The Stories of the Lotus Sutra, p249-250What we see in the case of Medicine King Bodhisattva is a kind of purification that is a masking. This might mean, for example, that rather than trying to pretend to ourselves that we are purely selfless, we need to recognize that we are actually interested in what we are doing and even expect to gain from it in some way. If we can recognize our own interest in everything we do, we might be able to avoid the kind of purely self-serving activity, selfishness, and self-centeredness that gets in the way of actually being helpful to others. Similarly, if we can recognize our own anger and the reasons for it, we need not express it in ways that lead others to become angry. We can wear the perfume of a smile!
Such purification is, of course, itself both for our benefit and for the benefit of the Buddha. By being aware of our desires and anger and confusions, and, at the same time, purifying ourselves of them with perfume, we can improve both our own lives and the lives of others.
All posts by John Hughes
Tolerance: The Toll of Impatience
Six Perfections: Buddhism & the Cultivation of Character, p 121The mental attitudes of intolerance and impatience take an enormous toll on all of us. Residing in these closed and rigid postures, we resent the situation in which we stand, and that resentment undermines flexible points of view from which we might engage the world effectively. When impatient or intolerant, we diminish ourselves and others by inhabiting a rigid smallness of mind. The perfection of tolerance includes a patient willingness to accept present reality as the point of departure for transformative work in the world. The patient person is content to be wherever he or she is right now, no matter what this situation happens to be. Contentment in this case is not letting go of effort and striving; what it releases is the struggle, the unnecessary conflict that stands in the way of lucid assessment and sustained conviction.
Answering When a Practicer of the Lotus Sūtra Says a Prayer
As the Ages of the True and Sembance Dharmas have already passed those who observe precepts today are as scarce as tigers in downtown; and finding people of wisdom is as rare as the giraffe’s horn. We have to depend on a light before the moon appears; where gems do not exist, gold and silver are treasures. As there exists a precedent of returning a favor received from a white crow to a black crow, favors of a holy priest should be returned to an ordinary priest today. How can there then be no answer when a practicer of the Lotus Sūtra says a prayer that requires a prompt answer?
Kitō Shō, Treatise on Prayers, Writings of Nichiren Shōnin, Faith and Practice, Volume 4, Page 68
Daily Dharma – Mar. 19, 2021
Star-King-Flower! Strew blue lotus flowers and a bowlful of powdered incense to the person who keeps this sūtra when you see him! After strewing these things [to him], you should think, ‘Before long he will collect grass [for his seat], sit at the place of enlightenment, and defeat the army of Māra. He will blow the conch-shell horn of the Dharma, beat the drum of the great Dharma, and save all living beings from the ocean of old age, disease and death.’
The Buddha gives this explanation to Star-King-Flower Bodhisattva in Chapter Twenty-Three of the Lotus Sūtra. Māra is the deity who creates confusion and delusion in the world. His army consists of those who reinforce these delusions and reward those who share them. Such rewards do not benefit those who receive them. They only serve to produce fear and attachment which creates misery in the world. With our practice of this Lotus Sūtra, we learn to recognize delusion for what it is, and reject the superficial benefits that come with it.
The Daily Dharma is produced by the Lexington Nichiren Buddhist Community. To subscribe to the daily emails, visit zenzaizenzai.com
Day 25
Day 25 covers all of Chapter 20, Never-Despising Bodhisattva, and opens Chapter 21, The Supernatural Powers of the Tathāgatas.
“When he said this, people would strike him with a stick, a piece of wood, a piece of tile or a stone. He would run away to a distance, and say in a loud voice from afar, ‘I do not despise you. You will become Buddhas.’ Because he always said this, he was called Never-Despising by the arrogant bhikṣus, bhikṣunīs, upāsakās and upāsikās. When he was about to pass away, he heard [from a voice] in the sky the twenty thousand billion gāthās of the Sūtra of the Lotus Flower of the Wonderful Dharma, which had been expounded by the Powerful-Voice-King Buddha. Having kept all these gāthās, he was able to have his eyes, ears, nose, tongue, body and mind purified as previously stated. Having his six sense-organs purified, he was able to prolong his life for two hundred billion nayuta more years. He expounded this Sūtra of the Lotus Flower of the Wonderful Dharma to many people [in his prolonged life]. The arrogant bhikṣus, bhikṣunīs, upāsakās and upāsikās, that is, the four kinds of devotees who had abused him and caused him to be called Never-Despising, saw that he had obtained great supernatural powers, the power of eloquence, and the great power of good tranquility. Having seen all this, and having heard the Dharma from him, they took faith in him, and followed him.
“This Bodhisattva also taught thousands of billions of living beings, and led them into the Way to Anuttara-samyak-saṃbodhi. After the end of his prolonged life, he was able to meet two hundred thousand million Buddhas, all of them being called Sun-Moon-Light. He also expounded the Sūtra of the Lotus Flower of the Wonderful Dharma under them. After that, he was able to meet two hundred thousand million Buddhas, all of them being called Cloud-Freedom-Light-King. He also kept, read and recited this sūtra, and expounded it to the four kinds of devotees under those Buddhas so that he was able to have his natural eyes, ears, nose, tongue, body and mind purified and to become fearless in expounding the Dharma to the four kinds of devotees.
“Great-Power-Obtainer! This Never-Despising Bodhisattva-mahāsattva made offerings to those Buddhas, respected them, honored them, praised them, and planted the roots of good. After that, he was able to meet thousands of billions of Buddhas. He also expounded this sūtra under those Buddhas. By the merits he had accumulated in this way, he was able to become a Buddha.
Respecting the Bodhisattva in Everyone We Meet
The Stories of the Lotus Sutra, p218-219It is significant that Never Disrespectful Bodhisattva tells everyone he meets, including those who are arrogant, angry, disrespectful, and mean-spirited, that they are bodhisattvas. Often in Buddhism, bodhisattvas are thought to be extremely high in rank, second only to buddhas. In typical Buddhist art this is expressed by showing bodhisattvas dressed in the fine clothes and wearing the jewelry of princes. But here we are to understand that everyone, including very ordinary people, is a bodhisattva. Though his appearance is not described, it is easy to imagine Never Disrespectful Bodhisattva himself as an ordinary monk. Of course we should respect great bodhisattvas and great people, but part of the message of this story is that there is a bodhisattva to be respected in everyone we meet.
True Morality
I am in the process of preparing to publish Masaharu Anesaki’s book, “Nichiren, The Buddhist Prophet.” It will be posted in 57 segments matching the divisions in the book’s table of contents. My hope is to provide bite-sized morsels daily that whet the appetite for the story of Nichiren and the Lotus Sutra. The PDF of the book is available here if you want to get a head start.
While working on the section of the book that deals with Nichiren’s Kaimoku-shō, Open Your Eyes to the Lotus Teaching (Writings of Nichiren Shōnin, Doctrine 2, p29-117), I came upon a discussion of morality that I couldn’t resist publishing now during my ongoing Higan celebration.
The duties of the true Buddhist, then, consist in fully knowing the vast scheme of Buddha’s salvation working upon us, in being convinced of our indebtedness to Buddha, and in requiting it by practicing the true morality.
Morality in human relation means, according to this point of view, a life of gratitude shown in fidelity to the Lord, obedience toward one’s master, and filial piety toward one’s parents; all other moral relations flow out of these fundamental ones. But this passive aspect of morality implies the active duty of showing gratitude by perpetuating the will of the benefactor. The ruled fulfills his duty by cooperating with the ruler in the maintenance of order and government, the disciple by propagating the truth taught by the master, and the child by perpetuating the life given by his parents. Similarly, with moral duties viewed from the standpoint of religion: the true faith consists in propagating the Truth, and in ourselves living the life of Truth as revealed by Buddha. This is what is inculcated in the [Lotus Sutra] and is the real import of the vows taken by the saints, the faithful disciples of Buddha.
Nichiren: The Buddhist Prophet, page 71
Morality: A Profound Reverence for Life
Six Perfections: Buddhism & the Cultivation of Character, p 90-91Those who are most profoundly cultivated in the disciplines of morality will feel some degree of obligation to reach out to hungry beings wherever they are found on the planet. Beyond this sense of obligation, however, stands the personification of an ideal – the bodhisattvas – who respond to the needs of strangers not out of a sense of moral obligation but out of a far deeper sense of identity with all living beings. These bodhisattvas – people like Mother Teresa – no doubt begin their path with a sense of moral obligation but conclude it having shaped their own identity to include the welfare of others as an integral part of themselves. Although it may be true initially that I respond, if at all, to the hunger of unknown people in other cultures out of a sense of moral obligation and not out of a deeper sense of identity, it could occur through the practices of morality that my identity is so enlarged that I actually experience the links between their well-being and my own. When this occurs to the extent that my feelings for them are engaged, my actions will begin to be motivated by compassion rather than duty.
This is the image of the bodhisattva’s perfection of morality, an expansion of the self that includes others in the innermost domain of self-concern. Buddhists sometimes refer to this expansion as an experience of “no-self,” but it could just as well be conceived as a magnificent transformation or expansion of the self. Although moral practices begin by cultivating the sense of duty or obligation that we owe to others, it comes to ideal fruition in the irrelevance of this same sense of duty made possible by an enlargement of the self toward the ultimate goal of profound reverence for life.
The Pure Land Where the Practicer of Lotus Sūtra Resides
QUESTION: Which “Pure Land” should practicers of the Lotus Sūtra pray to be reborn in?
ANSWER: It is stated in the sixteenth chapter on “The Life Span of the Buddha,” the essence of the Lotus Sūtra consisting of 28 chapters, “I will always stay in this Sahā World;” “I reside here always;” and “This world of Mine is at peace.” According to these statements, the Eternal True Buddha, the origin of all Buddhas in manifestation, is always in this Sahā World. Then why should we wish to be anywhere other than this Sahā World? You should know that there is no Pure Land other than the very place where the practicer of the Lotus Sūtra resides. Why should we concern ourselves seeking a Pure Land in any other place?
It is, therefore, stated in the twenty-first chapter on the “Divine Powers of the Buddha” of the Lotus Sūtra: “Wherever scrolls of the sūtra are placed, whether it may be in a garden, a forest, under a tree, in a monastery, a layman’s house, a palace, a mountain, a valley or a wilderness…, you should know that it is the very place to practice Buddhism.” The Nirvana Sūtra states: “You should know, Gentlemen, that wherever this Nirvana Sūtra spreads becomes the Pure Land as indestructible as a diamond, inhabited by people with bodies as imperishable as a diamond.” Those who believe in and practice the Lotus-Nirvana Sūtras, thus, should not seek the Pure Land anywhere other than the very place where they, believers of this sutra, reside.
Shugo Kokka-ron, Treatise on Protecting the Nation, Writings of Nichiren Shōnin, Doctrine 1, Pages 67-68
Daily Dharma – Mar. 18, 2021
Some children of mine are pure in heart, gentle and wise.
They have practiced the profound and wonderful teachings
Under innumerable Buddhas
[In their previous existence].
I will expound this sūtra of the Great Vehicle to them,
And assure them of their future Buddhahood, saying:
“You will attain the enlightenment of the Buddha
In your future lives.”
The Buddha sings these verses in Chapter Two of the Lotus Sūtra. In the difficulties we face in this world of conflict and attachment, we can lose sight of our purpose to benefit all beings and try to avoid whatever is uncomfortable. When we hear the Buddha assure us of our inherent wisdom, and that our capacity to benefit others will continue to grow despite any obstacles we find, we learn to persevere through misfortunes, and increase our determination to lead all beings to enlightenment.
The Daily Dharma is produced by the Lexington Nichiren Buddhist Community. To subscribe to the daily emails, visit zenzaizenzai.com