Point One, concerning King Wonderful Adornment
Words and Phrases, volume ten, says, “The words ‘Wonderful Adornment’ refer to the way in which the benefits of the Wonderful Law adorn the various sense organs.”
The Record of the Orally Transmitted Teachings says: The word “wonderful” indicates the benefits of the Wonderful Law. The “various sense organs” are the six sense organs, the eyes, ears, nose, tongue, body, and mind. The name Wonderful Adornment is thus indicating the way in which the benefits of the Wonderful Law are used to adorn the six sense organs.
Generally speaking, we may say that the word “Wonderful” 188stands for the truth of non-substantiality, while the word “Adornment” stands for the truth of temporary existence. The word “King” stands for the Middle Way.
Now Nichiren and his followers, those who chant Nam-myoho-renge-kyo, are all of them King Wonderful Adornment.
Point Two, on the passage “Encountering the Buddha is as difficult . . . as it is for a one-eyed turtle to encounter a floating log with a hole in it.”
The Record of the Orally Transmitted Teachings says: There are two kinds of hole in a log, a small hole and a large hole. The small hole corresponds to the sutra teachings set forth by Shakyamuni Buddha during the first more than forty years of his preaching life. The large hole corresponds to the daimoku of the Lotus Sutra. Now when Nichiren and his followers chant Nam-myoho-renge-kyo, they are [like a one-eyed turtle encountering] a large hole in a log.
The one-eyed turtle stands for all living beings, and the floating log of sandalwood is the Lotus Sutra. This floating log with the large hole of Nam-myoho-renge-kyo that exists in the vast sea of the sufferings of birth and death is none other than the Lotus Sutra.
Point Three, on the passage “These two sons have already offered alms to Buddhas equal in number to the sands of sixty-five hundred, thousand, ten thousand, million nayutas of Ganges, . . . thinking with compassion of living beings who embrace heretical [or erroneous] views and causing them to abide in correct views.”
The Record of the Orally Transmitted Teachings says: King Wonderful Adornment held erroneous views, but through the benefits conferred by the teaching and persuasion of his two sons, these erroneous views were refuted and changed into correct views. This is what Great Concentration and Insight, volume one, means 189when it says, “What was extreme and erroneous has all been reformed and corrected.”1
Now all the living beings in this country of Japan today hold erroneous views and are comparable to King Wonderful Adornment. And Nichiren and his followers, who chant Nam-myoho-renge-kyo, are comparable to the two sons. Finally “causing [them] / in the end to dwell in the single vehicle” as [the “Supernatural Powers” chapter says], Nichiren and his followers will see to it that those erroneous views are corrected.