lotus matrix graphic

Deep Zange

by Richard Causton, late Director General of SGI-UK

This article was originally published in the UK Express in March 1979.

"Sincere repentance will eradicate even immutable karma, to say nothing of karma which is mutable."
('On prolonging life', Major Writings of Nichiren Daishonin p954)

What does Zange mean? Most people would answer, "It means apologising to the Gohonzon". "But apologising to whom and for what?" we reasonably reply. " After all, the Gohonzon isn't God, so why should I have to apologise, especially if it is for something I did in a past life which I don't even know about? Sounds like Confession!"

Yet the Gosho persists: "Even with small slanders," the Konichibo Gosho reads "if you do not do zange you cannot avoid falling into the evil paths. But even if you committed heavy slander, if you do zange then you can expiate your sins" (Gosho Zenshu, p926). Whilst the gosho Reply to Ota Nyudo declares: "The Nirvana Sutra, referring to the Lotus Sutra states, 'Even slander of the True Law will be eradicated if one repents and professes faith in the True Law... He should devote himself to the True Law, because no other teaching can save and protect him'." (Major Writings of Nichiren Daishonin, p?)

What then does zange truly mean and how can we actually do it, deep in our lives?

Those who have felt like zange sounds like confession can certainly be fully excised for their misconceptions, for zange, a word used in ancient Buddhist scriptures, was adopted much later in history by Christian missionaries in Japan as meaning "to reget past sins and confess them to a priest or God" . It is not surprising therefore, that for us born into the Christian tradition in the West, zange can be easily misinterpreted. The original Buddhist definition of this word however, is totally different. It is contained in the "Boddhisatva Fugen Sutra" and reads as follows: "If you wish to do zange, sit upright and meditate on the true entity of life". This is further defined in Buddhist terms as "pondering the cause of your past slander and sin due to your ignorance and illusions about life. Thus by realising the true aspect of your life and revealing your Buddha wisdom, you can then do zange".

In other words, rather than apology, zange is to recognise with your whole heart and with inevitable regret, that your present suffering is due to an inherent cause in your life, which led you to slander the Gohonzon in your past lives but also continues to cause you to do so in this life. In this context, to uderstand the true meaning of zange it is necessary to appreciate three important points:

  1. That Buddhism explains the Ten Factors of Life that the Law of Cause and Effect manifests itself in four different ways. They are Nyoze-in, Nyoze-en, Nyoze-ka and Nyoze-ho - the inherent cause, the external cause, the latent effect and the manifest effect. As an example of this, if you stir what looks like a glass of pure water with a spoon and it becomes murky, the cause of the murkiness is not the spoon (which is the external cause) but the fact there is dirt in the water (inherent cause). Thus what Buddhism is concerned with is not the spoon but the dirt in the water, which is our unhappy karma. From this it becomes clear, that it doesn't matter in the least what we actually did in the past, i.e. the external cause - hating someone or stopping someone from practising; what matters is the inherent cause which made us behave like this, because the same inherent cause may still exist deep in our life and therefore is causing us suffering now.
  2. Slandering the Law is not only speaking against Buddhism, hating someone, preventing someone from practising or causing disunity among members, even though these may be some of its most evil forms. Slander is in fact any avtion which involves disrespect for life. Thus pollution, injustice , misusing another person's possessions or money and of course, murder and other criminal acts, are all slander. Even to misuse one's body by eating and drinking too much is slander. Because we all posess the six lower worlds, especially the Three Evil Paths in our lives, we cannot, in fact, help committing small slanders even when we are practising, which is one of the main reasons why "practise like flowing water" is so important; thereby we continually make great causes which offset our inadvertent slander.
  3. Whereas there can be a myriad different forms of external causes of slandering the Law and it is usually quite impossible and indeed, truly unnecessary and undesirable to try to imagine which particular ones we committed in the past, the inherent cause is in fact, unbelievably simple and fundamental. It is one of the Three Poisons which beset our lives and every other human life in this world. In other words, it is either greed, anger or ignorance of the true meaning and nature of life itself; that ignorance which breeds not only blind stupidity but fear - especially fear of the unknown. Why should we suffer from gree or anger or fear? There is only one answer isn't there? We are greedy and try to grab all we can in this life; we manifest anger in the form of arrogance or contempt because we wish to wield power; we are fearful and lack confidence in ourselves erecting barriers and screens to hide our true nature - only because we doubt (in other words slander) the unlimited power of the Gohonzon and especially that it exists nowhere but in ourselves. If we knew without a shadow of doubt that the Gohonzon - the Buddha state, source of all courage, wisdom, compassion and good fortune - shone within us, anger, greed and ignorance or fear would naturally be overcome and with them the sufferings we are undergoing because of them. This is exactly as the Lotus Sutra declared: "If you wish to do zange, sit upright and meditate on the true entity of life, and all your offences will vanish like frost and dewdrops in the sunlight of enlightened wisdom ". The true entity of life is of course, the Gohonzon or Nam-myoho-renge-kyo.

Perhaps it is now becoming clear to the reader that deep zange is the process of:

This is the process often described as "reflection, repentance, appreciation, determination and devoted practice which is called zange."

Thus true Buddhism with its brilliant light penetrates beyond surface matters and external causes to the depths of life - to the very source of our agony - turning sufferings into enlightenment and posion into good medicine - as we determinedly chant daimoku, not with lingering guilt but with the resolve that we should at last feel and realise that the Buddha state is actively working in our lives. As we do so the ignorance on which greed, anger and fear have fed themselves for so long, disappears as our faith grows stronger and we become free.

"If the Japanese repent, they will be like King Ajatashatru who became a devout follower of Buddhism, thereby curing his own leprosy and prolonging his life by forty years. Like Ajatashatru, they will profess faith in spite of their earlier disbelief, and awaken to the eternity of life." (Nichiren Daishonin, MW p?).

It is of course, valuable to do a form of zange every day during gongyo, expressing our sincere regret for any slander we have committed, knowingly or unknowingly, in the past. Needless to say, this should be heartfelt, not automatic and should be followed by our fresh determinations to fulfil the Buddha's will for kosen-rufu. However it is important we realise that this is not the deep zange described in this article. This is a most profound experience in that it is directed towards a particular aspect of our karma and brings about a radical change in our lives, through actual proof of our Buddha nature at work in an area in which we have never seen it in action before. Indeed it is this actual proof living vividly in our minds that will prevent this tendency to slander from taking control of our minds again.

We may need to do such a deep zange again to change our karma in some other area of our lives but it is unlikely to be something we could achieve every day. For to achieve such a deep and specific zange is usually a struggle over a period of time to bring the reality of the fact that one is a slanderer from just a passing thought or theory in our minds, to a reality which fills our whole lives with deep regret, gratitude for having the Gohonzon and determination to work for kosen-rufu as we have never worked before. Once achieved it is as if the bars of a prison in which we have been incarcerated for as long as we can remember, have suddenly fallen away.

Mr. Satorno Izumi, vice-president of the Soka Gakkai, who wrote in Guidelines in Faith and has practised for forty-five years, once said, as an example, that if you stole a watch twenty years ago, you are bound at some point to feel really sorry for this when you are in front of the Gohonzon and express your sincere regret whilst chanting daimoku. However this is not necessarily a deep and specific zange aimed at rooting out the inherent cause for stealing. Such deep zange is a total realisation of the way in which you have hurt that person's life as well as your own, followed by an overwhelming desire to give him ten thousand gold watches if you could only do so, in order to overcome the sufferings which you now realise the inherent cause for this action has brought to you in this and many other different ways throughout your life.

 

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