Mark Rogow Loses the Debate +
"Like I said, when his father the thus come one Great Universal Wisdom Excellence preached the Lotus Sutra to Shakyamuni as his 16th son for the first time Shakyamuni heard it, he was also the Buddha of the essential teaching. And when Shakyamuni in the future preaches the Lotus Sutra in yet another Buddha realm, but under a different name and in a different form perhaps not human: he will then also be the Buddha of the essential teaching, but no longer named Shakyamuni.
How about that challenge?
____________________________-- Chas
Your SGI dictionary states, "opening the provisional and revealing the true Abandoning the expedient or provisional teachings and revealing the true teaching of the Lotus Sutra."
Nichiren followed the teaching of the Lotus Sutra, “Honestly discarding expedient means, I will preach only the unsurpassed way.”
This is the mistake of Ota Jomyo refuted by Nichiren here:
https://www.nichirenlibrary.org/en/wnd-1/Content/134#para-10
Not one of the 69,384 characters of the Lotus Sutra is discarded, none of it is provisional. That's a slander of the Law. Where the Buddha recounts past or predicts future Buddhas preaching the Lotus Sutra and summoning all the Buddhas in the ten directions to raise the treasure tower and renew the Kosen Rufu vow, those all are the truth. Your literal interpretations of the Gosho are self-serving idolatry of one of those Buddhas, only temporarily named Shakyamuni, according to him here in the Life Span chapter here:
https://www.nichirenlibrary.org/en/lsoc/Content/16#para-8
The actual name of the eternal Buddha is "Myoho-Renge" which is why we chant Nam-Myoho-Renge-Kyo and not Nam-Shakyamuni-Butsu.
"Then, drawing the bow of the Buddha’s declaration, “I have not yet revealed the truth,” and notching the arrow of “honestly discarding the provisional teachings,” I have mounted the carriage drawn by the great white ox6 and battered down the gates of the provisional teachings."
The only expedient means employed by the Buddha and Nichiren Daishonin was that they appeared to die.
That total exclusion of expedient means to solely "appearing to die" is your own self-serving idolatrous fabrication and is not presented anywhere. And by the way, that expedient means of "appearing to die" is employed by all the Buddhas in the ten directions and three existences, including you and me. We only "appear" to die.
"But the bodhisattvas of superior capacity honestly discard expedient means and do not carry out the practice of gradual progress. They practice the Lotus Sutra, and when they attain its truth, they simultaneously acquire all manner of fortunate results. Persons such as these are called the people of the one vehicle."
and
"The Lotus Sutra, wherein the Buddha honestly discarded expedient means, says that one can “gain entrance through faith alone.” And the Nirvana Sutra, which the Buddha preached in the grove of sal trees on the last day of his life, states, “Although there are innumerable practices that lead to enlightenment, if one teaches faith, then that includes all those practices.”
That is what SGI should be teaching, faith in the Lotus Sutra, not faith in the mentor.
To have faith in the Lotus Sutra, a person first had to have faith in the person who first told them about it, like the Great Universal Wisdom Excellence, who first told his 16th son Shakyamuni in the life where he was first enlightened. His faith in his father was equivalent to faith in the Lotus Sutra and the truth that the Lotus Sutra can only be discussed between Buddhas, meant that he was having faith in his own Buddhahood. This is why mentor and disciple is key to enlightenment in place. And it is also why your distortions are the means of the Heavenly Devil to undermine the Kosen Rufu movement.
We have to have faith ... in a chain of humanity reaching back to the Buddha, through the memory of Ananda to the first and succeeding councils until it was written in Sanskrit and then translated into Chinese and then manifested in the Gohonzon, etc., ... we have to have that faith to believe the Lotus Sutra is the eternal truth.
That's why mentor and disciple is implicit in the phrase "faith in the Lotus Sutra".
"Coming now to the character myō, the Lotus Sutra says, “This sutra opens the gate of expedient means and shows the form of true reality.” The Great Teacher Chang-an states, “Myō means to reveal the depths of the secret storehouse.”20 The Great Teacher Miao-lo says of this, “To reveal means to open.”21 Hence the character myō means to open."
The Buddha was speaking falsely when he taught in the first Fourteen Chapters that he gained Enlightenment for the first time under the Bodhis treee. From the 15th Chapter on he only taught the Imeasurable Lifespan of the Buddha. He abandoned that most important teaching of the first Fourteen Chapters. Likewise, he abandoned that the teaching that there are many Buddhas throughout Jambudvipa.
Once again, Nichiren Daishonin says different from what you say. This is the mistake of Ota Jomyo refuted by Nichiren here:
https://www.nichirenlibrary.org/en/wnd-1/Content/134#para-10
Expedient means is not a lie. We appear to die, but live eternally (sad for you and your increasing mountain of evil karma). Revealing the eternal truth does not change appearances, nini-funi: two in appearance, but one in essence or source.
"In essence, the entity of Myoho-renge-kyo is the physical body that the disciples and followers of Nichiren who believe in the Lotus Sutra received from their fathers and mothers at birth. Such persons, who honestly discard expedient means, put faith in the Lotus Sutra alone, and chant Nam-myoho-renge-kyo, will transform the three paths of earthly desires, karma, and suffering into the three virtues of the Dharma body, wisdom, and emancipation. The threefold contemplation and the three truths will immediately become manifest in their minds, and the place where they live will become the Land of Eternally Tranquil Light. The Buddha who is the entity of Myoho-renge-kyo, of the “Life Span” chapter of the essential teaching, who is both inhabiting subject and inhabited realm, life and environment, body and mind, entity and function, the Buddha eternally endowed with the three bodies—he is to be found in the disciples and lay believers of Nichiren. Such persons embody the true entity of Myoho-renge-kyo; this is all due to the meritorious workings that the spontaneous transcendental powers inherent in it display. Could anyone venture to doubt it? Indeed it cannot be doubted!"
and
"...No expedient or provisional teaching leads directly to enlightenment, and without the direct path to enlightenment you cannot attain Buddhahood, even if you practice lifetime after lifetime for countless kalpas. Attaining Buddhahood in this lifetime is then impossible."
Since you Chas, Fail to discard expedient means, actually embracing them, you don't share the same Three Virtues as the Disciples and believers of the Buddha and Nichiren.
The Lotus Sutra describes the Buddhas as employing expedient means. However, every character of the Lotus Sutra is neither provisional to be discarded, nor anything less than the eternal truth. Once again, Nichiren Daishonin says different from what you say. This is the mistake of Ota Jomyo refuted by Nichiren here:
https://www.nichirenlibrary.org/en/wnd-1/Content/134#para-10
For example, were your doctrine of "many Buddhas" correct, it would be OK to worship and revere Dainich Buddha or Amida Buddha. However, Nichiren teaches,
Well that's just a black lie, and calls Shakyamuni a liar and the Lotus Sutra a pack of lies, once again. I pointed to 23,212 Buddhas predicted by Shakyamuni to preach the Lotus Sutra in the future. None of them are Amida, Mahavairochana or any of those. Blatantly and intentionally distorting or misconstruing the statements of your opponent is fallacious reasoning and a declaration of your own intellectual dishonesty. You lost the debate right there.
___________________________________________________
It's simple logic, Katie Higgins, Mark Rogow and their mentor in life Jackie Stone.
The Lotus Sutra, where the Buddha recounts his history and make predictions, regarding other Buddhas like his father "the buddha Great Universal Wisdom Excellence" (below), who all preach the Lotus Sutra and the Jiga-Ge of the Life Span chapter in their Buddha realms, and all summon all of the Buddhas in the ten directions and the bodhisattvas of the Earth and raise the treasure tower where the Law is preached and accepted ... that Lotus Sutra is either (1) true or (2) a pack of lies:
The Parable of the Phantom City, LS-7, pp 156-157:
http://www.nichirenlibrary.org/en/lsoc/Content/7#para-35
. . “Now, monks, the buddha Great Universal Wisdom Excellence
. . passed ten small kalpas before the Law of the buddhas
. . finally appeared before him and he attained supreme perfect
. . enlightenment. Before this buddha left the
. . householder’s life, he had sixteen sons, the first of whom
. . was named Wisdom Accumulated. These sons each had various
. . kinds of rare objects and toys of one kind or another, but
. . when they heard that their father had attained supreme
. . perfect enlightenment, they all threw aside their rare
. . objects and went to where the buddha was. Their mothers,
. . weeping, followed after them.
. .
. . “Their grandfather, who was a wheel-turning sage king,
. . along with a hundred chief ministers, as well as a hundred,
. . thousand, ten thousand, million of his subjects, all
. . together surrounded the sons and followed them to the place
. . of enlightenment, all wishing to draw close to the thus
. . come one Great Universal Wisdom Excellence, to offer alms,
. . pay honor, venerate, and praise him. When they arrived,
. . they bowed before his feet, touching their heads to the
. . ground.
If your literal and self-serving interpretation of the Gosho (which is NOT THE TRUE TEACHING ACCORDING TO NICHIREN DAISHONIN) is true, then the TRUE TEACHING OF THE LOTUS SUTRA is false. And that would make Nichiren Daishonin a liar, where he says that every character of the 69,384 characters of the Lotus Sutra is a golden buddha speaking the absolute and eternal truth.
I presume those recounts and predictions are there in the Lotus Sutra as codicils in the eternal contract to protect all living beings from idiotic distortions like those presented by Katie Higgins, Mark Rogow and Jackie Stone: falsely deifying Shakyamuni as a manGod like Jesus, or as God Almighty Creator of Heaven and Earth, like Yahweh/Elohim/Jehovah/Allah.
For the record, I believe the Lotus Sutra is absolutely the eternal truth, and that your self-serving and infantile literal interpretations of Nichiren Daishonin's Gosho that cast doubts upon the Lotus Sutra, are completely wrong. And that means that Nichiren Daishonin employs expedient means to bring his followers to the truth, just as all the Buddhas do, in their infinite compassion for those who suffer.
-Chas.