Hearing the Voice of the Founder
Rev. Nichiko Niwano
President of Rissho Kosei-kai

Filling All Things Completely

The Zen priest Dogen composed this poem: “The colors on the peak / and the echoes in the valley— / all of them are / my Shakyamuni’s / voice and form.”

The poem means that everything—the shades of the colors on the mountaintop and the sound of the river flowing in the valley—is none other than the voice and form of Shakyamuni, and that the teaching of Shakyamuni entirely fills and permeates all of nature. In other words, Dogen is reminding us that the natural world is a manifestation of the truth of impermanence and nonself—a manifestation of the great life-force, the Dharma-body of the Buddha.

All living beings, including human beings, are sustained by the great Life-force. It causes them to live and die, and it continues to function even after their flesh has decayed.

Because the founder also was granted life by the great life-force, he was able to attain supreme enlightenment, preach the Dharma, and at the end pass into nirvana. As is written in chapter 16 of the Lotus Sutra, “forever here preaching the Dharma,” he is also always teaching us that the great life-force is actively alive in the world in which we live.

With this realization, we can hear even in trivial occurrences in daily life the voice of the founder and we see his form in them. Thus we can always receive precious guidance from him and be awakened anew to what is important. We can do this, of course, not because Founder Niwano himself is physically preaching to us, but because we are able to sense this from our practice and seeking of the Way.

Pondering His True Wish

In his later years, the founder often preached to us “Many in body but one in spirit.” This can also be called harmony, being united, and a reflection of the One Vehicle. It can also be called “The oneness of the self with others.” It teaches us that by respecting each other and living in harmony, we can attain true peace. Furthermore, the founder never forgot the sense of being a “lifetime beginner” and he single-mindedly led a pure, simple life. He never lost a positive outlook as he pioneered new fields of religious action. In the case of the founding of the World Conference of Religions for Peace and cooperating with the International Association for Religious Freedom—which many people said were “impossible” models of interreligious dialogue and cooperation—he never fell into a conventional ways of thinking, but instead continued to strive wholeheartedly. We who are strongly drawn toward that purity of the founder’s that allowed him to become totally absorbed in whatever he undertook hope to move forward maintaining his type of enthusiasm.

October 4 marks the anniversary of the founder entering nirvana. What did the founder truly wish, after attaining the realization of Shakyamuni through the Lotus Sutra and following the Buddha Way? We must again study and thoroughly ponder what it was that he taught us and advance spiritually always keeping our minds open and maintaining a cheerful attitude toward life.

Kosei 10/2004

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