Monthly Archives: July 2018

LS32

Day 28

Day 28 covers all of Chapter 24, Wonderful-Voice Bodhisattva, and concludes the Seventh Volume of the Sutra of the Lotus Flower of the Wonderful Dharma.

Having last month considered Mañjuśrī’s request and Many Treasures Buddha bringing Wonderful-Voice Bodhisattva to the Sahā World, we witness Wonderful-Voice Bodhisattva’s arrival and greeting of Śākyamuni Buddha.

[Before he started,] he stepped on a platform of the seven treasures. The platform went up to the sky seven times as high as the tala[-tree, and moved through the sky, carrying him]. Together with the Bodhisattvas surrounding him respectfully, he came to Mt. Gṛdhrakūṭa of this Sahā-World, and descended from the platform of the seven treasures. He came to Śākyamuni Buddha, carrying with him a necklace worth hundreds of thousands. He worshipped the feet of the Buddha with his head, offered the necklace to the Buddha, and said to him:

“World-Honored One! I bring you a message from Pure-Flower-Star-King-Wisdom Buddha. [He wishes to say this.] Are you in good health? Are you happy and peaceful or not? Are the four elements of your body working in harmony or not? Are the worldly affairs bearable or not? Are the living beings easy to save or not? Do they not have much greed, anger, ignorance, jealousy, stinginess and arrogance, or do they? Are they not undutiful to their parents, or are they? Are they not di respectful to śramaṇas, or are they? Do they not have wrong views, or do they? Are they not evil, or are they? Do they not fail to control their five desires, or do they? World-Honored One! Did they defeat the Maras, who are their enemies, or not. Is Many-Treasures Tathāgata, who passed away a long time ago and has now come here riding in the stupa of the seven treasures, hearing the Dharma or not? [Pure-Flower-Star-King-Wisdom Buddha] also wishes to know whether Many-Treasures Tathāgata is peaceful and healthy, and able to stay long or not World-Honored One! Now I wish to see Many-Treasures Buddha World-Honored One! Show him to me!”

The Daily Dharma from July 25, 2018, offers this:

World-Honored One! I bring you a message from Pure-Flower-Star-King-Wisdom Buddha. [He wishes to say this.] Are you in good health? Are you happy and peaceful or not? Are the four elements of your body working in harmony or not? Are the worldly affairs bearable or not? Are the living beings easy to save or not? Do they not have much greed, anger, ignorance, jealousy, stinginess and arrogance, or do they? Are they not undutiful to their parents, or are they? Are they not disrespectful to śramaṇas, or are they? Do they not have wrong views, or do they? Are they not evil, or are they? Do they not fail to control their five desires, or do they?

The passage above is how Wonderful-Voice Bodhisattva greets Śākyamuni Buddha in Chapter Twenty-Four of the Lotus Sūtra. This Bodhisattva asks not only about the Buddha, but about those whom the Buddha benefits with his teaching. The Buddha answers that those he teaches have prepared through innumerable lives to receive his wisdom. The questions of Wonderful-Voice show how we obscure the teaching through our delusion and attachments.

The Daily Dharma is produced by the Lexington Nichiren Buddhist Community. To subscribe to the daily emails, visit zenzaizenzai.com

Doctrines of Nichiren

The Attainment of Bodhisattvaship by Nichiren

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Sakyamuni advanced at one step from the state of a human being to the Buddhahood, and thereby brought a thousand everlasting blessings into the world. Nichiren advanced at one step from the state of a human being to that of a Bodhisattva, or wise being, which is only one degree below the Buddhahood. The attainment of Bodhisattvaship by Nichiren constituted a great mission, the influence of which has continued unimpaired for seven hundred years*.

Doctrines of Nichiren (1893)

* As of 1893

Lotus Path

Insantity

Quote

“Insanity: Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” Albert Einstein

So day after day, lifetime after lifetime, and birth after birth, we repeat the cycles of birth, sickness, old age, and death. The four sufferings haunt us, and we try every strategy to eliminate them from our lives. If not our own sufferings we suffer the sickness and death of friends and loved ones. We suffer the attachment to things that are impermanent. We suffer the illusions that we are independent of the things that exist outside ourselves.

I like the phrase, “They are trying to stop suffering by suffering” from Chapter 2 in the Lotus Sutra. How easy it is to keep doing the easy thing, the thing that has not worked well for us in the past?

Buddhism requires us to change, to challenge, to delve deep into our innermost being to try to understand both what is good and beneficial for us and what keeps us from doing that very thing. As long as we keep ignoring the obvious, our suffering, our thinking that there is no other way, we will continue to suffer. Ignorance is one of the three poisons; ignorance traps us in a cycle of ignorance and suffering.

Lotus Path: Practicing the Lotus Sutra Volume 1

Blog

Facebook posting

Facebook stopped allowing third parties to post to Facebook profiles at the end of July. This prevented me from posting content from this website. Facebook, however, allows posting to pages and allows creating a “profile page.” Hence, I’ve created https://www.facebook.com/500yojanas/.

Daily Dharma

Daily Dharma – July 31, 2018

Mañjuśrī! A Bodhisattva-mahāsattva who performs this fourth set of [peaceful] practices after my extinction, will be able to expound the Dharma flawlessly. Bhikṣus, bhikṣuṇīs, upāsakas, upāsikās, kings, princes, ministers, common people, brāhmaṇas and householders will make offerings to him, honor him, respect him, and praise him. The gods in the sky will always serve him in order to hear the Dharma from him. When someone comes to his abode located in a village, in a city, in a retired place or in a forest, and wishes to ask him a question, the gods will protect him day and night for the sake of the Dharma so that the hearer may rejoice because this sūtra was, is, and will be protected by the supernatural powers of the past, present and future Buddhas.

The Buddha gives this explanation to Mañjuśrī Bodhisattva in Chapter Fourteen of the Lotus Sūtra. The fourth set of peaceful practices is not blaming those who do not hear the Lotus Sūtra and resolving to save them when one becomes perfectly enlightened. Rather than becoming upset with those who do not accept this teaching, it is useful to know that we are not alone in wanting to save them, and that by reducing our own delusions we increase our capacity to benefit others.

The Daily Dharma is produced by the Lexington Nichiren Buddhist Community. To subscribe to the daily emails, visit zenzaizenzai.com

LS32, WONS

Day 27

Day 27 concludes Chapter 23, The Previous Life of Medicine-King Bodhisattva.

Having last month having witnessed Gladly-Seen-By-All-Beings Bodhisattva second offering, we consider the merits of making offerings to the Lotus Sūtra.

“Star-King-Flower! Anyone who aspires for, and wishes to attain Anuttara-samyak-saṃbodhi, should offer a light to the stupa of the Buddha by burning a finger or a toe. Then he will be given more merits than the person who offers not only countries, cities, wives and children, but also the mountains, forests, rivers and ponds of the one thousand million Sumeru-worlds, and various kinds of treasures. But the merits to be given to the person who fills the one thousand million Sumeru-worlds with the seven treasures and offers that amount of the seven treasures to the Buddhas, to the Great Bodhisattvas, to the Pratyekabuddhas, and to the Arhats, are less than the merits to be given to the person who keeps even a single gāthā of four lines of this Sūtra of the Lotus Flower of the Wonderful Dharma.

Nichiren offers this on the meaning of the “Medicine King Bodhisattva” chapter:

It is said in the “Medicine King Bodhisattva” chapter that a bodhisattva called Issaishujōkiken (Gladly Seen by All) learned the Lotus Sūtra from the Buddha Sun Moon Brilliance. With deep admiration for his master’s favor and the value of the Lotus Sūtra, he made offerings of thousands of invaluable treasures. Issaishujōkiken felt that this was not enough, however, and proceeded to anoint his own body with oil, set it aflame, and continued to burn it like a lamp wick to venerate the Buddha for twelve hundred years. Thereafter, he burned a light on his elbow for seventy-two thousand years to venerate the Lotus Sūtra. Thus, if a woman venerates the Lotus Sūtra in the fifth 500-year period after the demise of the Buddha, during the Latter Age of Degeneration, the Buddha will bestow upon her all merits of the Lotus Sūtra just as a rich man gives all his wealth to his son.

Nichinyo Gozen Gohenji, A Response to My Lady Nichinyo, Writings of Nichiren Shōnin, Volume 4, Faith and Practice, Page 133

Blog

One Spirit; One Religion

Flowers from the July 29, 2018, service

Notes from Ven. Kenjo Igarashi‘s sermon following the July 29, 2018, Kaji Kito service.

“What is the religion? What is the faith?” Rev. Igarashi began.

When Rev. Igarashi first came to the Sacramento Nichiren Buddhist Church he would visit the homes of each of the members at the end of the year. He recalled one occasion when he tried to start chanting the Lotus Sutra before the family altar but was interrupted by an elderly woman chanting Namu-Amida. He explained to the woman that he was a Nichiren minister and he was holding a Nichiren Buddhist service and she was supposed to chant Namu-Myoho-Renge-Kyo. The woman apologized for her mistake. In other homes he would find both the Nichiren Shu mandala and another mandala in a butsudan.

“I think everyone doesn’t know what is our faith,” Rev. Igarashi said. “What is the religion. Religion is your spirit and your spirit is just one. If you have two or three or five spirits, then maybe you can believe a lot of other religions. But everyone has just one spirit and just one faith.”

Those people who travel from church to church ignore the teaching of Sakyamuni Buddha and Nichiren Shonin, he said.

“Everybody has Buddha nature. Everybody will become a Buddha. If you chant Namu-Myoho-Renge-Kyo you will get enlightenment. That’s one religion for one spirit. People who don’t understand this have two or three religions.”

Rev. Igarashi then mentioned the March 20, 1995, terrorist sarin attack on the Tokyo subway by members of the doomsday cult Aum Shinrikyo. (Wikipedia), explaining that the cult leader took advantage of young people, especially college students. Earlier this month, the members of the cult who had been on death row since their convictions were executed by hanging. (See news reports)

“If young people have strong faith, if the young ones know we have just one spirit and one religion, then I believe that they would never join this kind of cult,” Rev. Igarashi said. “That’s why I like to talk about how you have to have strong faith. Your spirit has one spirit. You have one spirit. One spirit with one religion is fine. So otherwise all the time you are thinking this religion is good or that religion is good. So that’s all the time your spirit and mind moves along. And that’s why all the time you have a chance to get caught up with a cult. So that’s why you have to be careful.

“We have the supreme teaching of Sakyamuni Buddha and Lotus Sutra and Nichiren Shonin doctrine. If you chant Namu-Myoho-Renge-Kyo your Buddha nature is going to open and you are going to get enlightenment. Then you’ll never come back to this suffering world. …

“You have just one spirit, one religion. We have Nichiren Buddhism, Lotus Sutra, and chant Namu-Myoho-Renge-Kyo. Everybody can get enlightenment. Everybody has Buddha nature. … That’s why if you chant Namu-Myoho-Renge-Kyo you are going to get enlightenment someday, maybe today or tomorrow or it takes a hundred years or 1000 years later. We don’t know but you have to keep upholding Nichiren Buddhism and the Lotus Sutra.”

History of Japanese Religion

The Chinese Philosopher Monk Chih-i

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It was the Chinese philosopher monk Chih-i (531-97) who formulated a system of religious philosophy on the basis of the book Hokke-kyō or Lotus; it is known as the school of Tendai (Chinese, Tientai), from the name of the mountain where he lived. The chief import of the book is to interpret the person of Buddha as a manifestation of eternal metaphysical entity, and thus to synthesize the two aspects of his being, his actual manifestation or incarnation in human life, and the ontological foundation of his real entity.

History of Japanese Religion

Daily Dharma

Daily Dharma – July 30, 2018

Hearing this truthful voice of yours, I feel like dancing [with joy]. I have never felt like this before. Why is that? We [Śrāvakas and the Bodhisattvas] heard this Dharma before. [At that time] we saw that the Bodhisattvas were assured of their future Buddhahood, but not that we were. We deeply regretted that we were not given the immeasurable insight of the Tathāgata.

The Buddha’s disciple Śāriputra makes this proclamation to the Buddha in Chapter Three of the Lotus Sūtra. The Buddha had just explained that everything he taught before the Lotus Sūtra was not his true enlightenment; it was preparation for receiving his highest teaching. Śāriputra, the wisest of the Buddha’s disciples, understood immediately that he would be able to do far more than end his own suffering. He would eventually become a Buddha himself. Those gathered were also overjoyed, knowing that Śākyamuni was not the only Buddha they would meet. This ties together the Buddha’s insight that when we are assured of our enlightenment, we are able to meet innumerable enlightened beings.

The Daily Dharma is produced by the Lexington Nichiren Buddhist Community. To subscribe to the daily emails, visit zenzaizenzai.com

LS32, WONS

Day 26

Day 26 concludes Chapter 21, The Supernatural Powers of the Tathāgatas, includes Chapter 22, Transmission, and introduces Chapter 23, The Previous Life of Medicine-King Bodhisattva.

Having last month concluded Day 26’s portion of Chapter 21, The Supernatural Powers of the Tathāgatas, we begin Chapter 22, Transmission.

Having heard these words of the Buddha, the Bodhisattva-mahāsattvas were filled with great joy. With more respect than ever, they bent forward, bowed, joined their hands together towards him, and said simultaneously. “We will do as you command. Certainly, World-Honored One! Do not worry!”

The Bodhisattva-mahāsattvas said simultaneously twice more, “We will do as you command. Certainly, World-Honored One! Do not worry!”

Thereupon Śākyamuni Buddha, wishing to send back to their home worlds [Many-Treasures Buddha and] the Buddhas of his replicas, who had come from the worlds of the ten quarters, said, “May the Buddhas be where they wish to be! May the stupa of Many-Treasures Buddha be where it was!”

Having heard these words of the Buddha, not only the innumerable Buddhas of his replicas, who had come from the worlds of the ten quarters and were sitting on the lion-like seats under the jeweled trees, Many-Treasures Buddha, and the great multitude of the innumerable, asaṃkhya Bodhisattvas, including Superior-Practice, but also the four kinds of devotees including Śāriputra and other Śrāvakas, and the gods, men and asuras of the world, had great joy.

Nichiren had this to say about the transmission:

The meaning of the chapter on “Transmission” in the Lotus Sūtra is that as Śākyamuni Buddha stepped out of the Stupa of Many Treasures and stood in the air, the original disciples of the Buddha such as Bodhisattva Superior Practice, disciples of the Buddhas in manifestation such as Bodhisattva Great Mañjuśrī, Great King of the Brahma Heaven, Indra, the sun, the moon, the Four Heavenly Kings, the Dragon King, the ten female rākṣasa demons, and others gathered in the vast world of four-trillion nayuta, as numerous as the pampas grass in the Musashino Field or trees on Mt. Fuji. They waited knelt side by side with their heads bowed to the ground, their hands together in gasshō, beads of perspiration forming from all the body-heat. Like an affectionate mother stroking the head of her child, Śākyamuni Buddha placed His hand upon their heads three times and entrusted them with the Lotus Sūtra. Then accepting the request of Śākyamuni Buddha, Bodhisattva Superior Practice, the sun and moon, and others vowed to spread the Lotus Sūtra in the Latter Age of Degeneration.

Nichinyo Gozen Gohenji, A Response to My Lady Nichinyo, Writings of Nichiren Shōnin, Volume 4, Faith and Practice, Pages 132-133