July 2020

SACRED WORDS

Good men or women in the future who hear this chapter of the Lotus Sutra with faithful respect caused by their pure minds, and have no doubts about it, will not fall into hell or the region of hungry spirit or region of animals. They will be reborn before the Buddhas of the worlds of the ten quarters. They will always hear this sutra at the places of their rebirth. Even when they are reborn among men or gods, they will be given wonderful pleasures. When they are reborn before the Buddhas, they will appear in lotus-flowers.

Chapter 12, Devadatta, Page 203, the Lotus Sutra

聖語

未来世の中に、もし善男子・善女人あって、妙法蓮華経の提婆達多品を聞いて、浄心に信敬して疑惑を生ぜざらん者は、地獄・餓鬼・畜生に堕ちずして十方の仏前に生ぜん。所生の処には常にこの経を聞かん。もし人・天の中に生るれば勝妙の楽を受け、もし仏前にあらば蓮華より化生せん　　　

「妙法蓮華経提婆達多品第１２」

Repetition of Birth and Death in the Six Regions of Existence

Rev. Shokai Kanai

Repetition of Birth and Death means that we repeat the cycle of birth and death in the six regions of existence just as your car wheels turn when you go to work and stop at your work. Then repeat it again on the way back from your work to home. The six regions are the realms that living beings transmigrate between one another: hell, hungry spirits, animals, fighting spirits, human beings, and heaven.

Please look at the picture of an O-I-HA-I on this page. It says, “Four kinds of birth, the Six Regions, and All Souls in the Dharma World.” You can see this oihai on the altar of all Nichiren Shu Temples. This oihai has been enshrined at all five Nichiren Missions in Hawaii before Obon Service last year. The four kinds of birth are mammals like us, dogs and cats; oviparous like chickens and fish; born from moisture like moss, and metamorphic like spiritual beings born with karmic causes or like appearing in lotus-flower in the above “Sacred Words.”

Nichiren Shu priests give prayers of chanting the Lotus Sutra and O’daimoku every morning and evening to all these souls. The idea of rebirth may have originated in Brahmanism before Buddhism among the agrarian culture of India. The reason is that plants leave their seeds and roots before their death. New birth starts from the seeds or the roots. They repeat this process continuously. Therefore, it is very natural to think that human beings also perpetually repeat the cycle of birth and death.

Chapter Three of the Lotus Sutra reveals that if you slander the teachings of the sutra, you will fall into the bottom three regions such as hell, hungry sprits, and animals. But frankly speaking I do not believe that we will be born as rats or ants because we are here as a result of evolution, since human beings stand firmly on two legs and have a bigger brain than most other animals. I interpret the above phrase that if you created awfully bad karma in this world, you will be born as a human being in one of the three stages of hell, hungry spirits, or animals.

In a leap of argument, I have experienced these three bottom-regions. I was born in Tokyo three months after Pearl Harbor Attack. My mother died 12 days later after my birth. Since there was no breast milk or cow’s milk at that time, it was said that my father made thin rice gruel and fed me. When I was three years old, Tokyo became ground-zero for air raids – no food, no shelter, no clothing. The survivors had to live in a wide stretch of burnt out ruins like wild animals.

As we read this month Sacred Words of the Lotus Sutra, we will not fall in the regions of hell, hungry spirits, or animal. Instead we will be born among human beings or heaven and given wonderful pleasures. When we are reborn before the Buddhas, we will appear in lotus-flowers. Please see the oihai again; its base has a shape of lotus-flower petals.

The first person who stepped out of the six regions was Gautama Siddhartha who became a Buddha later. All Nichiren Shu members, who received their Buddhist names and their funeral service conducted in Nichiren Shu rites, will appear on Mount Sacred Eagle or Ryo-Ju-Sen (霊鷲山). How lucky you will be!

六道輪廻転

金井勝海

　六道輪廻転生とは、車の輪が回っては止まり、また回っては止まるように、衆生が煩悩と業によって地獄界、餓鬼界、畜生界、修羅界、人間界、天上界に生まれ変わり、死に変わり果てしなく生死を繰り返している生物の事を意味します。

　前頁のお位牌をご覧下さい。これと同じお位牌を昨年のお盆の前に作成して、ハワイ教区の全５件のお寺に安置いたしました。『四生六道法界万霊』と書いてあります。このお位牌は日蓮宗のお寺ならどこでも御宝前の正面に祀られています。四生とは法華経に説かれている言葉で、人間や哺乳動物のように母体から誕生する動物、鳥や魚のように卵から生れてくる生物、藻のように水から生まれてくる物、最後に他を媒体して生まれるのではなく、業により霊界に生まれ変わる生き物を指しています。

　日蓮宗のお寺では毎朝晩、六道輪廻している全ての生き物に対してお経を読み、ご供養しているのです。六道輪廻の思想は農耕民族の間から生まれた思想です。何故なら穀物や植物は種や根を残し、その種や根から新しい生命が生まれ、死ぬ前に種を残し次の命を残すのです。人間も同じように輪廻すると思われています。仏教以前のインドのバラモン教で説かれたアイデアが仏教にも取り入れられたのです。

法華経譬喩品第三には、法華経を謗しると地獄界や餓鬼界や動物界に落ちると説かれています。しかし、人間は約６００万年前に２本足で楽々と立ち大きな脳をもった霊長類から肉体と共に知能も進化しながら生死を繰り返し生き延びて来たのですから、来世が鼠やロバに生まれ変わるとは思いません。悪事をすると、その報いとして地獄のような苦しみや、餓鬼のような貧困と食料難や、獣のように荒野に生きなければならない環境のなかに生まれると言う事だと私は思います。

　少し飛躍し過ぎるかもしれませんが、私は六道の中の地獄界・餓鬼界・畜生界を体験して育ちました。私は太平洋戦争が始まった２ケ月後に東京で生まれ、生後１２日目に母が亡くなり、乳もなく、牛乳もなく、父は重湯で私を育ててくれました。３歳の時には大空襲で東京は焼け野原となり、衣食住に苦労しました。

　法華経提婆提多品第十二には、「この経を信じて疑いをいだかなければ、地獄、餓鬼、畜生の三悪道におちづに、人間界、天上界に生まれる。もしくは仏界に生まれ蓮華の花の中に化生する」と説かれています。ですから、お位牌の下の部分はハスの花びらのかたちになっているのです。

　この六道を一歩先に踏み出されたのがゴータマ・シッダルタで、後に釈迦牟尼仏になられました。日蓮宗の信徒がお葬式で法名を授かり、引導を受けると霊鷲山へ化生するので、六道輪廻を繰り返さないのです。