All posts by John Hughes

WONS

Live to Earn Honor Even for a Day

It is not easy to be born as a human being in this world. The chance of this happening, as stated in the Nirvana Sūtra, is as small as the amount of dirt on a fingernail though there may be an immeasurable amount of soil on the earth. Life as humans is as unstable as a drop of dew on grass. It is important, however, to live to earn honor even for a day rather than to live as long as 120 years without distinction. Please endeavor so that the people of Kamakura will praise you saying, “Lord Nakatsukasa Saburōsaemonnojō was a good man not only for his lord and for Buddhism, but also for ordinary people. ”

Sushun Tennō Gosho, The ‘Emperor Sushun’ Letter, Writings of Nichiren Shōnin, Faith and Practice, Volume 4, Page 123

Daily Dharma

Daily Dharma – March 28, 2020

Because they did sinful karmas,
They lose pleasures and the memory of pleasures.
They are attached to wrong views.
They do not know how to do good.
They are not taught by a Buddha;
Therefore, they fall into the evil regions.

The Heavenly-King Brahmas from the zenith sing these verses to Great-Universal-Wisdom-Excellence Buddha in Chapter Seven of the Lotus Sūtra. They describe how beings live in a world in which they can find no Buddha, their joy that Great-Universal-Wisdom-Excellence Buddha has appeared, and their hope that this Buddha will lead all beings from the regions of difficulties. When these Brahmas speak of pleasure, it is not what comes from getting what we want. It is the pleasure of the Dharma, the pleasure enjoyed by all Buddhas when they become enlightened, and the pleasure available to us when we resolve to benefit all beings and practice the Buddha Dharma as Bodhisattvas.

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

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 declaration of his unhindered knowledge like a world-covering rain cloud, we consider how the Buddha is like the cloud.

“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.

See The Ten Epithets of the Buddha

b4today, LS32, d9b

The Ten Epithets of the Buddha

The Buddha then explained his identity with the following ten titles: “I am the Tathāgata, the Worshipful, the All Wise, the Perfectly Enlightened in Conduct, the Well Departed, the Understander of the World, the Peerless Leader, the Controller, the Teacher of Gods and Men, the Buddha, the World-honored One.” These are called the ten epithets of the Buddha, each of which represents an aspect of the Buddha’s virtue and power.

Tathāgata (nyorai) means “one who has come from the world of truth”; the Worshipful (ōgu), “one who deserves offerings in the human and the celestial worlds”; the All Wise (shōhenchi), “one who has the right and perfect wisdom”; the Perfectly Enlightened in Conduct (myōgyō-soku), “one who completely combines knowledge with practice”; the Well Departed (zenzei), “one who is free from everything”; the Understander of the World (sekenge), “one who can understand people in all circumstances”; the Peerless Leader (mujōji), “one who is unsurpassed”; the Controller (jōgo-jōbu), “one who is infallible in controlling men’s minds”; the Teacher of Gods and Men (tennin-shi), “one who leads all lives of creatures in the human and the celestial worlds”; and the Buddha, the World-honored One (butsu-seson), “the enlightened one who is most honored by the people of the world.” One who is possessed of these ten virtues and powers is called Buddha.

Because of such perfect virtues and powers, those who have not yet reached the mental state of being uninfluenced by changes in their circumstances, the Buddha causes to reach that state of mind; those who have not yet understood why their illusions occur and how they can be removed, he causes to understand; those who have not yet been comforted after their illusions are extinguished, he causes to be comforted; those who have not yet obtained true enlightenment, he causes to obtain it.

The Buddha also knows the present, the past, and the world to come as they really arc. He is the one who knows everything perfectly (issaichisha, the All Knowing), the one who discerns the real state of all things (issai-kcnsha, the All Seeing), the one who knows the true Way (chidōsha, the Knower of the Way), the one who makes all living beings understand the Way and leads them to it (kaidō-sha, the Opener of the Way) , and the one who preaches the Way to them (setsudō-sha, the Preacher of the Way).

Buddhism for Today, p76-77
Lecture on Lotus Sutra, d3b, d4b

The Path of the Buddha

In Chapter II, the Buddha reveals that there are not separate and incomplete practices but simply the Single Buddha practice of the Lotus Sutra. The Buddhas show the insight of the Buddha completely and unobstructed so that all people are able to benefit fully from the path the Buddha awakened to.

Lecture on the Lotus Sutra

2buddhas, d25b, d26b, WONS

The Twofold Transmission

Nichiren’s idea of the transmission of the Lotus Sūtra is also twofold in another sense. On the one hand, the transmission unfolds through a line of teachers in historical time. Nichiren saw himself as heir to a lineage that passed from Śākyamuni Buddha, to Zhiyi, to Saichō, and then to himself — the “four teachers in three countries,” as he put it. The Nichiren tradition terms this the “outer transmission,” passing over the centuries from Śākyamuni Buddha down to Nichiren and his followers. At the same time, however, it speaks of an “inner transmission” received directly from the primordial buddha, namely, the daimoku itself. Nichiren said that teachers such as Zhiyi and Saichō had known inwardly of Namu Myōhō-renge-kyō but had not spoken of it openly because the time for its dissemination had not yet come.

Two Buddhas, p220
WONS

Forcibly Planting Seeds of Buddhahood

Contemplating the time after the death of the Buddha in light of the capacity of people and method of preaching during the Buddha’s lifetime mentioned above, we see the three periods following the passing of Śākyamuni Buddha—the Ages of the True Dharma, Semblance Dharma and the Latter Age of Degeneration. In the 2,000 year period of the Ages of the True Dharma and Semblance Dharma, there existed people who had the seed of Buddhahood planted in them just as in the pre-Lotus years of 40 years or so. This was the period when care was needed not to preach the True Dharma of the Lotus Sūtra arbitrarily. Now, however, we live in the Latter Age of Degeneration, when those who made connections with the Lotus Sūtra during the Buddha’s lifetime have gradually dwindled and people with the capacity to attain Buddhahood by listening to the provisional or true teachings have all disappeared. Thus, this is the time when the seed of Buddhahood (of the Lotus Sūtra) should forcibly be planted, in the same manner as Never-Despising Bodhisattva appearing in the Latter Age of Degeneration beating the “poisonous drum.”

Soya Nyūdō-dono-gari Gosho, A Letter to Lay Priest Lord Soya, Writings of Nichiren Shōnin, Doctrine 3, Pages 151.

Daily Dharma

Daily Dharma – March 27, 2020

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 8

Day 8 concludes Chapter 4, Understanding by Faith, and closes the second volume of the Sutra of the Lotus Flower of the Wonderful Dharma.

Day 8 Text with annotationsPlay MP3

Having last month learned how the Buddha is like the father, we consider how the Śrāvakas shunned the Bodhisattva teaching for themselves.

Although we expounded to the sons of the Buddha
The teachings for Bodhisattvas in order to cause them
To seek the enlightenment of the Buddha,
We did not wish to attain
The same enlightenment for ourselves.
You, our Leader, left us alone because you knew this.
You did not persuade us
To seek the enlightenment of the Buddha.
You did not say
That we should be able to have real benefits.

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.

In the same manner,
You knew that we wished
To hear the Lesser Vehicle.
Therefore, you did a rare thing.
You prepared us with expedients,
And then taught us the great wisdom.

Today we are not what we were then.
We have obtained
What we did not expect
To obtain
Just as the poor son obtained
The innumerable treasures.

The Daily Dharma from Nov. 25, 2019, offers this:

Today we are not what we were then.
We have obtained
What we did not expect
To obtain
Just as the poor son obtained
The innumerable treasures.

Subhūti, Mahā-Kātyāyana, Mahā-Kāśyapa, and Mahā-Maudgalyāyana, all disciples of the Buddha, speak these lines in Chapter Four of the Lotus Sūtra as they explain their story of the wayward son. They compare the father’s treasure house in the story to the Buddha’s enlightenment. Until they had been led by the Buddha’s expedient teachings, they could not even imagine themselves as enlightened, any more than the wayward son in the story could imagine the contents of his father’s treasure house.

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

Lotus Seeds

The Ten Factors: Activity

Quote

Of the Ten Factors, Activity is the actual change brought about through power. It should be pointed out that things will not necessarily be done just because someone or something has the power to do them. Nothing exists by itself and nothing happens in a vacuum. In order to have an actual effect on the world, the right circumstances must exist. These circumstances, based upon the power of the beings involved, call forth the appropriate activity or response to produce the actual effect. A match will not light itself. It must be struck against a wall or a match box first.

Lotus Seeds