Who practices Nichirens Buddhism correctly?

Ive been around. Ive heard it all. The current Kempon Hokke incarnation, you know - the one with Steve Polito and Graham Lamont, in my opinion, win the award for being the best Nichiren Fundamentalists. They, by virtue of Grahams athletic scholarship, will pound even the most determined would-be fundo-nichirenist into the ground. Hell, Steve even tried to judge the depth of my faith in the Lotus Sutra through the wording I chose in my e-mail to him. Extreme paranoia drove him to require everyone to re-verify themselves for the sake of list security. I didnt, so he removed me. He and Graham seemed very convinced that Nichiren intended in his writings that only a select few would take true faith in the LS, and therefore they only need those few true blue LS believers in their group. Is this the Nichiren chosen people? They become, in their own minds, a sort of Judeo-Nichiren few who are the real Bodhisattvas of the Earth.

Its easy to follow the path of the fundamentalist. All one needs do is to study, learn and manipulate the theology of the given religious teachings and beat the holy at their own game. Remember that guy in school who would never volunteer an answer up front, but wouldnt hesitate to correct anyone who had the courage to answer first? Fundamentalism occurs in hindsight

If you wish to start your own holier-than-though fundo-cult you only need to build on what has come before. Take what someone else has done, call it wrong and shape into a more correct form. The Kempon fundamentalists are hardcore though, they were so orthodox they didnt even seek validation, validation in the form of increasing membership that is. I do not doubt that Steve believes what he preaches, though I have no idea what Graham Lamont believes. Few have access to him, sort of like the Wizard in the Wizard of Oz hidden behind the curtain.

You see, the problem is, with religion, that you can never really be sure if youre right. God, doesnt that just piss you off? (I mean you the reader, not God). Religion would be a lot more fun, and probably a lot less deadly if there was some heavenly religious judgment board that could award you a score based on how correct, right, or orthodox your beliefs are in view of your particular religion. Perhaps in Christianity, once having realized and experienced true faith in Christ and having allowed the spirit of Christ to come into your heart your hands and forehead would start spontaneously bleeding. That would be unquestionable proof of being right.

In Buddhism, once having achieved Samadhi one could actually earn a super long tongue, or have light shoot out of ones eyebrows, or at least get a certificate or something. Same for us Nichiren Buddhists - Wouldnt it be grand if we could become licensed or at least get some special tattoo once weve decided whos for real and whos a cult? That would settle everything. Heck, even Daisaku Ikeda would have to put up or shut up, eh?

Religion is, however, the great unknown, the great intangible. We, as religious people, create our own realities based on our own individuals values - values which have come into existence based largely on our own individual life experience. We cannot know to what extent our faith is actually based on something real, or if its instead just an imaginary fantasy designed only to fill the space in our lives which would otherwise be filled with fear and doubt. Does rapture come from religious awakening? Or does it stem from a deep-seated psychosis? Only the phantom knows...

The Buddhism of Nichiren Daishonin is unique in one respect, in that the practice of chanting Nam Myoho Renge Kyo is based on (depending of course on where you learned to chant) the expectation that we see or experience some sort of actual evidence that this religion works. Lucky us!

Works - what a strange concept for most religions. Many, if not most religions, offer no more works than the vague promise of deliverance into some version of heaven or pure land after death. After death thats a helluva thing. Can you imagine a money back guarantee based on after death? If after death, the client finds they have not entered heaven, they have the option of returning to Earth to try a different religious path. Yoo hoo!

During the development of ancient traditional Chinese medicine physicians in China were prohibited from using dissection of human bodies in their studies. The study of human anatomy was based on the trial and error of diagnostic herbal medicine. Even to this day the traditional system of herbology treats organs in the body that do not actually exist, and yet this functional approach has been proven effective for centuries. Religion, in my opinion, is a lot like this. Its based on the function of forces that are forever unseen and unknown.

No human being on the face of the Earth at anytime in history has been able to know exactly what the ultimate reality actually is. We know of four forces in our world gravity, electromagnetic, and two forces called the strong and the weak force. There is nothing else that we as humans have been able to conclusively identify and prove scientifically.

But we know there are more laws at work. We just know.

In the end, as Buddhists, as people of religious faith, we must understand that the only real and tangible proof we have of our individual faith is our own individual path of self-discovery. It is this fact that brings us back to fundamentalism.

Fundamentalism is that point when a person or group of persons decides that it is not the path of individual self-discovery and rather that their views, their subjective experience are the RIGHT views and experience. Once we make this jump into the correct view of the world and beyond, anything is possible. There is nothing that cant be accomplished when one realizes he or she is just godamm right, just 100% dead on the money. There is no one whose murder cant be justified, no race of people that cant be wiped out, no Country that cant be invaded and ruled, no history that cant be rewritten.

Fundamentalism is the ultimate form of validation. Perhaps fundamentalism is the ultimate form of self-discovery! Or even perhaps fundamentalism is self-discovery gone so very wrong. It is, in fact, a form of super-validation. And best of all, its easy to become a fundamentalist. All you have to do is believe youre right and theyre wrong. The rest is just. Natural.