Having last month considered the ninth beneficial effect of this sutra, we consider the tenth beneficial effect of this sutra.
“O you of good intent! Tenth, this sutra’s unimaginable power for beneficial effect is this: Whether during or after the lifetime of a buddha, if men and women of good intent who obtain this sutra give rise to great joy, realize its rarity in their minds, accept and keep faith with it, internalize and recite it, make records of it, honor it, and practice it as expounded for their own sake, and are similarly able to widely inspire both laypeople and renunciants to accept and keep faith with it, internalize and recite it, make records of and honor it, expound it, and practice the way of its teaching, then, through the energies gained from having led other people to practice this sutra, they will realize the Way and attain its fruits. Fully by reason of the dynamic transformative power of their compassionate minds, these men and women of good intent—just as they are—will opportunely come to gain access to innumerable Dharma-grasping empowerments. Still in the stages of having delusive worldly passions, they will for the first time be able to spontaneously produce countless and unlimited great vows and magnificent aspirations. They will generate a bottomless capacity to help all living beings, manifest great loving-kindness, skillfully and extensively relieve suffering, and amass acts of goodness for the benefit of all. Transmitting the Dharma-abundance that irrigates all that is parched, nurturing any living being with the Dharma’s many medicines, they will cause all to have ease and joy. Their perception will gradually become transcendent as they advance through the stage of the Dharma cloud (dharmameghā-bhūmi). With bountiful, all-embracing benevolence, and with compassion that blankets all without exception, they will lead all suffering living beings to enter the course of the Way. These people will accordingly realize and achieve the full dynamic of ultimate enlightenment before long. O you of good intent! This is known as the inconceivable power of the tenth beneficial effect of this sutra.
“O you of good intent! Such is the incomparable, all-ferrying Infinite Meanings Sutra! It possesses awe-inspiring power to the highest extent, and its value is supreme and unsurpassed! It can open the way for every being that is bound by delusive passions to attain the most sublime fruit—to forever rise above the cycle of births and deaths and attain emancipation. Thus is this sutra named Infinite Meanings! It can open the way for all living beings still in the stages of having delusive worldly passions to germinate the sprouts of all of the countless ways of bodhisattvas and let the tree of beneficial works flourish, thrive, and increase in breadth and reach. That is why this sutra is marked by its ten unimaginable powers for beneficial effect!”
The collected Buddhist teachings have traditionally been classified in either nine or twelve divisions according to the style of exposition of early Buddhism. They are as follows (in Pāli, with the Sanskrit reading in parentheses, if different):
sutta (sūtra)
geyya (geya)
veyyākaraṇa (vyākaraṇa)
gāthā
udāna
itivuttaka (itivṛttaka)
jātaka
vedalla (vaipulya)
abbhutadhamma (adbhutadharma)
(nidāna)
(avadāna)
(upadeśa)
The first nine comprise the nine divisions; the total list is called the twelve divisions.
Download Chapter 9
The place whither Nichiren retired was surrounded on all sides by high mountains, and when his hermitage was finished in summertime, he doubtless enjoyed cool breezes rustling in the green trees on the slopes. “Like screens,” he wrote to a lady in the following winter, “steep peaks surround my abode. On the mountains trees and grasses grow luxuriantly; in the valleys are rolling stones and rocks. Wolves howl and monkeys cry, and the echoes of their voices resound through hill and dale; deer plaintively call the does, and crickets chirp noisily. Flowers that elsewhere bloom in spring, bloom here in summer, and fruits do not ripen till winter. Occasionally human figures are seen, but they are only wood cutters; or sometimes I have visits from some of my comrades in religion.”
His mind often turned to retrospection on his past; but what now occupied his quiet thought was rather the future destiny of his religion. As the one foreordained to fulfil the prophecies of the Lotus, he had gone through all perils, and was enjoying the tranquility of a hermit. A mere secluded life, however, was not his mission. What should he do for the consummation of his lifework, and for the perpetuation of his gospel? This was his question, and he formulated it immediately after his arrival at Minobu. The result was the essay referred to at the close of the last chapter, which was, in fact, intended to be the proclamation of Nichiren’s plan, for the accomplishment of which he was about to prepare.
World-Honored One! It is difficult for anyone in the world to believe this. It is as difficult as to believe a handsome, black-haired man twenty-five years old who points to men a hundred years old and says, ‘They are my sons,’ or as to believe men a hundred years old who point to a young man and say, ‘This is our father. He brought us up.’
Maitreya Bodhisattva explains his perplexity to the Buddha in Chapter Fifteen of the Lotus Sūtra. The Buddha had just revealed that he was who taught all the Bodhisattvas who have appeared from underground to continue teaching the Wonderful Dharma after the extinction of the Buddha. Maitreya realizes that his doubts are no different from those of those gathered to hear the Buddha teach and asks the Buddha to explain. When our experience does not match what the Buddha teaches, we should not keep silence and just accept what he tells us. It is only through sincere questioning that we find the Buddha’s mind and make it our own.
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Having last month completed the review of the senses and their karmic consequences, we consider the value of keeping faith with the comprehensive sutras and reflecting on the Great Vehicle’s principle.
Having expounded these verses, the Buddha said to Ānanda:
“You should now embrace this method of doing self-amendment for the six sense faculties through contemplation of the bodhisattva Universal Sage! Expound it widely and skillfully to human and heavenly beings everywhere in the ten directions!
“When followers of Buddha accept, keep faith with, recite, internalize, and give voice to the comprehensive sutras after the Buddha’s passing, they must recite and internalize the comprehensive sutras and reflect on the Great Vehicle’s principle in some tranquil place – whether in a cemetery, or at a hermitage, or under a tree in the woods. Because the power of their concentration will become strong, they will gain perception of my being and likewise perceive the stupa of Many-Treasures Buddha, innumerable emanated buddhas in the ten directions, Universal Sage Bodhisattva, Mañjuśrī Bodhisattva, Medicine King Bodhisattva, and Incomparable Medicine Bodhisattva. Because they so venerate the Dharma, we – bearing wondrous flowers – will permeate the skies to praise those who revere, follow, and keep faith with the Way. And because those who keep faith with this method are resolutely internalizing the comprehensive Great Vehicle sutras, they will be honored and sustained, day and night, by buddhas and bodhisattvas.”
One traditional method of analyzing the structure of the Lotus Sutra is that employed by the T’ien-t’ai (Jpn., Tendai) school, which viewed the Lotus Sutra as being a unified whole and analyzed it in terms of the nature of its ideas. The Lotus Sutra was divided into two parts, called the “secondary gate” (Jpn., shakumon) and the “primary gate” (Jpn., honmon). Each part was further classified in three divisions:
“introduction” (Jpn., jobun), “correct tenets” (Jpn., shöshübun), and “propagation” (Jpn., rutsūbun). The two sections of the “correct tenets” were the core of the sutra, called by commentators the “opening the three and revealing the one” (Jpn., kaisan ken’ichi) in the “Tactfulness” chapter, and the “opening the near and revealing the distant” (Jpn., kaigon kennon) in the “Revelation of the [Eternal] Life of the Tathāgata.” These are the teachings of the revelation of the One Buddha Vehicle and of the Eternal Buddha. It is worthy of note that the “propagation” sections are a major portion of the text.
In one of his writings, Nichiren says that no matter how long a cave has been dark, the minute a light enters, the darkness is eliminated. The same is true with our lives. The instant we begin practicing, our life begins to change and the dark clouds of suffering begin to roll back. If a candle is lit in a darkened cave immediately there is light, and so it is with our lives. As our faith and practice grows it is as if we light ever more candles to the point where every corner of the cave of suffering is illuminated.
The clamorous prophet was now suddenly changed to a silent recluse or a voluntary exile. Five days’ journey brought him to his new abode, and the local chief of the place, Lord Hakiri, one of his warrior followers, welcomed him. A little hut was built in a deep valley in the midst of high peaks, and there the recluse began his new life with a few of his beloved disciples. This place, called Minobu, became Nichiren’s home for the last eight years of his life, and, as we shall see later, he regarded it as a paradise on earth because of his residence there.
The change was perhaps quite unexpected, even to his intimate followers, but was a premeditated plan on the part of Nichiren. Various motives have been conjectured for this sudden turn in his life, but he himself, better than anyone else, tells us why he made it. The simplest explanation of the matter is given in the words: “I had always resolved to repeat my remonstrance three times, and to retire if these attempts should prove a failure.” Now the “three times is in accordance with an old Chinese proverb, and Nichiren had delivered his message thrice: in 1260, when he had presented his Risshō Ankoku Ron; in 1268, when he had repeated the remonstrance as a kind of ultimatum; and now, when he had pressed his demands after the return from Sado. But when we read between the lines, the retirement meant a continuation of his life in exile. It had been his determination not to return to Kamakura, unless the Hōjōs should be completely converted, and now his return had proved a failure. How could he remain peacefully in Kamakura? If he should continue his protests, his fate was plain – another execution or another exile! He was not so blind as to expect anything better. Why should he not become a voluntary exile, instead of a compulsory one? The reception of his third and last remonstrance was the occasion of his retirement, but not its true cause. His motives lay deeper. Let us see what they were.
The first was negative, the idea of expiation. We have already seen that Nichiren conceived his suffering as expiation. His idea was, “Expiation of my sins is the fulfilment of my mission to perpetuate the Lotus of Truth to the coming ages. Sins are not extinguished until the aim be attained.” Since his triumphal entry had proved a failure, he must continue the expiation as he had been doing in Sado. Naturally, he associated with expiation a measure of suffering. Whenever he suffered from the extreme cold of Minobu, he must have reminded himself of his first winter in Sado; and he always rejoiced to liken his suffering with the self-castigation of Buddha during his years of self-training among the mountains. “The height of the hermitage is only seven feet, while the depth of snow is ten feet. Ice makes up the walls, and the icicles are like the beads of garlands decorating shrines.”
Whenever his followers at a distance sent him food or clothing, he wrote touching letters thanking them for the presents, and likened his benefactors to his parents or to those persons who supplied food to Buddha. His life at Minobu was one of extreme simplicity and austerity, and he never left the obscure spot. The uninviting place, a small piece of level ground, “as large as the palm of a hand,” surrounded by high peaks, was his abode for eight years. Here he constructed a hermitage and rejected Lord Hakiri’s offer to erect a larger edifice. It was only in the year before his death that he at last consented to the building of an assembly hall of moderate size; but he enjoyed his abode there as if it were a paradise.
“Expiation” was the thought that constantly occupied his mind, but this idea was, after all, a negative one; the positive, and by far more important, reason of his retirement was his solicitude for the future of his religion. As we have had repeated occasion to note, Nichiren associated every step of his life with some feature of the [Lotus Sutra], and especially regarded his life in Sado as the chief part, the climax, of his life. Now the last stage was to be inaugurated and dedicated to the consummation of his mission and to the perpetuation of his religion, just as the last twelve chapters of the [Lotus Sutra] made up the consummation of the Truth. He had proclaimed the Sacred Title at the outset of his ministry; he had furnished the object of worship and spiritual introspection by the graphic representation of the Supreme Being [Gohonzon Maṇḍala]; one thing alone remained – to prepare for or establish, the central seat of his religion. These three instruments of his propaganda were called the “Three Mysteries.” Although there are some allusions to them in his writings before this time, Nichiren proclaimed this trinity for the first time in the first essay written after his retirement. This treatise is dated the twenty-fourth of the fifth month – just a week after his arrival at Minobu. The great plan which he had long been meditating, and the motive which led him to retire from the present world, and to work for the future, was the establishment of the “Kaidan,” or the Holy See of the Catholic Church of Buddhism.
In that essay he says:
“What, then, is that mystery which Nāgārjuna and Vasubandhu, T’ien T’ai and Dengyō have not revealed during the more than two thousand years since Buddha’s decease? It is naught else but the Supreme Being (Honzon), the Holy See (Kaidan), and the five characters of the Sacred Title (Daimoku), all according to the truth of the primeval Buddhahood. …
“Behold the tribulations and commotions coming one upon another! They are, indeed, the signs heralding the appearance of the sages, Viśiṣṭacāritra and the others. They will appear and establish the Three Gateways to the truth of the primeval Buddhahood. Then, throughout the four heavens and the four quarters will prevail universally the Lotus of the Perfect Truth. Can there be any doubt about this?”
Chapter 8 Release and Retirement; Further Confirmation of his Faith
[W]hen Hinayāna people are shackled by Hinayāna teachings and go against Mahāyāna principles or try to be equal to Mahāyāna countries although they do not intend to go against Mahāyāna Buddhism, they (Hinayāna Buddhists) and their countries will contract various sicknesses. When they try to cure their mental sickness by means of the teaching of Hinayāna Buddhism, they only intensify their troubles instead of curing them. Only practicers of Mahāyāna sūtras can cure them.
Likewise, when believers of provisional Mahāyāna sūtras … adhere to their biased opinions, insisting that their inferior faith equals or is even superior to the Lotus Sūtra, and when rulers of the land recognize them without discerning their prejudices, the 84,000 mental sicknesses such as the three poisons will be begotten. The harder they try to heal the sickness by means of their respective canonical sūtras, the worse their troubles will be. Even if they try to cure their troubles by the Lotus Sūtra, it will not work. It is not because the sūtra is not good enough but because the people who try to use it are prejudiced.
Toki Nyūdō-dono Go-henji: Chibyō-shō, A Response to Lay Priest Lord Toki: Treatise on Healing Sickness, Writings of Nichiren Shōnin, Doctrine 2, Page 252-253
Anyone who visits a monastery to hear
The Sūtra of the Lotus Flower of the Wonderful Dharma
And rejoices at hearing it even for a moment,
Will be able to obtain the following merits.
The Buddha sings these verses to Maitreya (whom he calls Ajita – Invincible) in Chapter Eighteen of the Lotus Sutra. The joy we find in the Buddha’s highest teaching is different from what we experience when our desires are satisfied. It is a joy we can learn to find at the heart of everything we think, say and do. The merit that comes from this joy does not make us better than anyone else; it only allows to see the world as the Buddha does. Joy is not something that needs to be added to our lives. It is what we find remaining when we let go of our attachment and delusion.
The Daily Dharma is produced by the Lexington Nichiren Buddhist Community. To subscribe to the daily emails, visit zenzaizenzai.com
