Anyone who reads this sūtra
Will be free from grief,
Sorrow, disease or pain.
His complexion will be fair.
He will not be poor,
Humble or ugly.
All living beings
Will wish to see him
Just as they wish to see sages and saints.
Celestial pages will serve him.
The Buddha sings these verses in Chapter Fourteen of the Lotus Sūtra. When we cultivate the mind of the Buddha, and bring his teachings to life, we help other beings find true happiness. This is different from our normal pattern of attempting to manipulate what others think about us through bribery, threats, and other forms of coercion. When we help others find their minds, they realize that they share our true mind of joy and peace.
The Daily Dharma is produced by the Lexington Nichiren Buddhist Community. To subscribe to the daily emails, visit zenzaizenzai.com
Having last month considered the ways of attaining the Buddha path, we consider how all past and future Buddhas use expedients.
The World-Honored Ones in the future
Will be countless in number.
Those Tathāgatas also
Will expound the Dharma with expedients.
The Tathāgatas save all living beings
With innumerable expedients.
They cause all living beings to enter the Way
To the wisdom-without-āsravas of the Buddha.
Anyone who hears the Dharma
Will not fail to become a Buddha.
Every Buddha vows at the outset:
“I will cause all living beings
To attain the same enlightenment
That I attained.”
The future Buddhas will expound many thousands
Of myriads of millions of teachings
For just one purpose,
That is, for the purpose of revealing the One Vehicle.
The Buddhas, the Most Honorable Bipeds,
Expound the One Vehicle because they know:
“All things are devoid of substantiality.
The seed of Buddhahood comes from dependent origination.”
The Leading Teachers expound the Dharma with expedients
After realizing at the place of enlightenment:
“This is the abode of the Dharma and the position of the Dharma.
The reality of the world is permanently as it is.”
Gods and men are making offerings
To the present Buddhas of the worlds of the ten quarters.
The Buddhas as many as there are sands in the River Ganges
Who appeared in these worlds,
Are expounding the Dharma
For the purpose of giving peace to all living beings.
They know the Highest Truth of Tranquil Extinction.
They have the power to employ expedients.
Although they expound various teachings,
Their purpose is to reveal the Buddha-Vehicle.
Knowing the deeds of all living beings,
And their thoughts deep in their minds,
And the karmas they have done in their previous existence,
And their desires, natures, and powers to make efforts,
And also knowing whether each of them is keen or dull,
The Buddhas expound the Dharma according to their capacities,
With various stories of previous lives, parables, similes and discourses,
That is to say, with various expedients.
I also do the same.
I show the enlightenment of the Buddha
With various teachings
In order to give peace to all living beings.
I know the natures and desires of all living beings
By the power of my wisdom.
Therefore, I expound various teachings expediently,
And cause all living beings to rejoice.
All living beings can enter the Buddha-way from any point: from worshiping the buddhas’ relics, from building stupas and memorials, from building temples and shrines to the buddhas in the wilderness, or even from heaping sand in play to form a buddha’s stupa. All living beings can enter the Buddha-way by doing anything good. As they increasingly strive after virtue and develop the great mind of benevolence, they finally become buddhas.
Nichiren also stressed to his followers that they themselves are the “ambassadors of the Tathāgata” praised by Śākyamuni Buddha in this chapter, the very people who, in an evil era after the Buddha’s passing, will be able to uphold the sūtra and teach it to others. To one individual, borrowing the sūtra’s language in this passage, he wrote: “It is rare to receive human birth, but you have done so. You have also encountered the buddha dharma, which is difficult to meet. And within the buddha dharma, you have found the daimoku of the Lotus Sūtra and now put it into practice. Truly you have ‘already paid homage to tens of myriads of kotis of buddhas of the past.”
The idea that one is an “ambassador of the Tathāgata” and has “already paid homage to tens of myriads of kotis of buddhas” might seem to contradict another of Nichiren’s claims … that people born into the age of the Final Dharma have never before received the seed of buddhahood. Like most founders of religious movements, Nichiren taught according to his audience and circumstances and did not fully systematize his teachings; this would be one way to account for this apparent inconsistency. But there are also other ways to think about it. Past lives are unknowable, and talk about them by Buddhist teachers is intended to cast light on the present. Thus, we might think of the tension between these two ideas as Nichiren offering his followers alternative perspectives on their practice. To say that one has now received the seed of buddhahood for the very first time engenders gratitude for the rare opportunity of having encountered the daimoku of the Lotus Sūtra; to say that one has served countless buddhas in the past and been dispatched to this world as the Tathāgata’s ambassador invests one’s personal practice with the quality of a noble mission.
Nichiren said of himself that, being an ordinary person steeped in delusion, “my mind is far from that of the Tathāgata’s ambassador.” But because he had endured great trials for the Lotus Sūtra’s sake with his body and chanted its daimoku with his mouth, he continued, “I am like the Tathāgata’s ambassador.” His claim to legitimacy as the teacher of the Lotus Sūtra for the Final Dharma age lay not in superior spiritual attainments, something he never asserted, but in the fact that he had fulfilled the sūtra’s own predictions of the hardships its devotees would encounter in a troubled age after the Buddha’s passing.
Those who do not aspire to Buddhahood will never attain it. Lord Śākyamuni Buddha was abused by all non-Buddhist teachers in India as an evil man. Grand Master T’ien-t’ai was spoken ill of as “a man who destroys his own five-foot body by slandering the Buddha with a three-inch tongue” by the three Southern masters and seven Northern masters of Buddhism in China and Monk Tokuitsu of Japan. Grand Master Dengyō was laughed at by scholar-monks of Nara for not having seen the capital of T’ang China. However, these masters had nothing to be ashamed of because they were abused just for the sake of the Lotus Sūtra. Praise by the ignorant should be regarded most dishonorable.
Kaimoku-shō, Open Your Eyes to the Lotus Teaching, Writings of Nichiren Shōnin, Doctrine 2, Page 114
Thereupon Star-King-Flower Bodhisattva said to the Buddha: “World-Honored One! Why does Medicine-King Bodhisattva walk about this Sahā-World? World-Honored One! This Medicine-King Bodhisattva will have to practice hundreds of thousands of billions of nayutas of austerities in this world.
This excerpt is from Chapter Twenty-Three of the Lotus Sutra. Star-King-Flower Bodhisattva is aware of the difficulties that Medicine-King or any other Bodhisattva will encounter while living in this world of conflict (Sahā) and asks the Buddha why this Bodhisattva would give up the pleasures of the higher realms to which he is entitled. The Buddha then tells the story of Medicine-King’s previous life, in which he gave up many attachments, including the attachment to his own body. These stories of Bodhisattvas are reminders of our own capacities, and that no matter what difficulties we face in our lives, our determination to benefit all beings, our certainty of enlightenment, and the help we receive from other beings will lead us to overcome any problems.
The Daily Dharma is produced by the Lexington Nichiren Buddhist Community. To subscribe to the daily emails, visit zenzaizenzai.com
My reflection in the train door while waiting to board in Sacramento and my beads and sutra book after completing gonyo on the way to Hayward.
Today I traveled to Hayward and the Nichiren Buddhist International Center for a Tokudo Jukai-shiki cermony, the Attaining the Way and Bestowing the Precept Ceremony for inducting a novice priest.
The new novice is Mark Herrick, whom I’ve met several times while attending services in Oakland with Rev. Ryuei McCormick.
Mark Herrick bowing as Rev. Ryuei reads his “Respectful Address.” Nichiren Order of North America Bishop Myokei Caine-Barrett is at left. At right, Kanjin Cederman Shonin Head Priest Seattle Choeizan Enkyoji Nichiren Buddhist Temple. Far right is Ryusho Jeffus of Syracuse, New York.
Ryuei’s Hōkoku-bun
Here is a good man, who is undertaking the ceremony of crossing over and receiving the precepts before the Buddha, the founder, and the Three Treasures. His name is Mark Herrick. Since he was born in this world, spring and fall have passed 63 times. His previous good roots have now met with opportune conditions so that he has finally made the determination to leave home and accept the precept of the Lotus Sutra and wear the black-dyed robe.
We humbly reflect that since our founder Nichiren Daishōnin left home and crossed over at the age of 16 he put the Great Dharma of the Great Sage, Śākyamuni, the World Honored One, into the Odaimoku and spread it everywhere under heaven. He dedicated his life to saving all sentient beings. Now, this good man, Mark Herrick, takes his position as the newest disciple in this lineage. He is taking up Śākyamuni Buddha and Nichiren Daishōnin’s saving vow and activities as his own, thereby inheriting the seed of the Buddha to spread throughout the ages so that he can requite one ten thousandth of the favor of the Buddha.
May the Eternal Śākyamuni Buddha who attained awakening in the remote past, our founder Nichiren Daishonin, the past ministers who have contributed so much to our school, all place their hands upon his head and certify this crossing over and reception of the precepts with joy.
May the great vow of happiness in this world and the next be accomplished.
Namu Myōhō Renge Kyō
On this, the 16th Day, and 2nd Month of the year 2020
Preceptor, Ryuei McCormick, (Kaō)
Ceremonial shaving of the headObviously taking photos of the ceremony was encouragedPresentation of the robesGetting dressed in the new robes for the first timeMike, now Ryugan (pronounced Yu Gan), “leaving home” before his wife and son.Ryugan takes the lowest seat among the ministers performing the serviceRyugan addressed the dozen guests in the audience.Group photo taken after the service
Having last month learned that the Buddhas teach only Bodhisattvas, we consider the teachings of the one vehicle by the present Buddhas.
“Śāriputra! The present Buddhas, the present World-Honored Ones, of many hundreds of thousands of billions of Buddha-worlds of the ten quarters benefit all living beings, and give them peace. These Buddhas also expound various teachings with innumerable expedients, that is to say, with stories of previous lives, parables, similes and discourses, only for the purpose of revealing the One Buddha-Vehicle. The living beings who hear the teachings from these Buddhas will also finally obtain the knowledge of the equality and differences of all things.
“Śāriputra! These [present] Buddhas teach only Bodhisattvas because they wish to show the insight of the Buddha to all living beings, to cause them to obtain the insight of the Buddha, and to cause them to enter the Way to the insight of the Buddha.
“Śāriputra! So do I. I know that all living beings have various desires. I also know that they have attachments deep in their minds. Therefore, I expound various teachings to them with stories of previous lives, parables, similes and discourses, that is to say, with various expedients according to their natures.
“Śāriputra! I do all this for the purpose of causing them to realize the teaching of the One Buddha-Vehicle, that is, to obtain the knowledge of the equality and differences of all things. Śāriputra! There is not a second vehicle in the worlds of the ten quarters. How can there be a third?
The One-vehicle means: All people can become buddhas. The enlightenment obtained by śrāvakas, pratyekabuddhas, and bodhisattvas alike is one by which they become buddhas, and it is the same in origin. Some can obtain the enlightenment of a śrāvaka and others can obtain that of a pratyekabuddhahood. Both aspects of enlightenment are gates to the Buddha knowledge.
This is allegorically explained as follows: A person who has entered this gate cannot enter the inner room of the Buddha-knowledge until he has first passed through the porch of the bodhisattva practice. At the same time, it cannot be said that the gate and the porch are not both included within the residence of the Buddha. However, if a person stays at the gate, he will be drenched when it rains and chilled when it snows. “All of you, come into the inner room of the Buddha’s residence. The eastern gate, the western gate, and the porch, all are entrances that lead to the inner room of the Buddha-knowledge.” This is the meaning of the Buddha’s words, “Besides the One Buddha-vehicle, there is neither a second vehicle nor a third. I have shown the existence of these two vehicles by my tactful power. There is only one true goal for all.”
The opening passage of [Chapter 10, The Teacher of the Dharma] contains the first mention, recurring throughout the sūtra, of what Chinese exegetes would call the “five practices” or ways of upholding and disseminating the Lotus Sūtra after the Buddha’s passing. Though English translations vary, the five practices are as follows: (1) to accept and uphold the Lotus (to “preserve” it, in the Kubo-Yuyama translation), indicating an underlying faith or commitment; (2) to read it; (3) to recite it from memory (Kubo and Yuyama collapse 2 and 3 as “to recite” the sūtra); (4) to explain it, which would include teaching and interpreting it; and (5) to copy it. These were in fact the forms of sūtra practice widely performed in East Asia, where the Lotus and other sūtras were enshrined, read, recited, copied, and lectured upon for a range of benefits, including protection of the realm, good fortune in this life, and the well-being of the deceased. These “five practices” together employ all three modes of action (karma): that is, actions of body, speech, and mind. For Nichiren, the first of the five, “accepting and upholding” — preserving — was the most important: “Embracing the Lotus Sūtra and chanting Namu Myōhō-renge-kyō at once encompasses all five practices.”
