Editing Nichiren (section)

=== The non-dual Lotus land ===
[[file:Kaikoku Ishiwa-gawa ukai bokonka do-su (BM 1948,0410,0.114).jpg|thumb|Nichiren chanting for fishermen at Ishiwa River, by [[Utagawa Kuniyoshi]] (歌川国芳)]]
Nichiren defends a profound [[Nondualism|nonduality]] between subjective existence and the surrounding world, the non-separation of subjective experience and environmental karmic effects (''eshō funi'', 依正不二). According to this doctrine, the environment reflects the inner life-condition of the sentient beings who inhabit it. Thus, the same world appears differently to individuals based on their state of mind: a person in a state of hellish suffering experiences a hell-like world, while an awakened being experiences a Buddha land. This teaching was not limited to internal realization; it implied that sincere Buddhist practice would directly affect the external world. Because each of the Ten Realms interpenetrates and includes both sentient beings and their environments, the act of actualizing Buddhahood within oneself simultaneously actualizes Buddhahood in one’s surroundings. As more individuals engage in the chanting practice, the transformation would extend outward, gradually turning this world into an ideal [[Pure Land|buddhafield]].<ref name=":0" />

Nichiren envisioned this transformed world as a tangible outcome of faith and practice, though he rarely detailed its specific characteristics. However, in one writing, he claims that if everyone chanted in unison, natural disasters would cease, social harmony would prevail, and people would gain long lives. This suggests that through faith in the ''Lotus Sūtra'', a society in alignment with nature and moral governance could be established. This vision imbues Nichiren’s doctrine with a clear social dimension: the realization of the Buddha's land is not solely an individual spiritual goal but a communal one. His followers across history have pursued this aim in various forms, inspired by the belief that practice can reform society. Nichiren's this-worldly orientation stands in contrast to the Pure Land ideal prevalent in his time, which encouraged rejection of this impure world in favor of rebirth in a transcendent land after death.<ref name=":0" />
[[File:Sugawara_Mitsushige_Lotus_Sutra,_23.jpg|thumb|The Assembly in Space above Vulture Peak; from an illustrated ''Lotus Sutra'', c. 1257.]]
In his later years, Nichiren did address the question of the devotee’s destiny after death. He taught that anyone who embraced the ''Lotus Sutra'' and had faith in it would enter the "pure land of [[Vulture Peak]]" (''Ryōzen jōdō'', 霊山浄土), associated with the ''Lotus Sutra's'' assembly in the air. This provided a peaceful postmortem destination for Nichiren's followers, analogous to the pure land of [[Sukhavati]].<ref name=":6">Stone, Jacqueline. ''[https://www.princeton.edu/~jstone/Articles%20on%20the%20Lotus%20Sutra%20Tendai%20and%20Nichiren%20Buddhism/The%20Moment%20of%20Death%20in%20Nichiren%27s%20Thought%20(2003).pdf The Moment of Death in Nichiren's Thought].'' In Watanabe Hoyo Sensei koki kinen ronbunshu: Hokke bukkyo bunkashi ronso. Kyoto: Heirakuji shoten, 2003</ref> However, Nichiren did not regard this pure land as realm separate from this world. Even though it encompasses the faithful deceased, this land is ultimately the sacred space of enlightenment accessible here and now through devotion to the ''Lotus Sūtra''. It is thus the "land of tranquil light" (''jō jakkōdo''), the highest pure land in the Tendai system.<ref name=":0" /><ref name=":6" /> For Nichiren, the boundary between the mundane and the sacred collapses in the moment of embracing the ''Lotus''. By chanting ''Namu Myōhō-renge-kyō'', "gains entrance by faith" into the Buddha's presence, participating in the "eternal assembly in open space" (''kokūe no gishiki'') of the ''Lotus Sutra,'' where Shakyamuni and [[Prabhutaratna|Many Jewels]] Buddha teach from the Jeweled Stupa.<ref name=":0" /><ref name=":6" />

Thus, Nichiren says in his ''Kanjin honzon shō'':<blockquote>The ''sahā'' world of the present moment (''ima''), which is the original time (''honji'') [of the Buddha’s enlightenment], is the constantly abiding pure land, liberated from the three disasters and beyond [the cycle of] the four kalpas [formation, stability, decline and extinction]. Its Buddha has not already entered nirvāṇa in the past, nor is he yet to be born in the future. And his disciples are of the same essence. This [world] is [implicit in] the three realms, which are inherent in the three thousand realms of one’s mind.<ref name=":6" />  </blockquote>Thus, through faith and the daimoku, one can enter the pure land in this life, which is equivalent to "attaining buddhahood in this body" (''sokushin jōbutsu'').<ref name=":6" /> Therefore, unlike with the pure land teaching of Sukhavati, Nichiren's idea of the pure land is not a world outside of [[Saṃsāra|samsara]] and does not require one to loathe this defiled world and seek to escape it.<ref name=":6" /> Nichiren writes:<blockquote>The originally enlightened Buddha of the perfect teaching abides in this world. If one abandons this land, toward what other land should one aspire? . . . The practitioner who believes in the ''Lotus'' and ''Nirvana'' sutras should not seek another place, for wherever one has faith in this sutra is precisely the pure land. . . . For people of our day, who have not yet formed a bond with the ''Lotus Sutra'', to aspire to the Western Pure Land is to aspire to a land of rubble.<ref name="Stone 2003, p. 247"/></blockquote>