[T]he Buddha’s final admonitions, and Nichiren’s four admonitions describe the responsibility and the empowerment of authentic Buddhist practice. We do not seek or require external saviors, or special initiations, or gurus, or external rules. Instead we are empowered by the Dharma itself to find within our lives the Buddha’s merits and awakening. This is also a great responsibility as well because it also means that we will have no one to blame but ourselves if we do not look within and live in accord with our true nature as awakened beings. Fortunately, through the practice of Odaimoku we have a simple yet powerful way of reminding ourselves to look to the Wonderful Dharma itself, the Wonderful Dharma of the Lotus Sūtra that assures us that not only are we all buddhas-in-the-making, but we are in fact buddhas actualizing buddhahood. Looking nowhere but to our own awakening for awakening is the true meaning of the Buddha’s final admonitions and the four admonitions of Nichiren. Here is the continuity between the Buddha’s passing, Nichiren’s taking up the banner of the Buddha’s teaching in the Latter Age, and our own reception of the banner of Namu Myōhō Renge Kyō here and now.
Open Your Eyes, p353-353Monthly Archives: July 2020
Third Time Charm
Frequently the Buddha will not respond until he has been asked the same question three times or until he has been assured of some thing three different times. This repetition is an indication of the significance of a certain thing. It is a test of sincerity. It is a test of commitment. It is not intended to be viewed as being cruel or teasing. Three times is almost as if a seal has been made or a serious vow has been offered.
Lecture on the Lotus SutraGerminate and Growing To Bear the Fruit of Buddhahood
As stated in the seventh chapter, “The Parable of a Magic City,” when the Great Universal Wisdom Buddha was a king, Śākyamuni Buddha, his sixteenth prince, sowed the seed of Buddhahood in the people. With the help of the pre-Lotus sūtras, such as the Flower Garland Sūtra, some were able to attain enlightenment afterwards by germinating the seed planted at the time of the Great Universal Wisdom Buddha, cultivating it to maturity to bear fruit. This, however, is not the true intent of the Buddha. Just as a poison might show its effect on some people without their knowledge, only in certain people does the seed of Buddhahood have a chance to germinate and grow to maturity without the help of the Lotus Sūtra. The aim of Śākyamuni Buddha to be born in this world was to gradually lead the two kinds of Hinayāna sages called Two Vehicles (śrāvaka and pratyekabuddha) and ordinary people to the Lotus Sūtra, by the way of the pre-Lotus sūtras, whereby the seed may germinate and grow to bear the fruit of Buddhahood.
Kanjin Honzon-shō, A Treatise Revealing the Spiritual Contemplation and the Most Verable One, Writings of Nichiren Shōnin, Doctrine 2, Page 151
Daily Dharma – July 15, 2020
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.
The Buddha gives this explanation in Chapter Sixteen of the Lotus Sūtra. In the story of the Physician and his children, the father leaves and sends word that he has died when his children refuse to take the antidote he has prepared for them. He gave his children no choice but to accept what they already had and make the effort to improve themselves and set aside their deluded minds. In the same way, when we take the Buddha for granted, and close our eyes to the Wonderful Dharma he has given us, he disappears. It is only when we open our eyes and see clearly this world and ourselves in it that we can recognize the Buddha and how he is always leading us.
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Day 16
Day 16 concludes Chapter 11, Beholding the Stūpa of Treasures, and completes the Fourth Volume of the Sūtra of the Lotus Flower of the Wonderful Dharma.
Having last month witnessed witness Śākyamuni open the door to the Stupa of Treasures and reveal Many Treasures Tathāgata, we witness Śākyamuni sharing seat with Many Treasures and raising the congregation into the air.
Having seen that the Buddha, who had passed away many thousands of billions of kalpas before, had said this, the four kinds of devotees praised him, saying, “We have never seen [such a Buddha as] you before.” They strewed heaps of jeweled flowers of heaven to Many-Treasures Buddha and also to Śākyamuni Buddha.
Thereupon Many-Treasures Buddha in the stūpa of treasures offered a half of his seat to Śākyamuni Buddha, saying, “Śākyamuni Buddha, sit here!”
Śākyamuni Buddha entered the stūpa and sat on the half-seat with his legs crossed. The great multitude, having seen the two Tathāgatas sitting cross-legged on the lion-like seat in the stūpa of the seven treasures, thought, “The seat of the Buddhas is too high. Tathāgata! Raise us up by your supernatural powers so that we may be able to be with you in the sky!”
Thereupon Śākyamuni Buddha raised them up to the sky by his supernatural powers, and said to the four kinds of devotees with in a loud voice:
“Who will expound the Sūtra of the Lotus Flower of the Wonderful Dharma in this Saha-World? Now is the time to do this. I shall enter into Nirvana before long. I wish to transmit this Sūtra of the Lotus Flower of the Wonderful Dharma to someone so that this sūtra may be preserved.”
The Universe and Shakyamuni and Our World
The Stories of the Lotus Sutra, p141This story [of the arrival of the Stupa of Treasures] presents us with an interesting image of the universe as a place in which Shakyamuni and his world, which is our world, is central, and yet Shakyamuni is far from being the only buddha. First of all, there is the buddha named Abundant Treasures, who comes out of the distant past in a dramatic way in order to praise Shakyamuni Buddha for teaching the Dharma Flower Sutra. The resulting image of two buddhas sitting side by side on a single seat is a unique one. But this image is dependent on another, which reaches not into the distant past, but into distant reaches of contemporary space to reveal the innumerable buddhas in all directions. In other words, it is only after all the worlds have been integrated into a single buddha land that the congregation is able to see Abundant Treasures Buddha and the two buddhas sitting together in the stupa.
The Historical and the Eternal
As Nichiren Shonin stated in the Ho-on jo, the first of the Three Great Secret Dharmas is the Gohonzon, or Essential Focus of Devotion, which is the all-encompassing life of the Eternal Shakyamuni Buddha. In the Lotus Sutra, prior to Chapter 16, Shakyamuni Buddha is no more than a historical buddha whose birth, awakening, and imminent death all occur within the confines of northern India over the course of a normal human lifetime. In Chapter 16, however, Shakyamuni Buddha clearly demonstrates the unity of the Three Bodies: the historical, the ideal, and the universal aspects of Buddhahood. For this reason, the Shakyamuni Buddha of Chapter 16 is differentiated from the historical Shakyamuni Buddha of the prior teachings by adding the title “Eternal.”
Lotus SeedsDōgen’s Praise for the Lotus Sūtra
In the Taking Refuge in the Three Treasures (Kie-Sanbō), Dōgen particularly singled out the Lotus Sūtra for praise.
The Lotus Sūtra is the one great purpose of the buddha tathāgatas. Of all the sūtras preached by the Great Teacher Śākyamuni, the Lotus Sūtra is the great king and is the great teacher. Other sūtras and other Dharmas are all the subjects and the retinue of the Lotus Sūtra. What is preached in the Lotus Sūtra is just the truth; what is preached in other sūtras always includes skillful means, which are not the Buddha’s fundamental intention. If we evoked preaching contained in other sūtras in order to compare and appraise the Lotus Sūtra, that would be backwards. Without being covered by the influence of the merit of the Lotus Sūtra, other sūtras could not exist. Other sūtras are all waiting to devote themselves to the Lotus Sūtra. (Nishijima, Gudo and Cross, Chodo, trans. Master Dogen’s Shobogrnzo Books, Book 4, p. 178 modified)
Open Your Eyes, p404At the Start of the Latter Age: Namu Myōhō Renge Kyō
In the … thousand years of the Semblance Age, the teachings of the Buddha in India gradually were brought to China and Japan. Aeons ago, Śākyamuni Buddha, at the assembly of the Lotus Sūtra entrusted such great bodhisattvas of the theoretical teachings as Medicine King Bodhisattva and great bodhisattvas from other lands with propagating the first fourteen chapters (from the first to the fourteenth “Peaceful Practices” chapter), the theoretical teaching of the Lotus Sūtra during the Age of the Semblance Dharma. This, however, was preparatory propagation for great bodhisattvas, disciples of the Original and Eternal Buddha, to spring up from underground in the beginning of the Latter Age of Degeneration in order to inspire all the people in the world to chant, “Namu Myōhō Renge Kyō,” the gist of the “Life Span of the Buddha” chapter in the essential section of the Lotus Sūtra. The leading masters who propagated the theoretical teaching of the Lotus Sūtra, were Nan-yüeh, T’ien-t’ai, and Miao-lê in China and Dengyō in Japan.
We are now at the start of the Latter Age, when disciples of the Original and Eternal Buddha such as Bodhisattva Superior Practice should appear to propagate the Lotus Sūtra as predicted by Śākyamuni Buddha.
Shimoyama Goshōsoku, The Shimoyama Letter, Writings of Nichiren Shōnin, Volume 5, Page 70
Daily Dharma – July 14, 2020
Ignorant people will speak ill of us,
Abuse us, and threaten us
With swords or sticks.
But we will endure all this.
Medicine-King Bodhisattva and Great-Eloquence Bodhisattva, along with their attendants, declare these verses to the Buddha in Chapter Thirteen of the Lotus Sūtra. The Buddha had asked previously who would teach the Lotus Sūtra after the Buddha’s death. These Bodhisattvas realize the difficulty of teaching and keeping this sūtra. They know that some who come to hear the Buddha Dharma are strongly attached to their anger. These Bodhisattvas vow to look beyond the violence and suffering of these people and promise to lead even them to enlightenment.
The Daily Dharma is produced by the Lexington Nichiren Buddhist Community. To subscribe to the daily emails, visit zenzaizenzai.com