Dharma Talks

Good morning, everybody! I am glad to see you all this morning.

Did you notice that Nichiren Shonin is wearing a scarf on his head? I heard that he had not worn the scarf for years so that some of you might not know why. Let me talk about it today.

There are many Nichiren Shonin's statues in the world. However, there is only one statue wearing a scarf. It is ours. Most of them wear thick cotton on his head. Why does he wear thick cotton? It is because he has an old wound on his forehead. We worry that his old wound causes him pain in winter so that is why we put cotton on his head. Every temple I know of does this. There is no certain date to start and finish doing it. Each temple has its own rule and put them on in the fall and take them off in the warm spring. It is not so cold even in winter in Hawaii. But, humidity may cause him pain in the cool winter in Hawaii so that is why we use a scarf instead of thick cotton.

Let me talk about the wound on his forehead. Nichiren Shonin said that natural disasters like earthquake, hurricane, pandemic and others, and human disasters like civil wars happened because everybody had false faith. If they had right faith, the Buddha would protect us and society would be peaceful. In the Rissho Ankoku Ron, Nichiren Shonin wrote these words and presented it to the man in power in 1260. He also propagated the teachings of the Lotus Sutra on the streets in Kamakura, the capital of the Shogunate. His advice was never accepted; on the contrary, he was exiled to Izu. He was pardoned in 1263 and returned to Kamakura. There were many people who were against him and it was still a dangerous situation for him there. He went back to his home town, Kominato, Chiba prefecture in order to visit his sick mother. There were also many people who were against him even at his home town. One of them was Tojo Kagenobu. He was not comfortable with Nichiren Shonin because of the Rissho Ankoku Ron and the propagation of the Lotus Sutra since he was a devoted Nenbutsu follower. It was on November 11, 1264 that Tojo attacked Nichiren Shonin at Komatsubara. Nichiren Shonin with about 10 people was on the way to Kudo Yoshitaka's house at that time. Tojo and his men of hundreds attacked the party of about ten. Nichiren Shonin described the attack as like under the rain of arrows and lightening of swords at that time. His disciple, Kyonin-bo was killed right away and other 2 disciples were seriously wounded. Kudo Yoshitaka rushed to save Nichiren Shonin, but he was killed too. Nichiren Shonin's left arm was broken and his forehead was cut. Although he was also seriously injured, he managed to escape from there. Nichiren Shonin was attacked many times. It is rare that he described in detail how he was attacked and wounded like this incident.

The oldest statue of Nichiren Shonin is preserved at Ikegami Honmonji. It was carved 13 years after he passed away. It is said that the statue shows clearly how he looked like although he was swollen on his last days. Those old statues have a scar on his forehead. Our Nichiren Shonin's statue in front of you is a relatively newer one. I heard that Bishop Okihara and members at that time welcomed the statue from Japan. We have another statue in our columbarium. I am not sure when we welcomed the statue here. It could be 100 years old. It means that those 2 are not that old amongst the Buddhist statues because they don't show the scar.

When the Komatsubara incident happened, Kudo Yoshitaka's wife was pregnant and had a baby boy the following year. Ten (10) years later, the boy became Nichiren Shonin's disciple in keeping with Kudo Yoshitaka's wish. After so many years of practice, Nichiren Shonin ordered the boy to establish a new temple where the incident happened in order to pray for Kyonin-bo and his father. The temple was named after Kyoninbo. It is called Kyonin-ji. Two years ago, Ritsuko and I visited the temple. It is a beautiful temple. This year, 2013, marks the 750th Anniversary of the incident. Last month, the Archbishop Nisso Uchino officiated the formal ceremony. Today is December 15th. According to old lunar calendar, today is November 13th, the closest Sunday to November 11th, the day of Komatsubara incident. That is why I change our schedule and held the 750th Anniversary ceremony of the Komatsubara incident.

Nichiren Shonin devoted himself to propagate the teaching of Odaimoku and the Lotus Sutra. His life was full of difficulties and persecutions. He did it at the risk of his own life. Today, we could meet the Lotus Sutra because of his tireless efforts. When we appreciate him and think of his hardship, it is natural for us to want to do something for him like putting thick cotton or a scarf on his head to keep him warm in the winter. It is out of our deep faith. Some may say that it is meaningless to put them on a wooden statue. However, the cotton and scarf are the concentration of our thought and they are our cherished tradition.