Chu-chi Hsien-pen (Abiding in the Traces and revealing the Origin) is the function that is derived from the Subtlety of the Original Land. This refers to Śākyamuni Buddha, who is able to reveal his original land while abiding in his physical body at the present time in the Traces. (Vol. 2, Page 447)
The Profound Meaning of the Lotus Sutra: Tien-tai Philosophy of BuddhismMonthly Archives: April 2019
Day 19
Day 19 concludes Chapter 14, Peaceful Practices, and begins Chapter 15, The Appearance of Bodhisattvas from Underground.
Having last month considered at the start of Chapter 15 the question posed by Bodhisattva-mahāsattvas, more than eight times the number of the sands of the River Ganges, who had come from the other worlds, we greet the many thousands of billions of Bodhisattva-mahāsattvas who sprang up from underground.
When he had said this, the ground of the Sahā-World, which was composed of one thousand million Sumeru-worlds, quaked and cracked, and many thousands of billions of Bodhisattva-mahāsattvas sprang up from underground simultaneously. Their bodies were golden-colored, and adorned with the thirty-two marks and with innumerable rays of light. They had lived in the sky below this Sahā-World. They came up here because they heard these words of Śākyamuni Buddha. Each of them was the leader of a great multitude. The Bodhisattvas included those who were each accompanied by attendants as many as sixty thousand times the number of the sands of the River Ganges. Needless to say, [they included those who were each accompanied by less attendants, for instance,] fifty thousand times, forty thousand times, thirty thousand times, twenty thousand times or ten thousand times the number of the sands of the River Ganges, or by attendants just as many of the sands of the River Ganges, or by attendants as many as a half, or a quarter of the number of the sands of the River Ganges, or by attendants as many as the sands of the River Ganges divided by a thousand billion nayuta, a billion, ten million, a million, ten thousand, a thousand, a hundred, ten, five, four, three or two attendants, or only by one attendant. [The Bodhisattvas] who preferred a solitary life came alone. The total number of the Bodhisattvas was innumerable, limitless, beyond calculation, inexplicable by any parable or simile.
Those Bodhisattvas who appeared from underground, came to Many-Treasures Tathāgata and Śākyamuni Buddha both of whom were in the wonderful stūpa of the seven treasures hanging in the sky. They [joined their hands together] towards the two World-Honored Ones, and worshipped their feet with their heads. Then they [descended onto the ground and] came to the Buddhas sitting on the lion-like seats under the jeweled trees, bowed to them, walked around them from left to right three times, joined their hands together respectfully, and praised them by the various ways by which Bodhisattvas should praise Buddhas. Then they [returned to the sky,] stood to one side, and looked up at the two World-Honored ones with joy. A period of fifty small kalpas elapsed from the Bodhisattva-mahāsattvas’ springing up from underground till the finishing of the praising of the Buddhas by the various ways by which Bodhisattvas should praise Buddhas. All this while Śākyamuni Buddha sat in silence. The four kinds of devotees also kept silence for the fifty small kalpas. By his supernatural powers, however, the Buddha caused the great multitude to think that they kept silence for only half a day. Also by the supernatural powers of the Buddha, the four kinds of devotees were able to see that the skies of many hundreds of thousands of billions of worlds were filled with those Bodhisattvas.
Nichiren offers this description of these Bodhisattvas, who “are simultaneously followers of the Original Buddha and bodhisattvas who reside in the minds of us,” in his letter, A Treatise Revealing the Spiritual Contemplation and the Most Verable One:
The bodhisattvas described in the fifteenth chapter, “Appearance of Bodhisattvas from Underground,” who have sprung out of the great earth, as numerous as the number of dust-particles of 1,000 worlds, are followers of the Original Buddha Śākyamuni who resides within our minds.
They are like T’ai-kung-wang and Duke of Chou, retainers of King Wu of the Chou dynasty in ancient China, who at the same time served the King’s young son, King Ch’eng; or Takeuchi no Sukune of ancient Japan, a leading minister to Empress Jingu, who concurrently served her son, Prince Nintoku. Just like them Bodhisattvas Superior Practice (Jōgyō), Limitless Practice (Muhengyō), Pure Practice (Jōgyō), and Steadily Established Practice (Anryūgyō), the four leaders of these bodhisattvas sprung from the earth, are simultaneously followers of the Original Buddha and bodhisattvas who reside in the minds of us, ordinary people.
Therefore, Grand Master Miao-lê has declared in his Annotations on the Mo-ho chih-kuan (Mo-ho chih-kuan fu-hsing-chiian hungchiieh): “You should know that both our bodies and the land on which we live are a part of the 3,000 modes of existence which exist in our minds. Consequently, upon our attainment of Buddhahood, we are in complete agreement with the truth of ‘3,000 existences contained in one thought,’ and our single body and single thought permeate through all the worlds in the universe.”
Kanjin Honzon-shō, A Treatise Revealing the Spiritual Contemplation and the Most Verable One, Writings of Nichiren Shōnin, Doctrine 2, Page 147
Daily Dharma – April 4, 2019
Although we were your sons then as we are now, we wished to hear only the teachings of the Lesser Vehicle. If we had aspired for the teaching of the Great Vehicle, you would have already expounded it to us.
Subhūti, Mahā-Kātyāyana, Mahā-Kāśyapa, and Mahā-Maudgalyāyana speak this passage in Chapter Four of the Lotus Sūtra. This is before they tell the story of the Wayward Son. They explain their realization that the Buddha holds nothing back from us. The reason we hear expedient teachings rather than the highest teaching is because of the limits of our own aspiration. When we aspire to become Buddhas, we receive the highest teaching.
The Daily Dharma is produced by the Lexington Nichiren Buddhist Community. To subscribe to the daily emails, visit zenzaizenzai.com
The Sole Validity of a Particular Form of Faith or Practice
In medieval Tendai thought, the nonduality of the ordinary worldling and the Buddha forms the focus of argument; the particular form of practice one adopts is less important. In the new movements, this “nondual” standpoint is assimilated to claims for the sole validity of a particular form of faith or practice, which itself becomes the polemical touchstone, as the exclusive validity of the Lotus Sūtra does in the case of Nichiren. But this shift in focus is neither a rejection nor a fundamental transformation of the hongaku stance: Acceptance or denial of original enlightenment thought was not the fault line along which the “old”/”new” divide occurred. Far more important to the emergence of the new movements were such factors as their success in forming new institutions or kyōdan (including, as Matsuo Kenji has noted, the adoption of ordination procedures independent of the state-sponsored kaidan); their grounding in social and economic bases different from those of the Tendai temple-shrine complexes of the capital; and the particular ideological orientation inherent in their commitment to single practice, which served to define them over and against other Buddhists. (Page 361-362)
Original Enlightenment and the Transformation of Medieval Japanese BuddhismThe Subtlety of the Original Land
Chu-pen Hsien-pen (Abiding in the Origin and revealing the Origin) is the function related to the Subtlety of the Original Land. This is spoken of by Chih-i in terms of the original intention of the Buddha. The Buddha abides eternally in the Original Land of Sahā in revealing his original body dharmakāya. (Vol. 2, Page 447)
The Profound Meaning of the Lotus Sutra: Tien-tai Philosophy of BuddhismDay 18
Day 18 concludes Chapter 13, Encouragement for Keeping this Sutra, and begins Chapter 14, Peaceful Practices.
Having last month considered that all things are insubstantial, we consider in gāthās the proper practices and proper things to approach.
Thereupon the World-Honored One, wishing to repeat what he had said, sang in gāthās:
A Bodhisattva who wishes
To expound this sūtra without fear
In the evil world
After [my extinction]
Should perform proper practices
And approach proper things.He should keep away
From kings, princes and ministers,
From other government officials,
From players of dangerous sports,
From caṇḍālas, from heretics,
And from aspirants for the teaching of Brahman.He should not approach arrogant people,
Or the scholars who are deeply attached
To the Three Stores of the Lesser Vehicle,
Or the bhikṣus
Who violate the precepts,
Or self-appointed Arhats,
Or the bhikṣunīs/
Who like to laugh playfully.He should not approach the upāsikās
Who are attached to the five desires
Or who seek in their present life
The extinction[-without-remainder].When they come to him
With good intent
In order to hear
About the enlightenment of the Buddha,
He should expound the Dharma to them
Without fear,
But should not wish to receive
Anything from them.He should not approach
Or make friends with a widow
Or with an unmarried woman
Or with a eunuch.He should not approach
Slaughterers or cooks
Or those who kill for profit,
Such as hunters or fishermen.He should not approach
Butchers
Or procurers
Of prostitutes.He should not approach
Dangerous wrestlers
Or makers of various amusements
Or immoral women.He should not expound the Dharma
To a woman in an enclosed place.
When he expounds the Dharma to her,
He should not laugh playfully.When he goes to a village to beg for food,
He should take a Bhikṣu with him.
If he cannot find a Bhikṣu [to take with him],
He should think of the Buddha with all his heart.These are the proper practices he should perform
And the proper things he should approach.
He should expound the Dharma peacefully
Only after doing all this!
This part of Chapter 14 is an example of why “Peaceful Practices” served as an unofficial Mahāyāna precepts.
I’ve been reading Paul Groner’s The Establishment of the Japanese Tendai School, which focuses almost entirely on Saichō’s effort to establish Mahāyāna precepts to distinguish his Tendai monks from the Nara establishment, which required new monks to take the Hinayāna precepts. Saichō’s efforts expanded on Chih-i’s concept of precepts, as Groner points out:
Besides the concept of a bodhisattva who performed Sudden practices, Chih-i also introduced another concept utilized by Saichō, the Perfect precepts (enkai). The term ‘Perfect precepts’ referred to Chih-i’s classification of Buddhist doctrine into four categories and designated the precepts appropriate for followers of the Perfect teaching. Chih-i equated the Perfect precepts with the precepts of the Buddha. They were realized through meditation, practice, and the development of a mind which was free from passions and thus able to perceive things as they really are (jissōshin). The Perfect precepts were usually not identified in Chih-i’s writings with any particular set of rules such as the precepts of the Fan wang ching (Sūtra of Brahma’s Net), Hinayāna sets or even with the anrakugyō (Serene and Pleasant Activities) of the Lotus Sūtra. Elsewhere, however, Chih-i stated that adherence to the Lotus Sūtra (jikyō) was equivalent to holding the most profound precepts. Such precepts were called absolute (rikai) and were free of specific content. They were realized in two ways. A monk or nun might gradually practice precepts of increasing subtlety until the Perfect precepts were attained, or he or she might attain them in an instant through Sudden practices. (Page 224-225)
Daily Dharma – April 3, 2019
The [perverted] people think:
“This world is in a great fire.
The end of the kalpa [of destruction] is coming.”
In reality this world of mine is peaceful.
The Buddha sings these verses in Chapter Sixteen of the Lotus Sūtra. Here he draws a stark contrast between how those caught in the web of delusion see the world and how things really are. The world is constantly changing. When we expect the world to be as we want it, rather than as it is, any change is frightening. We assume that the world is falling apart and will sweep us along in its demise. When we practice the Wonderful Dharma of the Lotus Sūtra, we know that we and all beings will become enlightened. The change in the world is part of our practice. We know how it will turn out and there is no fear. Only peace.
The Daily Dharma is produced by the Lexington Nichiren Buddhist Community. To subscribe to the daily emails, visit zenzaizenzai.com
Making Evil the subject of liberative contemplation
Chih-i’s own thought stresses that delusion and enlightenment, the nine realms and Buddha realm, are inherent in any phenomenon; thus, those who live in evil circumstances and have no opportunity to contemplate the perfections are not excluded from the Way but can make that evil the subject of liberative contemplation. Nevertheless, he was extremely careful to clarify that the ontological nonduality of good and evil did not obviate the need to make firm conventional distinctions between them; he also inveighed against monks who interpreted the teaching of nonduality as legitimizing antinomian behavior or who taught it irresponsibly without regard for their listeners’ ability to understand. (Page 361)
Original Enlightenment and the Transformation of Medieval Japanese BuddhismSubtlety of the Original Proclamation of the Dharma
Fei-chi Hsien-pen (Abandoning the Traces and revealing the Origin) is the function related to the Subtlety of the Original Proclamation of the Dharma. Chih-i explains that in the past, because of heavy hindrances of five aggregates (Ch., Wu-yün; Skt., pan͂ca skandhāḥ) of sentient beings, the Buddha could not express the Origin, but only showed his recent accomplishment in the Traces. In the Lotus Sūtra, the hindrances of beings are wiped away, whereby it is necessary to abandon the teaching of the Traces in revealing the teaching of the Origin. (Vol. 2, Page 447)
The Profound Meaning of the Lotus Sutra: Tien-tai Philosophy of BuddhismDay 17
Day 17 covers all of Chapter 12, Devadatta, and opens Chapter 13, Encouragement for Keeping this Sutra.
Having last month heard Medicine-King Bodhisattva-mahāsattva and Great-Eloquence Bodhisattva-mahāsattva’s vow to uphold the Lotus Sūtra, we hear from Arhats and Śrāvakas who vow to preach the Lotus Sūtra in some other world.
At that time there were five hundred Arhats in this congregation. They had already been assured of their future attainment [of Anuttara-samyak-saṃbodhi]. They said to the Buddha, “World-Honored One! We also vow to expound this sūtra [but we will expound it] in some other worlds [rather than in this Sahā-World].”
There were also eight thousand Śrāvakas some of whom had something more to learn while others had nothing more to learn. They had already been assured of their future attainment [of Anuttara-samyak-saṃbodhi]. They rose from their seats, joined their hands together towards the Buddha and vowed:
“World-Honored One! We also will expound this sūtra in some other worlds because the people of this Sahā-World have many evils. They are arrogant. They have few merits. They are angry, defiled, ready to flatter others, and insincere.”
In his letter Treatise on the Teaching, Nichiren used the hesitance of the Arhats and Śrāvakas to preach in the Sahā world to show what he was up against:
It is predicted in the Lotus Sūtra, in the 13th chapter “Encouragement for Upholding This Sūtra,” that 2000 years after the Buddha’s extinction, in the Latter Age of Degeneration, three kinds of enemies will appear against those who spread the Lotus Sūtra. The time at hand matches exactly the Latter Age of Degeneration preached in the Lotus Sūtra as the “fifth 500-year period” after the death of the Buddha. As I, Nichiren, contemplate whether or not the Buddha’s words have proved to be true, three kinds of enemies surely exist today. If I deny the existence of the three enemies and spread the Lotus Sūtra in a manner so as to avoid persecution, I cannot claim to be a practicer of the Lotus Sūtra. On the other hand, if I spread the sūtra in such a way that I am persecuted by enemies, I certainly will lose my life.