himself to Bodhisattva Sadaparibhuta, a previous birth of Shakyamuni in the remote past when he was a bodhisattva (which of course was really a play for the benefit of beings). He made statements like, "I am the pillar of Japan!", but he never said, "I am the primordial Buddha!" because that would be ridiculous and he knew better.
I will venture that calling Nichiren Hombutsu (Original Buddha) is a training in the sense that we look on our teacher as the Buddha. This is highly developed in Tibetan Buddhism, but it is also a critical view in Mahayana in general. This does not sit easily in Nichiren's thought because so much is made of the dictum, "Rely on the Dharma and not on people."
Life is much easier when you decide its easier not to hold twisted gymnastics poses and cross your eyes just so you can see the mystical stuff somebody says is there.