Monthly Archives: July 2019

21days, Universal Sage

21 Days: Seeing Past Lives

Here’s another quote from The Sutra of Contemplation of the Dharma Practice of Universal Sage Bodhisattva that I want to keep around (Reeves, p410):

Then Universal Sage Bodhisattva will emit another ray of light from between his eyebrows, the sign of a great man, and he will send it into the hearts of followers. After this ray has entered their hearts, followers themselves will remember that under countless hundreds and thousands of buddhas in the past they had received and embraced, read and recited the Great Vehicle sutras. Having the ability to penetrate clearly to previous states of existence, they will see their own former bodies with complete clarity, exactly as if they had the ability to see into the past.

WONS

Protection Against Suffering

Your late husband would not have been subject to such a suffering because he was a follower of Nichiren, a practicer of the Lotus Sutra. The Lotus Sūtra states: “Those who call upon the name of the Buddha will not be burned even if they fall into a great fire; they will immediately run ashore if carried away by a flood.” It states also: “Fire cannot burn the merit of practicing the teaching of the Lotus Sutra, and water cannot wash it away.” How reliable it is!

Ueno-dono Goke-ama Go-henji, A Response to the Nun, Widow of Lord Ueno, Nyonin Gosho, Letters Addressed to Female Followers, Page 48

Daily Dharma

Daily Dharma – July 29, 2019

I sought the Great Dharma strenuously
Because I wished to save all living beings.
I did not wish to benefit myself
Or to have the pleasures of the five desires.

The Buddha sings these verses in Chapter Twelve of the Lotus Sūtra. He describes his previous life as a great king who abandoned his throne, his wealth, and all the advantages of his position in society for the sake of enlightenment. In that life he realized that having pleasure as a goal was not making him happy, and only through the vow of the Bodhisattva to benefit all beings could he learn to see the world as it is.

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

LS32, WONS

Day 4

Day 4 concludes Chapter 2, Expedients, and completes the first volume of the Sūtra of the Lotus flower of the Wonderful Dharma.

DAY 4 FULL TEXT

Having last month concluded Chapter 2, Expedients, we begin again with the gāthās explaining why the 5,000 listeners left as Śākyamuni was about to talk.

Thereupon the World-Honored One, wishing to repeat what he had said, sang in gāthās:
Some bhikṣus and bhikṣunīs
Were arrogant.
Some upāsakās were self-conceited.
Some upāsikās were unfaithful.
Those four kinds of devotees
Were five thousand in number.

They could not see their own faults.
They could not observe all the precepts.
They were reluctant to heal their own wounds.
Those people of little wisdom are gone.
They were the dregs of this congregation.
They were driven away by my powers and virtues.

They had too few merits and virtues
To receive the Dharma.
Now there are only sincere people here.
All twigs and leaves are gone.

Nichiren had this to say about the “twigs and leaves”:

When the “Expedients” chapter of the Lotus Sūtra was preached, 5,000 self-conceited ones did not believe in what they heard and withdrew from the preaching of the Lotus Sūtra. Nevertheless, they became Buddhas in three months’ time because they did not slander the Lotus Sūtra. Referring to this incident, it is preached in the Nirvana Sūtra, “Both believers and non-believers will be born in the Immovable Land.” Those who heard the Lotus Sūtra can become Buddhas even if they do not put faith in the sūtra, so long as they do not slander it, due to the inexplicable merit of having heard the sūtra. This is like the person bitten by a poisonous snake called shichibuja who is bound to fall within taking seven steps and is unable to take the eighth step due to the inexplicable work of the poison. Or it is also like an embryo that changes its shape within seven days and never stays in one shape for more than eight days.

Hōren-shō, Letter to Hōren, Writings of Nichiren Shōnin, Volume 6, Followers I, Page 52

21days, Innumerable

21 Days: The Sutra for the Common People

Another quote (Reeves, p48) from the The Sutra of Innumerable Meanings to be kept handy:

“Good sons, such an unexcelled Great Vehicle Sutra of Innumerable Meanings has extremely great divine power and is unsurpassed in value. It leads all the common people to attain sacred fruit, and forever frees them from life and death. This is why this sutra is called Innumerable Meanings. It makes the tree of blessings grow, prosper, and flourish, and it leads all the living, while at the stage of common people, to have innumerable buds of the way of all the bodhisattvas. Therefore this sutra is called ‘the inconceivable power of blessings.’ “

Basics

Conversion of the Actual World Into An Ideal Realm

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The idea that meditation or self-destruction through asceticism frees a spirit after the death of the body posits the existence somewhere of a spirit world. Once again, the general Buddhist view is that even if it exists, such a spirit world has no relation to the ordinary world of human experience. The goal of Buddhism is not the attainment of a fictitious paradise but the conversion of the actual world into an ideal realm—a Buddha Land. In practice, believers in meditation and asceticism as ways to nirvana are usually seeking personal escape from this life. They may achieve their end, but true happiness is not to be gained by self-centered means. It can be realized only when all humankind has reached a state of peace and happiness.
Basic Buddhist Concepts

Daily Dharma

Daily Dharma – July 28, 2019

Anyone who keeps, reads and recites this sūtra, memorizes it correctly, understands the meanings of it, and acts according to it, know this, does the same practices that I do. He should be considered to have already planted deeply the roots of good under innumerable Buddhas [in his previous existence].

Universal-Sage (Fugen, Samantabhadra) Bodhisattva makes this declaration to the Buddha in Chapter Twenty-Eight of the Lotus Sūtra. In our mundane practice of the Wonderful Dharma, it is easy to overlook our place in the world and the benefits we bring to all beings. The magnificent character of Universal-Sage reminds us that despite our feelings of insignificance, we are the result of countless lives of practice and equal in our merits to this great Bodhisattva.

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

LS32

Day 3

Day 3 covers the first half of Chapter 2, Expedients.

Day 3 Text with annotationsPlay MP3

Having last month considered that all Buddhas use expedients, we consider the puzzlement of the Śrāvakas and Pratyekabuddhas.

The great multitude at that time included Śrāvakas. [They also included] Ājñāta-Kauṇḍinya, and other Arhats, twelve hundred altogether, who had already eliminated āsravas. [They also included] the bhikṣus, bhikṣunīs, upāsakās, and upāsikās, [that is, the four kinds of devotees] who had already aspired for Śrāvakahood or Pratyekabuddhahood. All of them thought:

“Why does the World-Honored One extol so enthusiastically the power of the Buddhas to employ expedients? Why does he say that the Dharma attained by him is profound and difficult to understand, and that the true purpose of his teachings is too difficult for Śrāvakas and Pratyekabuddhas to know? He expounded to us the teaching of emancipation. We obtained this teaching and reached Nirvāṇa. We do not know why he says all this.”

Lotus Path: Practicing the Lotus Sutra Volume 1 offers this on the followers’ puzzlement:

Previous to teaching the Lotus Sutra the Buddha taught expedients to lead people to the ultimate teaching of the Lotus Sutra. In many ways it was as if he were leading the blind to the train station so they could then find the way to the true complete teachings contained in the Lotus Sutra. But we need to remember that the train station is not the destination, the expedients are not the sum of the Buddha’s teachings.

Lotus Path: Practicing the Lotus Sutra Volume 1

21days, Universal Sage

21 Days: Practice Diligently and Never Be Lazy

This quote (Reeves, p408) from The Sutra of Contemplation of the Dharma Practice of Universal Sage Bodhisattva follows a reference to the Lotus Sutra and Chapter 19, The Merits of the Teacher of the Dharma. This is part of the instructions given to the contemplating practitioner by “hundreds of thousands of myriads of millions of innumerable buddhas everywhere”:

“Now you should practice diligently and never be lazy. These Great Vehicle sutras are the buddhas’ storehouse of the Dharma; they are the eyes of the buddhas in all directions and in the past, present, and future; and they are the seeds that give birth to tathagatas in the past, present, and future. One who embraces these sutras embraces the body of the Buddha and does the work of the Buddha. Such a person should understand that he or she has been sent by the buddhas and are covered by robes of buddhas, the world-honored ones. This is a child of the true Dharma of the buddhas, the tathagatas. Practice the Great Vehicle and do not cut off the seeds of Dharma!

The source of the instruction underscores the universality of the message, which is full of concepts also found in the Lotus Sutra.

buddhaseed

Acknowledging Favors Received; Repaying Favors to Others

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The doctrine of cause and effect or Ichinen Sanzen teaches us to acknowledge favors received from others and to repay favors to others. It is a totally a incorrect view to relate cause and effect to feelings of guilt or fear because it cannot improve our minds and lives.

As an example, when we hold memorial services for the deceased, we should hold them from the heart of compassion and to repay favors. This is how our heart gets connected to the deceased. According to the doctrines of Ichinen Sanzen and cause and effect, we share the fortune and misfortune of our own relatives, including the deceased, as our own. Thus, when we wish to help relatives or others having difficulty, such as an illness, we accumulate and dedicate merits for all beings including our ancestors.

Buddha Seed: Understanding the Odaimoku