Chant the daimoku: Nam(u)-myōhō-renge-kyō

Chant the title of the Lotus Sūtra aloud, steadily, as an act of devotion to the teaching it names.

Perché funziona

In Nichiren’s teaching, Myōhō-renge-kyō, the title of the Lotus Sūtra, is not a label but the essence of the sūtra, and namu (from Sanskrit namas) adds devotion or homage. Nichiren Shū quotes Nichiren’s treatise Kanjin honzon shō to say that all the virtues of the Buddha are contained in those five characters. Ruben Habito shows how Nichiren grounded this in the Tiantai teaching that a single moment of mind contains three thousand realms (ichinen sanzen). Nichiren, he writes, saw the five-character phrase as “wrapped up” for people of the Latter Age, so that reciting it puts that principle into practice. In the letter On Attaining Buddhahood in This Lifetime, Nichiren compares chanting to polishing a tarnished mirror until it reflects reality. He insists that the Law being chanted is not outside the person chanting.

Come farlo

1. Learn the form your community uses. Soka Gakkai and Nichiren Shōshū chant “Nam-myoho-renge-kyo”; Nichiren Shū chants “Namu Myoho Renge Kyo.”
2. Sit upright with your palms together (gasshō). Face the object of devotion if you practise with one, or sit as your community teaches.
3. Chant aloud at an even pace you can sustain, letting each repetition follow the breath rather than racing.
4. Begin with a length you can keep up every day, even a few minutes. Nichiren Shū advises chanting as long as your time allows, with sincerity mattering more than the count.
5. If you use prayer beads (juzu), ask the community you practise with how they hold them, since each school has its own style.

Prove scientifiche

The account of the daimoku comes from Nichiren’s letter On Attaining Buddhahood in This Lifetime (1255), from Nichiren Shū’s statement of the Three Great Hidden Dharmas, and from Soka Gakkai’s explanation of each word of the phrase. Jacqueline Stone’s encyclopedia entry describes chanting the title as the form of practice Nichiren made available to monastics and lay people alike, whatever their education. Habito traces its basis in ichinen sanzen. Stone’s earlier chapter follows how daimoku practices developed in classical and medieval Japan. All of this is textual and historical. It shows what the tradition teaches, not what chanting does. (anecdotal)

The power the tradition attributes to the daimoku is a claim of faith, held within the tradition. No controlled study of daimoku chanting is cited here, and research on mantra or chanting meditation in general concerns related but different practices. The schools also explain the phrase in different terms, so check how your own community understands it.

Fonti

• Nichiren. On Attaining Buddhahood in This Lifetime (1255). In The Writings of Nichiren Daishonin, vol. I, pp. 3–5. Tokyo: Soka Gakkai (translation published in the Nichiren Buddhism Library).
• Nichiren Shu. Teachings of Nichiren Shonin (the Three Great Hidden Dharmas). Nichiren Shu Portal, English edition.
• Soka Gakkai. Nam-myoho-renge-kyo. Soka Gakkai (global) official website.
• Stone, J. (2020). Nichiren. In Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Religion. New York: Oxford University Press.
• Habito, R. L. F. (1999). Bodily reading of the Lotus Sutra: Understanding Nichiren’s Buddhism. Japanese Journal of Religious Studies, 26(3–4), 281–306.
• Stone, J. I. (1998). Chanting the August Title of the Lotus Sutra: Daimoku Practices in Classical and Medieval Japan. In R. K. Payne (Ed.), Re-Visioning “Kamakura” Buddhism (pp. 116–166). Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press.

Errore comune

Chanting the phrase as if it were a power outside yourself to be called on. Nichiren names this in his own letter: if you chant while thinking the Law is outside yourself, “you are embracing not the Mystic Law but an inferior teaching.”