Author: John Hughes

Day 9 covers Chapter 5, The Simile of Herbs, and introduces Chapter 6, Assurance of Future Buddhahood.

Having last month given the Assurance of Future Buddhahood for Maha-Kasyapa, we come to the reaction of Great Maudgalyāyana, Subhūti and Mahā-Kātyāyana.

Thereupon Great Maudgalyāyana, Subhūti and Mahā-Kātyāyana trembled, joined their hands together with all their hearts, looked up at the World-Honored One with unblenching eyes, and sang in gāthās in unison:
Great Hero, World-Honored One!
King of the Dharma of the Śākyas!
Give us your voice
Out of your compassion towards us!
If you see what we have deep in our minds,
And assure us of our future Buddhahood,
We shall feel as cool and as refreshed
As if we were sprinkled with nectar.

Suppose a man came
From a country suffering from famine.
Now he saw the meal of a great king.
He did not partake of it in doubts and fears.
After he was told to take it by the king,
He took it at once.
We are like that man.
We know the defects of the Lesser Vehicle.
But we do not know how to obtain
The unsurpassed wisdom of the Buddha.

Although we hear you say [to us],
“You will become Buddhas,”
We are still in doubts and fears about it,
Just as that man was about the meal.
If you assure us of our future Buddhahood,
We shall be happy and peaceful.

You, the Great Hero, the World-Honored One,
Wish to give peace to all the people of the world.
If you assure us of our future Buddhahood, we shall be
Like the man who was permitted to take the meal.

The Daily Dharma from Aug. 28, 2016, offers this:

If you see what we have deep in our minds,
And assure us of our future Buddhahood,
We shall feel as cool and as refreshed
As if we were sprinkled with nectar.

Day 8 concludes Chapter 4, Understanding by Faith, and closes the second volume of the Sutra of the Lotus Flower of the Wonderful Dharma.

Having last month concluded Chapter 4, Understanding by Faith, we return to the top of Day 8.

“World-Honored One! Allow us to explain our understanding by telling a parable. Suppose there lived a man [in a certain country]. When he was a little boy, he ran away from his father. [The boy] lived in another country for a long time, say, for ten, twenty or fifty years. As time passed by, he became poorer. He wandered about all directions, seeking food and clothing.

“While wandering here and there, he happened to walk towards his home country. At that time his father stayed in a city [of that country]. He had been vainly looking for his son ever since. He was now very rich. He had innumerable treasures. His storehouses were filled with gold, silver, lapis lazuli, coral, amber and crystal. He had many servants, clerks, and secretaries. He also had countless elephants, horses, carts, cows, and sheep. He invested his money in all the other countries, and earned interest. He dealt with many merchants and customers.

“The poor son, having wandered from town to town, from country to country, from village to village, came to the city where his father was living. The father had been thinking of him for more than fifty years since he had lost him, but never told others [that he had a missing son]. He was alone, pining for his son. He thought, ‘I am old and decrepit. I have many treasures. My storehouses are filled with gold, silver, and other treasures. But I have no son [other than the missing one]. When I die, my treasures will be scattered and lost. I have no one to transfer my treasures to. Therefore, I am always yearning for my son.’ The father thought again, ‘If I can find my son and give him my treasures, I shall be happy and peaceful, and have nothing more to worry about.’

At this point I want to take this opportunity to recall something from the Doctrines of Nichiren (1893) that takes this Parable of the Rich Man and His Poor Son and explains it through the lens of the teaching of the Nichiren school.

Man is said by Chinese moralists to be the chief of all living beings in this world. But when a man is engrossed in pursuing his own interests, and cannot live in peace with his neighbours, how can he deserve so high a title? Let us take an illustration. There is one, say, who is entirely ignorant of the Truth. He does not know that in his real nature he is identical with the Buddha of Original Enlightenment, but regards himself as a debased and common person incapable of instruction. In short, he is such a one as Buddha would call a mendicant. But he was not always thus. He began life as the son of a rich man to whom he was very dear. Yet he left his good father, and wandered to and fro upon the earth till forty years had elapsed; during which period his father went to live in a foreign land, so that the prodigal could not rejoin him even when he wanted to, but sank into the direst poverty. But was this poverty, this beggary, his true and original condition? Was it the state proper to a rich man’s heir? No! The beggar is but the image of the real man. He is like the Chinese philosopher Chuang-tzu when he dreamt he was a butterfly. The butterfly had only a temporary and subjective existence in the consciousness of the dreamer; it was not Chuang-tzu himself, but vanished when he awoke. Our wanderer, however, is still asleep; alas he is still dreaming that he is a beggar. Under this delusion he is taken captive by the five appetites of colour, sound, smell, taste, and touch, and humbled by the seven passions of cheerfulness, anger, sorrow, pleasure, love, hate, and avarice; he becomes unjust and partial, and aims only at self-interest; he sinks into the gulfs of sadness, melancholy, pains, and troubles; he assumes that his soul is doomed to pass through a series of painful transformations in the six forms of living beings – such as hungry devils, brutes, and so forth. To enable such a one to awake from his dream, and recover from the confusion that besets him, our Sect appoints the Great Mandala as the Chief Object of Worship, which manifests the identity existing between the Buddha and the multitude, and helps people to form a determination to become enlightened. If the beggar we have been speaking of looks steadfastly at this Mandala and sees his own person reflected there, so as to free himself from the base idea of self-renunciation, he will soon become a Buddha of Original Enlightenment in spite of his outward ordinary appearance, just as, on Chuang-tzu awaking from his dream, the butterfly disappeared and the dreamer became himself again. Thus restored, the beggar will be once more the rich man’s son. Sariputra, one of Sakyamuni’s disciples, is said to have become Keko Buddha without undergoing any change in his appearance. Therefore Sakyamuni says, “The Mandala is the mysterious ground on which any man can acquire enlightenment and become a Buddha.”
Doctrines of Nichiren (1893)

Day 7 concludes Chapter 3, A Parable, and begins Chapter 4, Understanding by Faith.

Having last month covered Day’s 7’s portion of Understanding by Faith, it’s time to return to the start of Day 7’s portion of Chapter 3, A Parable.

(The Buddha said to Śāriputra:)
I am like the father.
I am the Saint of Saints.
I am the father of the world.

All living beings are my children.
They are deeply attached
To the pleasures of the world.
They have no wisdom.

The triple world is not peaceful.
It is like the burning house.
It is full of sufferings.
It is dreadful.

There are always the sufferings
Of birth, old age, disease and death.
They are like flames
Raging endlessly.

I have already left
The burning house of the triple world.
I am tranquil and peaceful
In a bower in a forest.

I’m going to pause here and recall what Ryusho Shonin says about the burning house in his Lecture on the Lotus Sutra:

The story of the Burning House is a way of retelling the important teaching of the Buddha of this single Buddha way which sets aside various other paths which before were seen as unique. The Buddha wishes for all people to leave the life of suffering and attain enlightenment equal to that of all Buddhas. That is the one great purpose for the appearance of any Buddha in any realm of any time. The Buddha, being a skillful teacher, realized at the beginning that people would not be able to grasp the very complex teaching of enlightenment equal to that of all Buddhas. He also realized people would doubt they had such a capacity. Even today, many people still cling to the notion they are not good enough, or they are not worthy of attaining such an indestructible life of true joy and cessation of suffering.
Lecture on the Lotus Sutra

Imaging myself tranquil and peaceful in a bower in a forest.