Buddha-nature - Interpretation Within Buddhist Traditions - Japanese Buddhism - Nichiren Buddhism

Nichiren Buddhism

Nichiren (1222–1282) was a Buddhist monk who taught devotion to the Lotus Sutra as the exclusive means to attain enlightenment, and the chanting of Nam-Myōhō-Renge-Kyō as the essential practice of the teaching. Nichiren Buddhism includes various schools with diverging interpretations of Nichiren's teachings.

Nichiren Buddhism views the Buddha nature as "The inner potential for attaining Buddhahood", common to all people. Based on the Lotus Sutra, Nichiren maintained that "all living being possess the Buddha nature"., being the inherent potential to attain Buddhahood :

The Buddha nature refers to the potential for attaining Buddhahood, a state of awakening filled with compassion and wisdom.

The emphasis in Nichiren Buddhism is on "revealing the Buddha nature" - or attaining Buddhahood – in this life time through chanting the name of the Dharma of the Lotus Surra:

the Buddha nature within us is summoned forth and manifested by our chanting of Nam-myoho-renge-kyo.

The potential for Buddhahood exists in the whole spectrum of the Ten Worlds of life, and this means that all people, including evil doers, have Buddha nature, which remains as a dormant possibility or a theoretical potential in the field of emptiness or non-substantiality until it is materialized in reality through Buddhist practice.

In his letter "Opening the Eyes of Wooden and painted Images" Nichiren explains that insentient matter (such as trees, mandalas, images, statues) also possess the Buddha nature, because they serve as objects of worship. This view regards the Buddha nature as the original nature of all manifestations of life – sentient and insentient – through their interconnectedness:

This concept of the enlightenment of plants in turn derives from the doctrine of three thousand realms in a single moment of life, which teaches that all life—insentient and sentient—possesses the Buddha nature.