Page:The Spirit of Japanese Poetry (Noguchi).djvu/76

72 through whose activity he himself, as he declared, was the symbol of the infinite, his mind dwelt on the religious freedom born out of the idealism whose real manifestation can only appear through the highest development of the individual life. Nichiren saw clearly that Japan or Japanese life had been greatly harmed by the pessimistic interpretation of Buddhism, with its thought of Nirvana or peaceful haven far beyond where your absorption of the infinite can only be realised through the virtue of death, a death that does not recognise individuality. It was Nichiren’s Activism (with apology to the German professor) to make life more meaningful, or again to make death more meaningful by that meaningful life, through the true Buddhism perfectly delivered from the despotism of ignorance or misconception; it is not far wrong to say that he alone found the meeting ground of Buddhism and the thoughts of our Japanese ancestors who, like sunflowers, most passionately sought after life and sunlight; on the sunflower I wrote once in The Pilgrimage, a book of verses, the following lines: