All of Us Will Go to “Our Hometown”

When Founder Niwano Entered Nirvana

The Sutta Nipata—said to be one of the oldest records of Buddhist thought—contains a section titled “Discourse to the Brahman Kasibharadvaja,” in which Shakyamuni spoke some verses to a brahman that I quoted in my book, Cultivating the Buddhist Heart. In Living the Lotus this year, we have been considering our diligent practice and the proper state of our minds. The basis for doing so is found in this discourse, the closing verses of which read: “This is how you should cultivate, / And bring forth the reward of immortality.” Last month, I concluded my discussion of the meaning of human life by asking you to think about what “immortality” means to you. In this vein, I would like to express my frank thoughts about death, but before doing so, I would like to tell you about Founder Niwano’s final moments.

At 10:34 a.m. on October 4, 1999, my father Nikkyo Niwano, who was also the founder of Rissho Kosei-kai, passed away. With family members forming a circle around Founder Niwano’s bed and Rissho Kosei-kai leaders keeping watch from a respectful distance, he peacefully departed this life. A few minutes before, I had been holding the Founder’s right hand as he lay in bed with his eyes closed, when his eyes opened wide. He slowly looked around at all of us surrounding his bed, as if to exchange a final greeting with every person there. And the moment he closed his eyes again, before we knew it, the Founder had taken his last breath.

What Is Immortality?

“My hometown— / That’s the place I came from. / My hometown— / That’s the place / I will go back to.” This is a poem by Yoshio Toi (1912–91) that, for a long time, I have loved to recite. As I mentioned in last month’s issue, we human beings have been given lives that will return to “our hometown”—the one great life force that continues to flow on and on, like a great river extending from the distant past to the eternal future. And I think that when we accept this, our anxiety about death eases.

Moreover, speaking from my own experience, when I saw with my own eyes how the Founder peacefully returned to the hometown of human life, I thought to myself, “Hmmm, when my time comes, I hope that I will be able to die like that,” and felt as though I had gained the ability to calmly accept death. The Founder’s final moments, which seem so ideal, imparted to me the reward of immortality, in the sense that I overcame the fear of death.

“Immortality” does not mean that we do not die. In my understanding, “the reward of immortality” is knowing that immortality means the peace of mind that comes from freedom from the suffering that stems from futilely wishing for something that will never happen, such as wanting to live forever.

By learning the Buddha’s teachings, we can attain the real reward of immortality. For example, we transcend death by engraving in our minds the teaching of impermanence. And we do so by accepting that dying is one part of the functioning of nature, in which all things are constantly arising, perishing, and changing. In addition, the Lotus Sutra explains that the Buddha’s life span is so immeasurably long, it is eternal. When we accept and understand this teaching, we have peace of mind, knowing that we will continue to live forever, even after we die, because we—whose very essence is buddha nature—are one with the immeasurably great life of the Buddha. Furthermore, the Dhammapada teaches that “by diligently applying yourself, you attain a state of immortality.” By continuing to practice diligently and never neglecting even the smallest details of your daily life, your actions, as Hajime Nakamura (1912–99) puts it, “continue to spread their influence infinitely, through the chain of many causes and effects, and never die.”

In other words, our daily actions, especially our bodhisattva practices, continue to have an influence that extends far beyond time and space. Because the way you live your life and manifest your personal integrity will continue to live on in people’s minds and memories, I believe that this constitutes another form of immortality.

I am grateful to have lived six years beyond the age at which Shakyamuni passed away. And I think that having witnessed the Founder’s entering nirvana and knowing the reward of immortality, there is no greater happiness than being able to calmly tell myself, “It’s all right if, at any time, you return to the hometown of human life.”