Modern Lotus Sutra–Based Approaches to Religious Diversity and the Interreligious Thought of Niwano Nikkyō

Abstract

This essay is a critical exploration of the basis of the Lotus Sutra–based interreligious thought of Rev. Niwano Nikkyō (1906–1999), founder of the Japanese Buddhist lay group Rissho Kosei-kai and prominent figure in the development of interreligious dialogue in the second half of the twentieth century. Niwano is emplaced in Lotus Sutra Buddhism's history of making sense of religious diversity in order to appreciate his innovations, and his thought is also measured against today's demand for pluralistic theologies of religious diversity. In closing, I will ponder Niwano's interreligious thought from the perspective of a Christian approach with which it resonates—Trinitarian Holy Spirit–based theology of religious diversity—in order to develop possibilities within his approach that promise to further expand the horizons of dialogue in Lotus Sutra–based interfaith encounters.

Introduction: buddhism's hard road to religious pluralism and lotus sutra buddhism's response to world religious diversity

Theologian Perry Schmidt-Leukel's designation of the prospects for Buddhist religious pluralism as a "difficult road" probably shocks many Buddhists and friends or admirers of Buddhism throughout the world.¹ Generally speaking, Buddhism is commonly thought of as one of the more open and ecumenical of the world's religions, a "religion of peace." However, Schmidt-Leukel observes that Theravada Buddhism's doctrinal positions—only the Buddhist path leads to true liberation; there cannot be multiple buddhas or sanghas in a world at any one time—lead to an exclusivist position.² Varieties of Mahāyāna, on the other hand, are hampered by a "deep-seated inclination of inclusivist hierarchical ranking," that forestalls the achievement of a religiously pluralistic view and which he surmises cannot be overcome with recourse to the two-truths doctrine and skillful means.³ Surveying influential Buddhist teachers, Schmidt-Leukel critically concludes that the only Buddhist he is aware of who developed a pluralistic approach to religious diversity was the Thai reformist Buddhadāsa (1906–1993).⁴

Lotus Sutra Buddhism as an Exception?

Many of the Buddhists who are the most active in interfaith dialogue and co-operation today are Lotus Sutra–based groups such as Soka Gakkai and Rissho Kosei-kai, who credit the Lotus Sutra as the impetus for their active engagement and collaboration with other religious traditions. However, the openness of the Lotus Sutra (Skt. Saddharma puṇḍarīka sūtra) to religious diversity has been hotly debated for several decades. Some have championed the text's affirmation of religious diversity, while others see it as a hegemonic tract, highly sectarian and exclusivist. The variety of opinions and sharp divisions with regard to the Lotus Sutra can sometimes leave the impression that writers are simply not talking about the same text.⁵ But this should not surprise us, for religious texts are complex—composed, edited, and translated by multiple authors, presumably the product of many interpretive communities arrayed across time, space, and cultures. For this reason, when we evaluate the openness of the Lotus Sutra, we also must ask who read the Lotus Sutra, how they read it, and consider the implications of their approaches to religious diversity.

Lotus Sutra Buddhism's Modern Conceptual Strategies for Making Sense of Religious Diversity with a Special Focus on the Place of Niwano Nikkyō

The entire breadth of Lotus Sutra Buddhism's approach to religious diversity is far too broad a topic for this paper, and given our interest in contemporary interreligious dialogue, I will focus on the interreligious thought of Rev. Niwano Nikkyō (1906–1999), founder of Rissho Kosei-kai and winner of the Templeton Prize who played an instrumental role in the establishment of World Conference of Religions for Peace, one of the premier organizations of interfaith dialogue and co-operation. Niwano's Lotus Sutra–inspired interreligious thought is multifaceted, so I will narrow my scope to a critical interpretive rubric that has played a central role in the Lotus Sutra tradition's modern conceptual approach to religious diversity, including Niwano's: "the six ways the Tathāgata manifests." An important element of the ancient commentarial tradition, this rubric was used to make sense of intra-Buddhist religious diversity in the writings of the sixth-century Chinese monk Zhiyi and later Tiantai Buddhists, but was expanded by Japanese Buddhists to relate imported Buddhism to non-Buddhist indigenous gods and practices, and later in the early twentieth-century Japanese Buddhists in the Lotus Sutra tradition once again expanded its usage, reinterpreting the rubric in order to make sense of the religious diversity of the world's religions. Emplacing Niwano within the trajectory of modern Lotus Sutra–based interreligious thought will allow us to both appreciate his innovations and determine if his interreligious thinking goes beyond inclusivism to move us along "Buddhism's difficult road to religious pluralism"—an answer that I will defer until my conclusion. I will end by pondering Niwano's theology of religious diversity from the perspective of a Trinitarian, Holy Spirit–centered theology of religious diversity to more clearly manifest some of the possibilities for openness and a truly dialogic interfaith conversation based on Niwano's thought.

The interpretative rubric: "the six ways the tathāgata manifests"

"The six ways the Tathāgata manifests" (J. rokuwaku jigen 六或示現, hereafter "the six manifestations") appears in Words and Phrases of the Lotus Sutra (Chn. Fahua wenzhu 法華文句), attributed to Zhiyi (智顗, 538–597). Zhiyi was far from the first Chinese exegete to interpret the Lotus Sutra, but he is the most influential, revered as the founder of the Lotus Sutra–based Tiantai school. Zhiyi's commentaries on the Lotus Sutra are central to the doctrines of the Tendai order, Tiantai's Japanese iteration, and valued by the various denominations of Buddhism that trace their beginnings to the medieval Japanese Lotus Sutra votary Nichiren (日蓮, 1222–1282), as well as a number of nonclerical groups that Nichiren Buddhism gave birth to in the twentieth century.

In the sixteenth chapter of the Lotus Sutra, the Buddha reveals that his impending parinirvāna is necessary as a skillful means, but that in reality he never passes away. The various buddhas that appear in Buddhist texts are manifestations of Śakyamuni who had, as the sutra explains, "actually attained enlightenment in the distant past" (Ch. jiuyuan shicheng 久遠実成), a phrasing that has often been interpreted to mean that either Śakyamuni is so ancient as to be essentially beginningless, or as a metaphor meaning that the Buddha essentially has no beginning, and having never been born, neither does the Buddha perish. Śakyamuni explains that other buddhas who have appeared have been for the purposes of leading living beings to liberation, and that in fact they have been he, himself. He reiterates this point in several ways, summarizing with a sixfold explanation of how he manifests to living beings:

I may speak of myself. I may speak of someone else. I may appear as myself, I may appear as someone else. I may appear through my own deeds. I may appear through someone else's deeds. And whatever I teach and whatever I say is valid and never in vain.⁶

Zhiyi writes that "speaking" in this passage refers to the voice and the teachings the Buddha enunciates, and "appear" refers to the form through which the Buddha manifests. "Speaking of myself" means the teachings of the truth body, which we can think of as the ultimate truth itself, whereas "speaking of someone else" indicates the teachings expounded by the response bodies that the Buddha manifests and critically, this category is eventually understood to include teachings voiced by sentient beings who do not have the bodies of buddhas. The Buddha appearing through his own deeds refers to manifesting and acting as a buddha, whereas "appearing through someone else's deeds" indicates the Buddha appearing to living beings through the workings of the environment and material phenomena. Finally, Zhiyi explains that when the Buddha "speaks of others" he teaches according to the needs of the listener, but when he "speaks of himself" he speaks the content of his enlightenment as he has realized it.⁷

Perhaps more importantly, however, is that nothing that these six manifestations teach is "in vain," that is, everything the manifestations teach is truth. This is a consistent theme of the sutra: none of the teachings of the Buddha are false, nor do they contradict one another. All buddhas speak with the same voice, but the apparent differences in teachings or appearances are functions of the needs of the listener, and all teachings are one because of their ultimate purpose of leading people to buddhahood—the doctrine of skillful means.

This Buddha, who manifests in these six ways, came to be known as the "Original Buddha." The Original Buddha and its six ways of manifesting provide a hierarchically inclusivist a template for unifying the variety of buddhas, sutras, and teachings within Buddhism. The steepness of this hierarchy's gradient has been assessed variously throughout the history of Lotus Sutra Buddhism.

Expanding japanese horizons: lotus sutra devotees make sense of non-buddhist religions

Whereas the sixth-century Chinese monk Zhiyi used the rubric of the six manifestations of the Tathāgata to make sense of intra-Buddhist diversity, Japanese Buddhists began to make use of the six manifestations to relate Buddhism to indigenous divinities and religious practices in their land. As I am concerned with modern Lotus Sutra approaches to religious diversity and the thought of Niwano Nikkyō, a full account of these ancient precedents would take us too far afield. But here is one example from the writings of Nichiren that shows the innovative Japanese expansion of the interpretive rubric:

In "The Life Span of the Eternal Tathāgata" chapter of the Lotus Sutra it says, "I may speak of myself. I may speak of someone else" and so forth. The original ground of The Buddha Excellent Virtue in the eastern quadrant of the universe, Mahāvairocana Tathāgata in the center of the universe, the buddhas of the ten directions … the Great Kami Amaterasu, and Hachiman bosatsu, is the Great Benevolent Teacher Śakyamuni.⁸

For Nichiren, the Original Buddha is behind all that is meritorious and benefits humankind, including the Japanese Sun goddess Amaterasu, progenitor of the emperor, and the Kami Hachiman. All such personas are manifestations of the Original Buddha in a different guise. This is essentially the same logic that Lotus Sutra Buddhists, including Niwano Nikkyō, will use to make sense of world religious diversity after Japan's opening to the world in the nineteenth century following over two centuries of self-imposed isolation.

Japan had seen the coming of Catholic missionaries beginning with Francis Xavier's arrival in Kagoshima in 1549, but its "Christian century" ended with the suppression of the foreign faith and Japan severing most of its connections with the outside world. With the reopening of the country, Japan rediscovered the world's religious diversity and was faced with the daunting task of locating its traditions among those of the outside world. In doing so, it drew substantially on its own intellectual traditions, redefining terms used in Buddhist doctrinal hermeneutics to formulate a general concept of religion.⁹ Nichiren Buddhists often reached for the rubric of the six manifestations to provide a framework to theorize an inclusivist relationship between Buddhism and non-Buddhist religions from outside Japan.

Expanding the Six Ways in Which the Tathāgata Manifests to Include Christianity, Judaism, and Islam

One of the earliest incidences of utilizing the six manifestations in an inclusivist move toward non-Buddhist foreign traditions is Realizing World Great Peace: The Lotus Sutra, Japan, and the World, by Shiozaki Ken'yō. Written in 1921 against the backdrop of the World War, Versailles Treaty, and the establishment of the League of Nations, Shiozaki calls for a world constitution for the international community based upon the values of the Lotus Sutra, which he argues are uniquely appropriate bases for achieving world peace. Central to his argument is the six ways in which the Tathāgata manifests. Shiozaki writes:

No matter the angle from which you look at it, it is an indisputable fact that the Original Buddha or the deities in the Lotus Sutra appear and manifest in all countries throughout this world … And speaking from one point of view, the origin and basis for Jesus, which Christianity did not explain, is actually clarified in the Lotus Sutra; the god Jehovah and Christ knew but did not say it, but we could surmise they were secretly waiting for the right opportunity. But the time has come today, and we plainly know the origin and basis for the gods and buddhas of the world. In every case, because it is clear that the divine spiritual principle of all the gods and buddhas in the world resides in this Lotus Sutra, it is best that humanity discover the Lotus Sutra as soon as possible and not rely upon other false gods that are provisional manifestations.¹⁰

Shiozaki's inclusivism is graded so hierarchically that it actually amounts to a replacement model of religious diversity: Jesus Christ and Jehovah are provisional manifestations of the Original Buddha, and once one attains this knowledge of their provisionality, they become "false gods" to be abandoned.

Another thinker who uses the six manifestations as an inclusivist strategy is the prominent Nichirenist Kobayashi Ichirō (1876–1944), a college professor and editor of the influential magazine Hokke, published by the Lotus Association, based in Tokyo. In his 1918 work An Outline of Nichirenism, Kobayashi hints at the six ways when he formulates several understandings of the Original Buddha in modernist terms. "It is permissible to affirmatively call it [the Original Buddha] 'noumenon,' and 'being,' or even 'energy.' In Confucianism it is 'Heaven,' in Christianity and Mohammedism [sic] it is God. Moreover, these are not manufactured falsehoods, nor some illusion of misperception. Surely, they [the followers of these faiths] are looking up in reverence to a face of the Original Buddha."¹¹ But, even though what Confucians, Christians, and Muslims revere is the Original Buddha, unlike Buddhists of the Lotus Sutra faith, they only see a portion of its reality: "Compared to the single whole that is the Original Buddha, by calling it 'noumenon' it is an orphan, and by calling it 'being' it is also an orphan. By calling it 'Heaven' or 'God' it is again an orphan. None of these are its holistic totality. The holistic totality [of the Original Buddha] has been revealed to us through the World Honored-One Śakyamuni."¹²

In his Major Course on the Lotus Sutra, a thirteen-volume commentary published in 1936, Kobayashi ties his inclusivist thinking specifically to the six manifestations and adds a significant caveat that takes on the problem of relativism but also reveals his apparent inclusivism to be a replacement model of religious diversity.

However, there is something that we should not misunderstand. If we talk like this, we may carelessly think, "Then isn't it fine if we don't bother to learn the Lotus Sutra—isn't it permissible if those who prefer Christianity practice Christianity, those who prefer Mohamedism [sic] practice Mohamedism?" But it is hardly like this. The teachings that have appeared in these varieties are ultimately unified by the Buddha, and we must see those teachings as fragmentary. If we misunderstand this we will be in trouble. Holding that any is as good as another—"Since they are ultimately manifestations of the one Buddha, any teaching is permissible—Ōmoto is just as good as Tenrikyo, which is just as good as Christianity!"—is shallow thinking. They are all variously useful, but ultimately the issue is more than that. They are all variously manifested partial teachings, and ultimately, they must be unified. We must not forget that all of them will be unified by Buddhism. This is why Buddhism is extraordinarily grand, totally beyond the others.¹³

For those who already have faith in Buddhism, the provisional validity of other religions is no permission for conversion. Once one discovers the Lotus Sutra, one walks away from other religions, and there is no longer even the need to learn about other religions, for in the end they will all be subsumed by Buddhism.

The "six ways the tathāgata manifests" as a foundation for the interfaith dialogue apologia of niwano nikkyō

The Nichiren tradition's extension of Lotus Sutra–based inclusivism to include non-Japanese non-Buddhist religions utilizing the rubrics of the six manifestations as part of a replacement model of religious diversity is essentially the starting point for Rev. Niwano Nikkyō, and reviewing this allows us to both appreciate Rev. Niwano's innovations and also make sense of a fundamental tension we will find in his positions. Rev. Niwano's initial stance is quite similar to that of the well-known and influential Kobayashi, but over the span of a decade between the early 1950s and 1960s, he shifts his interpretation to a position more enthusiastically affirming non-Buddhist religions, providing a theoretical underpinning for his active praxis of interfaith dialogue and cooperation.

In his first commentary on the Lotus Sutra, serialized in the magazine Kosei under the title "Exposition of the Lotus Sutra" (Hokke gesetsu 法華解説), Niwano's understanding of how the Tathāgata manifests is in line with Kobayashi, and includes foreign religions, but shows some differences that hint at the possibility of a more affirmative evaluation of other teachings.

In order to lead, teach and transform people differing in all respects—epoch, popular mind, or individual histories, natures, practices, and environments, the Buddha must manifest appropriate appearances and forms to guide people. One time he takes the appearance and shape of a buddha (myself) such as Amida Tathāgata, or Medicine King Buddha to teach and transform, or changes his appearance and form (someone else) into Confucius, or Jesus, or a sage, wise man, loyal retainer, or man of virtue, purifying the world, guiding people by presenting them a model. What they teach is all "valid and never in vain." The words taught and the appearance and shape they take is not distinct from the Original Buddha, but are actually transformed bodies of the Original Buddha, and as so their teachings all expound the truth of the Original Buddha's teachings and are a model extended [to the world] (appearing through my own deeds; appearing through someone else's deeds). Not a single one of their teachings is useless or false. All are appearances of the transformative activity of the Original Buddha's compassion in order to liberate all living beings.¹⁴

"The lack of distinction" between the various other manifestations of the Original Buddha demonstrates Rev. Niwano's tendency to take an enthusiastic view of skillful means and collapse the distance between the means and ultimate truth.¹⁵ This subtle nuance distinguishes his position slightly from that of Kobayashi Ichirō.

Rev. Niwano wrote two additional commentaries on the Lotus Sutra, both published and still in print today. A close read of both reveals a rapid evolution in his interreligious thinking over the span of a decade, with the third and final commentary, A New Interpretation of the Lotus Sutra (J. Hokekyō no atarashii kaishaku 法華経 の新しい 解釈) representing something of the definitive state of Rev. Niwano's Lotus Sutra theology. Japanese scholar Mutō Akihiro discusses the reasons for the change in Niwano's regard of other religions and wholehearted embrace of interreligious dialogue, which he shows is closely related to the arc of Rissho Kosei-kai's development. But in this section, I will restrict myself to detailing Niwano's innovation from the standpoint of his interpretation of the six manifestations and then consider if Niwano overcame Lotus Sutra Buddhism's deeply rooted inclusivism to achieve religious pluralism.¹⁶ A New Interpretation is the most important work to consider in depth because it represents something of the culmination of his view of the Lotus Sutra, is widely read by Rissho Kosei-kai members, is also marketed to the general public, and has been translated into several foreign languages.

In A New Interpretation, Niwano writes at length about "the six manifestations," underscoring his affirmation of other religions by clearly admonishing readers, many of whom are Rissho Kosei-kai members, against hostility toward other religions and to refrain from criticizing them. His description here also sees a de-anthropomorphizing of the Buddha, which I will discuss at length below.

Herein lays the vast breadth of the Buddha's teaching. The implication of these six ways in which the Buddha manifests is that Buddhism does not stand in opposition to Christianity and Islam, nor to the teachings of other great sages, such as Confucius, Mencius, and Laozi. The Buddha's words here in chapter 16 clearly show us that great saints and sages such as these are ultimately appearances of the Original Buddha as "someone else," and their revered teachings are the manifestations of the Buddha's Dharma in other forms. I do not say this because I am a Buddhist, but because as far as the Buddha is the grand truth of the cosmos, which we understand as the great life force of the universe, there can be no truth which is not encompassed by the Buddha, and no "Dharma" which is not Buddha Dharma. Accordingly, a narrow-minded person who utters biased comments about other religions on the grounds that Buddhism is the true religion while Christianity, for example, is not, cannot be considered a Buddhist in the most profound sense.

A right teaching—one in accord with truth—is right regardless of who teaches it. Truth is truth irrespective of whose teachings convey it. Buddhists revere any person who leads all living beings with right teachings of truth as a "buddha." Thus, it naturally follows that Buddhists should not place themselves in opposition to other religions.¹⁷

Niwano is clear in his guidance: other religions are indeed "truth," and those who have biases against other faiths are not just narrow-minded, but displaying an attitude that is unbecoming of Buddhists. A "true" Buddhist is someone who is magnanimous toward other faiths.

Something that is perhaps not as striking but of significance is how Niwano grasps the Buddha. Compared to his discussion of the six manifestations a decade earlier, here Niwano paints the Original Buddha in depersonalized, generalized terms—the abstract "grand truth" of the universe. He appears to be saying that "Buddha" is the totality of truth or a synonym for the phenomenon of truth itself. Niwano next gives the example of nutrition to illustrate how this grand truth is present, not as something separate but in solution, in various religions.

To illustrate this with a simple example, nutrition is not something that exists separately from foods such as rice, bread, beans, vegetables, milk, fish and salt. Rice is nourishing for our bodies, as are milk and vegetables. The fundamental quality of the ingredients in all of these foods, which makes them good for our health, is what constitutes "nutrition." If someone says, "I don't need any 'nutrition' because I eat bread, milk and vegetables," it would be ridiculous in the extreme.

The truth of the Buddha is like "nutrition" in this example; the teachings of the various saints and sages correspond to the assorted foods like rice, vegetables, milk, and so on. The basis of all of them—the "nutritiousness" that makes them beneficial to us—is the Dharma of the Buddha. Accordingly, they all constitute the Buddha's teaching, and make for a well-balanced "meal" that nurtures our character, and thus we can partake of this feast without worrying about our spiritual health, and so there is no need to debate the relative merits of individual dishes like "rice" or "bread," for example.¹⁸

Readers familiar with Chinese Tiantai and Japanese Tendai or Nichiren Buddhism will recognize that Niwano is updating the allegory of the "five flavors" of milk, in which the essence of milk—ghee—is present in all the other forms of dairy. The original allegory is inclusive but hierarchical—in the Lotus Sutra tradition, the Lotus Sutra is the clarified form of pure ghee. Niwano certainly knows this, which is probably why he seems to mitigate the sense of hierarchy by emphasizing the need for a spiritually "well-balanced" meal, and taking rice and bread—representative foods of "East" and "West"—as being equally nutritious. By likening our access to truth as a feast, he conjures the image of a smorgasbord of religions or teachings.

Reading A New Interpretation, a pattern in Niwano's description of the Original Buddha becomes clear. His grasp of the Original Buddha has two modes: one is philosophical and abstract—the Original Buddha as truth or suchness. It is the omnipresent principle, which pervades all things in the universe. We could call it reality itself. The other mode is devotional—the Original Buddha is a focus of our gratitude as "the great life force of the universe," that which gives all things the gift of life, the father of living beings, continually reaching out his hands of compassion to all things. He connects these two modes writing that the Original Buddha as the focus of devotion is essentially a personification of ultimate reality:

"Suchness" means the ultimate supreme truth of the universe, the immutable form of things—reality itself. But these words ring hollow to us because ordinary human beings cannot even imagine what suchness actually is. Even if we learn that suchness sustains us, it fails to make a powerful impression on us because it sounds like something elusive and indistinct.¹⁹

The Buddha is ultimate reality, but limited and embodied beings like ourselves cannot perceive truth as such, and when we try to conceive of it, we naturally apprehend it as a persona or a being:

However, suchness can take any form because it is the one real and unchanging existence in the world upon which all phenomena depends. In what form can we imagine suchness appearing when we try to envision it with our human minds? We naturally conceive of an anthropomorphic being of absolute power. When we think that this person—suchness personified—has always existed in this world, from the infinite past and into the infinite future, and causes all of us to live, we can feel the warm caress of the Buddha's giant hands of compassion.²⁰

When we try to grasp ultimate reality, it necessarily appears to us anthropomorphically, and its workings are felt as compassion. Although not explicitly stated, this second mode seems to be reality as experienced or as accessible, instead of reality as such. It also strikes us as a skillful means, a provisional or worldly truth as opposed to ultimate truth. When Niwano tackles religious diversity, he largely defaults to the first abstract mode of the Original Buddha—reality as such. This move resonates with many religious pluralists, who see humankind's religions as diverse and equally valid ways of making sense, accessing, or interacting with reality itself—a single reality. But, even while hinting at it, Niwano never goes as far as to state in no uncertain terms that the devotional mode of the Original Buddha is a skillful means, a lower order, or less true than the Original Buddha as abstract truth.

Niwano also retains much of the Original Buddha's superiority over other divinities. The Original Buddha is a more reliable sustenance because unlike a god outside of us, to whom we are at the mercy and whim of, the Original Buddha is also inside of us, that is to say, all people possess buddha nature, the essence of the Buddha, within themselves, and because of this transcendence of inner and outer, the Original Buddha is a true absolute existence.²¹ For Niwano, as other Buddhists, all gods are relative existences—they are finite beings, just like human beings, differing from humans only in degree, not in kind. Thus, while envisioning the Original Buddha as truth itself attenuates its sectarian character, when Niwano discusses taking refuge in it, the Original Buddha seems to retain its privileged position. This echoes, if only faintly, Kobayashi's insistence that belief in the superiority of the Original Buddha is a necessary article of faith for Buddhists. In Rev. Niwano's words: "The Original Buddha is the power that animates all things and is omnipresent in the universe. There is no point in the endless omnidirectional expanse of space where this Buddha is not present."²²

A critical evaluation of niwano nikkyō's approach to religious diversity with some hints from hans gadamer and a trinitarian holy spirit–based approach to religious diversity

Pluralist Inclinations and Inclusivist Realities

I began this essay with Perry Schmidt-Leukel's provocative assertion that of all the major religions, Buddhism may indeed face the greatest challenge overcoming inclusivism and achieving a thoroughgoing religious pluralism. Do Rev. Niwano's innovations go beyond inclusivism to achieve a Lotus Sutra–based religious pluralism? Mutō Akihiro concludes that Rev. Niwano attains a position resembling pluralism, which was a "Copernican revolution" in the Reverend's career.²³ Mutō bases his conclusion on Rev. Niwano's growing magnanimity toward other religions in the 1960s, his cautions against forceful dissemination, and Rev. Niwano's later autobiographical writings, but also his growing emphasis on "truth" in religion rather than his earlier exclusive focus on the Lotus Sutra itself. Mutō ultimately demurs on Niwano's pluralism, however, observing that Niwano retained his faith in the idea of the oneness of all religions because they share the same basis (bankyō dōkon 万教同根). Mutō surmises that Niwano moderated his discussion of such beliefs due to the negative effect they could have had on interfaith co-operation.²⁴ However, the belief that all religions share the same basis in and of itself does not foreclose the possibility of considering Niwano a pluralist. It would merely place him into the category of identist pluralism—the notion that all religions are oriented toward the same religious object.²⁵ The crucial point is whether a privileging order of hierarchy remains in Niwano's thought. Is this one basis or root of all religion the Original Buddha in a sectarian sense, to which the Lotus Sutra alone gives humanity the most complete access? Or, is the Original Buddha only one name among many that humanity's religions use for ultimate reality, and to which all have equal claim and access?

As we have seen, Rev. Niwano does privilege the Original Buddha, especially in the devotional mode, in which the Original Buddha is apprehended as a persona. First, the Original Buddha is the source of all other buddhas, and the truths of the sages and deities of other faiths are all components of the truth taught by the Original Buddha. The unavoidable implication of this is that all sages and deities are manifestations of the Original Buddha revealed in the Lotus Sutra. Second, the Original Buddha is the best refuge for people because it is a nondual ultimacy that transcends outer and inner, self and other, something that Niwano characterizes as an "absolute existence." This is clearly an argument for the superiority of the Original Buddha as a focus of devotion when compared to other manifestations of divinity, including the God of the major monotheistic traditions. Niwano's perspective cannot but see them as "relative existences" that in the final analysis are incomplete truths or less effective refuges than the Original Buddha.

Consequently, we are forced to conclude that Niwano remains an inclusivist, but following John P. Keenan we could call his interfaith thought a "gentle inclusivism." Gentle inclusivism, as Keenan describes, is "graded and less dismissive, more embracing and theologically sensitive."²⁶ While Keenan hails Niwano's achievement of a more open stance to the religious other, he nevertheless points out a problem inherent to even less hierarchical forms of inclusivism such as Niwano's: "Gentle though they may be, these forms of less graded inclusivism … are today decidedly unskillful and untactful strategies to employ in the encounter between religions." As Keenan elaborates:

Such approaches disable their own proponents from engaging in genuine dialogue with others, for they have already classified those others as possessing but some inferior version of the truth as found in full in the Buddhist scriptures, or the Bible, or the Qur'an. Graded inclusivism by its nature assumes that one's own religion without any doubt possesses the true and valid norm in reference to which all other faiths are to be ranked. Although this stance moves beyond the exclusivists' arrogant confidence that they alone have access to truth and reaches toward embracing the full plurality of traditions, it often wobbles in indecision about the next move.²⁷

This indecision of which Keenan writes is hinted at in the ambivalence in Niwano's approach that fails to resolve the tension between the abstract, philosophical mode, and the devotional mode of apprehending the Original Buddha. This indecision is not difficult to understand, however. It can be compared to the struggle Christian theologians have faced in attempting to be open to the salvic efficacy and truth of other religions while retaining the Christ-centeredness of the Christian message, forestalling a slide into relativism that could have a devastating impact on Christians' certitude of faith and their depth of devotion.

Reevaluating the Possibilities of Niwano's Inclusivism from the Standpoint of a Trinitarian Holy Spirit–Focused Christian Approach to Religious Diversity

We cannot jump out of our own perspectives and thus require an interfaith theology that is both congruent with and flows out of our own religious beliefs and practices, and we also need to be confident in the correctness of our own religious choices, which demands an apologia, at least for ourselves. But even if we allow each other such liberties, in effect bracketing out these assumptions when entering into interfaith dialogue, the potential downside of even such a gently graded inclusivism is that it threatens to short-circuit genuine dialogue because, confident in our own possession of a fuller truth, we may fail to be genuinely open to the other. Thus, as Keenan concludes, in the context of inclusivism "Gentle dialogues do indeed occur, yet apparently inclusivists feel little or no need to learn in depth or detail about the other from the other."²⁸

I have to ask if such a meeting of religious others is dialogue in a meaningful sense. Is it a genuine dialogical interaction in which we are changed by incorporating something of the voice of the other? Gadamer's distinction between dialogue and what he calls "therapeutic conversation" is instructive here. First, dialogue is open-ended. "In order to be able to ask [a question], one must want to know, and that means knowing that one does not know." The answer to the question must be open: "The openness of what is in question consists in the fact that the answer is not determined."²⁹

Conversation is the process of coming to an understanding. Thus, it belongs to every true conversation that each person opens himself to the other, truly accepts his point of view as valid and transposes himself into the other to such an extent that he understands not the particular individual, but what he says.³⁰

When we "already know," we may lack openness, and there could be a tendency to ask the question whose answer is already known. Second, dialogue, according to Gadamer, concerns truth and the content of what the other says. Dialogue is "understanding not the particular individual, but what he says. What is to be grasped is the substantive rightness of his opinion, so that we can be one with each other on the subject." Dialogue is to be distinguished from what Gadamer calls the "therapeutic conversation": an interaction "Where the person is concerned with the other as an individual … this is not really a situation in which two people are trying to come to an understanding."³¹

Niwano's interfaith thought may not have transported us to the terminus of Perry Schmidt-Leukel's difficult road, but I think there are resources in Lotus Sutra Buddhism and in Rissho Kosei-kai's understanding of it that open the horizon of genuine dialogue. What is required is a way that interfaith encounters based on Niwano's thought can avoid the potential pitfall of "gentle inclusivism," and encourage not only the "therapeutic conversation," which certainly has an important place in interfaith relations, but also ensure that we arrive at a oneness with our partners with regard to the truth of what each of us are saying.

A Trinitarian Holy Spirit–focused Christian approach to religious diversity, which like Niwano is also inclusivist, can be informative here. As we have seen, in the philosophical and abstract mode of apprehending the Original Buddha to which Niwano defaults when he validates other religions, the Buddha is thought of as truth, truth that he likens to nutrition, and just as nutrition is found in various foods so truth can be found in various religions. This resonates with Trinitarian Holy Spirit–focused approaches to religious diversity, which find, because of the infinite compassion of God and the perpetual activity of the Holy Spirit in history, the Spirit at work in other religions, making them viable soteriological paths. For theologians as Gavin D'Costa, such a Spirit-based approach preserves the Christ-centered particularity of Christianity while affirming the salvic efficacy of other religions. For D'Costa, the recognition of the Spirit in the other religion means that Christians must be willing to learn from those religions, to be taught by them. "[I]f the Spirit is at work in the religions, then the gifts of the Spirit need to be discovered, fostered, and received into the church. If the church fails to be receptive, it may be unwittingly practicing cultural and religious idolatry." D'Costa reasons this requires "(a) the church to listen to other religions, as they understand themselves; (b) to engage critically with the religions (mission in dialectical and rhetorical fashion); (c) to be open to the reality of the church being challenged, developed, and deepened in its commitment to the triune God in so much as God may speak through the other religions, either despite them (despite their auto-interpretation) or through them (in their auto-interpretation)."³² If Christians fail to listen to the testimony of the Spirit in other religions, then, according to D'Costa, they "cease to be faithful to their own calling as Christians, in being inattentive to God."³³ As Knitter summarizes the implications of D'Costa's model, "Believing in the presence of the Spirit in other traditions, Christians not only will admire these traditions but will also have to listen to and learn from them."³⁴

It may be argued that D'Costa's requirement that what Christians learn from others must be "measured" against God's revelation in Christianity creates a certain tension and ultimately limits his openness.³⁵ Here again, I think Gadamer's understanding of dialogue is helpful. Dialogue does not require that we eschew relating what our conversation partner says to our own opinions—we cannot "reflect ourselves out of our conversations," he cautions, and at the same time we "must allow [our] tradition's claim to validity."³⁶

If Lotus Sutra Buddhists, analogous to D'Costa's Spirit-based approach, find the Original Buddha at work in history and alive in other religions, we can imagine Buddhists incurring the same obligation as D'Costa to not only admire but also listen and learn from those traditions. The propensity of inclusivism to downgrade the religious other as a less full, pure, or perfect truth still remains, but I believe openness can be preserved through careful attention to the methodology of orienting toward other religions and interacting with the religious other. In Lotus Sutra traditions, a methodology of openness could be found in the practice of the Lotus Sutra's Never Disparaging Bodhisattva, who is discussed in Dr. Niwano's contribution to this issue. This bodhisattva, who appears in the twentieth chapter of the Lotus Sutra, reveres all living beings and refuses to respond to anyone in anger or cause harm because all living beings equally possess buddha nature. Buddha nature is the capacity for the self-perfection that is buddhahood, and thus the preciousness of life. Its workings are inseparable from the goodness within all people and their compassionate actions in the world. Buddha nature is for all intents and purposes the universal all-pervading truth that is found within, and for this reason it is a dimension of the philosophical and abstract mode of the Original Buddha. The call to revere the buddha nature of all people is an imperative to find the Original Buddha within people, including the religious other.

The practice of emulating this Bodhisattva by revering buddha nature, the Original Buddha in the religious other, could broaden the potentially self-sealing hierarchical perspective of inclusivism if, reminiscent of D'Costa, the Buddha in the religious other is revered by listening to and learning from it. This will require refining our understanding of what reverence entails—reverence cannot be only veneration or respect through decorum, but must include accepting the religious other as a good spiritual friend (J. zenchishiki 善知識, Skt. kalyāna-mitra) and, as Buddhists do when facing the Buddha, implore him or her to remain in the world and bestow upon us his or her teachings. If Buddhists understand reverence in this way, anything less than actively taking the religious other as their teacher would be a failure to be faithful to their own calling as Buddhists. Revering the Buddha in the other must entail not only being open to but even solicitous of what other religions and their followers will teach us, and would ideally lead to new efforts in interfaith theology that progress far beyond the therapeutic conversation. If Lotus Sutra Buddhists actively seek out and partake of the "nourishment" within other religious traditions, then instances of Keenan's "gentle dialog" can become truly dialogic interactions.