From a Public Lecture

Luther and Nichiren—Reformers at Two Different
Ends of the WorldThis is a translation of a lecture held at the SGI-Germany
Culture Center in Munich on November 4, 2014.

Michael von Brück

1. Parallel Developments in History

T

HE theme “Luther and Nichiren—Reformers at two different endsof the world” is a little adventurous. Their points of departure could
hardly be any more different: Central Europe and Japan, one in 1500
and the other around 1300. At this point in time, and even today, contact
between these two cultures on opposite ends of the Eurasian continent
was rare, and Japan, being an island kingdom, has always been
inaccessible from the mainland. However historical developments did infact occur that to us may appear to have taken place in a parallel manner
when examining them from the perspective of a later period in time. I
refer to what the great Japanese scholar and historian of philosophy,
Nakamura Hajime, described as “Parallel Developments” in A
Comparative History of Ideas (1975).
If we are to recognize such parallels, then immediately the question
arises whether there are any laws to history, or if everything is but blindchance. Are there any patterns in which historical events unfold
repeatedly that we can observe and study, and if we are lucky, can learnsomething from? Or is everything that happens coincidental andtherefore unobservable?
This fundamental question is also the basis for our specific reflection
on Luther and Nichiren. I do not think we can answer it, however dobelieve that it should be possible to suggest some corridors ofunderstanding. I would like to deliver a challenging presentation and ask
for your understanding, yet not your forgiveness since, after all, youinvited me and have therefore embarked on an academic debate. So I
ask for your understanding and to follow the arguments.

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The Law of History and Human Freedom
When we look at Luther and Nichiren, we have to go beyond the text ofthe scriptures which they have left behind, in order to understand thespirit of the time, the historical background in which everything
happened, that which connects these two founding figures, these two
great reformers, as it says in the title.
First I would like to pose some basic questions. Human action in timeand history is guided by the motivation to act. Motivations are
influenced by expectations. An expectation, however, is something likean anticipated result in one’s imagination to the extent that the action is
executed to cause something to happen. Something beyond the current
status is expected to happen. This insight is trivial, and it is culturally
consistent, i.e., it relates to all human action regardless of cultural
conditioning. However, we cannot predict what will actually happen to
people in the future, since we do not know what the future holds as it isuncertain. Still, when human action that is based on expectations
produces results, then that which will happen depends at least to acertain degree on human expectations and actions, that is, ourmotivations, which definitely do influence events.
If we ask the question whether there is progress, significance, or agoal in history, then we are thereby always asking about the potential
impact of human action. Does man have the freedom to put something
new into practice, something he perceives to be right, or does he nothave this freedom? Is everything either random or determined?
Determined either by the laws of the world, the laws of physics or of
God or whomever? Or chance—on the basis of what conditions? Is there
any progress? I mean this quite in the sense of pathos that this notion
conveys in modernity, or rather since the age of Enlightenment.
The progress of history—we just need to look at our history—can besalvific. Just think about the historic events in autumn of 1989 in central
Europe. History can however also result in disaster. Just think about theautumn of 1939 in central Europe. Man is exposed to these processes,
but he also shapes them. Only when man becomes the subject, the actorof his own history, one can perhaps speak of a significance or a goal in
history as that is when man creates history and thereby himself.

2. Apocalyptic Thought and Utopian Ideas
Let us look a little further into the European tradition. Since ancient
times, European history has been dominated by two mythicalconceptions of time: by apocalyptic thought and utopian ideas. The

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Jewish apocalyptic myth was the expectation of the consummation ofhistory by God at the end of time. In connection with Judaism, it is said
that, after a downfall of what exists, a messianic kingdom of peace andjustice under the rule of God would come down to Earth. This was not“progress” in the classical sense of the term, because the subject of thisstory was not man, but God. Through godly or unlawful conduct at best
man could advance or delay these events that God “instigated.” Early
Christianity was thoroughly shaped by these expectations of a coming
New World.
Apocalyptic Thought and its Consequences in Early Christianity
Early Christianity lived with the feeling of an approaching end time. In
his letters, Paul asks: Will this generation that is living now, first betransfigurated close to the end of time, or will those who have alreadypassed away be the first to rise from the dead?1 So one was expecting theend of history in the immediate future, in the coming few years.
However, early Christianity proved itself wrong and since then has
existed in this peculiar tension of fulfillment (what was expected has
already arrived with Jesus Christ) and remaining expectation (what has
already come is still to be completed, namely the Second Coming ofChrist that will deliver the new once and for all).
Since the second century AD in which the early Christians lived, thisfuture expectation is ontologized or rather brought into Platonic
philosophy, i.e., the hereafter that is expected is relocated to the present.
The new quality of God’s new kingdom will not come in the future, but
has already occurred, conveyed through the church, in the sacraments.
Or, almost as a counter-program against this ecclesiastical administration of the sacraments, this ideal presence of the new is experienced in a
spiritual form, as a transformation of consciousness, as a mysticalrevival that anyone, in principle, can now experience. It is in this waythat two different life forms appear in view of this basic error of thenon-fulfillment of the coming of Christ that characterize the Middle
Ages, perhaps the whole of European history until today; on the one
hand, the mediation of salvation through church, and on the other hand,
the mystical participation in the immutable world beyond, a spiritualexperience conveyed without any institution, or at least a reality that
goes beyond everything institutional.
That is, if you will, the basic structure of apocalyptic thinking that has
characterized all secular movements from the Enlightenment toMarxism, in other words, all movements of historical reform in thisdynamic.

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Three Types of Utopian Ideas
The second term that I introduced earlier, was that of utopia. We said
that European history is dynamic on the one hand as explained in the
Jewish apocalyptic thinking just described, and then, on the other hand,by the expectation taken by Christians, utopia.
Utopias arise from the difference between expectations and reality.
They occur in all cultures, at least in this very general form. They are
therefore—unlike the apocalyptic—culture-specific, but anthropologically given, as when people perceive their current state as
unsatisfactory. They envision a different and better world. The comparative is, if you will, the basic engine of any utopia. Things could bebetter—and one behaves accordingly.
I distinguish between three types of utopias. There are spatial utopias;
one puts the salvific state in another place, i.e., beyond the mountains,
behind the mountains near the seven dwarfs, behind Atlantis, in the landof milk and honey, in El Dorado, Shambhala, etc., as our proverb says:
The grass is greener on the other side. The problem is that up to ahundred or two hundred years ago there were still white spaces on the
map where one could place an ideal world. Today, however, Google
Earth has surveyed the earth completely. Since there is no more spacefor utopias, you have to emigrate: ET - Extraterrestrials! Now we moveutopias somewhere behind the stars into another solar system or, if weare wise, on comets, as these only return after many millions of years.
There have been spatial utopias everywhere, but they have become
obsolete today, although they are still present in science fiction films andbooks.
Temporal utopias are the second model. One shifts the ideal state
either to the beginning of history, or to the end. In the beginning, there
was paradise, Adam and Eve, before this ill-omened story about thesnake and the apple intervened. In the apocalypse we already saw thatthe kingdom of God, which existed in the beginning of time and was
spoiled by human sin, has now eventually returned. This eschatologicalfulfillment had long been expected. It has not yet been established.
During striking marks in time, such as at the turn of the millennium,
there have always been people who have said, “The end is nigh!” But
that has not proven to be true. The problem is that we probably do nothave that much time left, a thousand years or so, as by then we may
have already destroyed the world. The temporal utopia has therefore
become, so to speak, urgent. We must do something, we cannot just wait
until it comes true or does not come true.
Now there is a third utopia, which I call consciousness utopia, i.e., theluther and nichiren

121transformation of human motivation by a spiritual experience, through aspiritual change. This is an age-old story that we already find in the
Bible with the prophet Jeremiah in the 6th century BC.2 According tohim, it is no longer the written law, the Torah, that counts, but God who
writes the law into people’s hearts, meaning a change of spirit, because
in Hebrew, heart means the same as spirit. The same hope is at the
beginning of Jesus of Nazareth’s message, as described in the oldest of
the Gospels, the Gospel of Mark, chapter 1 verse 15: “Repent andbelieve the good news!” (Greek: “metanoeite kai pisteuete en tôeuangeliô”). “Metanoeite” is an imperative that means “turn your entire
consciousness to.” So this is an awareness utopia, a different experience.
Through a completely altered consciousness, people behave differently(well) and use the potential, which was given to them through creation.
The dynamics of these three utopias have all played a part in Europe’s
history, but not just there. Awareness utopias move the transformation of
the world in the consciousness of man. I have already mentioned
Jeremiah. I mentioned Jesus. I could also mention the Buddha. I could
mention Confucius. The appeal of such consciousness utopias isnaturally growing in the face of evil in the world. In history—I am now
only referring to Europe, these three utopias have brought about very
peculiar expectations and patterns of action. They come together tocreate different apocalyptic and utopian models. I would like to illustrate
this with a single example, that of the Renaissance since it is related to
the first of our heroes of this evening: Luther.

3. Transformation of the Sense of Time in the Renaissance
The Renaissance is characterized by the fact that it pushes God backever further. Man takes center stage as an active subject in history, as anactor in history. This is the combination of the self-awareness of thecreative individual and quantifiable time. It is the time of the inventionof modern clocks, which provide a measure of activity independent of
nature. The abstract timing prepared in the Gothic period results in a
uniformly structured and directional sense of purpose and time, whichman, if he recognizes it, can now shape. The new relationship to theworld in science and technology stems from this, which in turnrevolutionizes business; activity through the use of structured time leads
to social structuring and prosperity.
Thus, already in the Renaissance, a differentiation of social strata isconnected with different values and timers: church, nobility, and guilds(incipient bourgeoisie) do not have the same share in this new, modern

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way of life. In addition, the difference between town and country plays amajor role, and that has repercussions to this day. The attitude to life isdetermined by self-motivation: we create it, we go ahead, we are evencreators of our history. This is something new in the Renaissance and it
continues to this day. One no longer dreams of a past in the ancientworld, but experiences its creative impulses as energy that lets thepresent be transformed. For the Renaissance man, that which can beshaped or is shaped is more legitimate than that which was accumulated
in the past; curiosity about what is currently possible is above thefaithful repetition of that which was handed down through tradition.
Each individual is himself the center of the world, and this new way oflife expresses itself in the invention of perspective in painting.
Everything is seen from the individual’s point of view, the “me.” This
characterizes the new consciousness.
Six Factors that Formed European UniquenessIntellectual performance is no longer only found in commentaries to theauthorities (Plato, Aristotle or the Bible); the new medium for selfrealization is one’s own signature, one’s own book, individual
responsibility through one’s own experience and experimentation.
Putting one’s own opinion up for discussion is the new medium of selfrealization. Before this, one commented on the masters of the past; now
one’s own philosophy is introduced. In research, evidence counts. The
author of one of these great Renaissance philosophies, as Pico della
Mirandola wrote, is placed in the “center of the world,” by God so that
he can now “make decisions about himself.” It is no longer myth ortradition that dis-cover the secret of the world for man, but rather worlddiscovering man who creates his own myth!
This new consciousness turns into a movement that penetrates art,
literature, philosophy, arts and crafts, and social restructuring. All thisbegins in the northern Italian cities, but with tremendous speed
encompasses almost all of central Europe at once. How is it possiblethat such a spiritual revolution could suddenly occur in the 15th
century? It seems to me that many factors are interacting here and I wish
to mention just several of them as they let us identify distinctive
intercultural aspects unique to European development. I place emphasison what was special here in Europe. I will quote only six of the eight ornine factors that I have compiled elsewhere.
1. Europe lives in an eccentric identity (Rémi Brague).3 One’s own
center of identity is outside, namely, in ancient Athens and in Hellenistic
Judaism. Every European, in Bavarian schools until this day, has to learn

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one of two foreign languages; Latin or Greek in order to establish theirown identity. This contradiction of learning a foreign language in orderto establish one’s own identity is special. That which one owns, which
we actually possess, turns into the other, increasingly entirely foreign
and incomprehensible insofar as we no longer learn these languages.
2. One must therefore seek that which is one’s own outside. This
causes restlessness and movement in the European development, which—at least to this extent—is not found in other cultures, perhaps with one
exception; the Chinese pilgrim Hsuan-tsang and others in the 6th/7th
century made a pilgrimage to India to the “origins” of their identity, andthe Japanese later followed, going not to India, but to China. The
identity shifted, and that which is one’s own identity is to be found in
the appropriation of what at first was seen as strange or foreign.
Buddhism did indeed originate in India, and almost became extinct
there, something it has in common with Christianity, in that the place oforigin for centuries was hardly visible. Then Buddhism spread to othercultures, which now refer to their origins located outside themselves. I
think this unrest, this momentum created by this fractional identity or, as
Rémi Brague calls it, “eccentric identity,” is the reason for thisenormous momentum of European history.
3. From the Crusades to Columbus to the Renaissance and to thelater imperial world constructions of Europeans—behind all these lie
political and economic calculations, since economic interests are ofcourse always involved, even when claimed to be religious, nostalgia forthe origins of one’s own identity, a return to the sources, which are interpreted as a future possibility of one’s own creation.
4. The Renaissance marks the beginning of something we canperhaps call “freeing oneself from constraints of time pressure,” first as
a vision, then as a social reality for ever broader layers. At the beginningof the 16th century, the time of the Reformation, Thomas Morus in his
book Utopia dreams of a six-hour working day, and in Campanella’s
The City of the Sun from 1602, it is even reduced to four hours ofworking time. The remaining time is intended to serve the freeformation of mind and body, rather than idleness. The freedom of one’s
own employment is therefore a prerequisite for the development of theindividual genius! We are back in the Renaissance.
5. Individuality, power, fame, as well as ‘outsiderness’—just think of
Leonardo da Vinci—are now at the highest levels. Petrarca complained
less about the even running and passing of time, but sings rather about
subjective time: I have time, I can fill it! It’s about how one creates one’s
own time.

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6. Linked to this is a dynamic time, which continues to this day.
Despite the conservatism of the Reformation, this dynamic continues
even with Luther and Calvin, because the individual is not liberated
from religion but is indeed liberated internally. The Reformation
conveys, so to speak, this “Renaissance feeling” from the few geniuses I
mentioned to the masses, especially through the now-possible expectant
education with the establishment of a general education and anemphasis on individual faith and conscience. For Calvin, the idea will be
added that in history the Kingdom of God is always growing. In the
Reformation period this is a completely new idea. His doctrine ofpredestination, Max Weber then commented, very likely contributed tothe economic dynamics in Europe.

4. Crisis Awareness in 13th-century Japan and the Buddhist
Response
So much for European history, the world in which Luther was active andof which he was a product. Let us now jump to Japan, the life-world ofNichiren. A completely different situation prevails there. We have a timelag. We are in the 13th century and Japan was then living in a mythicaltime. The ancestral mother of the Emperor, the prevailing Amaterasu, isthe great figure that determines life, even though the de facto empire in
the political life of the 13th century is weak. It is crushed by thecontending provincial powers, and the regions grow strong—Kamakura
against Kyoto, to name just one example. Military rulers take power, theimperial family retreats more or less back to an aesthetic world. The
wealthy and powerful families, the Fujiwaras, the Hojos among others,
set the tone (as in Europe the Fuggers of Augsburg during the time of
the Reformation).
By this time, Buddhism had already been established long before in
Japan, but was split into many schools—not initially in Japan, butalready in China. It was divided into schools that taught completely
contradicting doctrines. What is valid? What is the original teaching of
the Buddha? People search for truth. And where do they search? They
search at the sources, i.e., first in China. The Chinese, however, haddiscovered that all these are translations and that they must be returnedto the original to find what is valid, to find the norm. So they make apilgrimage, as already mentioned, to India and bring back Sanskrit
Sutras only to discover that there, too, various sources already exist,
which are quite contradictory; the Lotus Sutra, the Prajnaparamita
Sutras, the Avatamsaka Sutra and all the rest of them. They are very

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different. Additionally, the practices by the groups that have formed
around them are even more different than the texts.
Shortly after the lifetime of the Buddha ends, we hear about the firstattempts to organize the teachings and to ascertain how they can beordered pedagogically employing a certain stringency. The mostcommon answer is that in the beginning the Buddha preaches in simple
terms and then, to crown his work, and after the disciples have matured
through practice and study, he preaches the more complex truths. In
China, it was especially Chih-I (538–597) in the Tendai tradition, whoplaced the sutras in a sequence of stages. He was the first to place theLotus Sutra as the highest one, the most complex and not the
Prajnaparamita literature or the Avatamsaka Sutra, as other schools did.
How come? This is what we will follow up with through Nichiren as the
Lotus Sutra is the highest one in this tradition, the ultimate of all sutras,
but the regard for this sutra goes back a long time to the time before
Nichiren in the Tendai school. The other sutras therefore have apreparatory value, that is, they lead to the Lotus Sutra.
The Assertions of Zen and Amida Buddhism
There are other schools in 13th-century Japan. Most notably, there are
two large schools alongside the Nichiren movement that teachsomething completely different. First, the Ch’an movement (Jap. Zen).
These Buddhist groups have no central sutra at all as they reject theauthority of the sutras. To them, these are just words. The innerexperience is what matters most, and this can be gained without the
study of texts. As radical as this may sound, this was the claim in Zen.
However, to be sure, the “rhetoric of immediacy” (B. Faure) has been aclaim that the Zen schools have relied on compared to other Buddhist
traditions. In practice they also referred back to the tradition.4 The
second school, and one that competes with the Nichiren movement, is
Amida Buddhism, the Pure Land tradition. The Jodo-shu or SanskritSukhåvat¥, an ancient Buddhist school, which depends on the vow ofAmitabha (Amida) Buddha to enable people to be reborn in a betterworld where they can find a spiritual awakening more easily than in thischaotic world by placing faith in Amida. This is achieved through thepower of Amida’s vow. The faith in Amida Buddha is what activates thepower of this vow, and that defines this school.
Both, Amida Buddhism and Nichiren criticize Zen as being too elitist.
Occasionally this is heard even today. I myself am a Zen teacher andsometimes hear that this school’s practice is too elitist since it is too
difficult. For who can actually afford to sit silently for hours on a

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cushion? This takes time and it hurts one’s knees, buttocks, andsometimes the soul too. What matters, say both, the Amida Buddhists
and the Nichiren school, is to reach ordinary people. And that is
especially so in Mappo, during the age of the degeneration of the
Buddha’s law, diagnosed as a dark age.
Concepts of Time in Hinduism and Buddhism
And this is the reason why I have put forward the long introduction ofEuropean time and apocalyptic history. We are dealing with similarideas in Buddhism. These go back to the well-known ancient Indian ideaof the world ages of the yugas and kalpas. According to this idea, FourWorld Ages follow each other. They are characterized by increasing
decadence, meaning it is precisely not the case that it goes upward as wehave just seen in the history of Europe, but rather downward. This
decadence for example is also physical, namely, the reduction of
lifetime. The eras also consist of different lengths. In Hinduism, the firstof these ages, the “Krita Yuga,” is 1.728 million years long, the second,the “Treta Yuga,” is 1.296 million years long, the third, the “DvaparaYuga,” is only 864,000 years and the last, the negative age, the “KaliYuga,” is only 432,000 years long.5 These are mythical figures that havesymbolic meaning, but I will not explain the background in detail here.
These Four World Ages follow one another and together form a worldperiod (a kalpa). When this has passed, in principle, it starts all overagain. This proposition is not quite right since, if something starts again,
and the whole structure has already been there before, then it is not thesame as if it had never been there before. Neither Hinduism nor
Buddhism teaches the recurrence of the same.
The world process has no beginning in time. Through expansion andcontraction, one universe after the other is created and destroyed again
and again in a cyclic oscillation over immeasurable periods. Buddhism
also mainly teaches this concept of time. Our present time, in any case,is physically and mentally weak and, especially in 13th-century Japan,
one discovers the signs of this negative time in Japan’s inner conflict;civil wars of the most hideous kind, a decline of spirituality in themonasteries, no more meditating, and people stop living according to
the rules of decency. There is poverty in the world. Natural disasters
occur and, politically of course, particularly tangible in Nichiren’s time,is the invasion of the Mongols who, as was known, had alreadydevastated the whole of central Asia and were now planning to also
occupy Japan.

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5. Nichiren’s Buddhist Reformation
Due to this decadence and dark course of events of the almost imminentend of this Yuga, Nichiren comes and says: We need a very concentrated
form of religion!6 Honen and Shinran (Amida Buddhism) also come andclaim: We want a very concentrated form of religion, which is faith inAmida. And then enters the Zen master Dogen and other great Zen
masters who at this time studied in China and came back to Japan, andsay: We need a particularly concentrated form of religion, which is thepractice of Zen. In the context of an oppressive and therefore urgent
time, something occurs in Buddhism, which never happened before, atleast not this acutely, namely, the confrontation of individual schoolopinions which stand in direct opposition to one another as if to say:
“Only my school sets the standards and can save people.” Previously,
diversity in Buddhism was largely (though not always) addressed withtolerance. One could accept different opinions and practices. One argued
about what the faster or slower way was, but acknowledged that theothers also went legitimate Buddhist ways. An exclusivity enters at thispoint, which, though not only dependent on the pressing time, is related
to it.
The Symbol of the Sun—Renewal and Transformation in LifeI am now discussing Nichiren (1222–1282), whose name alreadysuggests something, which is perhaps important for an understanding,for a taste we can get if we move back to the Japan of the 13th century.
Nichiren means “Sun Lotus.” It is a solar symbolism associated withthis monk’s name. The symbolism of the sun is in all religions, but inJapan in a very special way, the symbolism of creative power. At
Futamigaura beach in Japan, two rocks are wed to each other by ropes,
symbolizing the mythical primordial pair, the Izanagi and Izanami, andpeople sit reverently on the beach and see this connection of renewal
and transformation. This is what connects Nichiren with the name itself.
But the daimoku, the title, “Nam-myoho-renge-kyo,” he exclaimed
while facing the sun at sunrise on May 26th, 1253.7 So the central
practice of Nichiren-shu has something to do with the symbolism of thesun affiliated with this symbol of the strength of transformation in life.
There is always a link between cosmic events in such rituals, in thiscase the sun, the stars, and so on, with the life of the individual, withspiritual awakening, or as we say sometimes, with enlightenment. It is acosmic and, at the same time, spiritual event. Spiritual growth—I takethe European concept of progress—arises when both are in balance, the128… luther and nichiren
design, the progress of people and the progress of the cosmos.
“Nichiren is One of the Great Religious Critics of Humanity”
But Nichiren now adds something that has not been or was not as strong
a theme in the other Buddhist schools, for he says that religion mustchange the political world, and that it makes no sense otherwise. I can
indulge myself in cosmic rituals and look at them with great aesthetic
benefit and certainly have my mental immersions. I can sit on themeditation cushion and have deep spiritual experiences while outside
people butcher each other in front of the Zen-do. But Nichiren comesand says that this will not do! Because if we think about the unity of allliving beings meditatively, in our prayers, in our imagination, then we
have to politically ensure that at least gradually this unity is realized.
Nichiren is, as I see it, the first real political Buddhist.
He accuses the Amida Buddhists, with whom he otherwise has muchin common, of failing to motivate their believers to take political action,although their spiritual practice of focusing on the name of Amida
through recitation was perfectly acceptable. Buddhism must change theworld. I want to recite some very nice ideas from the preface Werner
Kohler wrote to Margareta von Borsig’s “Life of the Lotus Flower.”
Werner Kohler was the first German theologian who engaged seriouslywith Nichiren Buddhism and seriously with the Soka Gakkai already inthe 1960s. He writes about the Soka Gakkai, which emerged out of
Nichiren Buddhism and tries to apply what Nichiren found in the 13th
century to the present time:“Religion leads in this case [with Nichiren and the entire Nichiren
development] to a completely new lifestyle, which is reflected indynamic interpersonal structures. Individuals are organized in smallergroups, which in turn belong to larger groups. All groups have their
responsible leaders. These leaders are again organized hierarchically.
Mass events at which its own ballet companies, theater groups, sports
associations, schools and universities march, all belong to the appearance of this modern religion.”8“Nichiren’s significance is that he recognized the political andeducational consequences of Bodhisattvahood and developed these intheory and practice.” This is one of Kohler’s main propositions, which I
will take up when I talk about Luther.
Consequently, religion is not only, as so often in history, a projectionof and stabilizing moment in power relations. In other words, while itcan serve to resist the forces of power, “religion can also suffer from thesame ailments it attempts to resist.” It was this insight that makesluther and nichiren

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Nichiren, severely criticizing the religion of the time, one of the great
religious critics of humanity.
Criticism of religion is not only found in connection with the name ofKarl Marx, Feuerbach, or Mao Zedong, but also with Nichiren. With
one major difference; Nichiren, Luther and other reformers, but also
already the Israelite prophets who sharply attack the temple cult, arepeople who do not throw out the baby with the bathwater, but wantrather to purify religion, the core, to bring forth the essence and fight all
mismanagement in the area of religion.
Once again, Werner Kohler:“We are talking about a man who, in the face of natural disasters,
famine, mismanagement and the threat of war, stood up impatiently tofight and not to leave his fellow human beings alone.”That of course angered his contemporaries, and not only them; just as
Luther angered his contemporaries and not only them, just as theprophet Jeremiah and Isaiah angered all their contemporaries, and not
only them. However, this is something very ‘un-Buddhist.’ One is
Buddhist when one is completely calm and seated, and remains stilleven if the world were to come to an end. This was largely (but notalways!) the Buddhist attitude through the centuries, and politically,
Buddhism stabilizes the power relations as they are. The same can be
examined in the history of Christianity and many other religions as well.
“Women’s Attainment of Buddhahood” as a Revolutionary Assertion
Nichiren is uncomfortable. He wrote the first major work, the Risshoankoku-ron [On Establishing the Correct Teaching for the Peace of theLand] (1260), in response to his great “experience” with the Lotus
Sutra. What he wrote there is revolutionary. While it is all contained in
the teachings of the Buddha, as he preached it and tried to live it, it was
not enforced in the history of Buddhism, such as in the actual practice.
All living things can become Buddhas; including the poor and above all—quite revolutionary—women! Shantideva, the great scholar thought tohave lived in the 8th century was still praying intimately in his important
text Bodhisattvacaryåvatåra: “May all women be reborn as men.”That was a pious hope as only men could attain enlightenment. It
would be a better world if all were reborn as men. No, women can attain
Buddhahood as women—for Nichiren’s contemporaries, this was a
revolution, and he takes this from the 12th chapter of the Lotus Sutra.
And now the disagreement with his colleagues occurs, with thereformers of the 13th-century Shinran and Honen. In his book,
Senchakushu Honen declared that the practice of the Lotus Sutra was130… luther and nichiren
superfluous. Only chanting the name of Amida should be accepted.
Nichiren explains the practice of Amida Buddhism as completely
unnecessary and that only the Lotus Sutra is acceptable. This is
obviously a power struggle, and a competition between the schools
arises, vying for influence. However, we find the same regarding Luther.
In a historically extremely precarious situation, such radicalism isperhaps inevitable. However, we must be careful that we do not simply
apply this to the present day and just continue copying this aggressive
style of Nichiren only because it comes from him and we revere him.
We need to understand it in context and in its time. Just as with Luther,
Lutheran Christians should go to school and read his writing On theFreedom of a Christian (1520), but please not only because it is from
Luther, and do not repeat the slanderous things he wrote about the Jews
because that was catastrophic.
The Concentration of Buddhist Essentials
I would like now to present an excerpt from Nichiren’s writings:
There is no true happiness for human beings other than chanting Nammyoho-renge-kyo. The sutra reads, “. . . where living beings enjoy
themselves at ease.” How could this passage mean anything but theboundless joy of the Law? Surely you are included among the “living
beings.” “Where” means Jambudv¥pa, and Japan lies within
Jambudv¥pa. Could “enjoy themselves at ease” mean anything but thatboth our bodies and minds, lives and environments, are entities of three
thousand realms in a single moment of life and Buddhas of limitlessjoy? There is no true happiness other than upholding faith in the Lotus
Sutra. This is what is meant by “peace and security in their present
existence and good circumstances in future existences.” “Thoughworldly troubles may arise, never let them disturb you. No one can
avoid problems, not even sages or worthies.”9Three thousand realms in a single moment of life is an image, which
expresses that the whole world is one. If this is so, according toNichiren’s determination, then it must also be political, socially, indealing with those in power. That is what Nichiren says here and callsfor. And that is where Nichiren is quite practical:“Drink sake only at home with your wife, and chant Nam-myoho-rengekyo. Suffer what there is to suffer, enjoy what there is to enjoy. Regard
both suffering and joy as facts of life, and continue chanting Nam-luther and nichiren

131

myoho-renge-kyo, no matter what happens. How could this be anythingother than the boundless joy of the Law? Strengthen your power of faithmore than ever.”10

This reduction of religion to a very significant core is perhaps theother characteristic in addition to its intolerance, a certain
aggressiveness that he has. He justified this reduction as follows: Man isa whole body but the essence of man is reflected in the face and that is
only one sixth of the whole, but because the way the face is, you canalready connect it to the whole body, and the face can again be reduced
to its gaze, the eyes. We look another in the eye and know immediately
if they are sleeping, awake, skeptical or open-minded. His eyes are apars pro toto—the part stands for the whole. And Nichiren says that,
likewise, the whole of the Lotus Sutra is contained in its title, and hesays it is enough to recite the title, you do not need to read the entire
Lotus Sutra.11 Of course, you read it anyway, and yes, of course,
Nichiren also read it and attached importance to interpreting it; this canbe read in all his letters. But in his rhetoric, he says the title alone issufficient. Why? Because what matters is to bundle and condense thespirit, the energy, the power that lies in this sutra so that it permeates ourwhole life in all its activities. This recitation of Nam-myoho-renge-kyo
is what Paul means when he writes “pray without ceasing.”12
But how can I pray without ceasing if I have scattered thoughts in myhead? That cannot be done. Distraction leads to problems in everyday
life, and therefore to disasters, if one thinks for example of road traffic.
But if consciousness is quite aware of only one formula, only one
thought, when everything is concentrated, then one can cope with alltasks in life with this concentrated mind. Incidentally, this is no different
in Zen. We see then that this rhetoric of demarcation, which stems fromthe political situation of the time, is not entirely justified if one looks at
it in practice.

6. The Five “Solas” of Luther’s Reformation
Now let us turn to Luther (1483–1546). Martin Luther’s main thesis is
the solus/sola. He has five solae, which in Latin are: sola gratia, solafide, sola scriptura, solus Christus, and soli Deo gloria. This means: bygrace alone, through faith alone, scripture alone, in Christ alone, andglory to God alone. Luther is also about going against the corruption of
the church. This is how the whole story began in 1517. It’s about goingagainst selling indulgences, where one would buy salvation with money.

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His struggle is also about the struggle against the central dictatorship of
the Pope or the Emperor or both, (rarely, but sometimes they were inalliance), and it also goes against the enemy from the outside (thesewere the Turks, who were approaching Vienna at the time). And it isabout concentrating on the essentials, concentrating on the spiritual
power that belongs to the people, which is translated as “grace,” which
can be enjoyed by those who open themselves to this divine presence,
which can only be judged by the scriptures, and not by any othercustoms. And in the Holy Scriptures, the Bible, in turn, many contradictions can be found, and if this is the case, then one should accept
Christ’s interpretation as the only criterion.
Again, we see this reduction to a single formula, given the difficulties
in the world and especially in view of the fact that you want to reachordinary people, the non-educated. Indeed, only those who spoke Latin
could read the Bible, and they were few. There was no Bible in German.
Of course there were previous attempts to make the Bible accessible tocommon people (Biblia pauperum) but that was done through image
stories using stained glass windows in the cathedrals, for example.13
Again we find the practice of a simple formula, and that constitutes, inmy opinion, the core of this whole Reformation movement.
Man, Connected to “Love” While Being “Free”
The revolutionary and central idea is what Luther called the priesthoodof all believers. We have just heard that Nichiren emphasized theBuddhahood and Bodhisattvahood of all living beings, even those of
women, and that for Luther, the priesthood of all believers also meansthat this refers to everyone not just a specific group, not just men, notonly ordained priests, but that all people share the same position in
relation to God. This was revolutionary, since if everyone has the same
immediate access to the divine, then there really is no need for an
institution to convey this. Its only purpose—and that was this recognition—is to convey religious self-responsibility. This is what theReformers did to establish schools. The institution is there to pass on the
tradition so that it remains unadulterated, while individuals can andshould absorb it to the extent possible. This is the requirement, or we
could say the condition for the development of autonomous, individual,
self-confident people—even in religion. It is the condition for the
freedom of man.
I would like to quote the beginning of what is perhaps Luther’s most
famous writing, On the Freedom of a Christian, one of the mainreformatory writings:

luther and nichiren

133“A Christian man is the freest lord of all, and subject to none.”
This first sentence was an incredible provocation for which one
usually would be sentenced to death. And even today in most parts of
the world this sentence is an outrageous statement that would beprosecuted. However, now follows the sentence:“A Christian man is the most dutiful servant of all, and subject toeveryone.”
This is contradictory, and in this dialectical contradiction Lutherdevelops his anthropology. I read out two paragraphs, but one reallyneeds the whole scripture to explain it:“They are both the statements of Paul himself, who says: ‘Though I be
free from all men, yet have I made myself servant unto all’ (1 Cor. ix.
19), and: ‘Owe no man anything, but to love one another’ (Rom. xiii.
8).”This is the bond that is the bondage.
Now love is by its own nature dutiful and obedient to the beloved
object. Thus even Christ, though Lord of all things, was yet made of awoman; made under the law. So freedom and devotion, freedom andservitude are two sides of the same coin. I will not go into detail here,
but I highly recommend studying this work, or at least the records that I
have extracted for further reflection. It is still exciting and a dialecticalunity.
Luther and the Jewish Question
Luther’s radicalism intensified during his doubt-filled time. He isoutlawed; anyone who finds him could kill him. He escapes to Wartburgwith the help of his princes and wise councilors, particularly through thehelp of the chancellor and Luther’s friend, Gregor von Brück and others,
to counter potential plots against him, to live undiscovered and to translate his Bible. Luther stands out because of his radicalism. He did notcare for the somewhat quieter tones, those seeking harmony and those
aimed at an attempt toward unification as carried out by Melanchthon,14
Justus Jonas,15 Gregor von Brück and others at the Diet of Augsburg in
1530. He sat at Coburg and wanted to be radical because he wanted toreduce everything to one, to the essential one. Quite dramatically, thisradicalism then turns to anti-Judaism, which can be found both inLuther’s early and late phases. In the beginning, he tries to appeal to thegood sense of the Jews; he wants to proselytize them. He takes them
seriously as people, as a partner. But that changes by the 1530s. The

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Jews are expelled from Bohemia. There are certain migration pressures,
Luther sees the Reformation threatened and demands on his part that the
Jews be expelled from Protestant territories, that their property be
confiscated, and so forth.
All this we come to learn later in history. Increasingly, and that issomething that sounds so terrible in the rhetoric, Jews—like the Roma—are already considered to be the accomplices of the Turks around1530. The external military threat becomes an opportunity thatradicalized the matter within the rhetoric and Luther’s actual politicaleffect.
Shortly before 1546, that is to say, shortly before his death, he writes
that the Jews should be either baptized or driven away. This is connectedwith the fact that Luther’s apocalyptic faith is getting stronger. Again,
we see a psychologically similar situation as that in 13th-century Japan.
One must consider the signs point to a civil war between Protestants andCatholics due to the failure of the great attempt to reach an agreement at
the Diet in Augsburg in 1530. There are still a few meetings, such as
Regensburg, which also fail. There is power, money, monastery, andproperty at stake. All signs point to war and Luther wonders: Was it
necessary? Did I act correctly? In his belief, he was convinced that hehad the correct interpretation and that the interpretation of the biblicalmessage and the papists were wrong. But is the political consequence,the division of Germany and Europe, really right? Can that be? Lutherhas doubts, and like all doubters, shifts the matter to the outside. Here it
is above all the Jews who are now coated with an unparalleled scatologythat he includes in one of his books, On the Jews and Their Lies, in1543. So here, too, we find a radicalization in light of the circumstances.

7. Nichiren and Luther Developed Four Kinds of Innovation
I conclude with a certain summation and synopsis. In Nichiren, we finda struggle against other Buddhist schools. In Luther, we find a struggle
against all who do not acknowledge his central idea, the justification ofman by faith alone. In both, we find the reduction of all religion to a
spiritually simple formula. With Luther, sola gratia, by grace alone, andwith Nichiren, Nam-myoho-renge-kyo. I present another short quotefrom Nichiren:“You asked whether one can attain Buddhahood only by chanting Nammyoho-renge-kyo, and this is the most important question of all. This is
the heart of the entire sutra and the substance of its eight volumes.”16

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135

He then goes on using the eye and the face as representations of the
body and continues:17“Everything has its essential point, and the heart of the Lotus Sutra is its
title, or the daimoku, of Nam-myoho-renge-kyo. Truly, if you chant thisin the morning and evening, you are correctly reading the entire Lotus
Sutra. Chanting daimoku twice is the same as reading the entire sutra
twice, one hundred daimoku equal one hundred readings of the sutra,
and one thousand daimoku, one thousand readings of the sutra. Thus, if
you ceaselessly chant daimoku, you will be continually reading theLotus Sutra.”18

In short, a reduction to the essentials, so that individuals can practice itin difficult situations. Luther’s sola gratia is similar.
What is the core, the result of the reformatory actions of these tworeligious critics? First, we are dealing with a liturgical, a cultic
revolution. Luther changed the principle or the basic act, the ordinanceon which the whole church, the whole of Christianity was built in theEuropean Occident, namely, mass. Before Luther, in the medieval
church, mass was considered a sacrifice that man offered to God. Lutherturns this upside down by saying that we celebrate the sacrifice that God
has offered to the people, and you will only become righteous throughfaith alone and not because you take it upon yourself to sacrificeyourself. With that, man is independent of the institution. A revolutionof this kind can be sensed in a somewhat different way again by
Nichiren’s reduction, the way he traces everything back to theGohonzon.
The second revolution is a religious-social revolution; Luther’s
priesthood of all believers and Nichiren’s Buddhahood and Bodhisattvahood of all people.
The third revolution I would call a psychological revolution: what we
may call bounded freedom, a freedom, which is bound by and with love.
This means that I am free, but I am free to act and this act binds me inthe sense of love, that is the connection with everyone and everything,
not just those to whom I am devoted to emotionally anyway, that is, myfriends or relatives, but all living beings, including those to whom I am
not emotionally attached. This is what in Christianity was called thelove of enemies. That is what in the Eastern religions, not only in
Buddhism, is called love and compassion towards all living beings,
including opponents.
The fourth revolution, the political revolution, is in fact founded as a

136… luther and nichiren
new Samgha, or in the West, a new church. It is a new institution thatshould withstand the pressure of the end time that both Luther andNichiren sense. But this culminates in a community of believers, and notin isolating individuals. In light of the persecutions, the images of theend time, and the political pressure of a new Samgha, it is a newcommunity.
Creating Political Reality from Spiritual Experience
I would like to conclude with a phrase that I formulated only as aquestion, namely, the problematic of both. Luther ends, as alreadystated, with this attitude toward the Jews not only completely unacceptable to us, but also to his contemporaries. Nichiren ends with an
exclusivity over other Buddhist schools, which was unacceptable not
only to us from today’s perspective, but already many of his contemporaries: so exclusivism and absolutism. Maybe that is the danger intimes of tyranny, when the discourse of peaceful confrontation becomes
impossible.
If we want to look at the political situation in 13th-century Japan, andwant to evaluate the rhetoric, then perhaps we must compare it with therhetoric that prevails in some dictatorships. For example, if theprofessing church had stood up against Nazism, and theologians like
Karl Barth had propagated an exclusivist rhetoric, an exclusivist
interpretation. Accordingly, only this gospel should be accepted andeverything else is void or related to the devil. This rhetoric implies anabsolutism in order to confront the pressure of political tyranny. When
we read Nichiren and others such as Karl Barth we can learn somethingfrom this problematic trend that can undoubtedly be found in Nichiren
as in Luther, namely, that in times of tyranny, indeed very clear andunambiguous action and probably even exclusivist actions may benecessary. However, this cannot be transferred to a time in which people
can hold dialogue and learn together in the discourse of friendly
acceptance.
And this shared learning is, if you will, the conclusion: The reading of
Nichiren, the reading of Luther, can inspire us to create a politicalreality from spiritual experience. This is as necessary today as it was in
Nichiren’s 13th century or in Luther’s 16th century. I want to encourage
us all to continue working in this direction.

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Notes
“We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling ofan eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised
imperishable, and we shall be changed” (1 Corinthians. 15: 51–53, English Standard
Version).
2“For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days,
declares the Lord: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts”(Jeremiah 31:33, ESV).
3
French philosopher born in 1947, specializing mainly in medieval and Arabic
philosophy.
4
Bernard Faure, Professor at Columbia University Department of Religion. Mainly
engaged in the study of Japanese Buddhism, wrote The Rhetoric of Immediacy—Zen
Cultural Critique of Chan / Zen Buddhism (Princeton, 1991) as his main work.
5
Also referred to as the “Satya Yuga.”
6
Yuga is a Hindu concept described as the current cycle of time. In this case, Shoho,
Zoho, and Mappo (Buddhist time periods defined as the Former, Middle, and Latter Dayof the Law, respectively), though different concepts, are superimposed.
7
Nichiren Buddhism Establishment Day is expressed in the Gregorian calendar as thecurrent solar calendar. The 28th day of April in the fifth year of the Ken-cho era in theJapanese calendar.
8
Presumed reference to the cultural festivals organized by Soka Gakkai.
9
The Writings of Nichiren Daishonin Volume I (WND-1), Tokyo: Soka Gakkai, 1999,
p. 681.
10
WND-1, p. 681.
11
“The spirit within one’s body of five or six feet may appear in just one’s face, which
is only a foot long, and the spirit within one’s face may appear in just one’s eyes, which
are only an inch across. Included within the two characters representing Japan is all thatis within the country’s sixty-six provinces: the people and the animals, the rice paddies
and the other fields, those of high and low status, the nobles and the commoners, theseven kinds of treasures and all the other precious gems. Similarly, included within thetitle, or daimoku, of Nam-myoho-renge-kyo is the entire sutra consisting of all eight
volumes, twenty-eight chapters, and 69,384 characters, without the omission of a single
character” (WND-1, p. 922).
12
1 Thessalonians 5:17, ESV.
13
Biblia pauperum is Latin for Paupers’ Bible.
14
German humanist and professor at Wittenberg University. Although at first
sympathetic to Luther, ideological differences between the two became increasingly
pronounced.
15
German lawyer, humanist, and Lutheran theologian. He aided the Reformation as atranslator.
16
WND-1, p. 922.
17
Note 11 is incorporated herein by reference.
18
WND-1, p. 923.
1

138… luther and nichiren
Author Biography
Michael von Brück is a German theologian and eminent professor of religious studies.
He works in the field of comparative religious philosophy, especially within Hinduism,
Buddhism and Christianity, and on the hermeneutics of interreligious dialogue. He
studied in Germany and later in India and Japan. Until his retirement at the end of thesummer semester in 2014, he served as head of the Interfaculty Program of Religious
Studies and Chair of the Department of Religious Studies at the Ludwig Maximilian
University of Munich. He was the founder and editor of the journal Dialogue of
Religions. He has written numerous books on Buddhism and its relation to Christianity,
which are regarded as standard works. These include; Grundzüge einer modernen
Anthropologie (with Günter Rager, 2012), Leben in der Kraft der Rituale. Religion undSpiritualität in Indien (with Regina von Brück, 2011), Religion—Segen oder Fluch der
Menschheit? (2008), Ewiges Leben oder Wiedergeburt? Sterben, Tod und Jenseitshoffnung in europäischen und asiatischen Kulturen (2007), Einführung in den
Buddhismus (2007), Bhagavad Gita. Der Gesang des Erhabenen (2004), Wie Zen mein
Christsein verändert (with Willigis Jäger, 2004), Wie können wir leben? Religion undSpiritualität in einer Welt ohne Maß (2002), Buddhismus und Christentum. Geschichte,
Konfrontation, Dialog (with Whalen Lai, 1997), Die Welt des tibetischen Buddhismus(with Regina von Brück, 1996), Weisheit der Leere. Sutra-Texte des indischen
Mahayana-Buddhismus (1989).