What is the difference between nichiren and zen

Nichiren Buddhism — The Zen Universe. Nichiren Buddhists believe in ten basic principles as fundamental to human make-up. These are: Hell — a condition which appears when someone feels in despair or desperate. Hunger — when someone constantly wants something. Animality — is governed by instinct and may lead someone to prey on those more vulnerable. Anger — encompasses traits of selfishness, competitiveness, and arrogance. Tranquillity — is a calm state of life.

Learning — appears when someone seeks new skills. Absorption is a condition based on knowledge and wisdom. Buddhahood — is the ultimate state to be in as it includes compassion, wisdom, and humaneness.

On the other hand, according to SGI literature :. Irrespective of how people treat us, the important thing is to chant with an unwavering belief. Contrary to all Buddhist traditions revering the sutras,. Zen literature denies any value for the sutras:.

It is also popular in the West and has a fast growing membership in the UK. It also emphasises the importance of individuals taking responsibility for improving themselves. Although it can be seen as a highly self-focused religion, followers of Nichiren Buddhism believe that individual empowerment and inner transformation contribute, in turn, to a better and more peaceful world.

The singer Tina Turner is one of its most high profile followers. In the movie What's Love Got to Do with It , an autobiographical film about Turner's rise to stardom and her relationship with her abusive husband, she chanted the Buddhist Nam Myoho Renge Kyo mantra. This is one of the key elements of Nichiren Buddhism. It teaches that enlightenment is available to everybody. One writer has encapsulated this idea as a "shortcut to salvation".

In Nichiren Buddhism, Nichiren himself is regarded as the Buddha, while the dharma is in the chant and the gohonzon. The Nichiren Shoshu school of Buddhism teaches that the sangha is the priesthood alone, while Soka Gakkai does not restrict the sangha in this way. Nichiren Buddhism began in medieval Japan. It has its roots in the teachings of Nichiren Daishonin , a 13th century Japanese monk who tried to reform Buddhism and Japanese society.

In many ways he was a Buddhist Martin Luther who lived centuries before the great Protestant reformer. The book of 28 chapters of poems and stories is the main scripture of Nichiren Buddhism. The Lotus Sutra was probably compiled over years and completed around CE. Nichiren came to regard the Lotus Sutra as a supremely authoritative scripture.

He taught that it should always be read and applied to the contemporary context -- to the time and place in which the reader happened to be. Nichiren came to believe that he was living in a degraded age, an age of mappo very similar to the English term "end times" where Buddha's teachings were misinterpreted and as a consequence many bad things were happening. Nichiren followed the Lotus Sutra in his teaching that all living beings could attain enlightenment on earth and could do this through chanting and 'human revolution'.

Nichiren emphasised the Lotus Sutra to the extent that he taught that it was the only way that could lead to true Buddhahood, and create a truly good world. He taught that other Buddhist practices no longer provided a road to enlightenment, and that it was the neglect of the Lotus Sutra that was responsible for the evils of his time; including such things as earthquakes. Nichiren was not just a scripture scholar, he was an activist.

Having worked out what was wrong with contemporary Buddhism he did something about it. He engaged in shakubuku. This Japanese word means "to break and subdue". Nichiren not only embarked on missionary work for his own cause, but also on energetic disparagement of rival Buddhist views, to the extent of warning that those who followed them were going to hell.

This made him extremely unpopular with other Buddhist teachers. Nichiren also rebuked the rulers of Japan for allowing rival Buddhist schools of thought to promote "erroneous teaching".

The job of the government, he said, was to promote the Lotus Sutra and look after the monks who taught it. Unless the government did this, Nichiren and his monks were duty bound to oppose the rulers of Japan. Loyalty to the Lotus Sutra was more important than loyalty to country or secular authority. He was exiled twice by the government and some of his disciples were executed. He refused to compromise his principles and continued to challenge the established schools of Buddhism.

During his second exile on Sado Island he wrote letters of encouragement to his disciples which later formed some of his most important works. In , he was freed and the government cleared him of any wrongdoing.

He died on October 13 , surrounded by his closest disciples. Buddhism has, in years, taken many different forms. Spread over most of the Asian continent, it changed from a philosophy to a religion as it traveled from India, where it was born in roughly the fifth century, BCE. As it entered Sri Lanka, Tibet, China, Burma, Thailand and other nations over many centuries, it developed in ways congruent with those cultures.

The differences between the two branches are much less antagonistic than, say, the historic clashes between Shia and Sunni Islam or Catholic and Protestant Christianity, but there are differences. When Mahayana Buddhism arrived in Japan in the sixth century CE, the archipelago already had a native religion, Shinto, and the relationship between the two has been alternatively harmonious and fraught ever since, depending on many things, especially politics.

Buddhism had a particularly hard time of it as recently only years ago, during the Meiji Restoration, when the restoration of the Imperial family to power led many including the Emperor Meiji to denounce Buddhism.

But Buddhism has survived in its several forms, less the result of splits as of refinements.