There is no place other than where we are that is more conducive or better for our enlightenment. There may be things we need to change in our environment but until we change ourselves first then every thing we change will end up being the same or similar. This is difficult to accept, because it can be very seductive to think, if only I change my job then it will be better. Yet, when we make a change based upon that thinking without fundamentally changing ourselves, then we invariably end up facing similar problems even if packaged differently.
Lecture on the Lotus SutraMonthly Archives: February 2020
Daily Dharma – Feb. 16, 2020
This is indeed inexplicable yet precious. If Devadatta does not become a Buddha, the numerous evil people who were induced by him to enter into his evil comradeship would never be able to escape the torment of the Hell of Incessant Suffering. It is solely due to the great favor of the Lotus Sutra that all of Devadatta’s comrades, too, are allowed to be Buddhas.
Nichiren wrote this passage in his Treatise on Prayers (Kitō-shō). Devadatta was a cousin of the Buddha who was jealous of the Buddha’s accomplishments. He tried to set those who followed the Buddha against each other, and even tried several times to kill the Buddha. In the Lotus Sūtra, even Devadatta is assured of becoming a Buddha, opening the path of enlightenment even to those as perverse and deluded as him. When we learn to see even those who cause great harm as being capable of becoming enlightened, then it changes not only how we treat them, but how we see the world.
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Day 2
Chapter 1, Introductory (Conclusion).
Having last month considered the Buddha Sun-Moon-Light, we consider what happened after the Buddha Sun-Moon-Light preached Innumerable Teachings.
“Thereupon the last Sun-Moon-Light Buddha expounded a Sūtra of the Great Vehicle called the ‘Innumerable Teachings, the Dharma for Bodhisattvas, the Dharma Upheld by the Buddhas.’ Having expounded this sūtra, he sat cross-legged [facing the east] in the midst of the great multitude, and entered into the samādhi for the purport of the innumerable teachings. His body and mind became motionless.
“Thereupon the gods rained mandarava-flowers, maha-mandarava-flowers, manjusaka-flowers, and maha-manjusakaflowers upon the Buddha and the great multitude. The world of the Buddha quaked in the six ways. The great multitude of the congregation, which included bhikṣus, bhikṣunīs, upāsakās, upāsikās, gods, dragons, yakṣas, gandharvas, asuras, garuḍas, kiṃnaras, mahoragas, men, nonhuman beings, the kings of small countries, and the wheel turning-holy kings, were astonished. They rejoiced, joined their hands together [towards the Buddha], and looked up at him with one mind.
‘Thereupon the Tathagata emitted a ray of light from the white curls between his eyebrows, and illumined all the corners of eighteen thousand Buddha-worlds in the east just as this Buddha is illumining the Buddha-worlds as we see now.
Nirvana Is Quiescence
Buddhism for Today, p32The law “Nirvana is quiescence” teaches us that we can completely extinguish all the sufferings of human life and obtain peace and quietude when we destroy all illusions. How can we reach this state? The only way is to realize the two laws “All things are impermanent,” and “Nothing has an ego.”
The reason we worry about various kinds of sufferings is that we forget that all phenomena in this world are impermanent, that all things continuously change according to the law of cause and effect; we are deluded by phenomena and influenced by considerations of immediate gain or loss. If we study the way to buddhahood and by practicing it realize the truth of the impermanence of all things, we become able to attain a state of peace and quietude in which we can never be swayed by shifting circumstances. This is the state of “Nirvana is quiescence.”
Reciter of the Dharma
Two Buddhas, p127The title of [Chapter 10] in Sanskrit is dharmabhāṇaka, literally “reciter of the dharma” or “proclaimer of the dharma.” In early Buddhism, the discourses of the Buddha were not committed to writing. Instead, they were memorized by monks who specialized in particular sections of the canon; these monks were called “reciters of the dharma,” as well as “keepers of the dharma” (dharmadhara) and “narrators of the dharma” (dharmakathika). With the rise of the Mahāyāna, the term dharmabhāṇaka seems to refer to those who preached the Mahāyāna sūtras.
The Ten Factors: Appearance
Of the Ten Factors, Appearance is the external or objective aspect of phenomena. That which is seen, heard, smelled, touched, or tasted is included in this factor. Appearance involves the ways things relate to each other as distinct subjects and objects.
Lotus SeedsThe Gift of a Bowl of Barnyard Millet Rice
A Hinayāna sage known as Pratyekabuddha is incomparably superior to a śrāvaka. He is so great that he can stand in for the Buddha to appear in the world to save its people. It is said that there was once a hunter who in a time of famine gave a bowl of rice mixed with barnyard millet to a pratyekabuddha called Rita, and as a result he was rewarded with rebirth as a man of wealth in the human or heavenly world for as long as 91 kalpa (aeons). Aniruddha, one of the ten great disciples of the Buddha who is reputed to have mastered the divine-eye of heavenly beings to see through everything, is said to have been [the incarnation of) the hunter. Grand Master Miao-lê interprets this, “Although the bowl of barnyard millet rice has little value, the hunter donated all that he owned to a person of great merit. Therefore, the hunter was rewarded with such good fortune.” It means that although a bowl of millet rice was not much in value, it was presented to a noble person of Pratyekabuddha status, and this is the reason why he was able to be reborn with such good luck.
Hōren-shō, Letter to Hōren, Writings of Nichiren Shōnin, Volume 6, Followers I, Page 46
Daily Dharma – Feb. 15, 2020
Now I will tell you
About my previous existence
And also about yours.
All of you, listen attentively!
The Buddha sings these verses in Chapter Six of the Lotus Sūtra. When the Buddha taught in India 2500 years ago, people took for granted that their lives continued from previous lives and would continue on into future lives. Whatever comforts we enjoy or calamities we endure in this life were thought to be caused by what we did in our former lifetimes. Our actions today were thought to determine what happens in our future lives. To our modern understanding this can sound mystical and unlikely. But if we understand that everything, including our joy and suffering, has causes and conditions, whether or not we realize these results immediately, we know that the result of creating benefit is benefit, and the result of creating harm is harm. When we hold the happiness of all beings to be as precious as our own, we would no more mistreat others than we would want them to mistreat us.
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Day 1
Day 1 covers the first half of Chapter 1, Introductory
Having last month considered some of the practices of the Bodhisattvas that Maitreya sees, we consider additional practices of the Bodhisattvas that Maitreya sees.
I also see some sons of the Buddha
Concentrating their minds, having wisdom,
Expounding the Dharma to the multitude
With innumerable parables and similes,
Expounding the Dharma with joy,
Teaching [other] Bodhisattvas,
Defeating the army of Mara,
And beating the drum of the Dharma.I also see some Bodhisattvas
Being tranquil and peacefully calm,
Not delighting in being respected
By gods or dragons.I also see some Bodhisattva
Living in forests, and emitting ray of light
In order to have the denizens in hell,
And cause them to enter the Way to Buddhahood.I also see some sons of the Buddha
Walking about forests without sleeping
In order to attain
The enlightenment of the Buddha.I also see some of them
Observing the precepts with due deportment,
And keeping purity like that of gems,
In order to attain the enlightenment of the Buddha.I also see some sons of the Buddha
Enduring abuse
Or blows with sticks
Inflicted by arrogant people
In order to attain
The enlightenment of the Buddha.I also see some Bodhisattvas
Giving up wanton pleasures,
Parting from foolish companions,
Approaching men of wisdom,Controlling their minds from distraction,
And concentrating their minds in hills or forests
For thousands of billions of years
In order to attain the enlightenment of the Buddha.
Our Stagnation or Retrogression Hinders Others
Buddhism for Today, p31-32The Buddha’s teachings instruct us that sin and evil did not originally exist in this world. They are due to the cessation of the proper progress of human life or the return to a wrong course. Therefore, the moment we abandon such negative uses of energy, that is, as soon as we are free from illusion, evil disappears and the world of the light of the brilliant rays of the Buddha is revealed before us. Our “non-advance,” our “non-approach” to the Buddha, is sin and evil because such action is contrary to the proper course of human life.
From the selfish point of view of ego, we think that we can do as we like so long as we are prepared to accept the consequences of our actions, and we ask only to be left alone and not be interfered with by others. However, such an attitude is a fundamental error because our lives are related in some way to the lives of all others, so that the evil produced by one per son inevitably exerts an influence upon other people somewhere, and the negligence of one person is sure to prevent others from advancing. If we understand this, we can be spiritually awakened to the fact that our own stagnation or retrogression hinders others, so that we determine to advance upward bit by bit. This is the true spirit of the law that nothing has an ego, and this is the reason why the true spirit of Buddhism consists in constant endeavor.