In Chapter 10 there is another transition that takes place in the Lotus Sutra and that is the transition from an emphasis on the body of the Buddha to the teaching of the Buddha. In this chapter the Buddha tells his disciples that instead of enshrining his relics, the teaching of the Wonderful Dharma of the Lotus Flower Sutra should be what is contained within the stupa we revere. Here too in this great drama we should remember that because the teaching is true, the teacher is great. We devote ourselves to the Lotus Sutra and to the teacher of that sutra and through our devotion we bring it to life.
Lecture on the Lotus SutraMonthly Archives: December 2019
Revelations of the Lotus Sūtra
Revealing the single path to Buddhahood in the Āgama sūtras, the Lotus Sūtra preaches in chapter two, “Expedients,” “I expounded various Hinayāna sūtras according to the capacities of all living beings. They are the entrance to the Mahāyāna teaching.” Revealing the single path to Buddhahood in the Flower Garland Sūtra, the Lotus Sūtra states in chapter 16, “The Life Span of the Buddha,” “The gods, men and asura in the world think that I, Śākyamuni Buddha, left the palace of the Śākyas, sat at the place of enlightenment not far from the City of Gayā, and attained Buddhahood. To tell the truth, however, it has been innumerable kalpa (aeons) since I attained Buddhahood.” In the case of the Wisdom Sūtra, the Lotus Sūtra states 18 types of voidness in chapter 14, “Peaceful Practices”—the voidness which is expounded in the Wisdom Sūtra is included in the Lotus Sūtra. In the case of the Sūtra of Meditation on the Buddha of Infinite Life, the Lotus Sūtra preaches the doctrine of reaching the Pure Land of Peace in chapter 23, “Anyone who hears this sūtra and acts according to its teaching will be reborn in this Pure Land upon death.” As for practicing virtuous deeds with distracted minds, the Lotus Sūtra reveals the single path by saying in chapter 2, “Expedients,” “Those who chanted just once ‘Namu Buddha’ without concentration in mind, have already attained the enlightenment of the Buddha.” For all living beings, the Lotus Sūtra says in chapter 3, “A Parable,” “This triple world is My property. All living beings therein are My children.” For the non-Buddhist teachings and writings, the Lotus Sūtra says in chapter 19, “The Merits of the Teacher of the Dharma,” “When they expound the scriptures of non-Buddhist schools, or give advice to the government, or teach the way to earn a livelihood, they will be able to be in accord with the right teachings of the Buddha.” Passages that describe the revelation of the single path to Buddhahood in the Tuṣita Heaven or of gods and men are too numerous to write them all down here.
Ichidai Shōgyō Tai-I, Outline of All the Holy Teachings of the Buddha, Writings of Nichiren Shōnin, Doctrine 3, Page 93
Daily Dharma – Dec. 18, 2019
Ajita! Any good man or woman who keeps, reads, or recites this sūtra after my extinction, also will be able to obtain these merits. Know this! He or she should be considered to have already reached the place of enlightenment, approached Anuttara-samyak-saṃbodhi, and sat under the tree of enlightenment. Ajita! Erect a stūpa in the place where he or she sat, stood or walked! All gods and men should make offerings to that stūpa just as they do to the stūpa of a Buddha.
The Buddha gives this explanation to Maitreya (whom he calls Ajita – Invincible) in Chapter Seventeen of the Lotus Sūtra. In this mysterious description, the Buddha seems to say that anyone who practices this Lotus Sūtra as it instructs is his equal, that this person deserves as much respect as the Buddha himself. In this world of conflict it is rare to even find this teaching, and even more rare to practice it. The Buddha encourages Bodhisattvas such as Maitreya and other protective deities to serve and care for those who bring the Buddha’s greatest wisdom to life. When we practice the Wonderful Dharma, it is as if the Buddha himself appears among us.
The Daily Dharma is produced by the Lexington Nichiren Buddhist Community. To subscribe to the daily emails, visit zenzaizenzai.com
Day 10
Day 10 concludes Chapter 6, Assurance of Future Buddhahood, and opens Chapter 7, The Parable of a Magic City.
Having last month heard the prediction for Great Kātyāyana, we hear the prediction for Great Maudgalyāyana.
Thereupon the World-Honored One said again to the great multitude:
“Now I will tell you. This Great Maudgalyāyana will make various offerings to eight thousand Buddhas, respect them, and honor them. After the extinction of each of those Buddhas, he will erect a stūpa-mausoleum a thousand yojanas high, and five hundred yojanas wide and deep. He will make it of the seven treasures: gold, silver, lapis lazuli, shell, agate, pearl and ruby. He will offer flowers, necklaces, incense applicable to the skin, incense powder, incense to burn, canopies, banners and streamers to the stūpa-mausoleum. After that he will make the same offerings to two hundred billions of Buddhas. Then he will become a Buddha called Tamālapattra-candana-Fragrance, the Tathāgata, the Deserver of Offerings, the Perfectly Enlightened One, the Man of Wisdom and Practice, the Well-Gone, the Knower of the World, the Unsurpassed Man, the Controller of Men, the Teacher of Gods and Men, the Buddha, the World-Honored One. The kalpa in which he will become that Buddha will be called Joyfulness; and his world, Mind-Happiness. The ground [of his world] will be even, made of crystal, adorned with jeweled trees, and purified with strewn flowers of pearls. Anyone will rejoice at seeing it. Innumerable gods, men, Bodhisattvas and Śrāvakas will live there. The duration of the life of that Buddha will be twenty-four small kalpas. His right teachings will be preserved for forty small kalpas, and the counterfeit of his right teachings also will be preserved for forty small kalpas.”
One’s Own Practice Affects Others
Two Buddhas, p108-109In the original story, Maudgalyāyana cannot assist his mother with his own magical powers; he can only do so by the power of the dharma. The fact that she is saved when he offers a meal to the monastic assembly reflects the widely held idea that the transfer of merit to the deceased is most efficacious when ritually mediated by monastics, especially those earnest in practice and pure in their vows. … Nichiren presents an alternative explanation, showing how he adapted traditional Buddhist stories to his Lotus exclusivism:
The Urabon service began with the Venerable Maudgalyāyana’s attempts to save his mother, Shōdai-nyo, who on account of her miserliness and greed had fallen for five hundred lifetimes into the realm of hungry ghosts. But he could not make her become a buddha. The reason was because he himself did not yet practice the Lotus Sūtra, and so he could not lead even his own mother to buddhahood. But at the eight-year assembly on Vulture Peak, he embraced the Lotus Sūtra, chanted Namu Myōhō-renge-kyō, and became the Buddha Tamālapattracandanagandha [Tamālapattra Sandalwood Fragrance]. At that time, his mother became a Buddha too.
You also asked about offerings for hungry ghosts. The third fascile of the Lotus Sūtra says, ‘It is as though someone coming from a country suffering from famine were suddenly to find a great king’s feast spread before him.’ … When you make offerings for hungry ghosts, you should recite this passage from the sūtra and also chant Namu Myōhō-renge-kyō.
Claims that one person’s religious attainment would simultaneously benefit that individual’s family members, sometimes for seven generations in each direction, was common in Nichiren’s time. They express a confidence, grounded in Mahāyāna notions of interconnection, that one’s own practice affects others across time, space, and the boundaries of life and death. Nichiren here assimilates such ideas to the practice of chanting the daimoku, the title of the Lotus Sūtra.
Emptiness and the Buddha of the Lotus Sutra
The fundamental question regarding the Lotus Sutra’s vision of ultimate truth is its relation to the essential teaching of the Prajn͂āpāramitā sutra, the doctrine of emptiness (śūnyāta). While the sutra does not expound the principle of emptiness at great length, it refers to emptiness on several occasions, and many of its principles and teachings appear to presuppose the concept of emptiness. One of the most extensive direct references to it appears in chapter 5:
Those grasses and trees, shrubs and forests, and medicinal herbs do not know themselves whether their nature is superior, intermediate or inferior; but the Thus Come One knows this Dharma of a single mark and a single flavor, namely, the mark of deliverance, the mark of disenchantment, the mark of extinction, the mark of ultimate nirvāṇa of eternally quiescent nirvāṇa, finally reducing itself to Emptiness. (p. 103)
In this passage the sutra declares that despite their apparent diversity, the ultimate truth of all beings is the single mark of emptiness. Later, in chapter 10, the sutra further expounds that it is through the realization of this emptiness of the dharmas that one gains entrance into Buddhahood:
The room of the Thus Come One is the thought of great compassion toward all living beings. The cloak of the Thus Come One is the thought of tender forbearance and the bearing of insult with equanimity. The throne of the Thus Come One is the emptiness of all dharmas. It is only by dwelling securely among these that he or she can with unabating thought broadly preach this Scripture of the Dharma Blossom to the bodhisattvas and the fourfold assembly. (p. 180)
In addition to statements such as these directly referring to emptiness, passages which proclaim a singular ultimate truth of all dharmas or which deny any distinction between the phenomenal realm and ultimate truth may be viewed as expressions of this doctrine. Thus, a passage in chapter 2 which states that the “reality” of all aspects of all dharmas is their “suchness” (tathatā) appears to be a reference to the emptiness of the dharmas:
Concerning the prime, rare and hard-to-understand dharmas, which the Buddha has perfected, only a Buddha and a Buddha can exhaust their reality, namely, the suchness of the dharmas, the suchness of their marks, the suchness of their nature, the suchness of their substance, the suchness of their powers, the suchness of their functions, the suchness of their causes, the suchness of their conditions, the suchness of their effects, the suchness of their retributions, and the absolute identity of their beginning and end. (pp. 22-23)
In chapter 16 the Lotus Sutra asserts the identity of the world of samsara, the cycle of birth and death, and the realm of the Buddha, a central theme of the exposition of emptiness in the Prajn͂āpāramitā sutras. Using vivid language the Lotus Sutra explains that the transient phenomenal world, which to the unenlightened is a place of torment, is itself the “pure land” of the Buddha:
When the beings see the kalpa ending
And being consumed by a great fire,
This land of mine is perfectly safe,
Ever full of gods and men;
In it are gardens and groves, halls and towers,
Variously adorned with gems,
As well as jeweled trees with many blossoms and fruits, Wherein the beings play and amuse themselves;
My Pure Land is not destroyed,
Yet the multitude, seeing it consumed with flame,
Are worried, and fear the torment of pain;
The likes of these are everywhere. (p. 243)
Another motif of the Lotus Sutra that associates it with the tradition’s expositions of emptiness is the distinction made between the revelation of the Buddha Dharma in this sutra and the “expedient devices” the Buddha has previously used to lead practitioners to this truth. The Lotus Sutra is famous (or infamous) for denouncing the doctrines taught to the Śrāvakas (voice-hearers) as “expedient devices” intended only to prepare the practitioner to grasp the truth revealed in the sutra. In one passage, the “nirvāṇa” taught to the voice-hearers is repudiated explicitly on the grounds of the emptiness of all dharmas:
Though I preach nirvāṇa, This is no true extinction.
The dharmas from their very origin
Are themselves eternally characterized by the marks of quiet extinction. (p. 37)
The Six Worlds
The first six worlds – hell-dwellers, hungry ghosts, animals, fighting demons, humanity and heaven – are alike in that these states are driven by the Three Poisons of greed, hatred, and delusion to varying degrees. When in these states, we strive to make the world in which we live conform to our expectations and desires so that we can find security and lasting satisfaction. According to Buddhism, however, life is literally what we make of it. Despite our wishes, we will still only reap what we have sown. If we are kind and helpful to others, we will in turn discover that others are kind and helpful. If we mistreat others, we will find that others will mistreat us. This cycle is self-perpetuating: We are constantly making new causes based on our reactions to the effects of our previous causes in an effort to find a stable place of comfort and security. Unfortunately, there is no final resting place or lasting fulfillment within the Six Worlds because they are all in a constant state of changing and interacting with one another. One cannot even count on the heavenly states, because they are also impermanent and subject to change.
Lotus Seeds‘Three Kinds of Enemies of the Lotus Sūtra’
Exactly as the Buddha predicted, there are “three kinds of enemies of the Lotus Sūtra” all over Japan. Nevertheless, we don’t see any practicers of the Lotus Sūtra. Does this mean that the words of the Buddha have been proved untrue? Could this be? After all, who has been abused and despised by the ignorant people for the sake of the Lotus Sūtra? Which monk has been brought to the attention of court nobles and warriors in power? Which monk has often been exiled as predicted in the sūtra? No such man exists in Japan, except for Nichiren. However, as Nichiren has been abandoned by the gods, he probably is not a practicer of the Lotus Sūtra. Then, who would be a practicer of the Lotus Sūtra to realize the Buddha’s prediction?
Kaimoku-shō, Open Your Eyes to the Lotus Teaching, Writings of Nichiren Shōnin, Doctrine 2, Page 98
Daily Dharma – Dec. 17, 2019
He will see only wonderful things in his dream.
He will dream:
‘Surrounded by bhikṣus,
The Tathāgatas are sitting
On the lion-like seats,
And expounding the Dharma.’
The Buddha sings these verses in Chapter Fourteen of the Lotus Sūtra, speaking of those who keep and practice the Wonderful Dharma. Dreams for many of us can be frightening places. They can be where we relive bad situations in our past or develop fantastic scenarios for disasters in the future. When we accept our nature as Bodhisattvas, and live assured of our future enlightenment, we find that even the thoughts over which we have no control begin to harmonize with the world around us. When we learn to recognize the Buddha in our everyday lives, our old traumas become vehicles for compassion.
The Daily Dharma is produced by the Lexington Nichiren Buddhist Community. To subscribe to the daily emails, visit zenzaizenzai.com
Day 9
Day 9 covers Chapter 5, The Simile of Herbs, and introduces Chapter 6, Assurance of Future Buddhahood.
Having last month heard the prediction for Mahā-Kāśyapa, we repeat the prediction in gāthās.
Thereupon the World-Honored One, wishing to repeat what he had said, sang in gāthās:
I will tell you, bhikṣus.
I see this Kāśyapa
With the eyes of the Buddha.
He will become a Buddha
In his future life
After innumerable’ kalpas from now.He will see in his future life
Three hundred billions
Of Buddhas, of World-Honored Ones.
He will make offerings to them,
And perform brahma practices
To obtain the wisdom of the Buddha.
Having made offerings
To the Most Honorable Bipeds,
He will study and practice
Unsurpassed wisdom,
And become a Buddha on the final stage
Of his physical existence.The ground [of his world] will be pure.
It will be made of lapis lazuli.
Many jeweled trees
Will stand on the roadsides.
The roads will be marked off by ropes of gold.
Anyone will rejoice at seeing them.Fragrance will be sent forth from the trees;
And beautiful flowers will be strewn
On the ground, which will be adorned
With various wonderful things.
The ground will be even,
And devoid of mounds and pits.The number of the Bodhisattvas
Will be beyond calculation.
They will be gentle.
They will have great supernatural powers.
They will keep the sutras of the Great Vehicle
Expounded by the Buddhas.The Śrāvakas will have already eliminated āsravas,
And reached the final stage of their physical existence.
They will become sons of the King of the Dharma.
Their number also will be beyond calculation.
Even those who have heavenly eyes
Will not be able to count them.The duration of the life of that Buddha
Will be twelve small kalpas.
His right teachings will be preserved
For twenty small kalpas.
The counterfeit of his right teachings
Will be preserved also for twenty small kalpas.
All this is my prophecy
About the World-Honored One called Light.