Practise with others: dialogue, encouragement and sharing

Practise in a small community where people talk about their lives in the light of the teaching and encourage one another.

Pourquoi ça marche

Nichiren urged his followers to chant “with the spirit of many in body but one in mind,” as inseparable as fish and the water they swim in. Of the five practices of the Lotus Sūtra that Nichiren Shū teaches, one is explaining the sūtra to others, passing on what you learn to family and friends. Soka Gakkai’s monthly discussion meetings, mostly held in members’ homes, centre on members sharing how practice has met their difficulties, which encourages others. Risshō Kōsei-kai, a lay movement based on the Lotus Sūtra, holds Dharma circles where people describe their problems and seek together how the teaching applies. Shared practice turns a private devotion into something checked against, and carried by, other people’s lives.

Comment faire

1. Find a local gathering of the school you are drawn to, and go first to listen.
2. When you are ready, share one honest experience of practice, including what has not changed, without polishing it.
3. Listen to others in the way a Dharma circle does, trying to understand their situation before offering any teaching.
4. Encourage rather than instruct. Often that means telling someone what you saw in them, not what they should do.
5. If you introduce the practice to someone, offer what it has meant to you and let them decide. Nichiren himself allowed the gentle method of teaching (shōju) where it fits.

Données probantes

The “many in body, one in mind” passage is in The Heritage of the Ultimate Law of Life. The five practices come from the Lotus Sūtra’s tenth chapter as Nichiren Shū teaches them. Discussion meetings and Dharma circles are described by Soka Gakkai and Risshō Kōsei-kai themselves. Stone’s history of Nichiren exclusivism shows that Nichiren recognised two methods of teaching, shakubuku (stern refutation) and shōju (gentle acceptance). He allowed shōju depending on the place and the people, and his later followers have argued ever since over the balance. This is textual and practitioner support. (anecdotal)

Groups differ widely in how much they emphasise propagation, and in how forcefully. Some have historically pressed it hard, and Stone treats this as a live tension within the tradition rather than a settled matter. Any community worth practising with should leave you free to come and go. Not studied in research.

Sources

• Nichiren. The Heritage of the Ultimate Law of Life. In The Writings of Nichiren Daishonin, vol. I, pp. 216–219. Tokyo: Soka Gakkai (Nichiren Buddhism Library).
• Nichiren Shu. Our Practice: Recite, Explain, Copy, and the Buddhist Practice for Our Time. Nichiren Shu Portal, English edition.
• Soka Gakkai. Daily Practice. Soka Gakkai (global) official website.
• Rissho Kosei-kai International. Participating in Dharma Circles.
• Stone, J. (1994). Rebuking the enemies of the Lotus: Nichirenist exclusivism in historical perspective. Japanese Journal of Religious Studies, 21(2–3), 231–259.
• Kubo, T., & Yuyama, A. (trans.). (2007). The Lotus Sutra (Taishō Volume 9, Number 262), translated from the Chinese of Kumārajīva. BDK English Tripiṭaka Series. Moraga, CA: BDK America (revised second edition; free PDF from the publisher).

Erreur fréquente

Treating sharing the teaching as winning an argument. The tradition has argued for centuries over confrontation versus gentleness, and leading with your own experience rather than with refutation is the approach Nichiren allowed for in ordinary circumstances.