At the next level of inquiry, complexities arise. Nichiren's thought and actions stemmed from his understanding of the Lotus Sutra. Jacqueline Stone, a scholar of medieval Japanese Buddhism, writes:

Nichiren seems to have believed that the spread of faith in the Lotus Sutra would bring about harmony withnature, long life, and just government…. His thinking draws on some sophisticatedTendai teachings concerning the nonduality of the individual and theouter world, or subjective and objective realms. Thus in his view thebeliever has an obligation to spread faith in the Lotus Sutra, out of compassion for others and because it has consequences for this world(and in the next).(48)

Nichiren's religious vision was strongly Japan-centered; what he recognized as universal Buddhism was a Japanese orthodoxy that subsumed Indian and Chinese Buddhism. Commenting on the word “world” in the Lotus Sutra, he wrote, “By ‘world,’ Japan is meant.”(49) He was openly intolerant of other Buddhist teachers and sects, and his stated concern for the status of women had its limits.(50) Nichiren did not see himself as a bodhisattva in a general sense, but as the specific bodhisattva Visistacaritra (Eminent Conduct), uniquely ordained to save Japan: “In the present I am unmistakably the one who is realizing the Lotus of Truth.” Rather than shunning militarism, he hoped that the Mongols (recently victorious in China) would invade Japan to cleanse it of corruption, and he was depressed when the Mongols' attempted invasions failed.(51)

Directing attention to the engagement of past Buddhist leaders brings several benefits. At the least, such assessments help to dispel the oversimplification that Buddhism is world-denying. To call Nichiren—or Shakyamuni or others—“engaged” often casts their lives in a new light, thereby enabling fresh appreciation of their teachings. These steps fulfill another vital function for today's engaged Buddhists: they serve to confer legitimacy on contemporary developments, reassuring participants that engaged Buddhism remains authentically within the Buddhist tradition. In a general sense, then, continuities can certainly be acknowledged. Bardwell Smith writes:

One wonders about the overly sharp distinction that is made between modern forms of Buddhist engagement, however unprecedented many of their features may be, and those that have occurred over the centuries, almost as if there were no prophetic or deeply engaged precursors in Buddhist history.(52)

However, there is a trade-off. If in order to accommodate cases from the past, the terms “engaged Buddhist” or “engaged Buddhism” are stretched beyond a certain point, they lose significant chunks of meaning. We have seen that Nichiren's conception of spiritual and social reform had one overriding aim: have everyone take refuge in the Lotus Sutra. The worldview of a premodern figure and the worldview of a present-day engaged Buddhist may differ so fundamentally that to lump the two together does justice to neither. This is the conclusion reached by Stone:

Although Nichiren's teaching had both a strong social component and an element of socialresponsibility, he was not concerned with such issues as charitable acts or efforts in socialimprovement for their own sake…. I don't see him as “socially engaged” in the more usual contemporary senses of the term.(53)

Methodological Issues

Methodological issues differ from characteristic issues (i.e., war resistance) and common issues (i.e., personal/social change). Three examples should suffice here: uses of Buddhist tradition, room for criticism, and openness to new methods. Each of these issues can again be framed as a question.

When do reevaluations of traditional Buddhism go too far? That is, when do fresh interpretations, often in the service of engagement, distort Buddhism's past inauthentically? The case of Nichiren is but one example. Another, “Sangha,” originally referred to the community of monks but is now being recast in various ways. For some, Sangha represents a proto-democratic form of social organization. In Robert Goss's essay it becomes an “alternative educational community.” Robert Thurman sees Sangha as a “monastic army of peace.”(54) Bill Devall proposes an “ecocentric Sangha” dedicated to “self-realization for all beings, not just human beings.”(55) Litsch writes:

The Sangha, as the community of those who proceed on the way to Buddhahood, becomes the community of all beings, all life, and all evolving processes on our planet, which are bound up in this path. Thich Nhat Hanh can thus speak about the coming Buddha, Maitreya, possibly appearing on the earth not in the form of a single person, but in the form of a great spiritual community, a Sangha.