All posts by John Hughes

Daily Dharma – April 24, 2020

To those who have accumulated merits,
And who are gentle and upright,
And who see me living here,
Expounding the Dharma,
I say:
“The duration of my life is immeasurable.”

The Buddha declares these verses in Chapter Sixteen of the Lotus Sūtra. This chapter is where the Buddha reveals for the first time his ever-present nature. He became enlightened in the remotest past, and will continue teaching all beings far into the future. There is a view that to see a Buddha in our time requires a supernatural way of seeing, even a personal vision or a revelation not available to ordinary people. What the Buddha teaches here is that he is always visible to anyone, anywhere. It is when we look for him to teach us and are compassionate and disciplined in our desires that he appears to us.

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

Day 2

Chapter 1, Introductory (Conclusion).

Having last month met a Bodhisattva called Wonderful-Light and heard the Lotus Sūtra, we learn what happened after the extinction of Sun-­Moon-Light Buddha.

“At that time there was a Bodhisattva called Virtue-Store. Sun-­Moon-Light Buddha assured him of his future Buddhahood. The Buddha said to the bhikṣus, ‘This Virtue-Store Bodhisattva will become a Buddha immediately after me. He will be called Pure-Body, the Tathagata, the Arhat, the Samyak-sambuddha.’

“Having assured him of his future Buddhahood, the Buddha then entered into the Nirvāṇa-without-remainder at midnight. After his extinction, Wonderful-Light Bodhisattva kept the Sūtra of the Lotus Flower of the Wonderful Dharma, and expounded it to men for eighty small kalpas. The eight sons of Sun-Moon-Light Buddha became his disciples. He taught them and caused them to resolve to attain Anuttara-samyak-saṃbodhi. They made offerings to many hundreds of thousands of billions of Buddhas, and then attained the enlightenment of the Buddha [one after another]. The son who became a Buddha last was called Burning-Light. One of the eight hundred disciples [of Wonderful-Light] was called Fame­Seeking. He was attached to gain. He read and recited many sūtras, but did not understand them. He forgot many parts of those sūtras. Therefore, he was called Fame-Seeking. But he [later] planted the roots of good, and became able to see many hundreds of thousands of billions of Buddhas. He made offerings to them, respected them, honored them, and praised them.

“Maitreya, know this! Wonderful-Light Bodhisattva at that time was no one but myself; and Fame-Seeking Bodhisattva, no one but you. This good omen we see now is not different from what I saw at that time. Therefore, l think that the Tathagata of today also will expound the sūtra of the Great Vehicle called the ‘Lotus Flower of the Wonderful Dharma, the Dharma for Bodhisattvas, the Dharma Upheld by the Buddhas.’

See The Immeasurable Value of the Buddha’s Mental Powers

The Immeasurable Value of the Buddha’s Mental Powers

What is most impressive in this chapter is the immeasurable value of the Buddha’s mental powers. Vividly expressed in the story of the last Buddha Sun Moon Light is the fact that Sakyamuni Buddha, who knew that the time of his entering nirvana was approaching, was determined to leave the most important experience of his enlightenment to posterity. However, we know that at that time his body had grown very weak from illness and old age. In spite of this fact, he began to preach the vast and profound Law of the Lotus Sutra, the strongest, most positive, and most affirmative teaching of his life. We must bow down before the greatness of his mental power and the depth of his enlightenment. And we must not forget that his mental power came from his great compassion for the yet unborn people of later times.

Buddhism for Today, p40

Nichiren’s View of Abrahamic Religions

Nichiren may indeed have included the three major forms of Western monotheism if he had known about them, as he seems to have wanted to account for all the major religions in the world. I also believe that he would have evaluated them using the same method of comparison in terms of the scope of time scales. To review: just as the Buddha criticized the sixty-two (or ninety-five) views of his contemporaries who drew dogmatic conclusions about the nature of life based on limited experiences either in this life or even from past-life recall, Nichiren evaluated Confucianism, Taoism, Brahmanism, Buddhism, and other philosophies and religions based on how limited or vast a scope of time their teachings accounted for. Confucianism fares the worst for not even attempting to account for life before birth or after death but limiting itself to teaching morality only in terms of the present lifetime.

Brahmanism fares better for it does teach that there is a cycle of rebirth that unfolds according to the law of karma, and thus accounts for a much greater scope of time. In fact, Brahman cosmology teaches that there are whole cycles wherein world systems are created, maintained, and then destroyed over the course of eons and within those cycles beings are reborn continually until they can attain one of the heavenly realms. The Upanishads taught that those who realized the Ātman or True Self would be forever liberated from these cycles, but the Buddhist sūtras do not mention the Upanishads nor does Nichiren.

From the Buddhist point of view, however, in the course of time even those reborn in the heavens will exhaust their merit and they will have to be reborn elsewhere depending on what causes are able to come into fruition. From the Buddhist perspective even the vast amounts of time spent in a hell-realm or a heavenly-realm is still a finite period of time because all caused and conditioned states will eventually come to an end. Such is the universal law of the impermanence of all conditioned phenomena.

Coming back to Western monotheism, … The important thing is that the mainstream view posits only one lifetime to be followed by an eternal afterlife of some sort. Going by Nichiren’s criteria, I think he would perhaps have placed Western monotheism ahead of the agnostic Chinese schools of thought because it at least provides for some kind of afterlife wherein the causes one makes in this life will come to fruition for good or for ill. On the other hand, I think he would not have put Western monotheism on the level of Brahmanism, as the latter accounts for many lifetimes and its understanding of the unfolding of cause and effect over many lifetimes is more developed. From a Brahmanist point of view, one might live in heaven or hell for thousands or millions of years, but it is not actually an eternity though mistaken as such by those who don’t see larger time scale. I stress, again, that this is my guess based on how Nichiren evaluated the other non-Buddhist traditions.

Open Your Eyes, p118-119

Daily Dharma – April 23, 2020

Star-King-Flower! 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.

The Buddha gives this description of the merits of the Lotus Sūtra to Star-King-Flower Bodhisattva in Chapter Twenty-Three of the Lotus Sūtra. The comparison of our bodily desires to our desire for enlightenment shows the kind of joy we can expect when we realize what this teaching can accomplish. Anyone whose thirst is quenched is sure to become thirsty again, now matter how pleasant it is to drink. The Buddha Dharma fulfills a thirst of which we may not even be aware. We are certain that things in this world of conflict will bring us joy. When we realize they can only bring us pleasure, and know the difference between joy and pleasure, we become aware of our true wishes and what this sūtra does for us.

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

Day 1

Day 1 covers the first half of Chapter 1, Introductory

Having last month considered the final practices of those Bodhisattvas that Maitreya sees, we conclude today’s portion of Chapter 1, Introductory.

The supernatural powers of the Buddha
And his wisdom are rare.
He is illumining innumerable worlds
By emitting a pure ray of light.
We were astonished
At seeing [those worlds].

Mañjuśrī, Son of the Buddha!
Remove our doubts!
The four kinds of devotees
Are looking up with joy at you and me,
Wishing to know why this ray of light is emitted
By the World-Honored One.

Son of the Buddha, answer me!
Remove our doubts and cause us to rejoice!
For what purpose is the Buddha
Emitting this ray of light?

Does he wish to expound the Wonderful Dharma
Which he attained when he was sitting
At the place of enlightenment?
Does he wish to assure us of our future Buddhahood?

He shows us the worlds of the Buddhas
Adorned with many treasures.
We can see the Buddhas of those worlds.
This cannot be for some insignificant reason.

Mañjuśrī, know this!
The four kinds of devotees and the dragons
Are looking at you, thinking:
“What is he going to say?”

See A Person of Perfect Generosity

A Person of Perfect Generosity

If I were asked to explain with a single phrase the character of Sakyamuni Buddha as a man, I would answer without hesitation, “A person of perfect generosity.” Therefore, I think that there is no action that makes Sakyamuni Buddha more sorrowful than when we become angry about something and reproach others or when we blame others for our own wrongs. Above all else, we should refrain from such actions toward each other. Perseverance is, in short, generosity. As we persevere in the practice of the bodhisattvas, we cease to become angry or reproachful toward others, or toward anything in the universe. We are apt to complain about the weather when it rains and to grumble about the dust when we have a spell of fine weather. However, when through perseverance we attain a calm and untroubled mind, we become thankful for both the rain and the sun. Then our minds become free from changes in our circumstances.

When we advance further, we come not only to have no feeling of anger and hatred toward those who hurt, insult, or betray us but even to wish actively to help them. On the other hand, we should not be swayed by flattery or praise of the good we may do but should quietly reflect on our conduct. We should not feel superior to others but should maintain a modest attitude when everything goes smoothly.

Buddhism for Today, p36-37

A Skillful Means of Entry to the Buddha Dharma

As was the case with Confucianism, East Asian Buddhists viewed Brahmanism as a precursor to Buddhism. They saw it as a teaching set up by the buddhas and the bodhisattvas to serve as a skillful means of entry to the Buddha Dharma. As Nichiren says in Kaimoku-shō:

After all, the most important thing for non-Buddhist teachings is, like Confucianism, to prepare the way to Buddhism. This is why some non-Buddhists maintain that the Buddha will be born 1,000 years later, while others insist on 100 years later. It is said, therefore, in the Nirvāṇa Sūtra that what is written in all the non-Buddhist scriptures is nothing but the teaching of the Buddha. Again, it is said in the Lotus Sūtra, chapter eight, “Assurance of Future Buddhahood,” that disciples of the Buddha sometimes pretend to be contaminated with the three poisons of greed, anger, and ignorance or show the heretic view denying the law of cause and effect as an expedient means to save the people.

Open Your Eyes, p114-115

Myō Equals Perfection

The Chinese character “myō” is “sad” in Sanskrit, and “miao” in Chinese. It means to be equipped with everything. To be equipped means satisfactory, lacking nothing. Each character of the Lotus Sūtra contains every one of 69,384 characters. It is like a drop of water in the ocean consisting of the water of all the rivers, or a single crystal ball as small as a poppy seed, pouring out all the treasures.

It is as the plants that died with ice and snow in autumn and winter, sprout, put out leaves, blossom and bear fruits in spring and summer. This is a parable in which the people in nine realms before the Lotus Sūtra are compared to the plants of autumn through winter. The character myō of the Lotus Sūtra is likened to the sunshine of spring through summer, and blossoming and bearing fruits mean aspiration for and attainment of Buddhahood by those people. Bodhisattva Nāgārjuna says in his Great Wisdom Discourse that it is “like a great medicine master turning poison into medicine.” This is his explanation of how virtuous “myō” of the Lotus Sūtra was. Grand Master Miao-lê says also that the Lotus Sūtra is named “myō” because it was able to heal all the sick people with obstinate diseases that had not been cured by any other sūtras.

Hokke Daimoku Shō, Treatise on the Daimoku of the Lotus Sūtra, Writings of Nichiren Shōnin, Faith and Practice, Volume 4, Page 42

Daily Dharma – April 22, 2020

Śāriputra! Some disciples of mine, who think that they are Arhats or Pratyekabuddhas, will not be my disciples or Arhats or Pratyekabuddhas if they do not hear or know that the Buddhas, the Tathāgatas, teach only Bodhisattvas.

The Buddha makes this declaration to his disciple Śāriputra in Chapter Two of the Lotus Sutra. When the Buddha says he only teaches Bodhisattvas, he does not mean that he excludes anyone from his teaching. It is only when we realize and develop our capacities as Bodhisattvas, beings who exist to benefit all beings, rather than being preoccupied with our own suffering, can we hear, practice and appreciate the Buddha Dharma.

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