Monthly Archives: June 2020

Eyes

Nichiren’s Great Vow

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Twice in Kaimoku-shō, Nichiren expresses his determination in the form of vows. Roughly one third of the way into the work he states, “… it is not easy to uphold even a word or phrase of the Lotus Sūtra in the Latter Age of Degeneration. This must be it! I have made a vow that this time I will have an unbending aspiration to buddhahood and never fall back!” (Hori 2002, p. 53) Towards the end of Kaimoku-shō, Nichiren again states his determination in the form of vow or perhaps series of vows to continue to uphold the Lotus Sūtra no matter what; furthermore, he vows to be like a pillar, a pair of eyes, or a great vessel for Japan. I think it could be said that this vow is the real climax of the Kaimoku-shō.

“I have made a vow. Even if someone says that he would make me the ruler of Japan on the condition that I give up the Lotus Sūtra and rely upon the Contemplation of the Buddha of Infinite Life Sūtra for my salvation in the next life, or even if someone threatens me saying that he will execute my parents if I do not say “Namu Amidabutsu,” and no matter how many great difficulties fall upon me, I will not submit to them until a man of wisdom defeats me by reason. Other difficulties are like dust in the wind. I will never break my vow to become the pillar of Japan, to become the eyes of Japan, and to become the great vessel for Japan.” (Hori 2002, pp. 105106 adapted)

Open Your Eyes, p532
d19b, d20b, WONS

Spreading the Lotus Sūtra in the Latter Age of Degeneration

The heart of this essential section of the Lotus Sūtra, “Namu Myōhō Renge Kyō” (an absolute faith in the five-character title of the Sūtra of the Lotus Flower of the Wonderful Dharma), was not transmitted even to the most trusted disciples such as Bodhisattvas Mañjuśrī or Medicine King, and certainly not the lower-ranking bodhisattvas. Instead the Buddha called out numerous bodhisattvas from underground, for whom He expounded it during the preaching of eight chapters following the fifteenth chapter in the essential section of the Lotus Sūtra and entrusted them with the task of spreading it in the Latter Age of Degeneration.

Kanjin Honzon-shō, A Treatise Revealing the Spiritual Contemplation and the Most Verable One, Writings of Nichiren Shōnin, Doctrine 2, Page 148

Daily Dharma

Daily Dharma – June 26, 2020

We know the defects of the Lesser Vehicle.
But we do not know how to obtain
The unsurpassed wisdom of the Buddha.

The Buddha’s disciples Maudgalyāyana, Subhūti and Mahā-Kātyāyana sing these verses in Chapter Six of the Lotus Sūtra. They have heard the Buddha teach that the expedient teachings about Suffering are incomplete. However they still have not yet embraced the One Vehicle teaching of the Lotus Sūtra which leads all beings to enlightenment. Nichiren explained, in his Treatise on Opening the Eyes of Buddhist Images, how teachings that came before the Lotus Sūtra were based on the mind of the hearer, where the Wonderful Dharma is itself the mind of the Buddha. When we read, recite, copy and expound the Lotus Sūtra, we are becoming of one mind with the Buddha.

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

LS32

Day 31

Day 31 covers Chapter 27, King Wonderful-Adornment as the Previous Life of a Bodhisattva.

Day 31 Text with annotationsPlay MP3
Having last month witnessed the two sons invite their parents to visit Cloud-Thunderpeal-Star-King-Flower-Wisdom Buddha, we witness the family travel to Cloud-Thunderpeal-Star-King-Flower-Wisdom Buddha.

“Pure-Eyes Bodhisattva had already practiced the samādhi for the Lotus Flower of the Wonderful Dharma for a long time. Pure-Store Bodhisattva had already practiced the samādhi for the release from evil regions in order to release all living beings from evil regions for many hundreds of thousands of billions of kalpas.

“Now the queen practiced the samādhi for the assembly of Buddhas, and understood the treasury of their hidden core. The two sons led their father by these expedients and caused him to understand the teachings of the Buddha by faith and to wish [to act according to those teachings].

“Thereupon King Wonderful-Adornment, Queen Pure-Virtue, and their two sons came to that Buddha. The king was accompanied by his ministers and attendants; the queen, by her ladies and attendants; and their two sons, by forty-two thousand men. They worshiped the feet of that Buddha with their heads, walked around the Buddha three times, retired, and stood to one side.

“Thereupon the Buddha expounded the Dharma to the king, showed him the Way, taught him, benefited him, and caused him to rejoice. The king had great joy. The king and queen took off their necklaces of pearls worth hundreds of thousands, and strewed the necklaces to the Buddha. The necklaces flew up to the sky [seven times as high as the tala-tree], and changed into a jeweled platform equipped with four pillars. On the platform was a couch of great treasures, and thousands of millions of heavenly garment were spread [on the couch]. The Buddha [went up,] sat cross-legged [on the couch], and emitted great rays of light. King Wonderful-Adornment thought, ‘The Buddha is exceptional. He is exceedingly handsome. He has the most wonderful form.’

See A Family Drama

LS32, d31b, stories

A Family Drama

For the first fifteen centuries or so of its life, Buddhism was almost exclusively a religion of monastics, usually supported by laypeople. Initially it was exclusively a society of male monks, who separated themselves from ordinary life and responsibilities by leaving home to follow the Buddha. The Buddha himself abandoned his home and family in order to pursue an ascetic life. For the most part, monks do not have a lot of interest in family life; it is after all what they have abandoned.

In the Dharma Flower Sutra we have three parables that have to do with fathers and sons. In all of them no mother and no women appear at all. So it is very interesting that we find in Chapter 27, nearly at the end of the Lotus Sutra, a family drama, the story of a king named Wonderfully Adorned, his wife, and their two sons.

The Stories of the Lotus Sutra, p283
Lecture on Lotus Sutra

Questioning and Practicing

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Questioning the teaching helps to lead to further study and exploration of life, which leads to firmer and stronger faith. In Buddhism faith is actually enhanced by questions and practicing. Faith is one part questioning and another part practicing and applying. I personally believe that we should flee from anyone or any teaching that tries to lie outside the realm of questions. Refusing to answer questions or implying that questioning is wrong or unfaithful should be an automatic warning that something just isn’t quite right.

Lecture on the Lotus Sutra

Eyes

Freedom in Action

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The law of karma is not simply a tit-for-tat system of rewards and punishments but an organic system whereby the circumstances and even body and mind of beings are the fruits of karmic seeds that they themselves have sown and continue to sow as they are confronted by and then react to the causes and conditions of life from moment to moment and lifetime to lifetime. While the givens of present circumstances have been, at least partially, determined by past actions, in each moment beings are free to either reinforce old patterns or forge new ones for better or worse. It is with this freedom to determine present actions that beings can bind themselves more closely to unwholesome patterns of cause and effect, or cultivate wholesome patterns of cause and effect, or attempt to free themselves from being bound by such karmic patterns altogether.

Open Your Eyes, p526
WONS

‘Honestly Casting Away the Expedient’

Grand Master Dengyō … stated in his Treatise on the Protection of the State: “The Ages of the True Dharma and Semblance Dharma have passed and the Latter Age, when the Lotus Sūtra is to spread, is approaching;” “In the home of the One Vehicle Lotus Teaching, the provisional teachings should never be used;” “To those who believe in the One Vehicle of the Lotus Sūtra, the Hinayāna teaching must not be given;” and “Rotten meals should not be served in jeweled dishes.” He also stated: “Even the great arhats were reprimanded by the Buddha when they adhered to Hinayāna teachings in the Buddha’s lifetime. After the death of the Buddha, how can those masters of the dharma, as imperfect and inferior as mosquitoes and horseflies, stick to the Hinayāna teaching against the intention of the Buddha?”

These are not arbitrary words that Grand Master Dengyō thought up himself, but they are based on the Buddhist scriptures. That is to say, it is stated in the Lotus Sūtra: “Honestly casting away the expedient, I am going to preach the supreme of all teachings, the Lotus Sūtra.” In the Nirvana Sūtra it is said: “Until they listened to the Lotus Sūtra, they all held onto wrong ideas.” “The wrong ideas” or “the expedient” in these passages stand for such sūtras as the Flower Garland, the Great Sun Buddha, the Wisdom and the Amitābha preached during the forty years or so before the Lotus Sūtra was preached. Grand Master T’ien-t’ai said that “casting away” meant “abandon,” that is to say, “abandon the expedient teachings.”

Shimoyama Goshōsoku, The Shimoyama Letter, Writings of Nichiren Shōnin, Volume 5, Page 69

Daily Dharma

Daily Dharma – June 25, 2020

Now I will tell you clearly. The merits of the person who gave all those pleasing things to the living beings of the six regions of four hundred billion asaṃkhya worlds, and caused them to attain Arhatship are less than the merits of the fiftieth person who rejoices at hearing even a gāthā of this Sūtra of the Lotus Flower of the Wonderful Dharma.

The Buddha gives this explanation to Maitreya (whom he calls Ajita – Invincible) in Chapter Eighteen of the Lotus Sūtra. He compares the benefit created by someone who teaches innumerable beings and makes exorbitant offerings through following the pre-Lotus sūtras to the benefits of finding joy in the Buddha’s Highest teaching. This joy is not the same as just getting what we want, or being relieved from what we do not want. It is the joy of seeing the world for what it is, and our place in it as Bodhisattvas who exist for the benefit of all beings.

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

LS32

Day 30

Day 30 covers all of Chapter 26, Dhāraṇīs

Day 30 Text with annotationsPlay MP3
Having last month received World-Holding Heavenly-King’s dhārāni spells, we receive the spells of the 10 rākṣasas demons and the Mother-Of-Devils.

There are rākṣasas called 1. Lambā, 2. Vilambā, 3. Crooked-Teeth, 4. Flower-Teeth, 5. Black-Teeth, 6. Many-Hairs, 7. Insatiable, 8. Necklace-Holding, 9. Kuntī, and 10. Plunderer-Of-Energy-Of-All-Beings. These ten rākṣasas [and their attendants] came to the Buddha, together with Mother-Of-Devils and her children and attendants. They said to the Buddha simultaneously:

“World-Honored One! We also will protect the person who reads, recites and keeps the Sūtra of the Lotus Flower of the Wonderful Dharma so that he may have no trouble. No one shall take advantage of the weak points of this teacher of the Dharma.”

Then they uttered spells before the Buddha:

“Ideibi (1), ideibin (2), ideibi (3), adeibi ( 4), ideibi (5), deibi (6), deibi (7), deibi (8), deibi (9), deibi (10), rokei (11), rokei (12), rokei (13), rokei (14), takei (15), takei (16), takei (17), tokei (18), tokei (19).”

[They said to the Buddha:]

“Anyone may step on our heads, but shall not trouble this teacher of the Dharma. Neither shall any yakṣa, rākṣasa, hungry spirit, pūtana, kṛtya, vetāda, kumbhāṇḍa, umāraka, apasmāraka, yakṣa-kṛtya or human kṛtya. Neither shall anyone who causes others to suffer from a fever for a day, two days, three days, four days, seven days or forever. Neither shall anyone who takes the shape of a man, a woman, a boy or a girl and appears in his dream.”

Then they sang in gāthās before the Buddha:

Anyone who does not keep our spells
But troubles the expounder of the Dharma
Shall have his head split into seven pieces
Just as the branches of the arjaka-tree [ are split].

Anyone who attacks this teacher of the Dharma
Will receive the same retribution
As to be received by the person who kills his parents,
Or who makes [sesame] oil without taking out worms [from the sesame],
Or who deceives others by using wrong measures and scales,
Or by Devadatta who split the Saṃgha.

Having sung these gāthās, the rākṣasas said to the Buddha:

“World-Honored One! We also will protect the person who keeps, reads and recites this sūtra, and acts according to it so that he may be peaceful, that he may have no trouble, and that poison taken by him may be neutralized.”

See Crimes and Demon Punishments