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

In yesterday’s reading of Chapter 3, A Parable, Sakyamuni said:

Even you, Sariputra,
Have understood this sutra
Only by faith.
Needless to say,
The other Sravakas cannot do otherwise.
They will be able to follow this sutra
Only because they believe my words,
Not because they have wisdom.

And it is not by accident that the next day we reach Chapter 4, Understanding by Faith, and those very same Sravakas and their Parable of the Rich Man and His Poor Son.

Last month, I focused on the fact that the word “faith” does not appear in the chapter outside the title.

This time through I see even less evidence of faith. The Rich Man had to raise up the “base and mean” son, giving him more and more responsibility, calling him “son” and treating him as a son. And yet, when the day finally comes for the Rich Man to give his treasures to his son:

He thought, ‘I never dreamed of having this store of treasures myself. It has come to me unexpectedly.’

But the effort was still successful:

Today we are not what we were then.
We have obtained
What we did not expect
Today we are not what we were then.
We have obtained
What we did not expect
To obtain
Just as the poor son obtained
The innumerable treasures.

World-Honored One!
We have attained enlightenment, perfect fruit.
We have secured pure eyes
With which we can see the Dharma-without-asravas.

We observed the pure precepts of the Buddha
In the long night.
Today we have obtained the effects and rewards
[Of our observance of the precepts].
We performed the brahrna practices for long
According to the teachings of the King of the Dharma.
Now we have obtained the great fruit
Of the unsurpassed Dharma-without-asravas.

We are Sravakas in this sense of the word.
We will cause all living beings
To hear the voice telling
Of the enlightenment of the Buddha.

We are Arhats
In the true sense of the word.
All gods and men,
All Maras and Brahmans
In the worlds
Should make offerings to us.

You, the World-Honored One, are the great benefactor.
By doing this rare thing,
You taught and benefited us
Out of your compassion towards us.

The Bottom Line:

The Buddhas expound the Dharma
In perfect freedom.
Knowing the various desires and dispositions
Of all living beings,
They expound the Dharma
With innumerable parables
And with innumerable similes
According to their capacities.

Some living beings planted the roots of good
In their previous existence.
Some of the roots have fully developed.
Seeing all this, the Buddhas understand
The capacities of all living beings,
And divide the teaching of the One Vehicle into three,
According to the capacities
Of all living beings.

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

Parable of the Burning House

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

This triple world
Is my property.
All living beings therein
Are my children.

There are many sufferings
In this world.
Only I can save
[All living beings].

I told this to all living beings.
But they did not believe me
Because they were too much attached
To desires and defilements.

Therefore, I expediently expounded to them
The teaching of the Three Vehicles,
And caused them to know
The sufferings of the triple world.
I opened, showed, and expounded
The Way out of the world.

Those children who were resolute in mind
Were able to obtain
The six supernatural powers
Including the three major supernatural powers,
And to become cause-knowers
Or never-faltering Bodhisattvas.

Sariputra!
With this parable I expounded
The teaching of the One Buddha-Vehicle
To all living beings.
All of you will be able to attain
The enlightenment of the Buddha
If you believe and receive
These words of mine.

Believed and received!

Day 6 continues Chapter 3, A Parable

Each time through this part of the Lotus Sutra I’m reminded of those people, especially the young, “playing joyfully”:

They are not frightened at the sufferings or afraid of them. They do not dislike them or try to get rid of them. They are running about this burning house of the triple world, and do not mind even when they undergo great sufferings.

How do you reach them and awaken them? How do you cause them to act?

Sariputra! I also thought, ‘If I extol my insight, powers, and fearlessness in the presence of those living beings only by my supernatural powers and by the power of my wisdom, that is to say, without any expedient, they will not be saved because they have not yet been saved from birth, old age, disease, death, grief, sorrow, suffering and lamentation, but are burning up in the burning house of the triple world. How can they understand the wisdom of the Buddha?’

What toys could catch the attention of the children today? Perhaps a Pokemon stop outside the walls of the burning house, safe from the dangers inside.

Day 5 begins Chapter 3, A Parable

Sariputra is happy to learn he will become a Buddha but he wants everyone to know that he felt betrayed:

I walked about mountains and valleys,
Or sat under a tree in a forest, thinking this over.
I reproached myself with a deep sigh:
‘Why was I deceived?
We also are sons of the Buddha
[Just as the Bodhisattvas are].
We entered the same [ world]
[Of the] Dharma-without-asravas.
But we shall not be able to expound
Unsurpassed enlightenment in the future.
We are in the same [ world of the] Dharma.
But we shall not be given
The golden body with the thirty-two marks,
The ten powers, and the emancipations [of the Buddha].
We are deprived of the hope
To have the eighty wonderful marks,
The eighteen unique properties
And the other merits [of the Buddha].”

But Sakyamuni is having none of it:

Now I will tell you in the presence of this great multitude including gods, men, sramanas, 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.”

If only we could remember.

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

Recently I’ve been reprinting the contents of a “The Doctrines of Nichiren with a Sketch of His Life.” The book was first published in 1893 and it has been thought provoking to see the difference in focus while maintaining the teachings of Nichiren.

Take for instance this statement:

Now the real state of visible things is one of emptiness and relativity. All phenomena, mental and material, in all times and spaces, are to be conceived of as existing subjectively in the consciousness of every individual, as his own physical and mental states, and thus only; so that the differences and varieties which distinguish things from one another must be regarded as purely imaginary and misleading, without any foundation in fact. Grasp this, and you have the Truth, and everything will then appear to you as it is in reality; you will see it as it is in itself.
Doctrines of Nichiren (1893)

This concept is underlined in today’s reading in several places in the last half of Chapter 2, Expedients:

All things are from the outset
In the state of tranquil extinction.

And…

They know the Highest Truth of Tranquil Extinction.
They have the power to employ expedients.
Although they expound various teachings,
Their purpose is to reveal the Buddha-Vehicle.

And…

I thought:
“I appeared in the defiled world.
Just like the other Buddhas,
I will expound the Dharma
According to the capacities of all living beings.”
Having thought this, I went to Vārāṇasī,
And expounded the Dharma to the five bhiksus
With expedients
Because the state of tranquil extinction of all things
is inexplicable by words.

The Doctrines of Nichiren goes on to say:

[T]he multitude, being still unenlightened, are unable to perceive the great truth that this present world is the world of Buddhas and of Glorious Light, and are unconscious of the Paradise into which they have already actually entered. Their minds being thus confused, they give rein to the four passions of avarice, anger, folly, and pride, and find themselves in the painful regions of birth, old age, disease, and death; so that they are obliged to pass through a series of transmigrations in the world of evils, which is ever a prey to Great Fire in times past, and present, and future. But all these pains and miseries are, in fact, voluntarily incurred by the people themselves; they are not proper and natural to the real state of the world, which is, in itself, free from them altogether.
Doctrines of Nichiren (1893)

Something to meditate on while chanting Namu Myoho Renge Kyo