by Masuo Nezu

These are personal reminiscences about the late founder Rev. Nikkyo Niwano from his former chief secretary, Masuo Nezu, now in retirement. During his years of service, the writer accompanied Rev. Niwano on dissemination tours, interreligious cooperation activities, and peace promotion work, both in Japan and overseas. This series recalls not only heartwarming episodes from the founder's everyday life, but also the spiritual insights derived from his words and deeds.

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"The Lotus Sutra is needed by the entire world"

Rev. Nikkyo Niwano enjoyed talking about the Lotus Sutra with Dr. Gene Reeves at the Meadville/Lombard Theological School in Chicago on June 8, 1983.

In June 1983, Founder Niwano visited the Meadville/Lombard Theological School in Chicago, which had awarded him an honorary doctor of laws degree some years earlier. At the school, he met and talked with the then dean, Dr. Gene Reeves.

He spent a long time with Dr. Reeves, talking with him extensively about the Lotus Sutra. Dr. Reeves had studied Buddhism in his younger days as a university student. Before Rev. Niwano's visit, he had read the autobiography and other writings by Founder Niwano. As well as being impressed by the founder himself through their conversation, Dr. Reeves seemed to become more deeply interested in the Lotus Sutra. He then read Rev. Niwano's Buddhism for Today, his one-volume commentary on the Lotus Sutra, and began studying the sutra in depth.

In the autumn of the same year, Dr. Reeves was invited to come to Japan to speak at a ceremony in the Great Sacred Hall celebrating Founder Niwano's 77th birthday on November 15. During that visit, he met with Rev. Niwano and during their conversation expressed the hope that some expert might be able to lecture on the Lotus Sutra at Meadville/Lombard and the University of Chicago. Some time later he was introduced to Professor Yoshiro Tamura, formerly of the University of Tokyo, who was a leading scholar of Tendai Buddhism and the Lotus Sutra. Before long, Professor Tamura went to Chicago to give a brief series of lectures at Meadville/Lombard. Those lectures impressed faculty members as well as students so much that he was invited to return the next year to teach for a term at the university. During these and subsequent meetings between Professor Tamura and Dr. Reeves, a mutual friendship developed in which Dr. Reeves' knowledge of and appreciation for the Lotus Sutra were greatly enhanced.

In subsequent years Dr. Reeves' enthusiasm for the Lotus Sutra continued to deepen, and he devoted more and more time to studying it. One day, on hearing Dr. Reeves' interpretation of a main point of the Lotus Sutra, Rev. Niwano, much impressed, said, "He has quite an excellent and deep understanding."

Several years later, Dr. Reeves moved from Chicago to Tokyo to continue his studies, and to learn Japanese and Chinese. Soon, he was writing and lecturing about the Lotus Sutra on various occasions to English-speaking audiences of many nationalities. To Asian young people, he taught how the Lotus Sutra "teaches the unity of wisdom, compassion, and implementation." For speeches and lectures at various academic and religious conferences, he always chose some aspect of the Lotus Sutra as his theme, often referring to the practice of Buddhism in Rissho Kosei-kai.

In 1992, when President Nichiko Niwano was awarded an honorary doctor of theology degree by Meadville/Lombard, the presentation ceremony was held in Fumon Hall in Tokyo. Speaking in Japanese about the Lotus Sutra and Founder Niwano, Dr. Reeves said that Rissho Kosei-kai is the very place to practice the Bodhisattva Way and to learn living wisdom. Leaders of Rissho Kosei-kai who had gathered from all over the country listened very attentively and were deeply moved.