At first glance, a book that sets out to find common ground between figures as diverse as Rabindranath Tagore and Nichiren Daishonin is liable to evoke curiosity and perhaps some amount of incredulity
At first glance, a book that sets out to find common ground between figures as diverse as Rabindranath Tagore and Nichiren Daishonin is liable to evoke curiosity and perhaps some amount of incredulity as well. What might a 19th century humanistic poet and philosopher such as Tagore have in common with a 13th century Buddhist monk from Japan who originated a school of philosophy that is becoming increasingly popular in 21st century India The two are not as distinct as chalk and cheese, as they might seem at the outset.
Finding Peace: An Oriental Quest is a surprisingly slim book (176 pages) for the task it undertakes for itself. I do baulk, though, at Asian philosophies being termed “oriental”, given the charge of “orientalism” it carries, and thereby of the patronising Western gaze on anything Asian. However, it becomes apparent as one delves into the book that the interpretations of the Asian philosophies and philosophers in question that author Koushiki Choudhury offers, are far from being reductionist or essentialist in their intent and content.
The author’s explication of Nichiren Buddhism at the outset is rather informative, especially for those of us who might not know much about it. Buddhism, in its two millennia of existence, has fractured and spawned more schools of thought and philosophy than perhaps any other religion that began from a single philosophical seed. (I do not include Hindu schools of philosophy in this because they obviously did not have a single point of origin like Buddhism.) The Buddha Sakyamuni’s teachings were officially recorded at the “First Council” during the first monsoon after his death in 483 BCE.
Nothing had been written down during the 80 years or so of his lifetime. So, in effect, what we consider the Buddha’s own words are actually his reported words and the sutras are all based on hearsay.
Perhaps for this reason, right from the outset — and especially after the Buddhist Sangha split up for the first time 100 years after the Buddha’s death into Theravada and Mahayana — the Buddha’s words have been interpreted differently by different individuals while remaining under the larger banyan tree of “Buddhism”.
In Finding Peace, the author decidedly adopts the view that Nichiren Daishonin, the originator of Nichiren Buddhism, finally pinpointed the crux of the Buddha’s teachings, some 2,000 years after the latter’s death.
In a nutshell, Daishonin claimed that the Lotus Sutra, a Mahayana Buddhist text purportedly taught by the Buddha towards the end of his life, holds the entire distillation of his core philosophy. It states that Buddha nature — the ability to achieve nirvana — is inherent in all beings and is achievable in this very lifetime and in this very form. This interpretation of the Lotus Sutra forms the basis of Nichiren Buddhism, along with the chanting of the mantra — Nam-myoho-renge-kyo, which exalts the Lotus Sutra and is said to have transformative properties that work at all levels of being.
Much can be said about this particular interpretation of the Buddha’s philosophy, but that is beyond the scope of this review. Here, it would suffice to say that Choudhury has done a commendable job of presenting Nichiren philosophy in a way that makes it accessible to a lay reader. For Choudhury, Nichiren philosophy comprises the essence of the Buddha’s teachings. What makes for an interesting weave, as witnessed in this book, is the extrapolation of the warp of Tagore’s poetry and philosophy upon the weft of Nichiren Buddhism.
A very well-known poem of Tagore’s includes these lines: “I dive down into the depth of the ocean of forms/hoping to gain the perfect pearl of the formless.” I was reminded of these while reading Finding Peace. Tagore’s vast body of writings — literary, reformist, educational, poetic, philosophical — appear as an ocean, in which the author dips time and again and emerges with a “perfect pearl” of an insight or idea. Holding this pearl to the light of Nichiren philosophy, she is able to come to conclusions and insights that are complementary to one another, to say the least.
A question might arise — is this complementarity forced It is not necessarily so. For instance, in the chapter “Oneness of Life and its Environment”, the author begins with the Buddhist view of interdependence and dependent origination, where everything is related and connected to everything else, quoting Nichiren Buddhism’s teaching that “a universal law lies behind everything in the universe, and that all lives are interconnected”. The chapter proceeds to outline how our outer environment is a reflection of our inner environment, and “if we change the state of our lives, our circumstances will certainly change as well”. Delineating Nichiren Buddhism’s views on nature and the self, the author presents Tagore’s love for nature as a reflection of the divine, along with the Upanishadic belief in the oneness of all life. In this way, common strands are revealed through the book, in chapters studded with lines from Tagore’s exquisite poetry.
What is also palpable is the author’s effort to make both Nichiren Buddhism and Tagore’s philosophy relevant to contemporary concerns. Chapters that focus on materialism, diversity, ecology, death and other issues that plague modern life ensure that it is indeed so.
Swati Chopra writes on spirituality, mindfulness and contemplative practices. Blog: swatichopra.com
