All posts by John Hughes

LS32

Day 30

Day 30 covers all of Chapter 26, Dhāraṇīs.

Just how much merit is there in keeping, reading, reciting, understanding or copying the Sūtra of the Lotus Flower of the Wonderful Dharma? The Buddha said:

Suppose some good men or women make offerings to eight hundred billion nayuta Buddhas, that is, as many Buddhas as there are sands in the River Ganges. What do you think of this? Are the merits given to them many or not?

“Very many, World-Honored One!” [said Medicine-King Bodhisattva]

The Buddha said: “More merits will be given to the good men or women who keep, read or recite even a single gāthā of four lines of this sūtra, understand the meanings of it or act according to it.”

Subsequently, Medicine-King Bodhisattva, Brave-In-Giving Bodhisattva, Vaiśravaṇa Heavenly-King, World-Holding Heavenly-King, the 10 female rākṣasīs and their mother each offer dhāraṇīs to protect the person who keeps this sūtra and the teacher of the sūtra. Attacks on these people under protection are to be considered attacks on countless Buddhas.

The 10 rākṣasīs and their mother say:

“World-Honored One! We also will protect the person who reads, recites and keeps the Sūtra of the Lotus Flower of the Wonderful Dharma so that he may have no trouble. No one shall take advantage of the weak points of this teacher of the Dharma.”

They also predict:

Anyone who attacks this teacher of the Dharma
Will receive the same retribution
As to be received by the person who kills his parents,
Or who makes [sesame] oil without taking out worms [from the sesame],
Or who deceives others by using wrong measures and scales,
Or by Devadatta who split the Saṃgha.

In reply to the rākṣasīs, the Buddha says:

“Excellent, excellent! Your merits will be immeasurable even when you protect the person who keeps only the name of the Sūtra of the Lotus Flower of the Wonderful Dharma. Needless to say, so will be your merits when you protect the person who keeps the sūtra itself, and makes to a copy of this sūtra hundreds of thousands of offerings such as flowers, incense, necklaces, powdered incense, incense applicable to the skin, incense to burn, streamers, canopies, music, and various lamps like lamps of butter oil, oil lamps, lamps of perfumed oil, lamps of sumanas-flower oil, lamps of campaka flower oil, lamps of vārṣika-flower oil, and lamps of utpala-flower oil. Kuntī! You [rākṣasīs] and your attendants should protect this teacher of the Dharma.”

Lotus Path

Fertile Ground

Quote

It is easy to focus our attention on the immediate challenges we face and easy to lose sight of the goal of our practice. We may sometimes fail to consider that a different road, one with fewer troubles, would not provide us the fertile ground upon which to accomplish the changes we need to make in our own lives.

Lotus Path: Practicing the Lotus Sutra Volume 1

Daily Dharma

Daily Dharma – Dec. 16, 2015

Offer him heaps of the treasures of heaven! Why is that? It is because, while he is expounding the Dharma with joy, if you hear it even for a moment, you will immediately be able to attain Anuttara-samyak-saṃbodhi.

The Buddha gives this instruction to Medicine-King Bodhisattva at the beginning of Chapter Ten of the Lotus Sūtra. In Chapter Twenty-Three, the Buddha tells of all the hardships Medicine-King endured to practice the Wonderful Dharma. This Bodhisattva knows all the difficulties we face because he has experienced them himself. When anyone sees us practicing, living and sharing the Dharma with others, they will see the joy we have and want to experience it for themselves. The treasures of heaven we receive from Medicine-King are not like the pleasures and comforts we find in the world. They are the assurance we have of our enlightenment and that of all beings.

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

Lotus in a Sea of Flames, LS32

Day 29

Illustration Nichiren at Tasunokuchi
Nichiren at Tatsunokuchi by Rhea Adri from Ryūei Michael McCormick’s Lotus in a Sea of Flames

In chanting the daimoku, the power of the whole sutra and all its protectors had been invoked. Who had sent that ball of lightning across the sky at just that moment? Perhaps it had been World Voice Perceiver Bodhisattva, of whom the Buddha sang in the verses of chapter 25 of the Lotus Sutra, “Suppose you are sentenced to death, and the sword is drawn to behead you. If you think of the power of World Voice Perceiver, the sword will suddenly break asunder.”

Day 29 covers all of Chapter 25, The Universal Gate of World-Voice-Perceiver Bodhisattva.

In earlier readings of Chapter 25, I’ve scoffed at what I described as World-Voice-Perceiver Bodhisattva’s Get Out of Jail Free card but recently I’ve been reading Ryūei Michael McCormick’s Lotus in a Sea of Flames (you can get info on how to purchase this new biography of Nichiren on his blog). Nichiren had not resigned himself to his death on the beach at Tatsunokuchi. No, he embraced it in much the same way Gladly-Seen-By-All-Beings Bodhisattva in Chapter 23 embraced giving himself to the flames of the Dharma. McCormick’s novel imagines Nichiren consoling Shijo Kingo and his brothers just moments before his execution saying: “How dismayed you all are! You should be laughing at such a wonderful occasion as this when I am going to present my wretched head to the Lotus Sutra. It will be like exchanging sand for gold or pebbles for jewels.”

All the more reason to bear in mind what the Buddha says:

Good man! If many hundreds of thousands of billions of living beings hear [the name of] World-Voice-Perceiver Bodhisattva and call his name with all their hearts when they are under various sufferings, World-Voice-Perceiver Bodhisattva will immediately perceive their voices, and cause them to emancipate themselves [from the sufferings].

And while not everyone faces death at the hands of robbers or peril at sea in a storm-tossed ship, there are many other times when thinking of World-Voice-Perceiver Bodhisattva can rescue us:

Those who have much lust will be saved from lust if they constantly think of World-Voice-Perceiver Bodhisattva and respect him. Those who have much anger will be saved from anger if they constantly think of World-Voice-Perceiver Bodhisattva and respect him. Those who have much stupidity will be saved from stupidity if they constantly think of World-Voice-Perceiver Bodhisattva and respect him. Endless-Intent! World-Voice-Perceiver Bodhisattva has these great supernatural powers. He gives many benefits to all living beings. Therefore, they should constantly think of him.

As with Wonderful-Voice Bodhisattva, World-Voice-Perceiver Bodhisattva can be found wandering about this world transforming himself into various beings in order to teach the Dharma:

This World-Voice-Perceiver Bodhisattva does these meritorious deeds. He takes various shapes, walks about many worlds, and saves the living beings [of those worlds]. Make offerings to World-Voice-Perceiver Bodhisattva with all your hearts! This World-Voice-Perceiver Bodhisattva-mahāsattva gives fearlessness [to those who are] in fearful emergencies. Therefore, he is called the ‘Giver of Fearlessness’ in this Sahā-World.

In summary:

World-Voice-Perceiver will save
All living beings from misfortunes
And from innumerable sufferings of the world
By the wonderful power of his wisdom.

He has these supernatural powers.
He employs various expedients with his wisdom.
In the ten quarters there is no kṣetra
In which he does not appear at all.

Daily Dharma

Daily Dharma – Dec. 15, 2015

Medicine-King! Although many laymen or monks will practice the Way of Bodhisattvas, they will not be able to practice it satisfactorily, know this, unless they see, hear, read, recite, copy or keep this Sūtra of the Lotus Flower of the Wonderful Dharma or make offerings to it.

The Buddha gives this explanation to Medicine-King Bodhisattva in Chapter Ten of the Lotus Sūtra. For us to aspire to benefit all beings is rare and wonderful. However, without the guidance of the Buddha, our efforts to benefit others can degenerate into expectations of separate benefits for ourselves. In the Lotus Sūtra, the Buddha explains the limitations of his previous teachings, assures us of our capacity for enlightenment and how he is always helping us, and gives examples of great Bodhisattvas whose experience we can apply to our own lives.

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

LS32

Day 28

Day 28 covers all of Chapter 24, Wonderful-Voice Bohisattva, and concludes the Seventh Volume of the Sūtra of the Lotus Flower of the Wonderful Dharma.

When Wonderful-Voice Bohisattva suggests to Pure-Flower-Star-King-Wisdom Buddha that he wants to visit Śākyamuni Buddha in the Sahā-World the Buddha tells him not judge by what he sees:

Do not despise that world! Do not consider it to be inferior [to our world]! Good Man! The Sahā-World is not even. It is full of mud, stones, mountains1 and impurities. The Buddha [of that world] is short in stature. 2 So are the Bodhisattvas [of that world]. You are forty-two thousand yojanas tall. I am six million and eight hundred thousand yojanas tall. You are the most handsome. You have thousands of millions of marks of merits, and your light is wonderful. Do not despise that world when you go there! Do not consider that the Buddha and Bodhisattvas of that world are inferior [to us]! Do not consider that that world is inferior [to ours]!

Śākyamuni Buddha explains Wonderful-Voice Bohisattva’s greatest power:

Flower-Virtue! Now you see Wonderful-Voice Bodhisattva here and nowhere else. But formerly he transformed himself into various living beings and expounded this sūtra to others in various places. He became King Brahman, King Śakra, Freedom God, Great-Freedom God, a great general in heaven, Vaiśravaṇa Heavenly-King, a wheel-turning-holy-king, the king of a small country, a rich man, a householder, a prime minister, a brāhmaṇa, a bhikṣu, a bhikṣuṇī, an upāsaka, an upāsikā, the wife of a rich man, that of a householder, that of a prime minister, that of a brāhmaṇa, a boy, a girl, a god, a dragon, a yakṣa, a gandharva, an asura, a garuḍa, a kiṃnara, a mahoraga, a human being or a nonhuman being. [After he transformed himself into one or another of these living beings,] he expounded this sūtra, and saved the hellish denizens, hungry spirits, animals, and all the other living beings in the places of difficulties. When he entered an imperial harem, he became a woman and expounded this sūtra.

Flower-Virtue! This Wonderful-Voice Bodhisattva protects all living beings in this Sahā-World. He transforms himself into one or another of these various living beings in this Sahā-World and expounds this sūtra to all living beings without reducing his supernatural powers, [his power of] transformation, and his wisdom. He illumines this Sahā-World with the many [rays of light] of his wisdom, and causes all living beings to know what they should know.

And the Gods on high benefit as well:

When [Śākyamuni Buddha] expounded this chapter of the Coming and Going of Wonderful-Voice Bodhisattva, forty-two thousand gods obtained the truth of birthlessness, and Flower-Virtue Bodhisattva obtained the ability to practice the samādhi for the Lotus Flower of the Wonderful Dharma.

Daily Dharma

Daily Dharma – Dec. 14, 2015

All that I say is true, not false, because I see the triple world as it is. I see that the triple world is the world in which the living beings have neither birth nor death, that is to say, do not appear or disappear, that it is the world in which I do not appear or from which I do not disappear, that it is not real or unreal, and that it is not as it seems or as it does not seem. I do not see the triple world in the same way as [the living beings of] the triple world do. I see all this clearly and infallibly.

The Buddha makes this revelation in Chapter Sixteen of the Lotus Sūtra. In the story, he has just explained that although beings see him as a man who became enlightened after growing up as a crown prince, in reality he has been enlightened since an unimaginable amount of time in the past, and will continue to lead all beings to enlightenment for twice that period of time into the future. As we learn to see the historical Śākyamuni Buddha as the ever-present Śākyamuni Buddha, our vision of the world changes too.

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

LS32

Day 27

Day 27 concludes Chapter 23, The Previous Life of Medicine-King Bodhisattva.

The Buddha has been explaining why it is that Medicine-King Bodhisattva won’t mind walking about this Sahā world by explaining his past life as Gladly-Seen-By-All-Beings Bodhisattva, a supernatural being who could burn his body in one life for the sake of the Dharma and burn his arms in the next. Clearly he earned great merit. And yet…

But the merits to be given to the person who fills the one thousand million Sumeru-worlds with the seven treasures and offers that amount of the seven treasures to the Buddhas, to the Great Bodhisattvas, to the Pratyekabuddhas, and to the Arhats, are less than the merits to be given to the person who keeps even a single gāthā of four lines of this Sūtra of the Lotus Flower of the Wonderful Dharma.

What follows is a series of ways in which the Lotus Sutra is greater than other sutras – a sea is larger than a river, the moon is brighter than a star – the “Sūtra of the Lotus Flower of the Wonderful Dharma is more profound than any of the other sūtras expounded by the Tathāgatas.”

This sūtra saves all living beings. This sūtra saves them from all sufferings, and gives them great benefits. All living beings will be able to fulfill their wishes by this sūtra just as a man who reaches a pond of fresh water when he is thirsty, just as a man who gets fire when he suffers from cold, just as a man who is given a garment when he is naked … The merits to be given to the person who, after hearing this Sūtra of the Lotus Flower of the Wonderful Dharma, copies it, or causes others to copy it, cannot be measured even by the wisdom of the Buddha.

There’s no better medicine:

Protect this sūtra by your supernatural powers! Why is that? It is because this sūtra is a good medicine for the diseases of the people of the Jambudvīpa. The patient who hears this sūtra will be cured of his disease at once. He will not grow old or die.

Daily Dharma

Daily Dharma – Dec. 13, 2015

If you wish to dwell in the enlightenment of the Buddha,
And to obtain the self-originating wisdom,
Make offerings strenuously to the keeper
Of the Sūtra of the Lotus Flower of the Wonderful Dharma!

The Buddha sings these verses to Medicine-King Bodhisattva at the beginning of Chapter Ten of the Lotus Sūtra. This teaching does not mean that we who practice the Buddha Dharma should expect offerings because of our practice. Rather, it encourages us to appreciate all those who are seeking enlightenment, whether or not they are aware of their true nature as Bodhisattvas. It also means that innumerable beings are helping us reach enlightenment. We are never alone in this practice.

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

LS32

Day 26

Day 26 concludes Chapter 21, The Supernatural Powers of the Tathāgatas, includes Chapter 22, Transmission, and introduces Chapter 23, The Previous Life of Medicine-King Bodhisattva.

To sum up, all the teachings of the Tathāgata, all the unhindered, supernatural powers of the Tathāgata, all the treasury of the hidden core of the Tathāgata, and all the profound achievements of the Tathāgata are revealed and expounded explicitly in this sūtra. Therefore, keep, read, recite, expound and copy this sūtra, and act according to the teachings of it with all your hearts after my extinction!

And those who keep this sutra:

Anyone who keeps this sūtra
Will be able to see me.
He also will be able to see
Many-Treasures Buddha,
[The Buddhas of] my replicas,
And the Bodhisattvas whom I have taught today.

Anyone who keeps this sūtra will be able to cause me to rejoice.
He also will be able to bring joy
To [the Buddhas of] my replicas
And also to Many-Treasures Buddha who once passed away.

A light unto the world:

Anyone who understands why the Buddhas expound [many] sūtras,
Who knows the position [of this sūtra in the series of sūtras],
And who expounds it after my extinction
According to its true meaning,
Will be able to eliminate the darkness.
Of the living beings of the world where he walks about,
Just as the light of the sun and the moon
Eliminates all darkness.
He will be able to cause innumerable Bodhisattvas
To dwell finally in the One Vehicle.

Therefore, the man of wisdom
Who hears the benefits of these merits
And who keeps this sūtra after my extinction,
Will be able to attain
The enlightenment of the Buddha
Definitely and doubtlessly.

Why does the Buddha transmit the Dharma?

Keep, read, recite and expound [this sūtra in which the Dharma is given], and cause all living beings to hear it and know it! Why is that? It is because I have great compassion. I do not begrudge anything. I am fearless. I wish to give the wisdom of the Buddha, the wisdom of the Tathāgata, the wisdom of the Self-Existing One, to all living beings. Follow me, and study my teachings without begrudging efforts!

And in Chapter 23, The Previous Life of Medicine-King Bodhisattva, we learn of what it means to not begrudge efforts. Medicine-King Bodhisattva says:

‘I have now made offerings to the Buddha by my supernatural powers. But these offerings are less valuable than the offering of my own body.’

The light of his offering “illumined the worlds numbering eight thousands of millions of times the number of the sands of the River Ganges”