Day 5 begins Chapter 3, A Parable.

Sariputra’s concern that he wasn’t taught the Bodhisattva practice and instead had to settle for a lesser teaching is answered by the Buddha:

Now I will tell you in the presence of this great multitude including gods, men, sramaras, and brahmanas. Under two billion Buddhas in the past, I always taught you in order to cause you to attain unsurpassed enlightenment. You studied under me in the long night. I led you with expedients. Therefore, you have your present life under me.

Sariputra! I caused you to aspire for the enlightenment of the Buddha in your previous existence. You forgot all this, and thought that you had already attained extinction. In order to cause you to remember the Way you practiced under your original vow, I now expound to the Sravakas this sutra of the Great Vehicle called the ‘Lotus Flower of the Wonderful Dharma, the Dharma for Bodhisattvas, the Dharma Upheld by the Buddhas.’

We have been the Buddha’s disciples over and over again in past lives and accumulated the merits that today allow us to hear the Lotus Sutra today.

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

Again, the many, many facets of this section of Chapter 2 threaten to overwhelm my attempt to single out what I see as the most important aspect of today’s reading.

What stands out today is this gathas:

Know this, Sariputra!
I once vowed that l would cause
All living beings to become
Exactly as I am.

That old vow of mine
Has now been fulfilled.
I lead all living beings
Into the Way to Buddhahood.

This teaching says EVERYONE can become a Buddha. Not a lesser being who just eliminates suffering of birth and death. Exactly like the Buddha. There is no lesser goal just as there is no lesser vehicle than the Great Vehicle, the Truth of Equality. This will be the topic – told from various perspectives – of the next several chapters.

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

If anything will challenge my effort this time through to limit my quotes to the single aspect that strikes me as most important or interesting today, it is Chapter 2, Expedients. There’s just too much good stuff.

The concept that “the wisdom of the Buddha” is too difficult to understand by pure intellect only raises the question, “Why does the World-Honored One extol so enthusiastically the power of the Buddhas to employ expedients?” And those two things bring us to what is, in my mind today, the most important aspect of this teaching: The One Great Purpose.

Sariputra! What is the one great purpose for which the Buddhas, the World-Honored Ones, appear in the worlds? The Buddhas, the World-Honored Ones, appear in the worlds in order to cause all living beings to open [the gate to] the insight of the Buddha, and to cause them to purify themselves. They appear in the worlds in order to show the insight of the Buddha to all living beings. They appear in the worlds in order to cause all living beings to obtain the insight of the Buddha. They appear in the worlds in order to cause all living beings to enter the Way to the insight of the Buddha. Sariputra! This is the one great purpose for which the Buddhas appear in the worlds.

The Buddha said to Sariputra:

The Buddhas, the Tathagatas, teach only Bodhisattvas. All they do is for one purpose, that is, to show the insight of the Buddha to all living beings, to cause them to obtain the insight of the Buddha.

Today’s Daily Dharma had an interesting explanation for why we should not be embarrassed to ask questions:

When we allow ourselves to wonder, to question, to become aware of the mystery of existence, and resist being ashamed of not knowing, then we are coming to understand the Buddha’s own mind.

Day 2 completes Chapter 1, Introductory

I’d like to begin today with something I picked up today while reading Etsu Sugimoto’s autobiography, “A Daughter of the Samurai.”

Etsu, who lived in Japan at the start of the Meji period, was given the education of a girl who was supposed to be destined to be a priestess. Her first teacher instructed her in the Confucius classics.

“I was only six years old, and of course I got not one idea from this heavy reading. My mind was filled with many words in which were hidden grand thoughts, but they meant nothing to me then. Sometimes I would feel curious about a half-caught idea and ask my teacher the meaning. His reply invariably was:

“Meditation will untangle thoughts from words,” and “A hundred times reading reveals the meaning.”

The chanting of namu-myoho-renge-kyo is my meditation and this my “hundred times reading” in search of meaning.

On with the show…

Today’s portion of Chapter 1 confirms for the congregation that what they are seeing as the result of the light being emitted by Sakyamuni is the same omen witnessed long ago in a previous life by Manjusri. The one aspect of today’s reading that stands out is the rarity of hearing the Lotus Sutra.

Good men! Innumerable, inconceivable, asamkya kalpas ago, there lived a Buddha called Sun-Moon-Light, the Tathagata, 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 expounded the right teachings. His expounding of the right teachings was good at the beginning, good in the middle, and good at the end. The meanings of those teachings were profound. The words were skilful, pure, unpolluted, perfect, clean, and suitable for the explanation of brahma practices. To those who were seeking Sravakahood, he expounded the teaching of the four truths, a teaching suitable for them, saved them from birth, old age, disease, and death, and caused them to attain Nirvana. To those who were seeking Pratyekabuddhahood, he expounded the teaching of the twelve causes, a teaching suitable for them. To Bodhisattvas, he expounded the teaching of the six paramitas, a teaching suitable for them, and caused them to attain Anuttara-samyak-sambodhi, that is, to obtain the knowledge of the equality and differences of all things.

After he died, another Buddha named Sun-Moon-Light did the same and then another Buddha named Sun-Moon-Light did the same and then another and another and another until a total of 20,000 Buddhas had expounded these right teachings. It was the last Sun-Moon-Light who, like Sakyamuni, preached the Great Vehicle called the ‘Innumerable Teachings, the Dharma for Bodhisattvas, the Dharma Upheld by the Buddhas’ and entered into the samadhi for the purport of the innumerable teachings.

The ray of light of [Sun-Moon]-Light Buddha,
That is, the good omen, was the same as what I see now.
Judging from this, the present Buddha also will expound
The Sutra of the Lotus Flower of the Wonderful Dharma.