All posts by John Hughes

LS32

Day 11

Day 11 continues Chapter 7, The Parable of the Magic City

Day 11 Text with annotationsPlay MP3

Having last month considered the reaction of the Brahman-heavenly-kings of the five hundred billion worlds in the east when Great-Universal-Wisdom-Excellence Buddha attained Anuttara-samyak-saṃbodhi, we consider the reaction of the five hundred billion worlds in the southeast.

“Bhikṣus! The great Brahman-[heavenly-]kings of the five hundred billion worlds in the southeast, who saw their palaces illumined more brightly than ever, danced with joy. They also wondered why [their palaces were so illumined]. They visited each other and discussed the reason. There was a great Brahman-heavenly-king called Great-Compassion among them. He said to the other Brahmans in gāthās:

Why is it
That we see this light?
Our palaces are illumined
More brightly than ever.

Did a god of great virtue or a Buddha
Appear somewhere in the universe?
We have never seen this [light] before.
Let us do our best to find [the reason].

Let us go even to the end of one thousand billion worlds,
And find the place from where this light has come.
A Buddha may have appeared somewhere in the universe
In order to save the suffering beings.

“Thereupon the Brahman-heavenly-kings of the five hundred billion [ worlds] went to the northwest, carrying flower-plates filled with heavenly flowers, in order to find [the place from where the light had come]. Their palaces also moved as they went. They [reached the Well-Composed World and] saw that Great-Universal-Wisdom-Excellence Tathāgata was sitting on the lion-like seat under the Bodhi tree of the place of enlightenment, surrounded respectfully by gods, dragon-kings, gandharvas, kiṃnaras, mahoragas, men, and nonhuman beings. They also saw that the sixteen princes were begging the Buddha to turn the wheel of the Dharma. Thereupon the Brahman-heavenly-kings worshipped the Buddha with their heads, walked around him a hundred thousand times, and strewed heavenly flowers to him. The strewn flowers were heaped up to the height of Mt. Sumeru. The Brahman-heavenly-kings offered flowers also to the Bodhi-tree of the Buddha. Having offered flowers, they offered their palaces to the Buddha, saying, ‘We offer these palaces to you. Receive them and benefit us out of your compassion towards us!’ In the presence of the Buddha, they simultaneously praised him in gāthās with all their hearts:

Saintly Master, God of Gods!
Your voice is as sweet as a kalavinka’s.
You have compassion towards all living beings.
We now bow before you.
You, the World-Honored One, are exceptional.
You appear only once in a very long time.

No Buddha has appeared
For the past one hundred and eighty kalpas.
The three evil regions are crowded;
And the living beings in heaven, decreasing.

Now you have appeared in this world
And become the eye of all living beings.
As their refuge, you are saving them.
As their father, you are benefiting them
Out of your compassion towards them.
We are now able to see you
Because we accumulated merits
In our previous existence.

“Thereupon the Brahman-heavenly-kings, having praised the Buddha with these gāthās, said, ‘World-Honored One! Turn the wheel of the Dharma and save all living beings out of your compassion towards them!’ Then they simultaneously said in gāthās with all their hearts:

Great Saint, turn the wheel of the Dharma
And reveal the reality of all things!
Save the suffering beings
And cause them to have great joy!

If they hear the Dharma, some will attain enlightenment;
Others will be reborn in heaven.
The living beings in the evil regions will decrease;
And those who do good patiently will increase.

“Thereupon Great-Universal-Wisdom-Excellence Tathāgata gave his tacit consent to their appeal.

The Daily Dharma from May 26, 2021, offers this:

Let us go even to the end of one thousand billion worlds,
And find the place from where this light has come.
A Buddha may have appeared somewhere in the universe
In order to save the suffering beings.

These verses are sung by the Brahma King Great Compassion in Chapter Seven of the Lotus Sūtra. He invites his fellow Brahma Kings, creators of entire worlds, to leave the luxury of their palaces to find a Buddha who is leading all beings to enlightenment. They value the Buddha’s words more than anything that they have created for themselves, and know how rare it is to encounter an enlightened being. These kings give us an example of how we can learn to treasure the Buddha Dharma.

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

800years, Blog, d8b

800 Years: Understanding by Faith

Nothing tells you more about the Lotus Sutra’s definition of faith than the fact that the chapter entitled Understanding by Faith does not contain the word faith.

In the first three chapters of the Lotus Sutra, the necessity of understanding by faith is underscored but not explained.

“Śāriputra, know this!
The Buddhas do not speak differently.
Have great power of faith
In the Dharma expounded by the Buddhas!
As a rule, the World-Honored Ones expound the true teaching
Only after a long period [of expounding expedient teachings].”

We are warned repeatedly that the true teaching is difficult to understand. After all, the goal is not simply personal nirvāṇa. This was too much for the old men living the life of wisdom:

“You expounded the wisdom of the Buddha[, that is, the Great Vehicle] with expedients, but we did not aspire for that vehicle because, when we had obtained the day’s pay of Nirvāṇa from the Buddha, we thought that we had already obtained enough.”

I have great affinity for these old men. I can imagine hearing that the goal posts have been moved. I’m happy where I am. Why trudge on further? Of course, the Buddha will reveal that Magic City later. For now, we are learning how faith and practice move together, and the Buddha’s role.

“By his wisdom the rich man succeeded
In leading his son into his household.
Twenty years after that
He had his son manage his house.”

And later:

“The rich man knew
That his son was base and mean.
Therefore, he made him nobler
With expedients,
And then gave him
All his treasures.”

And finally:

“The Buddhas are the Kings of the Dharma
They are free from āsravas, from cause and effect.
The Buddhas practice patience
In order to save inferior people.
They expound the Dharma according to the capacities
Of the ordinary people who are attached to forms.”

For T’ian T’ai, the Rich Man’s transformation of his Poor Son follows five sequential events – providing, inviting, encouraging, purifying and revealing. These events correspond to five flavors T’ian T’ai used to classify the Buddha’s teachings.

For the Poor Son, the first step of faith was accepting the offer of a job at a double-day’s pay. And through his daily work, his faith grew – “After a while the father noticed that his son had become more at ease and peaceful, that he wanted to improve himself, and that he felt ashamed of the thought that he was base and mean.” In the end, the Poor Son was not frightened at the prospect of taking over the family business. He was happy: “I never dreamed of having this store of treasures myself. It has come to me unexpectedly.”

As the Introduction of the Lotus Sutra explains:

“Faith appears in an honest heart. Neither logic nor reason can awaken faith in us. Faith grows beyond reason when we encounter someone beyond our capacities, or when we unexpectedly touch something absolute in our lives or in the cosmos.”

Table of Contents Next Essay
Daily Dharma

Daily Dharma – April 16, 2022

He was patient, gentle,
And friendly with others.
Even when many evils troubled him,
His mind was not moved.

The Buddha sings these verses in Chapter Seventeen of the Lotus Sūtra. This stanza is his description of the Bodhisattva perfection of patience. As with all the perfections, these are qualities we cultivate, rather than something to use to judge how close we or anybody else is to enlightenment. As we progress in these perfections, our view of the world is less obscured by our own mental formations. We begin to see the world for what it is, and each other for what we are.

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

Blog

The Essential Feature About Hearing the Dharma

I’m taking a break from my immersion in Risshō Kōsei Kai philosophy and exploring Neal Donner and Daniel B. Stevenson’s “The Great Calming and Contemplations: A Study and Annotated Translation of the First Chapter of Chih-i’s Mo-Ho Chih-Kuan.” I haven’t finished the book yet, but I just couldn’t resist passing on this lesson on “the essential feature about hearing the dharma.”

The quote is from the introduction to the Mo-Ho Chih-Kuan by “Chih-i’s disciple, Kuan-ting (561—632), the man originally responsible for recording and editing the work.” [pxiv]

In former times there was a king who decided not to establish a stable [for his elephants] in the vicinity of a hermitage but placed it instead near a slaughterhouse. How much more likely [than beasts in a stable] are humans, when in the proximity of saints, to benefit from their teachings. Again, a brahmin was selling skulls, of which a rod could be passed clean through some, half through others, and not at all through the remainder. Buddhist laymen built a stūpa for those which the rod passed completely through, performed veneration and made offerings to them, and were consequently reborn in the heavens. The essential feature about hearing the dharma is that it has such merit. It is in order to confer this benefit that the Buddha has transmitted the treasury of the dharma. [p104]

This, of course, is absolutely unintelligible until you read the footnote explanations.

On the topic of the elephant stable:

36. From the Fu fa-tsang yin-yüan chuan, T 50.322a. It seems that a certain king used a fierce elephant to trample criminals to death. A time came when the elephant refused to carry out his task, merely smelling and licking his supposed victims without harming them. On inquiring among his ministers, the king found that the elephant’s stable had recently been moved to the neighborhood of a Buddhist hermitage, and the animal was being influenced by the teachings he heard emanating from the monastery. The king therefore ordered the stable moved to the vicinity of a slaughterhouse, whereupon the elephant soon regained his blood lust.

On the topic of the human skulls:

37. Ibid., T 50.322b. The brāhmin had at first no success in selling the skulls and so became angry, cursing and vilifying those who refused to buy them. The Buddhist laymen of the city were frightened at this and agreed to buy. First, however, they tested the skulls by slipping a rod through the ear holes, saying that they attached the greatest value to those which could be penetrated completely so that the rod came out the other side. They explained that such skulls had belonged to persons who in life had heard the Buddha’s wondrous preaching and had thereby attained great wisdom (literal vacuity of mind). Their veneration of these sacred relics earned them rebirth as devas.

Reading a study of the first chapter of Chih-i’s Mo-Ho Chih-Kuan may sound deadly boring, but I’m having lots of fun.

LS32

Day 10

Day 10 concludes Chapter 6, Assurance of Future Buddhahood, and opens Chapter 7, The Parable of a Magic City.

Day 10 Text with annotationsPlay MP3

Having last month considered a Buddha called Great-Universal-Wisdom-Excellence, we consider Great-Universal-Wisdom-Excellence Buddha effort to gain enlightenment.

The Buddha said to the bhikṣus:

“The duration of the life of Great-Universal-Wisdom-Excellence Buddha was five hundred and forty billion nayuta kalpas. [Before he attained Buddhahood,] he sat at the place of enlightenment and defeated the army of Mara. He wished to attain Anuttara-samyak-saṃbodhi, but could not because the Dharma of the Buddhas had not yet come into his mind. He sat cross-legged without moving his mind and body for one to ten small kalpas. During all that time the Dharma of the Buddhas did not come into his mind.

“[Before he sat at the place of enlightenment,] the Trāyastriṃs̒a Gods prepared him a lion-like seat a yojana high under the Bodhi tree so that he might be able to attain Anuttara-samyak-saṃbodhi on that seat. When he sat on that seat, the Brahman-heavenly-kings rained heavenly flowers on the area extending a hundred yojanas in all directions from that seat. From time to time withered flowers were blown away by fragrant winds and new flowers were rained down. [The Brahman-heavenly-kings] continued this offering to him for fully ten small kalpas. [After he attained Buddhahood also,] they continued raining flowers until he passed away.

“[When he sat on that seat,] the four heavenly-kings beat heavenly drums, and the other gods made heavenly music and offered it to him. They continued these offerings also for fully ten small kalpas. [After he attained Buddhahood also,] they continued these offerings until he passed away.

“Bhikṣus! At the end of the period of ten small kalpas, the Dharma of the Buddhas came into the mind of Great-Universal­Wisdom-Excellence Buddha. Now he attained Anuttara-samyak-saṃbodhi.

The Daily Dharma from Sept. 24, 2021, offers this:

When he sat on that seat, the Brahman-heavenly-kings rained heavenly flowers on the area extending a hundred yojanas in all directions from that seat. From time to time withered flowers were blown away by fragrant winds and new flowers were rained down. [The Brahman-heavenly-kings] continued this offering to him for fully ten small kalpas. [After he attained Buddhahood also,] they continued raining flowers until he passed away.

The Buddha describes the life of an ancient Buddha named Great-Universal-Wisdom-Excellence in Chapter Seven of the Lotus Sūtra. In the story, when that Buddha took the seat from which he would become enlightened, the gods who created his world recognized the immense benefit all beings were about to receive and showed their joy by filling the skies with these beautiful flowers. After that Buddha became enlightened, gods from innumerable other worlds came to his world to make offerings, giving up the pleasures of their own worlds. The enlightenment of any being extends beyond the personal contact we have with any that being. It changes the entire universe.

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

800years, Spring Writings

800 Years: Faith and Otsutome

People know how difficult it is to do Otsutome every day, and that each day it is a battle between ego and faith. However, the Buddha teaches us how to control the ego and our own desires. After overcoming such a challenge, you will become comfortable with Odaimoku. Performing Otsutome is not a duty, but proof of your faith to the Buddha and Nichiren Shonin. Continuing to chant is such a wonderful experience, and you will want to perform Otsutome every day, and like me, you will say, “I wonder how wonderful tomorrow will be!”

Spring Writings

Daily Dharma

Daily Dharma – April 15, 2022

Kāśyapa, and all of you present here! It is an extraordinarily rare thing to see that you have understood, believed and received the Dharma which I expounded variously according to the capacities of all living beings because it is difficult to understand the Dharma which the Buddhas, the World-Honored Ones, expound according to the capacities of all living beings.

The Buddha makes this declaration to his disciple Kāśyapa and all those gathered to hear him teach in Chapter Five of the Lotus Sūtra. The Buddha knows how hard it is to set aside our delusions and understand what he is teaching us. When the Buddha teaches with expedients, he lets us stay in the comfort of our own minds. With the Wonderful Dharma of the Lotus Sūtra, he takes us into the unfamiliar areas of his own mind. Only when we gain confidence in the Buddha as our guide can we stay with this teaching and not regress to the contentment of our attachments.

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

Blog, LifeAndSoulofBuddhism

Chanting ‘Namu-Amida-Butsu’

I am not a member of Risshō Kōsei Kai, but I have long found the organization founded by Nikkyō Niwano to be a wealth of information on the Lotus Sutra. No other Buddhist organization of which I am aware places as much emphasis on the study of the Threefold Lotus Sutra. I have benefitted from reading a half-dozen books on the Lotus Sutra and Buddhism published by Kōsei Publishing.

Still, I’ve stumbled over aspects of Risshō Kōsei Kai philosophy. The most recent stumble came after reading Nikkyō Niwano’s The Lotus Sutra Life and Soul of Buddhism. Originally published in Japan in 1969 and released in English in 1970, the book is subtitled, A Modern Introduction to the Lotus Sutra Giving a Better Understanding of the Buddha’s Teachings.

Nikkyō Niwano, while writing on the topic Religion Purifies the Inmost Part of Man’s Mind, uses the example of Dr. Kiyoshi Oka, a mathematician.

His religious life, chanting “Namu-Amida-Butsu,” is a practice in which the exercise of the conscious mind is mostly suspended and the soul of man enters a spiritual state of perfect selflessness. It is not difficult to imagine that as he continued to do this practice everyday, his mind became so extremely serene that he attained a spiritual state of mind seen in the world of the store-consciousness. Thus we can understand how Dr. Oka perceived a mathematical truth through a kind of inspiration or revelation.

In all times and places, there have been numerous instances where scholars and artists have made a great discovery by inspiration when they attained a spiritual state of perfect selflessness. Such instances teach us that we must reconsider our present situation which has been too biased by a materialistic way of life.

Lotus Sutra Life and Soul of Buddhism, p25-26

Later, in discussing how to overcome obstacles that prevent us from following “the Buddhist Way left to us by Śākyamuni,” Nikkyō Niwano writes:

So long as our mind is filled with this egoistic attachment, there is no room to receive the “truth that gives life to all things.” However hard we may try to understand Buddhism, without such room in our minds, the truth runs idly around and does not permeate into the mind. Therefore, our salvation and happiness cannot be achieved by our egoistic attachment.

Unlike Buddhist priests or monks, however, we who lead ordinary lives have egoistic attachments which always appear or disappear. This is because man cannot escape his destiny when it is based on his illusion that he cannot overcome the struggle for existence without his egoistic attachment. If we leave our mind untreated, it never fails to be filled with the egoistic attachment. Accordingly, it is necessary for us to sit down quietly before a Buddhist altar for a fixed time in the morning and evening, and recite the sutras and repeat the Daimoku, the sacred title of the Lotus Sutra, or invoke the name of Amida Buddha.

We can extinguish our egoistic attachment while devoting ourselves to these practices. We can attain a spiritual state of so-called perfect selflessness. When we attain such a state of mind, the light of the truth streams spontaneously through our mind and permeates into its depth.

Lotus Sutra Life and Soul of Buddhism, p53-54

As a Nichiren Shu practitioner, I was startled by Nikkyō Niwano’s repeated suggestion that invoking the name of Amida Buddha was a recommended practice. I was immediately reminded of the quote from Nichiren’s letter “Hōon-jō, Essay on Gratitude”:

Chanting “Namu Myōhōrengekyō” swallows up the functions of “Namu Amidabutsu (Buddha of Infinite Life),” “Namu Dainichi shingon (Great Sun Buddha’s mantras),” and “Namu Kanzeon bosatsu (Avalokiteśvara Bodhisattva)” as well as of all the Buddhas, sūtras, and bodhisattvas. All these will be of no use without the functions of the Lotus Sūtra. This can be seen by everyone, for it has been realized in front of everyone. I, Nichiren, recite “Namu Myōhōrengekyō,” the function of “Namu Amidabutsu (Buddha of Infinite Life)” disappears just as the moon wanes, the tide ebbs, grasses in autumn and winter wither and ice melts under the sun.

Writings of Nichiren Shōnin, Doctrine 3, p53.

I have been attending a 34-week Rissho Kosei-kai in North America (RKINA) advanced course on the Threefold Lotus Sutra, and I took the opportunity to ask Rev. Takashi Yoshizawa, the instructor, about this idea that Namu Amida Butsu was somehow equivalent to Namu Myoho Renge Kyo. In answer he invoked Rissho Kosei-kai’s interfaith doctrine. Essentially, the Truth is one. Imagine that truth as the summit of a mountain. The various religious practices – Buddhist and non-Buddhist alike – are simply different paths to that summit.

I’m not unfamiliar with the “Truth is one” concept and its value. For example, Shinjo Suguro’s Introduction to the Lotus Sutra offers this:

Although the ultimate Truth is one in essence, human beings have various conflicting ideas about it. Nevertheless, we are able to advance toward a higher truth, overcoming conceptual conflicts, since we all believe firmly that the Truth is only one. Indeed, human progress is possible only because we are confident of the existence of a Universal Truth. After all, it is our confidence in the ultimate Truth that leads to the formation of our attitudes toward faith.

Not all paths reach the summit of a mountain, and some paths will be more direct. While I embrace the idea that all religions can have beneficial effect, I’m not prepared to accept that all religious practices are essentially equal.

This is not my first foray into the interfaith question. In May 2020, I wrote four lengthy blog posts on the topic:

LS32

Day 9

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

Day 9 Text with annotationsPlay MP3

Having last month considered the Buddha’s explanation of his merits, we consider how the Buddha is like the cloud that nourished all of the plants.

“Kāśyapa, know this! I, the Tathāgata, am like the cloud. I appeared in this world just as the large cloud rose. I expounded the Dharma to gods, men and asuras of the world with a loud voice just as the large cloud covered all the one thousand million Sumeru-worlds. I said to the great multitude, ‘I am the Tathāgata, 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. I will cause all living beings to cross [the ocean of birth and death] if they have not yet done so. I will cause them to emancipate themselves [from suffering] if they have not yet done so. I will cause them to have peace of mind if they have not yet done so. I will cause them to attain Nirvana if they have not yet done so. I know their present lives as they are, and also their future lives as they will be. I know all. I see all. I know the Way. I have opened the Way. I will expound the Way. Gods, men and asuras! Come and hear the Dharma!’

“Thereupon many thousands of billions of people came to hear the Dharma from me. Having seen them, I knew which were clever, which were dull, which were diligent, and which were lazy. Therefore, I expounded to them an innumerable variety of teachings according to their capacities in order to cause them to rejoice and receive benefits with pleasure. Having heard these teachings, they became peaceful in their present lives. In their future lives, they will have rebirths in good places, enjoy pleasures by practicing the Way, and hear these teachings again. After hearing these teachings again, they will emancipate themselves from all hindrances, practice the teachings according to their capacities, and finally enter the Way, just as the grasses and trees in the thickets and forests, which were watered by the rain from the same large cloud, grew differently according to their species.

The Daily Dharma from Nov. 9, 2021, offers this:

I know the Way. I have opened the Way. I will expound the Way. Gods, men and asuras! Come and hear the Dharma!

The Buddha makes this declaration at the beginning of Chapter Five of the Lotus Sūtra. If anyone besides the Buddha had said this, we would accuse them of arrogance: pretending to know what they do not. The Buddha does not separate himself from us. Because he knows we can become as enlightened as he is, he does not place himself as superior. He also knows that unless we hear him, he cannot help us to become enlightened. To accept this help means taking responsibility for our progress on the path. We cannot continue alone but we must make our own effort.

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

800years, LS Introduction

800 Years: Confidence in the Ultimate Truth

The idea of unity of doctrine … should lead logically to the concept of unity of faith. Although the ultimate Truth is one in essence, human beings have various conflicting ideas about it. Nevertheless, we are able to advance toward a higher truth, overcoming conceptual conflicts, since we all believe firmly that the Truth is only one. Indeed, human progress is possible only because we are confident of the existence of a Universal Truth. After all, it is our confidence in the ultimate Truth that leads to the formation of our attitudes toward faith.

Introduction to the Lotus Sutra