Monthly Archives: October 2019

Daily Dharma

Daily Dharma – Oct. 7, 2019

The Buddhas sat at the place of enlightenment,
And obtained the hidden core.
Anyone who keeps this sūtra will be able
To obtain the same before long.

The Buddha speaks these verses in Chapter Twenty-One of the Lotus Sūtra. They are his assurance to us as those who follow and practice the Lotus Sūtra that we are firmly on the path to enlightenment, no matter what challenges we find in the world.

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

LS32

Day 6

Day 6 continues Chapter 3, A Parable

Day 6 Text with annotationsPlay MP3

Having last month heard Śākyamuni explain how the burning house represents this Sahā World, we consider Śākyamuni decision to use expedients.

“Śāriputra! Seeing all this, I [also] thought, ‘I am the father of all living beings. I will eliminate their sufferings, give them the pleasure of the immeasurable wisdom of the Buddha, and cause them to enjoy it.’

“Śāriputra! I also thought, ‘If I extol my insight, powers, and fearlessness in the presence of those living beings only by my supernatural powers and by the power of my wisdom, that is to say, without any expedient, they will not be saved because they have not yet been saved from birth, old age, disease, death, grief, sorrow, suffering and lamentation, but are burning up in the burning house of the triple world. How can they understand the wisdom of the Buddha?’

“Śāriputra! The rich man did not save his children by his muscular power although he was strong enough. He saved them from the burning house with a skillful expedient and later gave them each a large cart of treasures.

“In the same manner, I save all living beings from the burning house of the triple world, not by my powers or fearlessness, but with a skillful expedient. I expounded the teaching of the Three Vehicles: the Śrāvaka-Vehicle, Pratyekabuddha-Vehicle, and Buddha-Vehicle, as an expedient. I said, ‘Do not wish to live in the burning house of the triple world! Do not crave for inferior forms, sounds, smells, tastes or things tangible! If you cling to them and crave for them, you will be burned by them. Get out of the triple world quickly and obtain the teaching of the Three Vehicles: the Śrāvaka-Vehicle, Pratyekabuddha-Vehicle, and Buddha-Vehicle! I now assure you that you will never fail [to obtain those vehicles]. Exert yourselves, make efforts!’

“With this expedient, I caused them to advance. I said to them again, ‘Know this! This teaching of the Three Vehicles is extolled by the saints. This teaching saves you from any attachment or bond or desire. Ride in these Three Vehicles, eliminate āsravas, obtain the [five] faculties, the [five] powers, the [seven] ways to enlightenment, and the [eight right] ways, and practice dhyāna concentrations, emancipations, and samadhis so that you may be able to enjoy immeasurable peace and pleasure!’

See “A Vehicle To Carry Lotus Sūtra Practitioners to ‘Pure land of Vulture Peak’”

2buddhas, LS32, d5b, d6b, d7b

A Vehicle To Carry Lotus Sūtra Practitioners to ‘Pure land of Vulture Peak’

By Nichiren’s time, educated people were often familiar with these stories, and the Lotus Sūtra’s message that all could attain buddhahood was widely accepted — although how that buddhahood was to be achieved and how long it might take were subjects of debate. Nichiren himself sometimes alludes to these parables in advocating the daimoku as the path of realizing buddhahood in the present age, but he rarely dwells on them at length.

Nichiren makes only limited reference to the parable of the burning house that occupies most of this chapter’s narrative. In a few passages, he refers to the great cart drawn by a white ox metaphorically as the vehicle that will carry Lotus Sūtra practitioners to “the pure land of Vulture Peak,” that is, the realm of enlightenment, or as a war chariot that he rides in a great dharma battle between true and provisional teachings. He does not provide an extended discussion of the parable itself. Rather, as we go through these initial chapters of the Lotus, we will see how Nichiren drew out the significance of other passages that might not seem central to the sūtra’s narrative but that assume considerable importance in his reading, a reading that was shaped by the sūtra’s reception history, by his contemporary circumstances, and by his own perspective.

Two Buddhas, p82
Basics

Organic Buddhism

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Though apparently mechanical, society moves in a purposeful way because all of its members are consciously goal oriented. Since they are morally neutral, the Buddhist doctrines of impermanence and the absence of a persisting self are as purposeless as the laws of physics and chemistry. The principles that all existence is suffering and that nirvana is tranquility, however, are purposeful: their goal is the elimination of suffering, and they set standards for religious – specifically, Buddhist – ideals. A course of action is organic when it has ideal purposes, regards as evil whatever runs counter to those purposes and as good whatever conduces to their achievement, and strives to move away from evil and toward good. The Buddhist law of dependent origination regards confinement to the cycle of transmigration and suffering as evil, interprets the elimination of the causes that produce such suffering as good, and teaches the way to attain that goal.
Basic Buddhist Concepts

Saicho

Perfect Faculties

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If a religious teaching is to be effective, it must be suited to the abilities and faculties of those to whom it is preached. If it is too profound for its listeners, they may be frightened by it and thus doubt their own abilities, or they may leave the assembly at which it is being preached. Even the earliest sūtras contain the idea that the Buddha adapted his teachings to fit the capabilities of his audience. The Buddha was often compared to a doctor who administered medicine to the sick. If the medicine (or doctrine) was not suited to their needs, it would not cure them. The Lotus Sūtra and the Hua yen Ching (Avatamsakasūtra) both contain passages which describe Śrāvakas and pratyekabuddhas who did not have faculties sufficiently mature to understand the Buddha’s more advanced teachings. These passages played key roles in Chih-i’s systems of classification of Buddhist teachings. The Hua yen Ching was criticized because it made no allowances for the faculties of its listeners. It was thus considered an ineffective teaching for most people, leaving them as if they were ‘deaf and dumb.’ The Lotus Sūtra, in contrast, did consider the faculties of its audience. According to the Lotus Sūtra, the Buddha waited until his listeners were ready to hear his ultimate teaching before preaching the Lotus Sūtra. Despite this, five-thousand people left the assembly at which the Buddha preached the Lotus Sūtra because of their “overweening pride.” On the basis of this passage, Chih-i was able to argue that the Nieh p’an Ching (Mahāparinirvāpasātra), traditionally regarded in China as the Buddha’s last sermon, had the function of saving these five-thousand monks and nuns. Chih-i thus classified the Nieh p’an Ching in the same period of the Buddha’s life as the Lotus Sūtra and noted that the Nieh p’an Ching included elements if the Perfect Teaching.

Saichō: The Establishment of the Japanese Tendai School, p180-181
Daily Dharma

Daily Dharma – Oct. 6, 2019

I see the [perverted] people sinking
In an ocean of suffering.
Therefore, I disappear from their eyes
And cause them to admire me.

The Buddha sings these verses in Chapter Sixteen of the Lotus Sūtra. With the story of the wise physician in this chapter, the Buddha explains how he disappears from our view even though he is always present to us. The children in the story would not accept the remedy their father prepared for them to counteract the poison they had taken. Some of them hoped for another remedy, some believed the remedy would be worse than the poison. It was not until the father left and told them he would not return that the children realized the value of what they already had. When we take the Buddha for granted, as the children in the story took their father for granted, and ignore the path he has laid out for us, we lose sight of the Buddha. It is only when we realize we are lost that we look for a guide. When we bring the Buddha’s teachings to life, we find him everywhere.

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

LS32

Day 5

Day 5 begins Chapter 3, A Parable

Day 5 Text with annotationsPlay MP3

Having last month heard Śāriputra ask the Buddha to ease the doubts of the others in the congregation, we hear the Buddha’s reply to Śāriputra and begin the Parable of the Burning House.

Thereupon the Buddha said to Śāriputra:
“Did I not tell you, ‘The Buddhas, the World-Honored Ones, expound the Dharma with expedients, that is, with various stories of previous lives, with various parables, with various similes, and with various discourses only for the purpose of causing all living beings to attain Anuttara-samyak-saṃbodhi’? All these teachings of the Buddhas are for the purpose of teaching Bodhisattvas. Śāriputra! Now I will explain this with a parable. Those who have wisdom will be able to understand the reason if they hear the following parable.

“Śāriputra! Suppose there lived a very rich man in a certain country, in a certain village, in a certain town. He was old. His wealth was immeasurable. He had many paddy fields, houses, and servants. His manor house was large, but had only one gate. In that house lived many people, numbering a hundred or two hundred or five hundred. The buildings were in decay, the fences and walls corrupt, the bases of the pillars rotten, and the beams and ridgepoles tilting and slanted.

“All of a sudden fires broke out at the same time from all sides of the house, and it began to burn. In this house lived children of the rich man, numbering ten or twenty or thirty. The rich man was very frightened at the great fires breaking out from the four sides of the house. He thought, ‘I am able to get out of the gate of the burning house safely, but my children are still inside. They are engrossed in playing. They do not know that the fires are coming towards them. They are not frightened or afraid. They are about to suffer, but do not mind. They do not wish to get out.’ Śāriputra! He also thought, ‘I am strong-muscled. I will put them in a flower-plate or on a table and bring them out.’

“But he thought again, ‘This house has only one gate. Worse still, the gate is narrow and small. My children are too young to know this. They are attached to the place where they are playing. They may fall [out of the plate or table] and get burned. I had better tell them of the danger. This house is already burning. They must come out quickly so as not to be burned to death.’

“Having thought this, he said to his children as he had thought, ‘Come out quickly!’ He warned them with these good words out of his compassion towards them, but they were too much engrossed in playing to hear the words of their father. They were not frightened or afraid. They did not wish to come out. They did not know what a fire was, what a house was, and what they would lose. They ran about happily. They only glanced at their father occasionally.

See Opening Buddhahood as a Real Possibility to Anyone

2buddhas, LS32, d5b, d6b, d7b, WONS

Opening Buddhahood as a Real Possibility to Anyone

In the Lotus Sūtra’s narrative, Śāriputra is the first śrāvaka to receive the Buddha’s prediction of his future buddhahood. “When Śāriputra heard this,” Nichiren wrote, “he not only cut off the illusions arising from primal ignorance and reached the stage of the true cause [for liberation] but was acclaimed as the [future] tathāgata Padmaprabha [Lotus Light]. … This was the beginning of the attainment of buddhahood by all beings of the ten realms.”

For Nichiren, … the Lotus Sūtra’s message that persons of the two lesser vehicles could attain buddhahood was not about extending this possibility to a group of previously excluded individuals but, rather, established the mutual inclusion of the ten realms as the ground that, for the first time, opened buddhahood as a real possibility to anyone.

Two Buddhas, p82
Saicho

Expanding Participation of Common People in Buddhism

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Saichō’s proposals led to government recognition of trends already present in Buddhism and thus enabled monks to approach the people even more closely. His efforts to defend the doctrinal basis for the participation of the common people in Buddhism were a crucial part of this change. In his works directed against Tokuitsu and the Hossō School, Saichō argued that all people had the Buddha-nature and could attain Buddhahood. Receiving the Fan wang ordination and adhering to the precepts were religious practices open to anyone. Anyone could receive a Fan wang ordination and anyone who had been correctly ordained could in turn confer the Fan wang precepts on others. The universal scope of the Fan wang precepts was due to the universality of the Buddha-nature.

Saichō envisaged a system in which Tendai monks would be trained for twelve years on Mount Hiei and then go to live in the provinces in order to perform good works, to preach, and to confer Fan wang ordinations. Saichō himself made two such trips: the first to Kyushu and the second to Kōzuke and Shimotsuke. On the second trip he is said to have performed ordinations. In addition, Mount Hiei was to be the center of a matrix of pagodas and temples which were to protect the emperor and the nation from harm. Observance of the Fan wang or Perfect precepts was to be a universal practice which could be used by the entire Japanese population. Thus the nation would be protected through the spread of the Perfect precepts (denkai gokoku).

Saichō: The Establishment of the Japanese Tendai School, p179-180
buddhaseed

Sokushin Jōbutsu

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In accordance with his compassionate vow, Śākyamuni prescribed a great medicine known as the Odaimoku or Buddha seed.

“In consequence, all living beings under the Buddha in this Sahā-world are one with him and are eternal. This is because those who believe in the Lotus Sutra, live in the land where they have united themselves with the Buddha and attained the truth of the Three Thousand Existences in One Thought.”
(Kanjin Honzon Shō, A Phrase A Day, p. 178)

No matter where we are, at the office, home, dentist or the park, the Buddha’s compassion is being given to us in the form of the five characters (Myo Ho Ren Ge Kyo). Our faith and respect for the Buddha should grow deeper and stronger. The Buddha has given us a great gift.

Through the practice of the seven characters of the Odaimoku, people can unite with the Eternal Buddha as a part of his life. This is known as Sokushin Jōbutsu, attaining buddhahood with one’s present form. This is also referred to as Juji Jōbutsu, attaining buddhahood by upholding the Lotus Sutra and the Odaimoku and practicing the Sutra in one’s daily life.

Buddha Seed: Understanding the Odaimoku