Could you go back, though? I couldn't - I outgrew magical thinking, so the most basic aspects of their practice now appear nonsensical and deluded.
This is why the intolerant religions so carefully manage their membership's reading lists. Only the approved texts are permitted. Their leaders want to be the sole source of information, in order to keep the members going in the mindset they've managed to get them to buy into thus far.
The most dangerous risk is information, and they know it. Christianity has been into book burnings since New Testament days (see Acts 19:19), and Nichiren famously called for the government to put the priests of all the other Buddhist sects TO DEATH and to burn down all their temples (The Selection of the Time) - see below:
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In the secular texts it says, “A sage is one who fully understands those things that have not yet made their appearance.” And in the Buddhist texts it says, “A sage is one who knows the three existences of life— past, present, and future.”
Three times now I have gained distinction by having such knowledge. The first time was the first year of the Bunno era (1260), cyclical sign kanoesaru, on the sixteenth day of the seventh month, when I presented my On Establishing the Correct Teaching for the Peace of the Land to His Lordship, the lay priest of Saimyo-ji, by way of the lay priest Yadoya Mitsunori.153 At that time, I said to the lay priest Yadoya, “Please advise His Lordship that devotion to the Zen school and the Nembutsu school should be abandoned. If this advice is not heeded, trouble will break out within the ruling clan, and the nation will be attacked by another country.”
The second time was the twelfth day of the ninth month of the eighth year of the Bun’ei era (1271), at the hour of the monkey (3:00–5:00 P.M.), when I said to Hei no Saemon-no-jo: “Nichiren is the pillar and beam of Japan. Doing away with me is toppling the pillar of Japan! Immediately you will all face ‘the calamity of revolt within one’s own domain,’ or strife among yourselves, and also ‘the calamity of invasion from foreign lands.’ Not only will the people of our nation be put to death by foreign invaders, but many of them will be taken prisoner. All the Nembutsu and Zen temples, such as Kenchoji, Jufuku-ji, Gokuraku-ji, Daibutsuden, and Choraku-ji, should be burned to the ground, and their priests taken to Yui Beach to have their heads cut off. If this is not done, then Japan is certain to be destroyed!”
The third time was the eighth day of the fourth month of last year (the eleventh year of the Bun’ei era), when I said to Saemon-no-jo: “Even if it seems that, because I was born in the ruler’s domain, I follow him in my actions, I will never follow him in my heart. There can be no doubt that the Nembutsu leads to the hell of incessant suffering, and that the Zen school is the work of the heavenly devil. And the True Word school in particular is a great plague to this nation of ours. The task of praying for victory over the Mongols should not be entrusted to the True Word priests! If so grave a matter is entrusted to them, then the situation will only worsen rapidly and our country will face destruction.”
First of all, the Mongols had been invading all the surrounding countries for the last half century, so it was no stretch to suggest they would soon turn their gaze toward Japan.
Second, Japan's ruling family had had loads of conflict for, like, the previous hundred years, so predicting more of the same was another no-brainer.
Third, while Nichiren made a great big hairy deal about his "predictions," THEY FAILED! He was unable to foresee that the government would settle down and, under , enjoy years of peaceful prosperity where Nichiren had predicted "trouble" and "internal strife." Japan was never actually invaded by the Mongols; the Mongol fleet was destroyed by a typhoon at one point, and then the Japanese successfully repulsed further Mongol invasion attempts! Here is an old piece of artwork depicting Japanese samurai boarding Mongol vessels: [
en.wikipedia.org]
And what of Nichiren's insistence that these nasty effects would come "immediately" and "rapidly"? They didn't!
The way that weasel Nichiren got around his "predictions"' abject failure was by claiming that the fact that the Mongols
sent a letter = "invasion by a foreign country". Oh please! REALLY, Nicki??? LAME!!
So the people of Japan were not "put to death by foreign invaders," as Nichiren threatened, and Japan was never destroyed. Heck, Japan never even did a turn as a Mongol vassal state! So Nichiren was as wrong as it is possible to be!
Some Ikedabots try to avoid acknowledging this utter FAIL by claiming that, oh, the occupation of Japan post-WWII, in the 1940s, counts! THAT is the fulfillment of Nichiren's prediction! Heck, if you wait long enough, pretty much anything might happen, right? Whatever happened to "immediately" and "rapidly"? I don't think anyone can describe some 700 years later as "immediately" or "rapidly"! From an earlier post:
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From the SGI site:
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On the sixteenth day of the seventh month, 1260, Nichiren submitted a treatise titled On Establishing the Correct Teaching for the Peace of the Land (Rissho Ankoku Ron) to HojoTokiyori, the retired regent who was nevertheless the most influential man in the Kamakura shogunate. In that work, he attributed the disasters ravaging the country to slander of the correct teaching and belief in false teachings. In particular, he criticized the dominant Nembutsu school. Of the three calamities and seven disasters described in the sutras, he predicted that the two disasters that had yet to occur—internal strife and foreign invasion—would befall the nation without fail if it persisted in supporting misleading schools. He urged that the one vehicle teaching of the Lotus Sutra be embraced immediately.
In the second month of that year (1272), Nichiren's prediction of internal strife came true when HojoTokisuke, an elder half brother of Regent HojoTokimune, made an abortive attempt to seize power. [
www.sgi-usa.org]
So a dozen years (1260 to 1272)...it's like they say in Fight Club, "On a long enough timeline, the survival rate for everyone drops to zero." So the most accurate prophecy is the one that's inevitable, right? Just be smart enough to not qualify it with "immediately" or "rapidly"! (Nichiren was not a smart man.)
Oh, gee. Predicting "internal strife" to the ruling Hojo clan, when the Hojos had seized control of the government in 1199 and...I'll let Encyclopedia Britannica tell the tale:
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By 1247, when members of the house and clan held, through appointment, dominion over half the provinces of Japan, Hojo rule tended to become authoritarian, and the regency was run not from its titular office but from Hojo headquarters as a family council. This assumption of power, beginning with Tokimasa, was not difficult because the armed class did not wish to relinquish the peace, profits, and stability the bakufu (military government) had brought it. They were reluctant to permit the heir Yoriie, a youth of uncertain temper and strong appetites, to become shogun. Yoriie attempted the murder of Tokimasa but was himself exiled and killed. When the remaining heir, Sanetomo, was murdered (1219), the last impediment to Hojo domination was gone. The final accretion of Hojo power came in 1221, when the emperor Go-Toba raised the Taira of western Japan against the Hojo. The revolt (Jokyu no ran) not only failed but in its failing the Hojo were able to confiscate thousands of estates and place them in the hands of landless adherents and friends. Many landless warriors, created by the litigious system of family inheritance in Japan, had little love for the Hojo but less for hunger and dispossession. Their number, as it rose and fell, was an indication of the stability of the bakufu, and until the late 13th century the Hojo kept their numbers small. The first three Hojo regencies—Yoshitoki, who succeeded Tokimasa in 1205, was murdered in 1224 and replaced by his son Yasutoki (1183–1242)—were the apex of capable feudal rule in Japan. Dependable cadastral records were created in 1222–23. In 1232 a brief and workable code (Joei shikimoku) for the conduct and regulation of the armed class in a feudal society was promulgated. Slowly, between 1221 and 1232, the simple military system of Yoritomo was transformed by the Hojo family into a capable private government.
Essentially, this meant maintaining a cordial but careful relationship with the court and its complex system of reigning, retired, and cloistered emperors and with the great aristocracy of Kyoto, who wished an end to the bakufu system. A Hojo commander and garrison were stationed in Kyoto, but the property, revenues, and ceremonials of the Imperial family and nobility were protected. The powerful Buddhist clergy were kept in hand by strict auditing of their accounts. (Gee, imagine that) The vassals of Hojo; were kept solvent, peaceful, and apart from the court. The peasant was protected in his freedom and tenure. The regency drew its income from the Hojo estates, which comprised nearly the whole of the Kanto. The family adhered firmly to Yoritomo’s dictum that the simple warrior life would best preserve this class from the pervasive decadence of the Kyoto aristocracy. Yasutoki died in 1242 and was succeeded by the Hojo regents Tsunetoki (1224–46) in 1242, Tokiyori (1227–63) in 1246, and
Tokimune (1215–84) in 1256. Tokimune’s regency was the last stable and powerful epoch of the Hojo.Wow, another Master of the Obvious moment for Nichiren! Yippee!! Tokimune had only recently come to power, so Nichiren tried to hook him in with every leader's greatest fear - a threat of internal strife, which Japan had been experiencing for decades already - through Nichiren's entire lifetime thus far. In fact, Tokimune's government proved "stable and powerful" - hardly what we'd expect from an "internal strife" threat! But poor Nichiren could not predict that the typical internal strife that had been symptomatic of Japan's government thus far would settle down.
That's the tricky thing about predictions - when they clearly and objectively don't come true, it reveals that the "sage" or "prophet" is phony. The SGI tries to get around that by insisting that the "prophecies" were completely unexpected AND that they came true! UNfortunately, when people read other sources for themselves, they learn the truth, which is not what the SGI wants them to see.
The trouble with unapproved reading material is that one might read it with utter confidence that it's wrong, only to find some detail, some turn of phrase, sticking in one's mind, resulting in a sudden realization that what one had believed is no longer convincing. I call that "outgrowing" the belief system; once it starts, the end inevitably and inexorably comes. And there's no going back. Another intolerant religion, Christianity, likes to say that atheists have to be so careful about what they read in order to avoid having their "belief" destroyed, but that's pure projection. It is the intolerant religions that seek to restrict their members' access to reading material, including that demon-populated Internet!