The Bodhisattvas who have practiced the Way
For the past innumerable kalpas,
Will believe my longevity
When they hear of it.They will receive Myōhō Renge Kyō on their heads,
And wish:
“May we live long and save all living beings
Just as the World-Honored One of today,
Who is the King of the Śākyas, [saves them]
By expounding the Dharma without fear
At the place of enlightenment
With [a voice like] a lion’s roar!
When we sit at the place of enlightenment,
Respected by all living beings,
May we preach that we also shall live
As long [as the World-Honored One of today]!”
All posts by John Hughes
Tao-sheng: The Arhats By Name
Tao-sheng Commentary on the Lotus Sutra, p164-166They included Ājñāta-Kauṇḍinya, Mahā-Kāśyapa, Uruvilvā-Kāśyapa, Gaya-Kāśyapa, Nadi- Kāśyapa, Śāriputra, Great Maudgalyāyana, Mahā-Kātyāyana, Aniruddha, Kapphina, Gavampati, Revata, Pilindavatsa, Bakkula, Maha-Kausthila, Nanda, Sundarananda, Pūrṇa who was the son of Maitrāyanī, Subhūti, Ananda, and Rahula.
- Ājñātakauṇḍinya
- Ājñā(ta) means, in Chinese, attaining the unlearned knowledge.” Kauṇḍinya is a surname. He was the first one who attained the Tao; hence, the name.
- Mahākāśyapa
- Mahā means “great.” Kāśyapa is a surname. Because he was an elder and virtuous, he was thus called by this name. Kāśyapa is a Brahman surname.
- Uruvilvākāśyapa
- It is the name of a papaya grove. As he stayed always in this grove, the place became his name.
- Gayākāśyapa
- Gayā is the name of a town. He stayed by the town; thus, it became his name.
- Nadīkāśyapa
- It is the name of a river. He was born at the bank of this river. Because of this, he got the name.
- Śāriputra
- Śāri refers to his mother’s name. His mother’s eyes were like those of the Śāri bird (stork); hence, this name. Putra means “son.” This Śāriputra’s mother was highly talented and skillful in debates. She was known all over the land. Therefore he came to have the name Śāri, after his mother.
- Mahāmaudgalyāyana
- His first name was Kolita. The surname came from a Brahman clan.
- Mahākātyāyana
- It was a surname of a Brahman (clan) of South India. So what originally used to be a surname became his name.
- Aniruddha
- In Chinese, it means non(a)extinction (nirodha) (i.e., unextinguishable).
- Kapphina
- It is a first name; it is untranslatable.
- Gavampati
- Gavam means cow (go); pati means foot (pad). When he was born, his feet were like cow’s feet; hence, his name, “cow feet.”
- Revata
- It is the name of a constellation. He was born when this constellation appeared in the sky; got the name.
- Pilindavatsa
- Pilinda is the first name: Vatsa is a surname.
- Bakkula
- The name [translated into Chinese] is Fei-ch’eng (“fertile and prosperous”).
- Maha-Kausthila
- The [Chinese] name is Ta-hsi (“great knee”).
- Nanda
- The [Chinese] name is Huan-hsi (“joy”) (Ānanda). He was the Buddha’s younger brother.
- Sundarananda
- The [Chinese] name is Jou-ju (“gentle and smooth”). It means “handsome” (suedara) and “joy” (Ānanda).
- Pūrṇa Maitrāyanīputra [who was the son of Maitrāyanī]
- Pūrṇa is a surname; Maitrāyanīputra is a first name. He is also called [in Chinese] Man-yüan (“fulfilled wish”). Maitrāyanī was his mother’s name. His mother’s talent for debate and great wisdom were known to many people. People honored his mother. Hence, the son’s name was taken from his mother’s surname.
- Subhūti
- The [Chinese] name is Shan-chi (“good and lucky”). It also means “empty birth” (su-bhū).
- Ānanda
- He had a handsome appearance. People were delighted to see him. He was born on the day of the Buddha’s enlightenment. Thus, he was called Huan-hsi (“joy”) (Ānanda).
- Rāhula
- In Chinese, it means “not letting go” (not released). He was in the womb for six years. He thus came to be called not letting go.
Myōhō Renge Kyō Promise for Jan. 7, 2025
[T]he 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 Myōhō Renge Kyō.
Tao-sheng: The Specific Cohearers
Tao-sheng Commentary on the Lotus Sutra, p163He was accompanied by twelve thousand great bhikṣus.
If it is said that [the transmitter] heard [the preaching] by himself, one would find it difficult to believe other factors, too. If he simply said we and everybody [vaguely, not specifically] he would not be any better than “excepted from being” a solitary [witness]. [So] he lists all the [specific] cohearers. These are all that I mentioned as [the five factors] witnessing the sūtra. Bhikṣu is a general term referring to those who are in the process of destroying evils. Why are the voice hearers (śrāvakas) listed first and then the bodhisattvas? This has to do with the difference of inner and outer; inner-directedness has a limited scope, whereas outer-directedness has no restrictions. Hence, it should be in that order. It also suggests that the Buddha’s transformative teaching covers all; starting from the near, extending to the distant; there is no place where [his] Tao is not existent. Great (Mahā) refers to the assembly of people that can [counter] ninety-six kinds [of heretical views or arguments].
Two Tongues in the Ashes
When I was selecting examples of Miraculous Tales from The Dainihonkoku Hokekyō of Priest Chingen, I deliberately excluded the tales of self-immolation. After reading Thich Nhat Hanh’s Peaceful Action, Open Heart and his recollection of Thich Quang Duc, the first monk to immolate himself in the 1960s to protest Vietnam’s anti-Buddhist laws, I changed my attitude about such stories. I’ve decided to include one example of pious self-immolation from Daniel B. Stevenson’s “Tales of the Lotus Sutra.”
Buddhism in Practice, p434In Jingzhou there lived two bhikṣunīs who were sisters. Their names have been forgotten, but they both recited the Lotus Sūtra, held a deep loathing for the physical body, and together conceived the desire to give up their lives [in offering to the dharma]. [To this end,] they set restrictions on clothing and diet and prescribed for themselves a regimen of painful austerities. They ingested various perfumed oils and gradually reduced their intake of coarse rice, until they gave up grains altogether and took only fragrant honey. [Even then,] their energy and spiritual determination remained as vigorous and fresh as ever. They announced [widely] to the monks and laity [around them] that at an appointed time in the future they would immolate themselves.
On the evening of the eighth day of the second month during the third year of the Zhenguan era [629], they set up two high seats in the middle of one of the large boulevards of Jingzhou. Then they wrapped their bodies from head to foot in waxed cloth, leaving only their faces exposed. The crowds gathered like a mountain; their songs of praise filled the air like clouds. The two women together began to chant the Lotus Sūtra. When they reached the “Medicine King” (Bhaiṣajyarāja) chapter, the older sister first ignited the head of the younger sister, and the younger in turn lit the head of the older sister. Simultaneously the two blazed up, like two torches in the clear night. As the flames crept down over their eyes, the sound of their voices became even more distinct. But, as it gradually arrived at their noses and mouths, they grew quiet [and their voices were heard no more]. [They remained seated upright] until dawn, linked together on their two seats. Then, all at once, the fire gave out. [As the smoke and flame cleared,] there amidst their charred and desiccated bones lay two tongues, both perfectly intact. The crowd gasped in awe. [A short time later] a tall stūpa was constructed for them.
Myōhō Renge Kyō Promise for Jan. 6, 2025
“The perfect body of a Tathāgata is in this stūpa of treasures. A long time ago there was a world called Treasure-Purity at the distance of many thousands of billions of asaṃkhyas of worlds to the east [of this world]. In that world lived a Buddha called Many-Treasures. When he was yet practicing the Way of Bodhisattvas, he made a great vow: ‘If anyone expounds Myōhō Renge Kyō in any of the worlds of the ten quarters after I become a Buddha and pass away, I will cause my stūpa-mausoleum to spring up before him so that I may be able to prove the truthfulness of Myōhō Renge Kyō and say ‘excellent’ in praise of him because I wish to hear Myōhō Renge Kyō [directly from him].”
Tao-sheng: At One Time
Tao-sheng Commentary on the Lotus Sutra, p163The Buddha once {At One Time}1 lived on Mt. Gṛdhrakūṭa in the City of King-House.
Even though words be in accord with li, if they do not match the occasion they will still be empty statements. Hence, next comes “at one time.” What time means is that the “subtle, triggering mechanism force (chi)” within beings stimulates (kan) the Sage, and the latter responds [appropriately and helpfully] (ying) to them; when religious interaction between ordinary people and the Sage does not miss a favorable opportunity (chi), we call it at one time.
Although there is no place where the Dharma body is not present, if the place where the preaching took place were not recorded, it would look vague and diffuse. Given that [the transmitter] had to introduce it in order to give evidence for the preaching, and there were five places in this mountain, [namely,] Rājagṛha, which is the one where the preaching took place? It was at the monastery on Gṛdhrakūṭa mountain (“Vulture Peak”).
- I’ve used Senchu Murano’s translation of the Lotus Sutra when quoted by Tao-sheng. When he uses a phrase not used by Murano, I’ve inserted the phrase in {curly brackets}.return
Tales of the Lotus Sutra
In 1995, Princeton University Press published an anthology devoted to Buddhism in Practice as part of the university’s Princeton Readings in Religions. Donald S. Lopez Jr. edited the volume. Included in the anthology is Daniel B. Stevenson’s “Tales of the Lotus Sutra.”
Stevenson’s article offers translations of several stories from the Tang-dynasty tales of devotion to the Lotus Sutra known as Hongzan fahua zhuan, or Accounts in Dissemination and Praise of the Lotus.
Buddhism in Practice, p427-428The Hongzan fahua zhuan belongs to a genre of Chinese Buddhist writing known as the “record of miraculous response,” or “miracle tale,” for short. The Buddhist miracle tale originated during the early medieval period, taking as its model two related narrative forms of indigenous origin that enjoyed widespread popularity at that time: the Chinese “tale of the strange or extraordinary” and the tradition of the exemplary biography inspired by the Chinese dynastic histories. The Buddhist miracle tale probably stands closest in spirit to the exemplary biography. Like the latter, the miracle tale was (and continues to be) circulated primarily for reasons of spiritual edification. Behind the marvels that it recounts there lurks an ever-present injunction to faith and piety. …
Of the miracle tales as a whole, we know that some were gathered locally from oral tradition. We know that they were selected, reworked, and disseminated by literate lay and monastic figures, some of whom were quite eminent. We also know that many of these same tales were told time and again, sometimes at formal ritual gatherings before audiences containing persons of every ilk—mendicants and laypersons, educated and uneducated. On this basis the miracle tale can be understood as “popular” in the sense of anonymous and generic—a body of literature that reflects religious motifs which are universal to Buddhist monastic and lay life rather than the province of one particular sector or stratum.
The Hongzan fahua zhuan organizes its contents according to eight categories of cultic activity: drawings and likenesses produced on the basis of the Lotus, translation of the Lotus, exegesis, cultivation of meditative discernment (based on the Lotus), casting away the body (in offering to the Lotus), recitation of the scripture (from memory), cyclic reading of the sūtra, and copying the sūtra by hand. Individual entries are, in turn, arranged in chronological sequence according to dynastic period.
Four of the topical sections of the Hongzan fahua zhuan—exegesis or preaching of the Lotus, recitation from memory, reading, and copying the Lotus—find an immediate counterpart in the famous “five practices” of receiving and keeping, reading, reciting, copying, and explicating the Lotus Sūtra described in the “Preachers of Dharma” chapter of the sūtra and articulated by exegetes such as the Tiantai master Zhiyi. Section 5 of the Hongzan fahua zhuan, on “casting away the body,” contains biographies of devotees who ritually burned themselves alive in imitation of the bodhisattva Medicine King’s self-immolation in offering to the dharma in chapter 23 of the Lotus. Various subsidiary themes of cultic and ritual activity that recur throughout the tales of the Hongzan fahua zhuan can likewise be traced to these chapters. One topic that is conspicuously absent from the Hongzan fahua zhuan is the cult of Guanyin.
The Hongzan fahua zhuan is a precursor of the miraculous stories told in Japan. See Miraculous Stories from the Japanese Buddhist Tradition and Miraculous Tales of the Lotus Sutra from Ancient Japan.
Starting tomorrow, I will publish one of these stories on the first Monday of each month as part of my 2025 collection of promises contained in the Lotus Sutra.
Myōhō Renge Kyō Promise for Jan. 5, 2025
Anyone who keeps Myōhō Renge Kyō
In the latter days after my extinction
Should have compassion towards laymen and monks
And towards those who are not Bodhisattvas.
He should think:
‘They do not hear Myōhō Renge Kyō.
They do not believe Myōhō Renge Kyō.
This is their great fault.
When I attain the enlightenment of the Buddha,
I will expound the Dharma to them
With expedients
And cause them to dwell in it.’
Tao-sheng: Transmitting the Sutra
Tao-sheng Commentary on the Lotus Sutra, p162-163Thus have I heard
This is the phrase of the transmitters of the sūtra. How is it that the sūtras have been transmitted through generations and the voice of the Buddha has not been cut off? Because there are certain factors that make it possible. It resembles the possession of a passport (literally, sealed tally) by a person, with which he will not encounter any check point that he will not be able to pass through. The sūtras have five facts established in the beginning [of the first passage] in order to make the path (tao/mārga) pass [down the generations] without difficulty. Like [of like this or thus] is the word suggesting that the words match li. When the words and li are in mutual accord, this is spoken of as like. This (or right) [of like this or thus] refers to the fact that everything the Thus Come One (Tathāgata) said is not wrong. This [word] points to all that the Buddha preaches.
He intended to transmit it to those who did not [directly] hear it. If there were just words [heard] but no information about transmission, it means that he merely followed the words he heard [which could be subject to distortion]. The importance [of a document as an authentic scripture] lies not so much in preaching [as such] as in transmission. It can be said that the Tao values one who forgets himself. [The reader is advised to] forget about (or cast off) “I” and to follow the word heard. Heard means that the words came from the Buddha himself; it clarifies that they did not come forth from “my” [the hearer’s) mind. In this way,
the sūtras have been handed down from generation to generation and the wondrous track [of the Dharma wheel] has not ceased.