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The Jewel Of Buddhism

Buddhism has a conception called Ichinen Sanzen. This is a principle that every life moment [Ichinen] possesses all 3, 000 possible worlds. 'Ichinen' indicates life essence and 'sanzen', the phenomena it manifests. This principle which is contained in the Lotus Sutra was developed by T'ien Tai, the Chinese Buddhist Master, based on the Lotus Sutra. At each moment life experiences one of ten life states called ten worlds. Each of these worlds possesses the potential for all ten within itself making 100 possible worlds. Each of these 100 worlds possesses ten factors. The ten factors are a principle of clarifying life's entity and function and consists of appearance, nature, entity, power, influence, internal cause relation, latent effect, manifest effect, and the consistency from beginning to end. Finally, each being is different from all others as expressed through the three realms of existence which include the individual, society and the environment. The individual consists of five aggregates, namely perception, conception, volition, consciousness and form. What is significant is entity. Entity is neither existence nor non-existence and has direct contact with the true entity.

THE TEN WORLDS

In Buddhism, perception is geared to the total phenomenal reality expressed through the life states of the ten worlds. These are life states and not psychological states and are an expression of the total fusion of mind, body and environment that a person is in. Thus it is said that the environment mirrors the life of a person just as a shadow mirrors a body. Buddhism also says that when we change our life state we change the total phenomenal reality around us like a fisherman drawing in his net takes in all the catch with him at the same time.

As we change our reality, we change the observable phenomena around us as we are changing our belief fields.

As this happens we construct memory and meaning transducers which add on to our current ones and also enfold our total experience to give a greater understanding of our place in the universe.

Key terms:

Ten Worlds - (Jikkai) Ten life conditions that a single entity of life manifests in the course of the flow of time. Originally the Ten Worlds were viewed as distinct physical places each with its own particular inhabitants. In light of the Lotus Sutra, however they are interpreted as potential conditions of life inherent in each individual. They are Hell (jogoku), Hunger (gaki), Animality (chikusho), Anger (shura), Humanity or Tranquillity (nin), Heaven or Rapture (ten), Learning (shomon),Realisation (engaku), Bodhisattva (bosatsu) and Buddahood (butsu). The Ten Worlds is a component principle of ichinen sanzen.

The prevailing world order is the result of the existence of different levels of reality and the inevitable patterns of movement up and down the ever changing nature of life and life states (ichinen Sanzen).

The term ichinen sanzen, is the name of a system of thought in itself, developed by the Great Teacher T'ien-t'ai in China on the basis of the principles of life expounded by Sakyamuni, especially those in the Lotus Sutra. Ichinen sanzen is, therefore, the basic Buddhist life-philosophy. Ichinen indicates the entity of life andsanzen signifies the varying aspects and phases it assumes. T'ien-t'ai included all life's phenomena into this single system, ichinen sanzen. The expression sanzen(3,000) is an integra­tion of the Ten Worlds, their mutual possession, the ten factors and the three realms of existence. These figures multiplied (10x10x10x3) yield 3,000.

The three realms represent the actual world of human beings, divided into body and mind, or self and environ­ment. However, these divisions tend to 'obscure' the good law and produce suffering. When we see before our eyes how modern civilisation, advancing on the basis of dualistic conceptions, is now threatened by the spectre of nuclear weaponry - the very personification of suffering - we cannot help but feel the truth of the 26th high priest Nichikan Shonin's words. However, when the good law is manifested in the realities of this world, they will become 'veiled' with compassion and work to 'accumulate' everlasting joy.

In any event, in the expansion of the 100 worlds into 1,000 factors and 3,000 realms, it is clear that sentient beings and their insentient environments constitute one great entity of life. But, does this principle of ichinen sanzen as clarified in theJuryo chapter of Sakyamuni's Lotus Sutra have meaning for the people of the Latter Day of the Law, who are profoundly attached to the self and riddled with the three poisons? Ichinen sanzen of both the theoretical and essential teachings of Sakyamuni's Lotus Sutra are theoretical, and only the reality of ichinen sanzen hidden in the depths of the Juryo chapter — the ichinen sanzen established by Nichiren Daishonin in the Latter Day of the Law — can lead us to enlightenment. In his Gosho, The Ten Factors of Life, Nichiren Daishonin states, "The 100 worlds correspond to the truth of temporary existence (ketai), the 1,000 factors correspond to the truth of non-substantiality (kutai), and the 3,000 realms correspond to the truth of the Middle Way." In the depths of ichinen sanzen of the Juryo chapter of Sakyamuni's Buddhism, which fully clarifies all 3,000 realms of life, lies the one, fundamental Law that is the single truth of the Middle Way.

Concerning this Law, the Daishonin states in The Entity of the Mystic Law:

When the sage was observing principles and assigning names to all things, he perceived that there is this wonderful single Law  which simultaneously possesses both cause and effect, and he named it Myoho-renge, the lotus of the Mystic Law. This single Law which is Myoho-renge encompasses within itself all the laws or phenomena comprising the Ten Worlds and the 3,000 realms, and is lacking in none of them.

Here, the full meaning of ichinen sanzen becomes clear. In other words, actual ichinen sanzen hidden in the depths of the Juryo chapter of the Lotus Sutra is nothing other than the enlightened life and compassionate conduct of the Buddha of beginningless time, whose life at each moment is one with the single, fundamental Law of the universe endowed with all 3,000 realms. Moreover, the ichinen or mind of faith in the Gohonzon, the embodiment of actual ichinen sanzen, also contains all 3,000 realms. In the ichinen or life-moment of faith in the Gohonzon, the potential of our lives unfolds.

In this way, the philosophical principle of the Ten Worlds and the 3,000 realms not only clarifies the total aspect of life but reveals within the depths of our lives the eternal and unchanging Law. When we realise that the workings of our individual lives, arising from this fundamental Law. are as vast as the universe, we cannot help but feel awed by the wonder of life. Moreover, we can understand that our life exists not merely for the sake of our own ego, but is to be used for the sake of the universe.

The dignity of human life as it is recognised in Buddhism is not expounded from a comparative standpoint that views human life as divorced from or superior to other life. All forms of life, as entities of the Mystic Law, are striving under various conditions to display their inherent potentials to the fullest. Human beings, however, while holding the sympathetic awareness that they and other entities of life are making similar efforts, can awaken to the Law within the depths of life, and exert themselves for other people, for other living entities, and for the entire universe. Therein lies the ultimate flowering of one's own life, and it is this, we may say, that gives human life its dignity.

Buddhism’s core and most profound principle is Ichinen Sanzen, which literally means 3000 realms (sanzen) in a single moment of life (ichinen) experienced by a person’s mind. Myoho Renge Kyo is actual ichinen sanzen in the complete sense of the concept, because it is the manifestation of all phenomena (shoho jisso).
To develop an understanding of what ichinen sanzen is, the explanation and illustration of what Nam Myoho Renge Kyo is will be useful. Nam is a sanskrit word meaning to devote one’s life. In the Ongi Kuden Nichiren Daishonin explains,  In the phase to devote (ki) one’s life (myo),’ ki indicates the physical aspect of life, and myo, the spiritual aspect.’’ In Buddhism this is called shiki shin funi (the oneness of mind and body) or the entity of a person’s life.
Myoho translates to mean mystic law. Myo being the life essence or ichinen, the unfathomable nature of life which is beyond words or concepts. If a persons tries to conceive of no existence or reality what so ever, he will find that it is beyond his mind’s power to hold the idea of absolute nothingness in his being as opposed to the same awareness of everything and all time as it manifest and un-manifest throughout infinite myriads of possible forms of expression throughout the known and unknown universe. This aspect of life is beyond comprehension and is the fundamental meaning of Myo.
Ho of Myoho is the phenomenal manifestations of reality that manifest as absolute or law. The parallel to this aspect can be seen in the first law of physics which states that matter and energy can neither be created or destroyed. Hence, this law (ho) has no beginning or end as we know it, and is eternally the fundamental truth of life as it expresses itself in all phenomena we observe. This is the core of the fundamental truth that all Buddhas of the past, present and future come to realize and through their correct subjective relationship to it (Kyo Chi Myogo) develop the three enlightened properties of the Law (the truth of life’s spiritual and physical nature fused into one thing-entity), wisdom (the correct subject relationship to that truth-mental or spiritual nature) and action (the correct behavior in relationship to the truth-physical body’s actions or deeds). Ho and Kyo in this sense are fundamentally the same thing, objective truth. Ho therefore corresponds to the meaning of sanzen, how the phenomenal world manifests in 3000 realms.
Renge represents the principle of cause and effect, and is the expression of how this law manifests throughout time and space (environment). From a subjective standpoint related to the individual’s actions (causes) and results from those actions (effects), this is known as the principle of Karma.
Kyo is the mind of the Buddha or the truth which he expresses from his mind in the words he speaks. Therefore kyo can be sound (words) or the reality we see as it manifest in all phenomena as the nature of the law itself displaying cause and effect(shoho jisso).
This forms the platform from which we can begin to understand the full meaning of what ichinen sanzen is. The number 3000 is derived by multiplying the 10 worlds x the mutual possession of the 10 worlds x the 10 factors x the 3 realms.
To begin we must explain what each concept means. The 10 worlds are life conditions that an entity of life manifest from moment to moment with changing conditions. The 10 worlds are hell, hunger, animality, anger, humanity or tranquillity, and rapture or heaven, which compose the lower 6 worlds. These worlds work in close relation to the power and influence of the environment that a person is experiencing. Learning, realization, bodhisattva and Buddhahood compose the 4 noble worlds and require individual effort to maintain oneself in them. The 10 aspects or factors of life are 1.appearance (form and color of all things), 2.nature (spiritual properties of one’s mind and all things), 3.entity (the fusion of body and mind that forms the person’s complete being or physical and spiritual aspects of all things), 4.power (the energy of a person’s life that allows him to act a specific way in each of the 10 worlds), 5.influence (the volitional activities of words, thoughts and actions that are characteristic of which world the person is in; ie. Anger or Hunger). The next 4 factors are related to the concept of time, were as power and influence correspond to space and it’s energetic and dynamic properties. The first 3 are related to life itself. 6.Internal or inherent cause is one’s karma and is the seed of the experience a person will have when the right cause and condition manifest for an effect to occur. Example, if a person has a predisposition to get skin cancer (inherent cause), he must be in the right condition for this potential to manifest (external cause); in the sun on a very hot day for an extensive amount of time. 7.External cause being the next factor that corresponds to influence from the environment or other sentient beings.8.Latent effect is the reaction to the phenomena internally by the individual to the manifested effect which is the skin cancer that was produced by the stimulation of the inherent cause (karma) by the environment (external cause), which produced the9.manifested effect (observable outcome of a person’s past actions-causes). 10.Consistancy from beginning to end. Beginning corresponds to 1.appearence and end corresponds to 9.manifested effect (in Buddhism we call this actual proof) or the results of one’s actions in life (benefit or suffering as the result of correct or incorrect religious belief). Another way to look at this is the relationship between the body (appearance) and shadow (manifest effect). When the body is crooked the shadow is also cooked. If a person’s actions are distorted originating from a distorted mind (oneness of body and mind)-shiki shin funi, his results in his life will also take on that distortion in the form of suffering (shadow)-manifested effect. This ultimately means that all suffering that manifest in one’s environment is directly related to the individual’s mind or the collective mind’s of all the people in that environment. This is the principle of Esho funi, the oneness of life (body) and it’s environment (shadow).
The illusion that most people follow is to try to make the shadow stand up by focusing on it externally (trying to manipulate the environment and other people). The source of the shadow is from the self (spiritual disorder from within), the inherent cause (karma) that produces the manifest effect in the environment. This is the most difficult illusion for a common mortal to perceive.
The 3 poisons of a people’s minds (greed, anger and stupidity) are said to manifest as the conditions of famine, war and pestilence. So, this shows how important and practical it is to be responsible for purifying one’s heart and mind through the practice of Buddhism (Hendoku Iyaku- Changing poison into medicine), which extinguishes the source of all the sufferings which originate from within each and every individual. This sheds light on the fact that the information present in the higher technologies of the day provide very little solution to the multiple problems that exist in life today. Only Buddhism can clarify the complete source. The inherent cause of our minds (karma) and ignorance.
In the above example it can not be clearly seen how the person’s past actions created the karma (skin sensitive to excessive sun light) to be at risk for developing skin cancer, but as you probe into the depths of life and karmic reward you will find that all of reality as experience by each and every being is consistent with one’s mind (inherent cause) from the infinite past. The Daishonin also states in "Letter From Sado", " Even more so our past slanders of the Law, which stain the depth of one's heart.  A sutra states that both the crow's Blackness and the heron's Whiteness are actually the deep stains of their past Karma. " (Major writings Volume one page 39). This is consistent with the principle of the oneness of mind and body (shikishi funi) as an individual relates to all phenomenal expressions of life, as it is manifest from moment to moment. There are no mistakes in the perfect manifestation of the law of cause and effect, only suffering as one’s mind moves away (illusions or ignorance) from the awareness of this constant truth in life.
It may be necessary to give more illustration of how all of this falls together. Lets say someone was angry at you ( the world of anger within another sentient being). So, in order to get even with you they decide to destroy your home while you are at work (inherent cause not yet manifest or potentially to happen in your life-karma). After 5 hours at work you return home to see all of your (karmic relationship) valuables destroyed and covered with messages of hate (external cause). Your reaction to this is a change in life experience, which may have been rapture after receiving a phone call from a beautiful woman at work, you had met in a bar 3 weeks early, whom you thought would never call you. She was interested in you and planned to meet you at your home 9p.m. that night. The power of this discovery in your home (external cause) was greater than the power of the condition of rapture you arrived home with, and this influenced your condition to change to that of anger (latent effect). The manifested effect is the expression on your face, the physiological changes in your body and the action you take (creation of new karma) in response to this event.
This example displays the interrelatedness between the 3 realms of the 1.individual (entity composed of the 5 components of life; form, perception, conception, volition and consciousness),2.the realm of other sentient beings-people and 3.the environment.
As the dynamic aspects of each of the 10 worlds, 10 factors and the 3 realms interplay with each other, these realities intermingle to give life the objective appearance it has as it manifest in each and every phenomena (shoho jisso). Every person sees life exactly the way they see it as true (subjective truth or belief), whether in the condition of hell, rapture or learning. Each experience is unique to that individual’s condition of life and perceptions relative to that condition.
Nichiren Daishonin states that beings in the state of hell see the ganges river as fire, people in the world of rapture see the ganges river as water and the beings in the worlds of bodhisatva and buddhahood see the ganges river as the eternal unchanging law. The same objective reality is seen a different way by each individual based on their life condition (one of the 10 worlds) and their inherent cause (karma). For a person to experience happiness in any environment (external cause), he must purify his inherent cause ( 8^th consciousness- alaya) so that there is no potential negative effect (manifest effect) to be experienced ( shadow or latent effect). This is the nature of a Buddha’s life (free of impurities or negative cause). So, regardless of what conditions manifesting in the environment (external cause) of a Buddha, he or she has no reason to experience negativity (latent effect) from the expressions of the phenomenal world (shoho jisso). When a person’s 8^th consciousness is clear, the pure influence of the 9^th consciousness, the Buddha nature can shine through unobstructed to all expressions of one’s life (7^thconsciousness, 6^th consciousness (conscious mind) and down through all the 5senses with complete pure perception and clarity). This is why the Buddha is known as the awakened one, and has the all encompassing wisdom of reality. It is because his view of life is unobstructed from within.
This is the goal of Buddhist practice and the purpose of the inscription of the Dai Gohonzon, which contains the live expression of this principle (ichinen sanzen).When an individual focuses his life (Nam) mind and body on this object of the supreme life of ichinen sanzen (pure amala-consciousness 9^th level). Just like the individual that was able to transfer his life condition (anger), through the destruction of the property in your home (environmental influence) –external cause, to induce your response to that of anger (latent effect). A Buddha named Nichiren Daishonin was able to transfer his life condition of Buddhahood into the environment in the form of the Dai Gohonzon (wooden object), so that you can create the correct cause (faith and practice[power and influence] to activate the inherent cause of the Buddha nature ), and condition (external cause-focusing on the enlightened image of the Buddha)- Gohonzon [Buddha’s life] to open up your individual Buddhahood. This becomes complete and true ichinen sanzen in an individual’s life.