Talk:Daimoku

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I am in doubt about the final external link in the list, especially its statements about psychology. No doubt some pyschology experts are taking this line, but the statement seems like an overgeneralization. What do others think?

I agree completely. It looks like rubbish to me. Probably an advertisement. - Nat Krause 08:38, 13 Apr 2005 (UTC)
The questions is: Where to delete from? Does the reference to the flick have any relevance to people seriously looking for info on the subject? My instinct would be to zap the whole para, but I don't want to be accused of doing anything gratuitously. The final link looks like an ad to me too&mdashor at least an invite to try somebody's mantra out. Jim_Lockhart 08:54, 13 Apr 2005 (UTC)
The whole paragraph looks weird to me. I think it should all be removed. In fact, I will remove it myself. - Nat Krause 09:16, 13 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Contents

[edit] Penultimate

Penultimate does indeed mean 'second to last', see this quote from dict.org's WordNet entry:

penultimate

      adj : next to the last; "the author inadvertently reveals the
            murderer in the penultimate chapter"; "the figures in
            the next-to-last column" [syn: next-to-last]
      n : the next to last syllable in a word [syn: penult, penultima]

I suspect that ultimate is instead what the author intends. -- wackyvorlon

The sentence in question is internally confused. The Lotus Sutra is definitely considered by tradition to be penultimate; it was the Buddha's next-to-last teaching before the Nirvana Sutra. However, the Tiantai and Nichiren schools also believe that the teachings it contains are "ultimate" in a different sense; they are the highest and most true. The confusion probably arises from multiple editors rewriting the same sentence. I suppose it should be reworded. - Nat Krause 08:27, 2 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I would be inclined to agree - the context of the usage is confusing, aggravated by the fact that penultimate is very frequently abused. -- wackyvorlon

My bad. The intent (as far as my authorship/editing is concerned) is indeed ultimate—e.g., highest, supreme, etc. I'll go in and fix it. Thanks for pointing out the error. Jim_Lockhart 09:10, 2 Jun 2005 (UTC)


[edit] Edit of 6 June 2004

In light of the addition made by User:Enumclaw, I decided to try to sort this article out a bit more. I have removed the following portions:

Renge is the lotus flower; because the lotus blooms and seeds at the same time, the idea is that it represents the law of cause and effect,...

I've incorporated this explanation elsewhere, in the general explanation of what renge means, because the interpretation is not exclusive to Soka Gakkai (or even Nichiren Shoshu).

Thus while adherants are literally chanting their devotion/adoration to the Lotus Sutra, in another mindset they are chanting to remind themselves that what they believe is the law of cause and effect, i.e. karma, that Shakyamuni Buddha and Nichiren taught.

This is a tough call because it. The "chanting their devotion [to] the Lotus Sutra" part is pretty much universal, though some schools might object to the "adoration" part. The part reading "in another mindset they are chanting to remind themselves that what they believe" is most likely exclusive to Soka Gakkai, since traditionalists would object to this interpretation on the grounds that they are not trying to "remind" themselves of anything, but rather invoke the power of Nam(u) Myoho Renge Kyo to lead them to enlightenment. In any case, I feel that interpretations exclusive to any given school should be explained in detail in the article on that school, with only passing reference in articles intended to be more general. I'd also like to note that an external link at the bottom of the page already points to an explanation of the phrase from Soka Gakkai's viewpoint.

Thoughts? Jim_Lockhart 08:30, 5 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Well done - I don't know what other SGI members would say but I certainly don't chant to remind myself of the mystic law: I'd rather say I chant to devote my life to it, or you could say "internalise" it. --195.10.248.18 16:31, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

Hmmm... good call. The new version is pretty clean.

[edit] Tendai/Tiantai

The current text seems to claim that only Nichiren schools practice the Daimoku. I would assume Tendai/Tiantai to have that practice as well. Didn't Nichiren himself learn it there? Luis Dantas

I've never heard that; someone familiar with Tendai practices will have to clarify. Nichiren himself said that Tendai and Dengyo, at least, knew of Nam Myoho Renge Kyo but never "revealed" it because the "time wasn't ripe" (as he put it--this has to do with the concept in the Lotus schools of time periods following Sakyamuni's passing), and the most widely spread notion is that Nichiren first propounded the phrase. HTH, Jim_Lockhart 7 July 2005 11:37 (UTC)

[edit] Translations: literal and exegetical

The article stated that nam myoho renge kyo is translated as "Devotion to the Mystic Law of cause and effect that exists throughout all the sounds and vibrations of the universe", but this really overstates and confuses the matter. Although one can't realistically expect always to find a word-for-word translation, this version is more of an exegesis than a translation. There's nothing wrong with this, but it shouldn't be presented simply as "the translation" of these words. A more literal translation should be given although, of course, it's also useful to retain this longer interpretive translation that can unpack some of the meaning in the more literal version.

To this end, I thought of giving "Hail to Dharma the Lotus Sutra" as the literal translation, and like this version as it comes close to a word-for-word rendering. . The namu part, derived from Sanskrit namas works really more like an honorific than a noun. I'd thought of "hail", "greetings", "blessed" or "dear" but didn't want to stray to far from the exegetical translation. I'd appreciate responses from others on what we could use here that would be more accurate than "devotion".

The problem here with "Dharma" is that although relatively widely known in English, it is likely to be more confusing than clarifying. Other possible choices here would be "religion", "regulation", or "law"; keeping "mystic law" seemed reasonable. The addition of "of cause and effect" while not precisely false certainly does much more than simply translate the phrase.

The exegetical translation was least satisfactory, as a literal translation, for the renge kyo part. Here it explained rather than translated. The phrase "that exists throughout all the sounds and vibrations of the universe", while not especially unclear on its own terms, really adds a great deal rather than simply trying to turn the words into English. It seems better to be direct and succinct. I'd wanted to give Lotus Sutra but the problems with using "sutra" are similar to those with "dharma": both are loandwords in English that won't be clear to many readers not already familiar with Buddhism or Hinduism. "Lotus Scripture" makes it clear that there is a reference to a religious book with the name of "Lotus". Interlingua 13:31, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

literally translated as Devotion to the Law of the Lotus Scripture an exegetical translated as