by Masuo Nezu

Nine people from Rissho Kosei-kai were on this trip. At Gaya near Bodh Gaya all of the delegation took breakfast and dinner at a rest house and stayed at night in a train sleeping car parked in the station. After the evening meal and their return to the station, the Rissho Kosei-kai members entered Rev. Niwano's compartment. "Now, let's hold a hoza session for the Rissho Kosei-kai family," he said. Following the bright voice of Rev. Niwano, an instant hoza counseling session was formed and for some time there was joyous conversation in the family-like atmosphere. Rev. Niwano spoke in the small box-like compartment, filled with the nine people sitting knee to knee, about his impressions of the sacred places, his sentiments after many years of practice of the Lotus Sutra, and his dreams and hopes for the future.

After worshipping at Sacred Eagle Peak, where Shakyamuni Buddha preached the Lotus Sutra, Rev. Niwano led a party of Rissho Kosei-kai members in descending the mountain.

On Sacred Eagle Peak, where Shakyamuni Buddha preached the Lotus Sutra, Rev. Niwano lit incense he had brought from Japan and offered it at the "seat of preaching." Without stirring an inch, and with his palms joined, he prayed for a time. Then he chanted the sutra with all of the nine members. "We were able to see with our own eyes and walk with our own feet in the footsteps of Shakyamuni Buddha. It was really good to come to India," he said.

"We heard that, counting from the Edo period, some 300 Japanese had made pilgrimages to the sacred places of the Buddha. With this tour, we have made the total 330," Founder Niwano said. "When I stood in front of the place on Eagle Peak where Shakyamuni Buddha preached the Lotus Sutra, I was moved beyond words."

On the one hand, Rev. Niwano was excited about the pilgrimage and his impressions of India; at the same time, he gradually deepened friendships with members of the traditional Buddhist sects in the party. At the beginning of the tour, they were like strangers to each other. As the tour progressed, however, this changed day by day. By the end of the pilgrimage, they actually felt close to each other. Some continued the friendly contact through correspondence, mutual visits, and exchanges of periodicals of their respective organizations for many years.

Rev. Niwano, who asserted that "the Lotus Sutra is the supreme way to peace" and that "the Buddha is an exemplar of peace," visited Nepal, the country where Shakyamuni Buddha was born, for the second time in 1991, to attend the fourth assembly of the Asian Conference on Religion and Peace in Kathmandu. Soon after he returned from that trip, the Ceremony of the Inheritance of the Lamp of the Dharma, celebrating the transmission of the Dharma from Founder Niwano to the second president, his son Nichiko, was held for the first time by Rissho Kosei-kai.

This series of articles was originally published in Japanese in 2000 under the title Kaiso Zuimonki: Egao no Ushirosugata.