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妹尾義郎「共産党事件に直面して仁王護国経の一節を読む」『若人』第9巻第6号、1928年（昭和3年）6月. | 妹尾義郎「共産党事件に直面して仁王護国経の一節を読む」『若人』第9巻第6号、1928年（昭和3年）6月. | ||
[[Seno'o Girō]]. “Kyōsantō jiken ni chokumen shite Ninnō gokoku-kyō no issetsu o yomu” 共産党事件に直面して仁王護国経の一節を読む; “Confronting the Communist Party Incident: Reading a Passage from the ''Sutra for Humane Kings Protecting the Nation''.” ''Wakōdo'' 若人 9, no. 6 (June 1928). | |||
'''Source text:''' | '''Source text:''' | ||
妹尾義郎「共産党事件に直面して仁王護国経の一節を読む」稲垣真美編『妹尾義郎宗教論集』東京：大蔵出版、1975年、242–254頁. | 妹尾義郎「共産党事件に直面して仁王護国経の一節を読む」稲垣真美編『妹尾義郎宗教論集』東京：大蔵出版、1975年、242–254頁. | ||
Seno'o Girō. “Kyōsantō jiken ni chokumen shite Ninnō gokoku-kyō no issetsu o yomu.” In ''Seno’o Girō shūkyō ronshū'' 妹尾義郎宗教論集, ed. Inagaki Masami, 242–254. Tokyo: Daizō Shuppan, 1975. | |||
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Latest revision as of 03:58, 31 August 2026
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⚠ Under Construction ⚠ This page is currently being compiled or translated by the editorial team. The text is incomplete, subject to active revisions, and should not yet be utilized as a stable citation source. |
Original publication:
妹尾義郎「共産党事件に直面して仁王護国経の一節を読む」『若人』第9巻第6号、1928年（昭和3年）6月. Seno'o Girō. “Kyōsantō jiken ni chokumen shite Ninnō gokoku-kyō no issetsu o yomu” 共産党事件に直面して仁王護国経の一節を読む; “Confronting the Communist Party Incident: Reading a Passage from the Sutra for Humane Kings Protecting the Nation.” Wakōdo 若人 9, no. 6 (June 1928).
Source text:
妹尾義郎「共産党事件に直面して仁王護国経の一節を読む」稲垣真美編『妹尾義郎宗教論集』東京：大蔵出版、1975年、242–254頁. Seno'o Girō. “Kyōsantō jiken ni chokumen shite Ninnō gokoku-kyō no issetsu o yomu.” In Seno’o Girō shūkyō ronshū 妹尾義郎宗教論集, ed. Inagaki Masami, 242–254. Tokyo: Daizō Shuppan, 1975.
Translation
Page 242
Confronting the Communist Party Incident: Reading a Passage from the Sutra for Humane Kings Protecting the Nation
Sutra for Humane Kings, Chapter Eight, “Entrustment”[1]
O Great King, the causes and conditions that bring about the destruction of the nation are all of your own making.
Relying upon your own power and authority, you suppress the fourfold assembly and do not permit them to cultivate merit. Evil monks arise who accept the practice of separate invitations; together with learned monks, they become of one mind, cultivate close relations with one another, hold religious feasts, and seek merit. This is the way of non-Buddhists and has nothing whatsoever to do with my teaching.
The people suffer from disease and immeasurable hardships. Know that when this occurs, the nation will be destroyed.
O Great King, in the age of the decline of the Dharma, kings, ministers, and the disciples of the fourfold assembly will each commit unlawful acts, arbitrarily interfering with Buddhism and committing numerous offenses. These accord neither with the Dharma nor with the Vinaya.
O Great King, after my extinction, the disciples of the fourfold assembly, all kings, princes, and officials—those charged with protecting and preserving the Three Treasures—will themselves destroy them. It will be like worms within the lion’s own body devouring the lion’s flesh: the destruction will not come from outsiders.
Those who destroy my Dharma will incur grave offenses. The True Dharma will decline, and the people will cease to act rightly. Evils will gradually multiply and their lives will daily grow shorter. There will no longer be filial children; the six relations will fall into discord; devas and dragons will offer no protection; evil spirits and evil dragons will come daily to inflict harm; calamities and strange portents will follow one upon another, bringing disasters in every direction. They will fall into hell or be reborn as animals or hungry ghosts. Even should they attain human birth, they will be poor and lowly and their faculties incomplete. Just as a shadow follows a form, as an echo responds to a voice, or as writing remains visible after the lamp by which someone writes at night has gone out, so too are the karmic consequences of destroying the Dharma. Evil monks, seeking fame and profit, preach before the king things that are not my Dharma, speaking themselves of transgressions and thereby creating the conditions for the destruction of the Dharma. The king, unable to distinguish what is true, believes and favors their words and arbitrarily establishes laws that do not accord with the Buddhist precepts. Know that when this happens, the extinction of the Dharma will not be far off.
O Great King, in a future age, kings, ministers, and disciples of the fourfold assembly will themselves create the causes and conditions for the destruction of the Dharma and the destruction of the nation, and they themselves will suffer the consequences. The fault does not lie with the Buddha-Dharma.
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Confronted with the Communist Party Incident,[2] people immediately became indignant: “This is treason aimed at destroying our flawless national polity![3] It is a seditious conspiracy!” Yet they went no further than denunciation and repression. They did not reflect upon why such a tremendous calamity had arisen in a supposedly flawless nation. They gave no serious thought to the essential nature of this supposedly “flawless” polity, nor to the actual conditions of the people’s lives, which had strayed so very far from it. And consequently they failed to recognize the underlying disease that required radical treatment. For such foolish citizens, this golden admonition of the Buddha may perhaps be nothing more than “a nenbutsu in a horse’s ear.”[4] Even so, I am convinced that this warning from our Sutra for Humane Kings is indeed a needle thrust into the crown of the modern state. I have therefore ventured to set it down here explicitly, in the hope that it might provide thoughtful readers with occasion for repeated and profound reflection.
Sutra for Humane Kings Protecting the Nation, “Entrustment”
‘Humane King’ means that, because he bestows benevolence and spreads virtue, he is called ‘humane’; and because he acts with purity and freedom, he is called ‘king.’ ‘Protecting the nation’ means that, by following the Dharma of the Humane King and adhering to the Way, he protects the realm, so that the people live in happiness and the nation is secure.
So it is explained. “Entrustment” means that one is commanded, in accordance with this principle, both to govern oneself and to propagate the teaching so that other kings may govern in the same way.
O Great King, the causes and conditions that bring about the destruction of the nation are all of your own making.
The Buddha’s judgment is concise and precisely to the point. In a single sentence he pronounces that all responsibility for the causes of a nation’s destruction lies with you. One might truly say that this one sentence settles the entire matter.
When we think about it, this is surely how things must be. Whatever the country, responsibility for the problems of a nation naturally comes to rest with the sovereign who governs and rules it. Only then can one truly possess, in both name and reality, the qualifications of a king. Indeed, world history clearly tells us that this is where cries of “Long live the king!” converge—and this is also where the flames of revolution are directed. The causes of a nation’s destruction, therefore, should not be sought among the people. Still less should they be sought abroad. When the Buddha admonishes the king that “they are all of your own making,” we must acknowledge that his judgment strikes squarely at the truth.
If this judgment is indeed correct, then the causes of our nation’s destruction are emphatically not to be found in a small group of Communist Party members, nor in the Russian Third International that is said to direct them, nor yet in Marxism itself. Rather, they must be sought…
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…in the defective conditions of the nation itself—conditions that make such incursions possible and allow such movements to arise. It is therefore by no means unreasonable to seek responsibility as well in those sovereign authorities who rule the nation and possess the power freely to reform those conditions.
Yet according to our Constitution, Article[5] Three states that “The Emperor is sacred and inviolable,” while Article Fifty-Five declares that “The Ministers of State shall advise the Emperor and be responsible for their advice.” It goes without saying, therefore, that in our country those who must bear the responsibility indicated by the Buddha’s admonition are the Ministers of State.
Consider someone plagued by mosquitoes. Everyone understands that the fundamental solution—and the wisest way to settle the problem most quickly—is to dredge the muddy ditches where they breed or to construct a proper sewer system. However long one shouts that the mosquitoes are at fault for laying their eggs, or however often one smokes them out with mosquito coils, mosquitoes will continue to appear in swarms so long as the ditches and sewers are not improved. In places in Osaka and Tokyo where proper sewer systems have been constructed, however, the sound and sight of mosquitoes have simply disappeared, without anyone having to say a word, and residents can sleep peacefully. Even should mosquitoes happen to arrive from elsewhere, it is of course impossible for them to survive for long. Proper sewer construction is thus a more fundamental necessity than dealing with the mosquitoes that lay the eggs; it is the underlying problem that must be properly addressed.
But to say that completing the sewer system is the fundamental issue does not mean that sewers are more important than human beings. A sewer system is simply a facility that can be transformed by human will. A person who understands how things work, when troubled by mosquitoes, will therefore promptly design and complete the necessary sewer system. In precisely the same way, if the institutions and structures of society contain defects that give rise to problems, then a person who understands the logic of things will first set about correcting those defects.
What, then, are these defects that must be reformed? And do they in fact exist?
For anyone with even a little social concern, this question ought by now to be a matter of common sense. Indeed, there is something almost trite about spelling it out in such a roundabout fashion. But, just to make the point, let me quote here the remarks reportedly made by Prosecutor-General Koyama concerning the recent Communist Party Incident:
With Takatsu Seidō, Sakai Toshihiko, and now the present case, this is the third Communist Party Incident.[6] The first involved sixteen people, the next twenty-eight, and this time…
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… approximately five hundred [are expected]. What does this gradual increase in numbers tell us? Among those arrested on this occasion are many extremely serious-minded individuals. Ultimately, if ideas of this kind continue to spread, there must be something there with which they sympathize. Might there not be some defect in the organization of society itself? No matter how thoroughly the Peace Preservation Law[7] is perfected, unless those defects are corrected, there can be no hope of rooting the problem out. I believe that correcting them is more important than blaming those who have been arrested. In any case, this represents a kind of crisis, and these social conditions demand the consideration of the intellectuals and statesmen of our time.
So he is reported to have said. When we look at the people who joined the Party, the fact that many of them were sincere young people, possessed of considerable education and sound in both mind and body, surely deserves our attention. These were not the sort of pathological acts of desperation once casually mocked as the work of sickly misfits who cursed society, nor can they simply be dismissed as the pranks of youths infatuated with the West.
A pure soul is always moved by what possesses truth; the blood of the righteous always surges in defense of the weak.
Precisely for this reason, when we consider the fact that, despite such severe repression, the number of sympathizers continues to increase, there must indeed be, as the Prosecutor-General says, “something there.” Unless this “something” is investigated and reformed—or, if their understanding of this “something” is mistaken, unless they are provided with clear explanation and guidance—merely regarding them as dangerous and rebellious would be, again in the Prosecutor-General’s words, as foolish as “shooing flies away from one’s rice.” Would this not leave one open to the accusation that such an attitude is precisely what the Buddha condemned when he spoke of “evil monks accepting separate invitations, learned monks joining together with them in one mind, cultivating close relations with one another, holding religious feasts, and seeking merit”—that, beneath the empty slogan of “cultivating national thought,” officials and establishment religious figures are merely joining forces and devoting themselves to their own preservation? Even without citing the Prosecutor-General, there are more than enough defects demanding reform.
The people suffer from disease and immeasurable hardships. Know that when this occurs, the nation will be destroyed.
There is no need to point out that Marxism identifies the cause of popular poverty in the capitalist economic system. It is equally well known that capitalism necessarily produces an ever-widening class divide between rich and poor; and that once this divide reaches a certain point, just as compressed steam…
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…explodes a boiler when it passes a certain limit, the present economic system will ultimately be shattered by revolution at the hands of the oppressed Fourth Estate.[8] Marxism claims to have demonstrated this both scientifically and historically.
If we turn back to our own Buddhism, however, we find that the Buddha likewise explicitly identifies the moment at which a nation faces destruction as the moment when its people suffer from disease, poverty, and hardship. The judgment of the Buddha, who saw deeply into human nature, appears to have been correct. Certainly, throughout history famine has gone hand in hand with straw-mat banners and bamboo spears.
What deserves serious consideration here is this: Marxism, which rejects religion from the standpoint of the materialist conception of history, and Buddhism, which stands upon a personalist conception of history—one that sublates both the materialist and idealist conceptions of history—are of course not simply compatible with one another.[9] Their understanding of the fundamental causes of poverty therefore differs. And yet, remarkably, they arrive at a common judgment: the point at which popular suffering reaches an impasse constitutes the pivotal motive force in the rise and fall of states and societies.
Accordingly, whether one approaches the matter from a moral standpoint or follows scientific analysis, concrete measures to relieve the suffering of the people must in either case be regarded as a matter of the utmost importance.
What, then, is the cause of the people’s impoverishment?
As I have already said, according to the Marxists, it lies in the capitalist economic system. Under capitalism, they argue:
Advances in the techniques of production do not benefit everyone; they increase the profits of the capitalist. For the laboring masses, on the contrary, they bring unemployment and ruin. Capitalists do not employ workers from some humanitarian desire to feed the hungry. They hire workers in order to extract profit from them. It is this desire for profit that drives them to build factories, employ workers, and ceaselessly sniff out those places where still higher rates of profit can be obtained—markets in which their commodities can be sold at higher prices. And while workers suffer the unfreedom of being unable to live unless they sell their labor-power, capitalists possess the freedom to dismiss them, the freedom to expose workers to starvation. A new system of slavery, reproduced within civilized society![10]
Their diagnosis is, in this respect, remarkably penetrating.
What, then, if we examine, from the moral standpoint of Buddhism, the economic principles of Adam Smith upon which the capitalism so condemned by…
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…Marxism was founded?
Human beings constantly require the assistance of others. Yet such assistance is not obtained through the benevolence of others. We can expect others to assist us only by appealing to their self-interest and showing them that what we desire is also to their own advantage. Our food and drink are provided not through the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker, but because they regard their own interests. We appeal not to their charity, but solely to their self-interest. We need say nothing to them of our own necessities, for they will do what is required for the sake of their own advantage. —[11]
Such an economic system, founded upon egoism and laissez-faire, is precisely the essence of contemporary capitalism. Yet it scarcely needs saying that such egoism and laissez-faire run directly counter to the fundamental spirit of Buddhism.
The Buddha says in the Lotus Sutra, “The root of all suffering is greed,” and “The three evil paths increase, and the asuras likewise flourish.”[12] What could these be if not warnings against the evils brought about by self-interest and unrestricted competition? “I” and “mine”—that is, individualism and unrestricted private property—are impediments to the practice of the Buddhist path. Common ownership and the reciprocal indebtedness, in thought and practice alike, constitute instead the fundamental spirit of our Buddhism. And when socialists say, “If production were carried out not for the profit of capitalists but for the happiness of all, an entirely different form of society would now appear,” surely precisely such a society must also be the ideal the Buddha held for social life.
On this point, the aforementioned Sutra for Humane Kings says: “Evil monks, because they seek fame and profit, do not follow my Dharma”; and again: “The True Dharma declines and grows weak, the people cease to act rightly, evils gradually increase, and their lives daily grow shorter.” Here the harmful consequences of egoism are exposed at their root. Look directly at the facts. Capitalist civilization has advanced with the strides of a giant. The production of wealth has increased to an astonishing degree. And yet the promised “greatest happiness of the greatest number” has proved a dream.[13] The monopoly of the means of production, combined with the monopoly of financial institutions and further reinforced by the unchecked freedom of syndicates, trusts, and the like, has enabled a small number of capitalists to grow ever more extravagantly wealthy. The great majority of the people, by contrast, despite engaging in the blood-soaked labor of production, receive as little as ever…
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…and become relatively poorer and increasingly miserable, until, pitifully, entire families are condemned to groan forever beneath the iron chains of wage labor.
Is this single point not precisely where the concern of communists and socialists lies? Extremism should be rejected. But why should this cry for reform itself be unjust? Consider it. Depending upon market prices, cotton that has already been produced may simply be burned, even while our fellow human beings shiver from the cold. Mountains of sugar remain stored in capitalist warehouses, even while fellow human beings go hungry without so much as a lump of brown sugar. And look further: while the capitalist and landlord classes are said to enjoy enormous profits amounting to some 3.55 billion yen annually, how precariously the laborers, tenant farmers, and masses of society struggle merely to live! Who, possessing even a single tear of compassion and looking squarely at the reality of our fellow human beings—who, though they labor until their sweat is mingled with blood, still find themselves pressed for tomorrow’s bread—could fail, at least in this respect, to rise up and demand that the iron chains of capitalism, the wage system, first be broken, and that the masses be granted immediate freedom and well-being?
Of course, human beings do not live by bread alone. Nor do we disregard that faith by which, amid hunger and cold, Nichiren could declare, “Among the wealthy people of Japan today, Nichiren is the richest of all.” We do not forget that the liberation of human beings, who seek the infinite while dwelling within the finite, can never ultimately be fulfilled by bread alone. And yet, when we confront the reality that human beings cannot live without bread either, what could embody the divine spirit that “man does not live by bread alone” more concretely than first guaranteeing bread for our less fortunate fellow human beings, ensuring its equitable distribution, and enabling them to share in abundant material resources? What could be more expressive of the highest human morality of compassionate concern for others? Nichiren said:
White rice is not merely white rice; it is life itself.
Bread is indeed life. It is precisely within the problem of bread that the Buddha’s compassion must be realized. All the more so in an age such as ours, an age of acute hardship. Nichiren also said:
Borrow the Buddha’s eye and consider the time and its capacities; use the Buddha’s sun to illuminate the nation.[14]
The Dharma is myō—wondrous, responsive, something to be put into living application. Only when an impartial and universal compassion is brought to bear as a light upon the solution of the central problems of actual life can religion and morality remain enduring values for humanity. Otherwise, in the end, they are no different from…
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…opiates that numb our sense of reality.
The people suffer from disease and immeasurable hardships. Know that when this occurs, the nation will be destroyed.
That “something” is now all too clear. The people are impoverished, and their groans of anguish can already be heard beneath the carriages. It is precisely these groans that become the terrifying force latent within human nature, erupting with the declaration that “necessity knows no law.”[15]
Look at the geometrical, explosive progression: sixteen, twenty-eight, five hundred. And listen to the voices of the children of this young age—the many who take an interest and feel sympathy—resounding deep within the earth. Truly, this is a problem demanding the attention of the intellectuals and statesmen of our time. We hardly needed Prosecutor-General Koyama to tell us so.
The masses are not necessarily a foolish multitude. They experience things before they understand them intellectually. That is why their knowledge is grounded in actuality. Their intuition is comparatively accurate. Thus the pioneers of an age have always found the people on their side, just as the people in turn support those pioneers. It is a mistake to imagine that the masses merely follow others blindly. In the very ordinariness of their everyday lives, how often they grasp the subtleties of human feeling, intuit the rights and wrongs of things, and act accordingly! How much of the pure-heartedness that loves the homeland and courageously defends justice still remains preserved in their very bodies! The people do not readily jump aboard the bandwagon of propaganda and cavort through an empty world of abstractions. They act through contact with the realities of life. Consequently, if the state were governed impartially in the spirit of the Humane King, and the lives of ordinary households were truly secure, why would people willingly throw themselves into movements in which their lives were at stake? They love their wives; their children are dear to them.
Thus, if there actually existed a concrete politics based upon our Imperial Way—“The wealth of the people is Our wealth”—then however widely Marxism might be propagated and however vigorously the Communist Party might act, the state of the Humane King would remain eternally unmoved.[16] For such a Humane King embodies the spirit common to the people themselves. He is the source of their well-being. Moreover, the principle of such humane kingship can embrace and assimilate all things, continually making them into a clear mirror for the improvement of government. Arbitrarily establishing laws that do not accord with the Buddhist precepts: know that when this occurs, the extinction of the Dharma will not be far off.
O Great King, in a future age, kings, ministers, and disciples of the fourfold assembly will themselves create the causes and conditions for the destruction of the Dharma and the destruction of the nation, and they themselves will suffer the consequences. The fault does not lie with the Buddha-Dharma.
Looking back upon the fault described here, I recall hearing that, at the time of the Kōtoku Shūsui Incident in Meiji 43 [1910], our great Meiji Emperor repented before the deities of heaven and earth with these words:
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If there be fault, O gods of heaven, blame me, for the people are children born of my own body.[17]
I was so deeply moved and awestruck that I scarcely knew how to respond. Indeed, considered with reverence, it is precisely such self-reflection that makes our sovereign a sovereign in the truest sense; that bears witness to a relationship which, though in principle one of ruler and subject, is in feeling that of parent and child; and that consequently demonstrates the possibility of reforming defective institutions and social structures. It is therefore also the one true safety valve against revolution. And it is here, I believe, that we can recognize the genuine value of our national polity as an unbroken imperial line through all ages, an unblemished golden vessel.
And yet, how are the Ministers of State, who ought to embody this spirit and bear the grave responsibility of assisting the Emperor, actually wielding the reins of government today? It was precisely this question, raised by the Communist Party Incident, that prompted me to read the Sutra for Humane Kings.
Can it truly be said that they do not rely upon their own power and authority, that they do not suppress the fourfold assembly, but instead follow reason, uphold justice, and properly attend to the welfare of the nation and its people?
Surely a cry of “No!”, bursting forth from righteous indignation, comes crashing toward us with a force exceeding even the raging waves of the ocean. The memories of universal manhood suffrage and of the Fifty-Fifth Imperial Diet remain fresh in the minds of the people—indeed, they should remain permanent sources of righteous indignation.[18]
Interference, intervention, repression, detention, the rampant activity of violent gangs and official acquiescence in it, mysterious-document scandals, adjournment followed by further adjournment, the buying of Diet members, and so forth: was it not they who abused virtually every form of power available to them, leaving behind an unparalleled spectacle of ugliness in the history of our constitutional government? And when we are told that all this was done merely to keep their party cabinet in power, does that not exceed all bounds? Can such criticism really be called unjust?
Where reason cannot make itself heard and speech is sealed off, we must expect direct action inevitably to be provoked. Fraud is fraud, even if it involves only a single sen; a bribe is a bribe, even if it amounts to only one yen. Yet in a world where the petty thefts of the lower classes are punished mercilessly and severely, we hear rumors of men who use tens of thousands of yen to purchase the consciences of Diet members and, more broadly, to deceive and outrage the voters of the entire nation. And these very same men proclaim, on the other hand, that they will “sacrifice themselves for the nation in its hour of crisis” and issue solemn-sounding directives about “cultivating national thought and contributing to the promotion of the national spirit.”
What part of your own conduct, I ask, gives you the authority to substantiate such pronouncements?
Is not the absurdity of this rather…
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…like that of a libertine who continues frequenting prostitutes while solemnly insisting that he is doing everything in his power, with the utmost sincerity, to cure the venereal disease he has contracted?
The Emperor must be the embodiment of the Imperial Way—of perfect impartiality and complete sincerity, of justice itself. He must be an emperor who guarantees the genuine welfare of all the people. He cannot be someone whose existence is exploited for the advancement or decline of the partisan interests and power of a single party or faction.
And yet the conduct of the Ministers of State charged with the grave responsibility of assisting him has now become so lawless and so utterly lacking in self-reflection. Is this not precisely what the sutra means by such things as certain legislative bills—“arbitrarily establishing laws that do not accord with the Buddhist precepts,” “creating the causes and conditions for the destruction of the Dharma and the destruction of the nation, and themselves suffering the consequences”? Long ago, confronted by the abuses of his own age, Nichiren declared to the regent Hōjō Tokiyori:
The entire world has turned its back upon what is right, and all people have returned to evil. Therefore benevolent deities abandon the nation and depart, while sages leave their places and do not return. Demons and devils enter in their stead; disasters arise and calamities occur. We cannot remain silent; we cannot but be afraid.
And he thundered:
You must quickly reform the small measure of faith in your heart and return at once to the single good teaching of the True Vehicle. Then the threefold world will all become the Buddha-land—how could a Buddha-land ever decline? The lands of the ten directions will all become treasure lands—how could a treasure land ever be destroyed? If the nation does not decline and the land is not destroyed, then the body will be secure and the mind serene.[19]
And yet today there is not a single religious figure who will rise and speak in this way against the abuses of the age. On the contrary, they willingly submit to being ordered about by those in power; obediently pursue fame and profit, transient as floating clouds; and together devote themselves to opium-like sermons, concerned with little more than devising ways of pacifying the people. What a disgraceful spectacle! Is this not precisely what is meant by the saying that those entrusted with protecting the Three Treasures destroy them themselves, “like worms within the lion’s own body devouring the lion’s flesh”?
When we consider that those who ought to serve as teachers of the nation have already sunk to such a state, where, then, should young people who understand the Buddha-Dharma appropriate to the age and aspire to devote themselves to their homeland in its hour of danger seek their path?
Yet when we look more deeply at the ignorance and evils of such an age, we must ask: who among us is truly qualified to pass authoritative judgment upon them and subject them to an uncompromising shakubuku?[20] Can we not discover within ourselves, too, some measure of the capitalist and establishment-party roots and manifestations of these same evils? Would not nearly everyone, once placed in a position of power, suddenly—or perhaps gradually—end by revealing the ugly base metal beneath the surface and changing sides? Has the righteousness professed while out of power really remained…
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…the same once one entered government? Or were we merely like an apparently honest cat that keeps its claws and fangs hidden only so long as the meat remains caught on a hook beyond its reach? Before we judge and subject others to shakubuku, we must first judge and attack ourselves.
In the final analysis, the ugliness of society is not the fault of present-day capitalists and statesmen alone. It is nothing other than the interconnected and collective product of the materialistic and egoistic tendencies and ways of life of us all. Where could there possibly be a judge who stands absolutely outside it? Social life entails collective responsibility.
The admonition, “O Great King, the causes and conditions for the destruction of the nation are all of your own making,” is, in the final analysis, an admonition directed to each and every one of us as well.
Accordingly, the first step in transforming this ugly state of affairs must necessarily be directed toward our own inner lives. Before attacking other people, society, or the authorities, we must first subject to shakubuku our own materialistic and egoistic lives, which have strayed from and forgotten the spirit of the Buddha.
But although our reflection must begin in this way, genuine awakening cannot be permitted to stop at the level of the individual and the inward. True repentance and true transformation must, on the basis of this reflection and way of life, unfold once again toward the organic whole of social phenomena. Only by seeking the realization of both organic self-reflection and social transformation can we finally penetrate to the true self. Is it not precisely here that we discover the concrete and essential life of true repentance and self-transformation grounded in collective responsibility? For society is our own society. To struggle against defects in society is itself to extinguish our own karmic offenses. Criticism and shakubuku directed toward the governing authorities must therefore never amount merely to antagonistic hatred or to demagogic agitation designed to court popularity. Rather, I believe they can and must be affirmed and advocated as the necessary consequence of a yearning for truth and a concern for society.
Of course, to those who have not thought the matter through this far, such criticism and attack will clearly appear to be an attack upon and rebellion against themselves. Reaction, hatred, exclusion, and repression will inevitably follow. But for the genuine seeker of the Way, what can such counterattacks be if not the actual proof of one’s own repentance? The more deeply and broadly one reflects upon and recognizes one’s own karmic offenses and one’s previously unawakened way of life, the more such criticism and persecution can be understood as the natural karmic recompense for those offenses. Repentance thereby receives ever greater confirmation, and it is precisely here that a life of seeking the Way at the risk of one’s life begins to shine. Criticism and repression will arise in proportion to one’s unwavering effort and perseverance. Yet for the genuine seeker of the Way, they become ever more…
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…occasions for reflection, not causes for fear; a path of Dharma-joy, not a path of suffering.
They are trials. Stone turns to ash; gold remains true gold. Those who fall away will fall away; those who advance can only continue advancing. Listen to the cry of our Nichiren Shōnin:
When Nichiren turned the bright mirror of the Lotus Sutra upon himself, he found it entirely free of cloudiness. There can be no doubt that the offense of slandering the Dharma exists within my own person from the past. If I do not extinguish this offense in this present life, how shall I escape the sufferings of hell in the future? I considered how I might gather together the grave offenses accumulated over countless ages, extinguish them all within this single lifetime, and thereby escape great suffering in the future. In this present age, people who slander the Dharma fill every province of the country. Moreover, the ruler of the nation himself has already become the foremost among those who slander it. If I do not extinguish these grave offenses at such a time, when should I ever expect to do so? If Nichiren, insignificant though his person may be, were to cover the nation of Japan with his voice and denounce them, the countless members of the fourfold assembly who follow false teachings would all revile him at once with countless mouths. At that time, the ruler of the nation, taking the side of the monks who slander the Dharma, would likewise revile Nichiren. He might have his head cut off, or subject him to exile or execution. If such things were to happen time and again, the grave offenses accumulated over innumerable kalpas could be extinguished within this single lifetime. I devised this great strategy, and things have unfolded without the slightest deviation from it. Having come to such a state, surely my aspiration will be fulfilled. — “On Extinguishing Slanders of the Dharma” (Hōbō metsuzai-shō)
And listen again:
Now, because Nichiren vigorously attacks the slander of the Dharma throughout the nation, these great persecutions have arisen. Surely the grave offenses of the past have been summoned forth in this lifetime through my defense of the Dharma. Iron remains black so long as it does not encounter fire; when joined with fire, it becomes red. When a swift current is struck with a piece of wood, waves rise like mountains; when one lays a hand upon a sleeping lion, it roars mightily.[21]
Religion is not opium. What permitted the followers of Lenin to indulge so freely in their mockery of religion as opium? Was it not that religion stopped at merely conceptual, inward repentance and reflection, failing to advocate and carry out a critique extending into the very contents and forms of actual social life—and a movement for their transformation?
Religion is not opium. The religion of the holy Nichiren is emphatically not opium-like.
Religion, for us, is life. Society forms the content of the self. The self is society. Politics, economics, education, military affairs, the arts, and everything else—all of these are also our religion. They are the contents of social life that must be criticized and transformed in accordance with the spirit of the Buddha.[22] For precisely this reason, to aspire to and enter into the work of social transformation is genuine self-knowledge and genuine repentance; at the same time, it is a life of gratitude and the repayment of indebtedness. Ultimately, it is the conclusion and completion of the life of faith.
Indeed, is it not only when we see matters in this way that we can recognize the essential difference between a movement for transformation arising from religion and the movements for social transformation of so-called socialism and communism,…
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…which take the materialist conception of history as their point of departure?
Thus truth breathes within reality, and religion becomes one with life. “Above all, having been born in this land, how could I fail to concern myself with my country?” “White rice is not merely white rice; it is life itself.” Social institutions are not merely social institutions: they are religion.
The principle of three thousand realms in a single thought-moment as actuality (ji no ichinen sanzen) taught by the holy Nichiren can take the place of Tiantai’s three thousand realms in a single thought-moment as principle (ri no ichinen sanzen).[23] That is to say, it is the actualization of the Buddhist spirit.
In truth, theories can be constructed however one likes; arguments can be made in any number of ways. Ah, but you living young people, possessed of a profound concern for human life, for society, for your fellow human beings, and for the present and future of your homeland—
where, then, will you choose to direct your path?
(Shōwa 3 [1928], Wakōdo [Youth], vol. 9, no. 6)
Notes
- ↑ The Sutra for Humane Kings Protecting the Nation (Ninnō gokoku hannya haramitsu-kyō 仁王護国般若波羅蜜経; T 8, nos. 245–246) is one of East Asian Buddhism’s principal “state-protecting sutras,” traditionally grouped among the “three sutras for protecting the nation” (gokoku sanbu-kyō 護国三部経). An apocryphal scripture composed in China, it became the basis in Japan for state-sponsored rites known as Ninnō-e 仁王会, performed to protect the realm from calamity and disorder. In Chapter 8, “Entrustment” (Shokuru-hon 囑累品), the Buddha warns that rulers, ministers, and religious leaders who violate the Dharma themselves create the conditions for the destruction of Buddhism and the state. Seno’o turns this traditional state-protecting scripture against the state itself, locating responsibility for national disorder in political authority and the social conditions it sustains.
- ↑ The “Communist Party Incident” refers to the March 15 Incident of 1928 (San-ichigo Jiken 三・一五事件), a nationwide crackdown in which more than 1,600 suspected members and supporters of the illegal Japanese Communist Party, including labor organizers and student activists, were arrested under the Peace Preservation Law (Chian Iji Hō 治安維持法). Seno’o redirects attention from communist “conspiracy” to the social and economic conditions that made radicalism increasingly compelling.
- ↑ The phrase “flawless national polity” translates kin’ō muketsu (金甌無缺 / 金甌無欠), literally “an unblemished golden vessel.” In modern Japan, the metaphor signified the integrity and inviolability of the imperial state (kokutai 国体), particularly its supposedly unbroken imperial lineage. Seno’o initially invokes the expression ironically, challenging those who denounced communism as a threat to an inherently perfect polity. Later, however, he reappropriates the metaphor: the kokutai can remain genuinely “flawless,” he argues, only insofar as imperial rule retains the capacity for self-criticism and institutional reform.
- ↑ The phrase “a nenbutsu in a horse’s ear” translates the Japanese proverb uma no mimi ni nenbutsu 馬の耳に念仏, meaning to offer wisdom or admonition to an unreceptive audience—roughly equivalent to “casting pearls before swine.” The nenbutsu refers here to the invocation of the Buddha’s name, conventionally Namu Amida Butsu 南無阿弥陀仏.
- ↑ Seno’o makes a pointed constitutional maneuver by pairing the warnings of the Sutra for Humane Kings with the Meiji Constitution (1889). Because the sutra places responsibility for national destruction upon the ruler, its application to modern Japan raised the sensitive question of imperial responsibility. Seno’o invokes Article 3—“The Emperor is sacred and inviolable”—alongside Article 55, which stipulated that Ministers of State advise the Emperor and bear responsibility for that advice. He thus redirects the sutra’s admonition from the inviolable imperial person to the Ministers of State, turning a traditional scripture of state protection into a critique of contemporary government while formally preserving imperial inviolability.
- ↑ Seno’o cites Koyama Matsukichi 小山松吉 (1869–1948), then Prosecutor-General (kenji sōchō 検事総長), who characterized the March 15 Incident as the “third Communist Party incident.” Koyama refers to earlier cases involving Takatsu Seidō 高津正道 (1893–1974) and Sakai Toshihiko 堺利彦 (1871–1933), before conceding that the continued attraction of communism might indicate “some defect in the organization of society itself,” and that even a perfected Peace Preservation Law could not eradicate the movement unless those defects were corrected. Seno’o seizes upon this admission from the state’s own chief prosecutor as evidence that repression cannot eliminate radicalism without addressing its social causes.
- ↑ The Peace Preservation Law (Chian Iji Hō 治安維持法), enacted in 1925, criminalized participation in organizations seeking either to alter the imperial polity (kokutai 国体) or abolish the system of private property, providing the principal legal basis for suppressing the Japanese Communist Party and other radical organizations. Following the March 15 Incident, the Tanaka Giichi government strengthened the law by emergency imperial ordinance in 1928, introducing the death penalty as the maximum punishment for certain offenses.
- ↑ The term “Fourth Estate” (daiyon kaikyū 第四階級) was widely used in early twentieth-century Japanese socialist discourse to designate the proletariat or working class, following the European convention of identifying the bourgeoisie as the “Third Estate.” Seno’o’s image of compressed steam bursting a boiler presents revolution not primarily as ideological conspiracy or moral aberration, but as the predictable consequence of intolerable social conditions.
- ↑ Seno’o’s “personalist conception of history” (jinkaku shikan 人格史観) marks an early attempt to formulate a distinctively Buddhist alternative to both Marxist historical materialism and idealism. He describes this position as one that “sublates” (shiyō 止揚) the materialist and idealist conceptions of history, employing the Japanese philosophical rendering of the Hegelian Aufhebung: an overcoming that simultaneously preserves elements of what it transcends. Seno’o accepts the Marxist insistence on the historical force of material suffering while refusing to reduce human and social transformation to material conditions alone. His jinkaku shikan thus signals an emerging effort to combine Buddhist ethical and religious commitments with a structural analysis of social conditions without simply adopting Marxist materialism.
- ↑ This passage summarizes central themes of Marxist political economy, including production for profit, technological unemployment, and the unequal relation between wage labor and capital. Seno’o does not identify his source; its rhetorical language suggests that he may be drawing upon a contemporary Japanese popularization of Marxist economics rather than quoting Marx directly. He presents the passage as the Marxist explanation of popular impoverishment before turning to capitalism from the “moral standpoint of Buddhism.”
- ↑ Seno’o here quotes or closely paraphrases Adam Smith’s famous discussion of self-interest in Book I, Chapter 2 of The Wealth of Nations (1776), including the example of the butcher, brewer, and baker. He treats Smith as a representative theorist of the economic principles underlying modern capitalism, contrasting economic self-interest and free competition with Buddhist ethics.
- ↑ Seno’o quotes two passages from Kumārajīva’s Chinese translation of the Lotus Sutra (Myōhō renge-kyō 妙法蓮華経; T 9, no. 262): “The origin of all suffering is greed” (諸苦所因 貪欲為本) appears in Chapter 3, “Simile and Parable” (Hiyu-hon 譬喩品), while “The three evil paths increase, and the asuras likewise flourish” (三悪道増長 阿修羅亦充満) appears in Chapter 2, “Expedient Means” (Hōben-hon 方便品). Seno’o gives the traditional Buddhist critique of attachment to “I” (ga 我) and “mine” (gasho 我所) an explicitly socioeconomic interpretation: “I” becomes individualism, while “mine” becomes unrestricted private property. Capitalist egoism and competition thus become institutional expressions of the attachments Buddhism seeks to overcome. Seno’o contrasts these with “common ownership and repayment of indebtedness” (kyōyū hōon 共有報恩).
- ↑ “The greatest happiness of the greatest number” (saidai tasū no saidai kōfuku 最大多数の最大幸福) invokes the utilitarian principle associated especially with Jeremy Bentham (1748–1832). Seno’o uses the maxim as a standard against which to judge capitalist modernity: despite enormous increases in productive capacity and wealth, he argues, general welfare has remained unrealized and the majority have grown relatively poorer.
- ↑ This passage combines the biblical dictum “Man does not live by bread alone” with three passages from the writings of Nichiren (1222–1282). “Among the wealthy people of Japan today, Nichiren is the richest of all” comes from the Kaimoku-shō 開目抄 (The Opening of the Eyes, 1272; Goshō, p. 223), where spiritual possession of the Lotus Sutra is contrasted with worldly wealth. “White rice is not merely white rice; it is life itself” derives from the Hakumai ippyō gosho 白米一俵御書 (On a Bushel of White Rice, 1280; Goshō, p. 1597), a letter thanking a follower for a gift of food. Finally, “Borrow the Buddha’s eye and consider the time and its capacities; use the Buddha’s sun to illuminate the nation” cites the Senji-shō 撰時抄 (On the Selection of the Time, 1275; Goshō, p. 258), in which Nichiren stresses discerning the historical moment and acting accordingly. Seno’o brings these passages together to distinguish his position from reductive materialism without allowing spiritual aspiration to become an excuse for indifference to material suffering. Nichiren’s identification of rice with life thus becomes a scriptural basis for bringing Buddhist compassion into material and economic life.
- ↑ The phrase “necessity knows no law” (hitsuyō wa hōritsu o shirazu 必要は法律を知らず) echoes the Western maxim necessitas non habet legem, according to which extreme necessity may override ordinary legal constraint. Seno’o connects the maxim to the “groans” (umeki うめき) of an impoverished population: when basic needs become sufficiently urgent, popular suffering may burst through the restraints imposed by law.
- ↑ The dictum “The wealth of the people is Our wealth” (tami no tomeru wa chin no tomeru nari 民の富めるは朕の富めるなり) derives from the traditional account of Emperor Nintoku recorded in the Nihon shoki (720). According to the legend, Nintoku, observing that no smoke rose from his subjects’ cooking fires, suspended taxation for three years; when prosperity returned, he declared their prosperity to be his own. Seno’o turns this ideal of benevolent imperial rule into a standard for criticizing contemporary government: if the “Imperial Way” (kōdō 皇道) genuinely identifies the sovereign’s welfare with that of the people, government must secure the material well-being of ordinary households. His increasingly radical critique of capitalism thus remains, at this stage, articulated within an idealized conception of imperial sovereignty.
- ↑ The “Kōtoku Shūsui Incident” refers to the High Treason Incident (Taigyaku Jiken 大逆事件) of 1910–11, in which twenty-six socialists and anarchists were convicted of plotting against the Meiji Emperor; Kōtoku Shūsui (幸徳秋水, 1871–1911) and eleven others were executed. Seno’o associates the incident with a gyosei (御製, imperial poem) by the Meiji Emperor: “Tsumi araba ware o togameyo Amatsu-kami / tami wa waga mi no umishi ko nareba” (“If there be fault, O gods of heaven, blame me, for the people are children born of my own body”). The poem was actually composed in 1904 during the Russo-Japanese War, but was later popularly associated with the High Treason Incident as an expression of imperial self-reproach. Seno’o turns this idealized memory against the government of 1928: rather than simply condemning political dissent, responsible rulers should examine the conditions that produced it.
- ↑ Seno’o alludes to Japan’s first general election under universal manhood suffrage, held in February 1928, and the subsequent Fifty-Fifth Imperial Diet. The election greatly expanded the electorate and brought representatives of the newly organized proletarian parties into the Diet, but was also marked by police interference, restrictions on left-wing campaigning, and allegations of electoral abuses under Prime Minister Tanaka Giichi. Significantly, Seno’o describes the outraged public as the “fourfold assembly” (shishū 四衆), the traditional Buddhist term for the complete community of monks, nuns, laymen, and laywomen, thereby recasting popular political indignation as a form of Buddhist moral judgment.
- ↑ Both passages cite Nichiren’s most famous political treatise, the Risshō ankoku ron 立正安国論 (On Establishing the Correct Teaching for the Peace of the Land, 1260; Goshō, pp. 17, 31), submitted to the former regent Hōjō Tokiyori (北条時頼, 1227–1263) amid famine, epidemics, and other calamities. Seno’o constructs a deliberate parallel between Nichiren’s thirteenth-century remonstration and his own critique of the government in 1928. Nichiren’s promise that the land might become a “treasure realm” (hōdo 宝土) thereby acquires a contemporary social meaning: “peace in the land” (ankoku 安国) requires transformation of the conditions responsible for popular suffering.
- ↑ Shakubuku 折伏 (literally “to break and subdue”) is a traditional Buddhist method of confronting and refuting erroneous views, commonly contrasted with shōju 摂受 (“to embrace and accept”), a more accommodating approach to propagation. In Nichiren Buddhism, shakubuku acquired particular importance as a forceful means of defending the correct Dharma and remonstrating with religious and political authority. Seno’o redirects the practice inward as well as outward: before subjecting others to shakubuku, young Buddhists must confront their own egoism and complicity in the social order they condemn. Shakubuku thus becomes simultaneously a practice of self-criticism and social criticism.
- ↑ Seno’o draws these passages from two writings composed during Nichiren’s exile on Sado Island (1271–1274). The first, the Hōbō metsuzai-shō 謗法滅罪抄 (On Extinguishing Slanders of the Dharma, 1273; Goshō, pp. 1121–22), interprets Nichiren’s persecution and exile as an opportunity to expiate past karmic offenses and fulfill his religious mission. The second, the Sado gosho 佐渡御書 (Letter from Sado, 1272; Goshō, p. 958), uses the images of iron exposed to fire, swift water struck by a log, and a sleeping lion awakened by touch to suggest that fierce opposition is the natural response elicited by forceful propagation of the Dharma. Seno’o transforms the Sado exile into a model of perseverance for young Buddhists confronting political opposition in 1928.
- ↑ The characterization of religion as the “opium of the people” is most famously associated with Karl Marx, who used the expression in his 1844 introduction to the Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right. Vladimir Lenin subsequently made the critique of religion an important element of Marxist political thought, notably in “Socialism and Religion” (1905). By referring to the “followers of Lenin,” Seno’o confronts the Marxist charge that religion reconciles the oppressed to existing social conditions. Rather than rejecting the accusation, he concedes that religion becomes “opium” when repentance remains merely inward (shintaiteki zange 心態的懺悔) and leaves political, economic, and social structures untouched. Because “society forms the content of the self,” genuine religious transformation must extend to social institutions. Seno’o thus turns the Marxist critique of religion into a Buddhist critique of religion that fails to transform social life.
- ↑ The doctrine of “Three Thousand Realms in a Single Thought-Moment” (ichinen sanzen 一念三千), systematized by the Chinese Tiantai master Zhiyi (智顗, 538–597), holds that each moment of mind encompasses the totality of possible states of existence. Seno’o invokes the Nichirenist distinction between “three thousand realms in a single thought-moment as principle” (ri no ichinen sanzen 理の一念三千), associated with Tiantai contemplative teaching, and “three thousand realms in a single thought-moment as actuality” (ji no ichinen sanzen 事の一念三千), associated with Nichiren’s teaching and practice in the age of the Final Dharma. Seno’o gives this doctrinal distinction a distinctly social interpretation: Buddhist truth must become actual in political, economic, and social life. Ji no ichinen sanzen thus becomes a warrant for Buddhist praxis—the concrete transformation of both self and society.
