Monthly Archives: September 2021

Daily Dharma

Daily Dharma – Sept. 18, 2021

Bhikṣus! It is a very long time since that Buddha passed away. Suppose someone smashed all the earth-particles of one thousand million Sumeru-worlds into ink-powder. Then he went to the east[, carrying the ink-powder with him]. He inked a dot as large as a particle of dust [with that ink-powder] on the world at a distance of one thousand worlds from his world. Then he went again and repeated the inking of a dot on the world at every distance of one thousand worlds until the ink-powder was exhausted. What do you think of this? Do you think that any mathematician or any disciple of a mathematician could count the number of the worlds [he went through]?

The Buddha gives this explanation in Chapter Seven of the Lotus Sūtra. Our concept of time can be limited to what happens in the brief existence we enjoy in this world. We often feel we have no time for what is necessary, much less what we enjoy. With this limited viewpoint, we can find it hard to believe that we have enough time to become enlightened. The Buddha reminds us that there is no shortage of time, and that in all of our existence, we will have opportunities to increase our capacity 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 4

Day 4 concludes Chapter 2, Expedients, and completes the first volume of the Sūtra of the Lotus flower of the Wonderful Dharma.

Day 4 Text with annotationsPlay MP3
Having last month concluded Chapter 2, Expedients, we start again at the top and consider why the 5,000 people left the gathering.

Thereupon the World-Honored One, wishing to repeat what he had said, sang in gāthās:
Some bhikṣus and bhikṣunīs
Were arrogant.
Some upāsakās were self-conceited.
Some upāsikās were unfaithful.
Those four kinds of devotees
Were five thousand in number.

They could not see their own faults.
They could not observe all the precepts.
They were reluctant to heal their own wounds.
Those people of little wisdom are gone.
They were the dregs of this congregation.
They were driven away by my powers and virtues.

They had too few merits and virtues
To receive the Dharma.
Now there are only sincere people here.
All twigs and leaves are gone.

See At Root, All People Are The Same

Higan, perfections

Meditation: A Capacity to Imagine

Although our tendency has been to regard imaginative mental capacities as secondary or less important in the overall operation of our minds, on close examination this turns out not to be true. When we are uncertain how to understand or explain something before us, we imagine how it might be, form plausible hypotheses, and then seek to confirm or falsify them. When faced with a problem, we imagine possible solutions and test them for their potential efficacy. When we need to know what to believe, we imagine plausible accounts of the issue and what might count as evidence in their favor or against them. Imagination functions in an astonishing range of human activities, from basic problem solving through the creative acts of art, music, and literature, to our own efforts to imagine ideals that are worthy of guiding our personal lives – the “thought of enlightenment.” By cultivating this central, meditative capacity, we open up dimensions of our lives we were previously unable to access. Those who do this skillfully position themselves in a more experimental relation to life, a posture less susceptible to dogmatic closure and open to a wider set of possibilities.

Six Perfections: Buddhism & the Cultivation of Character, p 210
WONS

Expectation of Persecution

Each of my disciples and followers, therefore, should expect, upon listening to the preaching of the Lotus Sūtra, to meet persecutions by these three kinds of enemies in the Latter Age of Degeneration after the lifetime of the Buddha. Nevertheless, some disciples of mine, who had listened to the preaching of this sūtra, were taken aback and gave up their faith in alarm upon encountering persecutions, whether major or minor. Is this not what I have told you? Is this not what I taught you day and night by citing a passage from the Lotus Sūtra: “Those who propagated the Lotus Sūtra were persecuted even during the lifetime of the Buddha. How much more they would be after the death of the Buddha!”? You should not be alarmed at seeing me or hearing about my being chased out of my house, wounded, and twice sentenced to banishment to remote provinces.

Nyosetsu Shugyō-shō, True Way of Practicing the Teaching of the Buddha, Writings of Nichiren Shōnin, Faith and Practice, Volume 4, Page 82

Daily Dharma

Daily Dharma – Sept. 17, 2021

Excellent, excellent, Ajita! You asked me a very important question. All of you should concentrate your minds, wear the armor of endeavors, and be resolute. Now I will reveal, I will show, the wisdom of the Buddhas, their supernatural powers without hindrance, their dauntless powers like a lion’s, and their great power of bravery.

The Buddha makes this declaration to Maitreya Bodhisattva, whom he calls Ajita (Invincible) in Chapter Fifteen of the Lotus Sūtra. In the story, innumerable Bodhisattvas spring up from underground and vow to the Buddha to keep the sūtra after his extinction. Maitreya, knowing the minds of many others who have come to hear the Buddha teach, asks about these Bodhisattvas, whom he has never seen before. This question from Maitreya then leads to the Buddha later giving his most difficult teaching in Chapter Sixteen. The Buddha’s declaration in this passage shows how important questioning is to our faith.

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

LS32

Day 3

Day 3 covers the first half of Chapter 2, Expedients.

Day 3 Text with annotationsPlay MP3
Having last month considered in gāthās why the profound and wonderful Dharma is difficult to see and difficult to understand, we consider the difficulty in knowing the wisdom of the Buddhas.

Even the Buddhas’ disciples who made offerings
To the [past] Buddhas in their previous existence,
[Even the disciples] who eliminated all asravas,
[Even the disciples] who are now at the final stage
Of their physical existence,
Cannot understand [the Dharma].

As many people as can fill the world,
Who are as wise as you, Śāriputra, will not be able
To measure the wisdom of the Buddhas,
Even though they try to do so with their combined efforts.

As many people as can fill the worlds of the ten quarters,
Who are as wise as you, Śāriputra,
Or as many other disciples of mine
As can fill the ksetras of the ten quarters,
Will not be able to know [the wisdom of the Buddhas]
Even though they try to do so with their combined efforts.

As many Pratyekabuddhas as can fill
The worlds of the ten quarters, or as many as bamboo groves,
Who are wise enough to reach
The final stage of their physical existence without āsravas,
Will not be able to know
Even a bit of the true wisdom of the Buddhas
Even though they continue trying to do so with all their hearts
For many hundreds of millions of kalpas.

As many Bodhisattvas as rice-plants, hemps, bamboos or reeds,
Or as can fill the ksetras of the ten quarters,
Who have just begun to aspire for enlightenment,
Who made offerings to innumerable Buddhas in their previous existence,
Who understand the meanings of the Dharma [in their own ways],
And who are expounding the Dharma [as they understand it],
Will not be able to know the wisdom of the Buddhas
Even though they continue trying to do so with all their hearts
And with all their wonderful wisdom
For as many kalpas as there are sands in the River Ganges.

As many never-faltering Bodhisattvas
As there are sands in the River Ganges
Will not be able to know the wisdom of the Buddhas
Even though they try to do so with all their hearts.

See The Universal Truth

Higan, perfections

Energy: Courageous

Courage was considered an essential component of the quest for self-transformation. As the bodhisattva develops the perfection of energy, he is said to find that “he is not afraid. He is impregnated with the strength that he has gained and that enables him to persist in his endeavors and to think: ‘It is not the case that I shall not be fully enlightened.’ “

Six Perfections: Buddhism & the Cultivation of Character, p
WONS

One Day in the Hell of Wailing

The fourth hell is called the Hell of Wailing, located beneath the Hell of Crushing. The size of this hell is the same as the Hell of Crushing. Hell guards shout in a dreadful voice, shooting arrows at sinners. They also strike sinners’ heads with iron bars, forcing them to run on the hot iron ground or burn them in a hot iron toaster, turning them over many times. Or they forcibly pour boiling copper fluid into the mouths of sinners so that the burned intestines drip down instantaneously.

Regarding the life span of the sinners in this Hell of Wailing, one day in the human world corresponds to 400 years in the Tuṣita Heaven, the fourth heaven in the realm of desire, where dwellers live as long as 4,000 years. Suppose 4,000 years in this Tuṣita Heaven are equal to one day in the Hell of Wailing, sinners in this hell have to suffer as long as 4,000 years.

Ken Hōbō-shō, A Clarificaton of Slandering the True Dharma, Writings of Nichiren Shōnin, Doctrine 3, Pages 108.

Daily Dharma

Daily Dharma – Sept. 16, 2021

The Buddhas of my replicas
As innumerable
As there are sands in the River Ganges
Also came here
From their wonderful worlds,
Parting from their disciples,
And giving up the offerings made to them
By gods, men and dragons,
In order to hear the Dharma,
See Many-Treasures Tathāgata,
Who passed away [a long time ago],
And have the Dharma preserved forever.

The Buddha sings these verses in Chapter Eleven of the Lotus Sūtra. The Buddhas of his replicas inhabit countless other worlds in the universe, and enjoy the status and benefit of being enlightened in those worlds. Despite the honor they receive in those worlds, they happily come to hear the Buddha teach the Wonderful Dharma. As our pleasures seem small compared to those of a Buddha, so a Buddha’s pleasures seem small compared to the Wonderful Dharma.

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

LS32

Day 2

Chapter 1, Introductory (Conclusion).

Day 2 Text with annotationsPlay MP3
Having last month considered what became of the eight princes of Sun-Moon-Light Buddha, we consider the lazy man.

There was a lazy man
Among the disciples
Of Wonderful-Light, the Teacher of the Dharma.
[The lazy man] was attached to fame and gain.

Always seeking fame and gain,
He often visited noble families.
He did not understand what he had recited,
Gave it up, and forgot it.
Because of this,
He was called Fame-Seeking.

But he [later] did many good karmas,
And became able to see innumerable Buddhas.
He made offerings to them,
Followed them, practiced the Great Way,
And performed the six paramitas.
Now he sees the Lion-Like One of the Sakyas.

He will become a Buddha
In his future life.
He will be called Maitreya.
He will save innumerable living beings.

The lazy man who lived after the extinction
Of [Sun-Moon-] Light Buddha was
No one but you.
Wonderful-Light, the Teacher of the Dharma, was I.

See The Cult of Maitreya