Monthly Archives: March 2020

WONS

The Merit of Saving the Practicer of the Lotus Sūtra

As Śākyamuni Buddha also states, suppose there lives a person in the Latter Age of Degeneration, when the world is in confusion and the ruler as well as the ruled united in one mind look on a practicer of the Lotus Sūtra as an enemy forcing the practicer to be like a fish in a drought-stricken body of water or a deer surrounded by 10,000 hunters. Suppose this person single-handedly tries to save the practicer, his merit would be even greater than if he were to serve the living Śākyamuni Buddha bodily, verbally, and mentally for as long as one kalpa (aeon). This is a maxim of Śākyamuni Buddha. As the sun shines brilliantly and the moon clearly, characters of the Lotus Sūtra are brilliantly clear like seeing our own faces in a clear mirror or the moon reflecting upon clear water.

Nanjō-dono Gohenji, Reply to Lord Nanjō, Writings of Nichiren Shōnin, Volume 7, Followers II, Page 16

Daily Dharma

Daily Dharma – March 6, 2020

However, we now live in the Latter Age of Degeneration, when disputes and quarrels are rampant while the True Dharma is lost. There is nothing but evil lands where evil rulers, evil subjects and evil people reject the True Dharma, showing respect only to evil dharmas and evil teachers. Evil spirits take advantage of this, filling the lands with the so-called three calamities and seven disasters.

Nichiren wrote this passage in his Treatise on the True Way of Practicing the Teaching of the Buddha (Nyosetsu Shugyō-shō). It can be hard for us to imagine how what we believe can change our society. We think we have to create a new political system, or put the right people in power, or acquire wealth before we can have peace. What would happen in a world where people believed their happiness was intertwined with that of others? What happens in a world where people believe their happiness has to come at the expense of others? Our beliefs are far more powerful than we realize. When we put our belief in the Buddha’s description of the world as it is, and see our place in it as Bodhisattvas who have chosen to be here to benefit others, the world changes before our eyes.

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

LS32

Day 21

Day 21 covers all of Chapter 16, The Duration of the Life of the Tathāgata.

Day 21 Text with annotationsPlay MP3

Having last month considered the skillfull physician and what happened while he was away, we consider the medicine and the unwillingness of some sons to take the medicine.

“The father thought, ‘These sons are pitiful. They are so poisoned that they are perverted. Although they rejoice at seeing me and ask me to cure them, they do not consent to take this good medicine. Now I will have them take it with an expedient.’

“He said to them, ‘Know this! Now I am old and decrepit. I shall die soon. lam leaving this good medicine here. Take it! Do not be afraid that you will not be cured!’ Having thus advised them, he went to a [remote] country again. Then he sent home a messenger to tell them, ‘Your father has just died.’

“Having heard that their father had passed away from this world, leaving them behind, they felt extremely sorry. They thought, ‘If our father were alive, he would love and protect us. Now he has
deserted us and died in a remote country.’

“They felt lonely and helpless because they thought that they were parentless and shelterless. Their constant sadness finally caused them to recover their right minds. They realized that the medicine had a good color, smell and taste. They took it and were completely cured of the poison. On hearing that they had recovered their health, the father returned home, and showed himself to them.

“Good men! What do you think of this? Do you think that anyone can accuse this excellent physician of falsehood?”

“No, World-Honored One!”

The Buddha said:

“I am like the father. It is many hundreds of thousands of billions of nayutas of asaṃkhyas of kalpas since I became the Buddha. In order to save the [perverted] people, I say expediently, ‘I shall pass away.’ No one will accuse me of falsehood by the [common] law.”

See The Invitation To Take the Medicine of Salvation

b4today, LS32, d21b

The Invitation To Take the Medicine of Salvation

The Buddha never tries to force open our mouths and cram his excellent medicine down our throats. It is a sacred task for us to take it in our hands and put it into our mouths ourselves. The Buddha uses various means so tactfully that we quickly feel inclined to do so. That is, he indicates himself or indicates others, indicates his own affairs or the affairs of others. Of these indications, the greatest and the most urgent is that he himself has become extinct. Realizing that, those who have felt complacently that they can hear his teachings whenever they like or lazy people who have become tired of the teachings cannot help suddenly becoming serious. This is the most important reason that the Buddha’s extinction is a tactful means full of his great compassion.

Buddhism for Today, p248
2buddhas, d19b, d20b, WONS

Standing in the Vanguard of History

One can imagine how identification with the task of the bodhisattvas of the earth must have inspired and sustained those followers of Nichiren, in his own lifetime and later, who upheld their faith in the face of opposition. Its implication, that one has been born into this world to aid in a vast salvific task, could invest even the most ordinary life with immense meaning. This dimension of Nichiren’s teaching helps explain its ongoing attraction in the contemporary world. However humble one’s place in society or how limited one’s personal resources or abilities, to be a follower of Nichiren was to stand in the vanguard of history as someone who, having embraced the sole teaching leading to buddhahood in the present age, shoulders the responsibility to preserve and transmit it.

Two Buddhas, p177-178
WONS

‘I Shall See You in the Pure Land on Mt. Sacred Eagle’

Regarding my life, I have given it up. No matter what persecution overtakes me, I will never change my mind, nor have I any grudge at all. Many evil people are “good friends.” The use of a persuasive way or an aggressive way, of propagating Buddhism depends on the time and situation. It is the Buddha’s teaching, not of my own idea. I shall see you in the Pure Land on Mt. Sacred Eagle.

Toki-dono Go-henji, A Response to Lord Toki, Writings of Nichiren Shōnin, Doctrine 2, Page 119

Daily Dharma

Daily Dharma – March 5, 2020

It is not difficult
To grasp the sky,
And wander about with it
From place to place.
It is difficult
To copy and keep this sūtra
Or cause others to copy it
After my extinction.

The Buddha sang these verses in Chapter Eleven of the Lotus Sūtra for all those who had come to hear him teach. When we start on the path of enlightenment by finding joy in the Buddha Dharma, we might believe that the world will change around us to meet our expectations, and that we will have no more difficulties. Then when we do find hard times, we may even abandon this wonderful practice and go back to our habits of gratifying ourselves. Our founder Nichiren lived through unimaginable hardships so that we who follow him would not lose this precious teaching. The Buddha in these verses reminds us that difficulties are part of our practice, and that we can find a way to use any situation in life to benefit others.

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

LS32

Day 20

Day 20 completes Chapter 15, The Appearance of Bodhisattvas from Underground, and concludes the Fifth Volume of the Sutra of the Lotus Flower of the Wonderful Dharma.

Day 20 Text with annotationsPlay MP3

Having last month heard the World-Honored One repeat to Maitreya in gāthās, we consider the doubts of Maitreya Bodhisattva-mahāsattva and the innumerable Bodhisattvas.

Thereupon Maitreya Bodhisattva-mahāsattva and the innumerable Bodhisattvas in the congregation doubted the Buddha’s words which they had never heard before. They thought:

‘How did the World-Honored One teach these great, innumerable, asaṃkhya Bodhisattvas, and qualify them to attain Anuttara-samyak-saṃbodhi in such a short time?’

[Maitreya Bodhisattva] said to the Buddha:

“World-Honored One! When you, the Tathāgata, were a crown prince, you left the palace of the Śākyas, sat at the place of enlightenment not far from the City of Gaya, and attained Anuttara-samyak-saṃbodhi. It is only forty and odd years since then.

“World-Honored One! How did you do these great deeds of the Buddha in such a short time? Did you teach these great, innumerable Bodhisattvas, and qualify them to attain Anuttara-samyak-saṃbodhi by your powers or by your merits?

“World-Honored One! No one can count the number of these great Bodhisattvas even if he goes on counting them for thousands of billions of kalpas. They have already planted roots of good, practiced the way, and performed brahma practices under innumerable Buddhas from the remotest past.

See The Four Great Vows and the Four Great Bodhisattvas

b4today, LS32, d19b

The Four Great Vows and the Four Great Bodhisattvas

[T]he four groups, also through the divine power of the Buddha, saw the bodhisattvas, who filled the space of innumerable domains. Among this host of bodhisattvas there were four leading teachers: Eminent Conduct (Jōgyō), Boundless Conduct (Muhengyō), Pure Conduct (Jōgyō), and Steadfast Conduct (Anryūgyō).

As explained in the discussion of the vow (gan) in chapter 9, the general vow (sōgan) that should be made by all who practice the Buddha-way consists of the following four great vows of the bodhisattva (shi gu-seigan), each of which is identified with one of the four great bodhisattvas mentioned above :

  1. Shūjō muhen seigan-do. However innumerable living beings are, I vow to save them. (Steadfast Conduct)
  2. Bonnō mushū seigan-dan. However inexhaustible the passions are, I vow to extinguish them. (Pure Conduct)
  3. Hōmon mujin seigan-gaku. However limitless the Buddha’s teachings are, I vow to study them. (Boundless Conduct)
  4. Butsudō mujō seigan-jō. However infinite the Buddha-truth is, I vow to attain it. (Eminent Conduct)

These four great fundamental vows are thus represented by the above four bodhisattvas. Conversely, the four bodhisattvas can be said to be the symbols of the fundamental vows of all Buddhists.

Buddhism for Today, p179-180
2buddhas, d19b, d20b, WONS

Embracing the Daimoku with the ‘Same Mind’ as Nichiren

The claim that those who chant the daimoku are Śākyamuni Buddha’s disciples from the remotest past might initially seem at odds with Nichiren’s idea that people in the Final Dharma age have never before received the seed of buddhahood. The apparent contradiction resolves, however, when we recall that for Nichiren and other Buddhist thinkers of the time, the term “remotest past” (kuon) signified not merely an immensely long time ago in linear, historical terms, but also carried the meaning of timelessness, and thus, of the Buddha’s constant presence. The practice and propagation of the Lotus Sūtra in the mappō era is the juncture where the linear time of ordinary experience and the timeless realm of the Buddha intersect. In embracing the daimoku with the “same mind” as Nichiren, one immediately becomes a disciple of the ever-present primordial Śākyamuni Buddha and is encompassed in his enlightened realm.

Two Buddhas, p177