Foundations of T'ien T'ai Philosophy, p 130-131Chih-i expands on Hui-ssu’s classification of reality into the three categories of sentient beings, Buddha, and mind. He points out that reality is classified in various ways and numbers. For example, many texts describe reality in terms of its oneness. Some texts refer to reality in terms of the two categories of name and visible form. Others, … classify reality into three dharmas. These numerical listings could continue indefinitely, up to the infinite variety of phenomena. For the category of sentient beings, Chih-i borrows a section from the second chapter of the Lotus Sūtra (T. 9, 5cl 1-13) which he interprets as classifying reality into ten categories. These are the “Ten Suchlike Characteristics” which characterize all dharmas, which are defined by Chih-i as follows:
- “Suchlike appearance”: that which has its point of reference externally.
- “Suchlike nature”: that which has its point of reference internally.
- “Suchlike essence”: that which intrinsically belongs to one’s self.
- “Suchlike power”: the power to influence.
- “Suchlike activity”: that which constructs.
- “Suchlike causes”: repetitive causes.
- “Suchlike conditions”: auxiliary causes.
- “Suchlike results”: repetitive results.
- “Suchlike retributions”: retributive effects.
- “Suchlike beginning and end ultimately the same”: “beginning” refers to the first suchlike of appearances, “end” refers to the ninth suchlike of retribution, and “ultimately the same” means that they are integrated and share the same reality.
The fact that these phrases each have three characters makes it easy to interpret them in the threefold truth pattern. Chih-i claims that each of these phrases has “three readings” which follow the threefold truth pattern of emptiness, conventional existence, and the Middle Path. First, if one emphasizes the first character “suchness”, this refers to the emptiness of all things, since the suchness of all dharmas is their lack of substantial Being. Second, if one emphasizes the various characteristics such as the appearances, nature, essence, and so forth, this refers to the conventional existence of all dharmas. Third, if one emphasizes the second character of “likeness”, this refers to the “middleness” of all dharmas – that they are simultaneously empty yet conventionally existent.
Monthly Archives: February 2021
Commemorating the 800th Anniversary of Nichiren Shonin’s Birth
Live Stream of service
February 16, 20211, marks the 800th anniversary of Nichiren Shonin’s birth. Nichiren Shu is celebrating this special day with an online 800th Anniversary Grand Ceremony at Kominatosan Tanjoji Temple.
Schedule
10:30 am: First Bell (Preparation)
10:40 am Second Bell (Congregation Entrance)
10:50 am Drum (Priest Entrance)
That’s 5:30pm Pacific tonight, Feb. 15.
Most of the announcements for this ceremony are understandable in Japanese. The main webpage for the event is at nichiren.or.jp/800houyou/. Of course, Google offers on-the-fly translation into English but you need to understand that not everything Google says is necessarily accurate.
Take this translation of the outline of the memorial service:
Nichiren is said to have been born in the second month of the year on the day after the Parinirvāṇa of Śākyamuni. In the modern calendar that makes his birthday Feb. 16, 1222. The reason this year is the 800th birthday and not 2022, is because you count the day of his birth as the first celebration. return
Repaying Our Mother’s Favors
I, Nichiren, was born as a human being, which is difficult to achieve, and also encountered Buddhism, which is difficult to encounter. And among all the Buddha’s teachings, I was able to come across the Lotus Sūtra. When I think of my good fortune, I realize that I owe a debt of gratitude to my parents, the rulers of the country, and to all the people. Concerning the debt of gratitude we owe to our parents, a compassionate father is like the heaven and a compassionate mother is like the earth. Although it is difficult to distinguish the debt of gratitude between the two, it would be especially difficult to repay the favors of our mothers. Were we to try to repay them by following non-Buddhist writings such as the writings of Three Emperors and Five Rulers of Ancient China and the Classic of Filial Piety of Confucianism, our efforts would help them in this present life but not in future lives. In other words we could support their physical well-being but not save their souls.
Regarding the writings of Buddhism, in the five to seven thousand fascicles of Hinayāna and Mahāyāna sūtras, it is nearly impossible for women to attain Buddhahood; therefore, the favors of our compassionate mothers cannot be repaid. Hinayāna sūtras in particular do not allow women to attain Buddhahood at all, and while some Mahāyāna sūtras may seem to allow for women the attainment of Buddhahood or reaching the Buddha land, but they are but the Buddha’s expedient words without substance. Realizing that only the Lotus Sūtra expounds the attainment of Buddhahood for women and therefore is the true sūtra through which we can repay our mother’s favors, I am encouraging all women to chant the title (daimoku) of this sūtra in order for them to repay their mothers’ favors.
Sennichi-ama Gozen Gohenji, A Reply to My Lady Nun Sennichi, Writings of Nichiren Shōnin, Faith and Practice, Volume 4, Page 147-148
Daily Dharma – Feb. 15, 2021
I am grateful to have been born a human with this precious body due to accumulated causes and conditions in my past existences. According to the sutra, I must have encountered and given offerings to ten trillion Buddhas in the past. Even though I did not place my faith exclusively in the Lotus Sutra, thus slandering the Dharma and being born poor and lowly in this life as a result, my merit of giving offerings to the Buddhas was so great that I was born as a believer of the Lotus Sutra.
Nichiren wrote this passage in his Treatise on the Testimony of the Lotus Sutra (Hokke Shōmyō-shō) addressed to Nanjō Tokimitsu. Unlike most of those who practiced the Buddha Dharma in his time, Nichiren did not belong to the higher classes of royalty or warriors. He saw clearly the suffering of common people and vowed to end it. He realized that the superiority of the Lotus Sūtra does not lie in its power to bring rain or change history. The power of this sūtra lies in its determination to save all beings, rich or poor, noble or common, deluded or wise. Nichiren’s offering to the Buddha was to spread this Wonderful Dharma. To benefit the Buddha is to benefit all beings.
The Daily Dharma is produced by the Lexington Nichiren Buddhist Community. To subscribe to the daily emails, visit zenzaizenzai.com
Day 27
Day 27 concludes Chapter 23, The Previous Life of Medicine-King Bodhisattva.
Having last month considered the merits of anyone who hears this chapter of the Previous Life of Medicine-King Bodhisattva, we conclude today’s portion of Chapter 23, The Previous Life of Medicine-King Bodhisattva.
“Anyone who rejoices at hearing this chapter of the Previous Life of Medicine-King Bodhisattva and praises [this chapter], saying, ‘Excellent,’ will be able to emit the fragrance of the blue lotus flower from his mouth and the fragrance of the candana of Mt. Ox-Head from his pores, and obtain these merits in his present life.
“Therefore, Star-King-Flower! I will transmit this chapter of the Previous Life of Medicine-King Bodhisattva to you. Propagate this chapter throughout the Jambudvipa in the later five hundred years after my extinction lest it should be lost, and lest Mara the Evil One, the followers of Mara, gods, dragons, yakṣas, and kumbha]das should take advantage [of the weak points of the people of the Jambudvipa].
“Star-King-Flower! Protect this sūtra by your supernatural powers! Why is that? It is because this sūtra is a good medicine for the diseases of the people of the Jambudvipa. The patient who hears this sūtra will be cured of his disease at once. He will not grow old or die.
“Star-King-Flower! Strew blue lotus flowers and a bowlful of powdered incense to the person who keep this sūtra when you see him! After strewing these things [to him], you should think, ‘Before long he will collect grass [for his seat], sit at the place of enlightenment, and defeat the army of Mara. He will blow the conch-shell horn of the Dharma, beat the drum of the great Dharma, and save all living beings from the ocean of old age, disease and death.’
“In this way, those who seek the enlightenment of the Buddha should respect the keeper of this sūtra whenever they see him.”
When the Buddha expounded this chapter of the Previous Life of Medicine-King Bodhisattva, eighty-four thousand Bodhisattvas obtained the dharanis by which they could understand the words of all living beings. Many-Treasures Tathāgata in the stupa of treasures praised Star-King-Flower Bodhisattva, saying:
“Excellent, excellent, Star-King-Flower! You obtained inconceivable merits. You asked this question to Śākyamuni Buddha, and benefited innumerable living beings.”
The Daily Dharma from Jan. 12, 2021, offers this:
Therefore, Star-King-Flower! I will transmit this Chapter of the Previous Life of Medicine-King Bodhisattva to you. Propagate this chapter throughout the Jambudvīpa in the later five hundred years after my extinction lest it should be lost, and lest Māra the Evil One, the followers of Māra, gods, dragons, yakṣas, and kumbhāṇḍas should take advantage [of the weak points of the people of the Jambudvīpa].
The Buddha gives this explanation to Star-King-Flower Bodhisattva in Chapter Twenty-Three of the Lotus Sūtra. The Jambudvīpa is the name the Buddha gives to this world of conflict and attachment in which we live. Nichiren interprets “the later five hundred years” as the time in which we are living today. The story of Medicine-King Bodhisattva is one of a being who does not spare any part of his life to benefit others. This Bodhisattva is confident that he will become enlightened, and that whatever happens to his physical body, he will always be reborn in worlds where he has the chance to benefit others and lead them by the wisdom of the Buddha. This chapter, and all those towards the end of the Lotus Sūtra, give us examples of how to bring the teachings of the Buddha to life.
The Daily Dharma is produced by the Lexington Nichiren Buddhist Community. To subscribe to the daily emails, visit zenzaizenzai.com
Buddha’s Nirvana & Nichiren’s Birthday
This weekend marked the Parinirvāṇa of Śākyamuni and the 800th birthday of Nichiren. In the sangha meeting the focus was on the Śākyamuni’s Parinirvāṇa. In Las Vegas, Rev. Shoda Kanai held a combined service. A combined service is what Rev. Kenjo Igarashi has planned for the end of February at the Sacramento Nichiren Buddhist Church.
I was particularly taken by Rev. Shoda Kanai’s prayer and asked for a copy. Here it is:
PRAYER BUDDHA’S NIRVANA & BIRTHDAY OF NICHIREN DAIBOSATSU
With reverence on this day to our Original Lord Teacher Śākyamuni Buddha, our great benefactor, who entered into Parinirvana, we also humbly conduct this ceremony to extol the 800th anniversary of our Founder’s birthday. We extend our heartfelt joy and praise by adorning this place before them and make offerings of incense, flowers, lights, tea and foods.
The Buddha expounded various teachings since the time of showing his attainment of awakening. He saves those of us who live in the ten-thousand-year age of Degeneration and who have not yet been given any root of good in our previous existences, by leaving us the seed of Buddhahood as a good medicine. His grace is beyond our comprehension. Now we have performed this service to commemorate his Parinirvana, wishing to requite a part of his favors that are as high as mountains and as vast as oceans.
May we accomplish the Buddha’s intention that all sentient beings be led to awakening so that the Saha World can be transformed into the Pure Land of Tranquil Light. The Lotus Sutra says, “In order to save the perverted people, I expediently show my Nirvana to them. In reality I shall never pass away. I always live here and expound the Dharma.” “I am leaving this good medicine here…” “I am always thinking: ‘How shall I cause all living beings to enter into the unsurpassed way and quickly become Buddhas?’” May the Buddha accept our deep gratitude to him out of his great compassion towards us.
Then the Buddha transmitted the essence of the Lotus Sutra and ordered that I be propagated in the Latter Age of the Dharma. It was roughly two thousand years later, that on February 16, 1222, the child of the bodhisattvas was born in the province of Awa in the country of Japan. That was our founder Nichiren Daibosatsu. He was innately endowed with the fulfilled merit of an original disciple of the Original Śākyamuni Buddha; however, to all appearances he was an ordinary person who engaged in strenuous practice. He accepted the transmission from the Eternal Buddha with deep reverence and established the wondrous school to sow the seed of the Wonderful Dharma. Out of his superior compassion he patiently endured many hardships as he taught using the contrary method of presenting the final teaching first and the strict way of breaking and subduing delusions. It is like looking up to a ray of light amidst the darkness of the defiled world. How can we adequately praise the incalculable favor of his teaching? That is why we hold this ceremony of joyful praise here so that we may repay but a drop of the ocean of his favors as a token of our gratitude to him.
The disciples of the Original Śākyamuni Buddha are described in Ch. 15, “They are not defiled by worldliness just as lotus flowers are not defiled by water.” The Buddha says in Ch. 21, “Anyone who…expounds this sutra after my extinction…will be able to eliminate the darkness of the living beings of the world where he walks about, just as the light of the sun and moon eliminates all darkness.”
May the merits we have accumulated by this offering be distributed among all living beings and may we and all other living beings attain the enlightenment of the Buddhas. May all the Dharma realms equally benefit.
Namu Myoho Renge Kyo
The Classification of All Reality Into Three Subjective Categories
Foundations of T'ien T'ai Philosophy, p 129-130Chih-i begins his detailed discussion of “dharma” by examining the classification of “dharma” into three categories: sentient beings, Buddha, and mind. These three dharmas, based on a verse in the Avataṃsaka Sūtra [Flower Garland Sūtra], are a classification of all reality into three subjective categories. “Mind” refers to the perceiver of objects (reserving for now the judgement as to the status – real, illusory, imaginary, or not – of these objects) and the subject which needs to be perfected in order to attain enlightenment. “Sentient beings” refers to the diversity of realms which the subject experiences, from that of hell to Buddhahood. “Buddha” refers to the subject perfected, the realm of enlightenment in which reality is correctly perceived. Thus these three dharmas are not separate and independent entities, but interpenetrating and integrated. All sentient beings have a mind which, depending on various causes and conditions, has the potential to experience any and all realms from hell to Buddhahood.
Daily Dharma – Feb. 14, 2021
The two sons, Pure-Store and Pure-Eyes, came to their mother, joined their ten fingers and palms together, and said, ‘Mother! Go to Cloud Thunderpeal-Star-King-Flower-Wisdom Buddha! We also will go to attend on him, approach him, make offerings to him, and bow to him because he is expounding the Sūtra of the Lotus Flower of the Wonderful Dharma to all gods and men.
The Buddha tells the story of King Wonderful-Adornment in Chapter Twenty-Seven of the Lotus Sūtra. The two sons chose to be born at a time when Cloud-Thunderpeal-Star-King-Flower-Wisdom Buddha was alive and led their parents to follow that Buddha and learn the Wonderful Dharma from him. They overcame their father’s attachment to wrong views, not by arguing against those views, but by demonstrating the wonders that come from the Buddha’s great teaching. This shows how when we as Bodhisattvas live this difficult teaching we lead others to it.
The Daily Dharma is produced by the Lexington Nichiren Buddhist Community. To subscribe to the daily emails, visit zenzaizenzai.com
Day 26
Day 26 concludes Chapter 21, The Supernatural Powers of the Tathāgatas, includes Chapter 22, Transmission, and introduces Chapter 23, The Previous Life of Medicine-King Bodhisattva.
Having last month concluded Chapter 22, Transmission, we begin Chapter 23, The Previous Life of Medicine-King Bodhisattva, and consider why Medicine-King Bodhisattva walk about this Sahā-World.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. World-Honored One! Tell me why! Not only the gods, dragons, yakṣas, gandharvas, asuras, garuḍas, kiṃnaras, mahoragas, men and nonhuman beings but also the Bodhisattvas who have come from the other worlds’ and the Śrāvakas present here will be glad to hear the reason.”
Thereupon the Buddha said to Star-King-Flower Bodhisattva:
“Innumerable kalpas ago, that is, as many kalpas as there are sands in the River Ganges ago, there lived a Buddha called Sun-Moon-Pure-Bright-Virtue, the Tathāgata, the Deserver of Offerings, the Perfectly Enlightened One, the Man of Wisdom and Practice, the Well-Gone, the Knower of the World, the Unsurpassed Man, the Controller of Men, the Teacher of Gods and Men, the Buddha, the World-Honored One. He was accompanied by eight thousand million great Bodhisattva-mahāsattvas and also by great Śrāvakas numbering seventy-two times as many as there are sands in the River Ganges. The duration of his life was forty-two thousand kalpas. So were the durations of the lives of the Bodhisattvas. His world was devoid of women, hellish denizens, hungry spirits, animals and asuras. There was no calamity in his world. The ground of his world was as even as the palm of the hand. It was made of lapis lazuli, adorned with jeweled trees, and covered with a jeweled awning from which the streamers of jeweled flowers were hanging down. Jeweled vases and incense-burners were seen everywhere in that world. There was a platform of the seven treasures at the distance of a bowshot from each of the jeweled trees under which the Bodhisattvas and Śrāvakas were sitting. On each of the platforms of treasures, myriads of millions of gods were making heavenly music, singing songs of praise of the Buddha, and offering the music and songs to the Buddha.
The Causes for Attaining Buddhahood
Foundations of T'ien T'ai Philosophy, p 128-129The causes for attaining Buddhahood should be understood in three ways. First, each of the ten dharma realms from hell to Buddha contain the other nine realms. All possible realms of experience are more or less present in each facet of experience. Those of us who are predominantly human can, depending on our past and present actions, experience the realm of hell or heaven. Second, the first nine dharma realms from hell to bodhisattvahood are integrated with that of Buddhahood. All things possess the potential for Buddhahood and, given the right conditions, can attain perfect enlightenment. Third, the ten dharma realms are all simultaneously empty of substantial Being yet conventionally existent, thus partaking in the threefold truth of reality. These three categories also are three different ways of saying the same thing: that reality is one yet many, threefold yet a unity, neither completely different nor wholly the same. Thus reality, dharma, is best described by the term “subtle.”
The result of Buddhahood is also understood in three ways. First, the essence of reality, or Buddhahood, pervades the entire universe. Buddhahood is not a separate realm detached from our world of experience, but an integral and fundamental part of it. Second, the Buddha did not first attain enlightenment around two thousand years ago under a tree in India, but attained Buddhahood in the incalculable past, or for eternity. Third, the Buddha always has, is, and always will manifest himself in various forms for the benefit of teaching sentient beings and leading them to enlightenment.
It is the Lotus Sūtra which clarifies the meaning of “dharma” in these six ways, therefore it is worthy of the title “subtle.” The other Sūtras, classified by Chih-i according the scheme of the five flavors are subtle in some parts and crude in others, except for the Hinayāna Teachings, which are only crude, and the Lotus Sūtra, which is only subtle.
In terms of “contemplating the mind,” the correct and subtle way is to contemplate the mind as including all other minds and that of the Buddha, not as being detached and separate from other minds. Second, one should contemplate one’s mind as being equal to that of the Buddha. Third, one should contemplate one’s mind and the mind of other sentient beings and the Buddha as being simultaneously empty of substantial being yet conventionally existent.
The “six identities,” a T’ien-t’ai interpretation of the interpenetration and identity of the fifty-two stages leading to Buddhahood should be understood in the same way, that one dharma interpenetrates and contains all other dharmas and stages of attainment.
Finally, this is all summarized in terms of the “four categories of oneness.” The interpenetration of all dharmas is the content of the “oneness of reality.” The unity of the Five Flavors is the content of the “oneness of teaching.” The integrated nature of the mind and of all minds, the subject and object of contemplation, is the content of the “oneness of practice.” The interpenetration and unity of all the levels of attainment as taught in the concept of the Six Identities is the content of the “oneness of persons.”