All posts by John Hughes

d27b, WONS

Lotus Sūtra Is Supreme Among All Sūtras

It is stated in the Lotus Sūtra, Chapter 23: “Just as the great King of the Brahma Heaven is the father of all living beings, this sūtra is the wise father of all living beings.” The chapter also states: “This Lotus Sūtra is supreme among all sūtras. He who upholds this sūtra is supreme among all living beings.”

Moreover, Grand Master Dengyō declares in his Outstanding Principles of the Lotus Sūtra: “The reason why the Tendai Lotus School is superior to others is the Lotus Sūtra on which the school is based. This is not boasting and slandering others. I pray that a man of wisdom should find out which sūtra is supreme in establishing a school of Buddhism.”

Shingon Shoshū Imoku, Differences between the Lotus Sect and Other Sects Such as the True Word Sect, Writings of Nichiren Shōnin, Doctrine 2, Page 124

Daily Dharma

Daily Dharma – March 22, 2020

Furthermore, the good men or women who do not speak ill of this sūtra but rejoice at hearing it after my extinction, should be considered, know this, to have already understood my longevity by firm faith.

The Buddha makes this declaration to his disciple Maitreya in Chapter Seventeen of the Lotus Sūtra. After learning the merits of understanding the ever-present nature of the Buddha, Maitreya hears that this understanding is present in anyone who finds joy in this sūtra. From the parables told earlier in the sūtra, we know that this joy is not the same as the joy that comes from ending suffering. It is the joy in our awakening Buddha nature.

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

LS32

Day 3

Day 3 covers the first half of Chapter 2, Expedients.

Day 3 Text with annotationsPlay MP3

Having last month considered the teachings of the one vehicle by the present Buddhas, we consider why the Buddha teaches only Bodhisattvas and conclude today’s portion of Chapter 2, Expedients.

“Śāriputra! The Buddhas appear in the evil worlds in which there are the five defilements. The worlds are defiled by the decay of the kalpa, by illusions, by the deterioration of the living beings, by wrong views, and by the shortening of lives. Śāriputra! When a kalpa is in decay, the living beings [in that kalpa] are so full of illusions, so greedy, and so jealous that they plant many roots of evil. Therefore, the Buddhas divide the One Buddha-Vehicle into three as an expedient.

“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.

“Śāriputra! Some bhikṣus and bhikṣunīs do not seek Anuttara-samyak-saṃbodhi because they think that they have already attained Arhatship, that they have already reached the final stage of their physical existence, and that the Nirvāṇa attained by them is the final one. Know this! They are arrogant because it cannot be that the bhikṣus who attained Arhatship do not believe the Dharma. Some bhikṣus who live in a period in which no Buddha lives after my extinction may not believe the Dharma after they attain Arhatship because in that period it will be difficult to meet a person who keeps, reads, and recites this sūtra, and understands the meanings of it. They will be able to understand the Dharma when they meet another Buddha.

“Śāriputra and all of you present here! Understand the Dharma by faith with all your hearts! There is no vehicle other than the One Buddha-Vehicle.”

See Realizing Real Salvation

b4today, LS32, d3b

Realizing Real Salvation

As long as even a man of great wisdom, such as Śāriputra, only desired to obtain enlightenment for himself and to be saved for his own sake, he could not possibly bridge the great gulf between his own and the Buddha’s enlightenment, though he had already nearly attained the Buddha’s enlightenment. However, he was able to leap the gulf at the moment when he realized that real salvation consists in one’s own salvation together with that of all other people.

This is the true meaning of the Buddha’s words, “The buddhas teach only bodhisattvas.” He said this in order to explain that only bodhisattvas, those who practice to save all living beings, can grasp the true teachings of the Buddha.

Buddhism for Today, p47
2buddhas, d25b, WONS

A Karmic Bond With Nichiren

In seeing himself as charged by the Buddha with the mission of disseminating the Lotus Sūtra in the evil, Final Dharma age, Nichiren identified with the noble and heroic figure of the bodhisattva Viśiṣṭacaritra, leader of the bodhisattvas of the earth. But at the same time, in seeing his trials as opportunities to rid himself of the consequences of past errors, he identified with the humbler figure of the bodhisattva Sadāparibhūta [Never-Despising Bodhisattva]. In so doing, Nichiren placed himself on the same level as the people he was attempting to save and identified a karmic bond between them.

Two Buddhas, p210-211
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The Golden Words of Lord Preacher Śākyamuni Buddha

It is preached in the “Medicine King Bodhisattva” chapter of the Lotus Sūtra, fascicle 7: “Moon Deity is the foremost among the stars. The same is true of the Lotus Sūtra. Of the countless number of Buddhist sūtras, this sūtra is the most illuminating.” This scriptural statement means: “Stars in the sky shine either one-half of a ri (about 5 km), eight ri, or 16 ri in all directions. On the contrary the full moon in the sky shines 800 ri all around. For instance, the Flower Garland Sūtra (60 fascicles in the old translation or 80 fascicles in the new translation), the Wisdom Sūtra (600 fascicles), Hōdō sūtras (60 fascicles), the Nirvana Sūtra (40 or 36 fascicles), and innumerable other sūtras such as the Great Sun Buddha Sūtra, the Diamond Peak Sūtra, the Sūtra on the Act of Perfection, the Sūtra of Meditation on the Buddha of Infinite Life, and the Amitābha Sūtra are like stars, while the Lotus Sūtra is like the full moon.” This is not what was preached by Bodhisattvas Nāgārjuna and commentators in India, or Grand Master T’ien-t’ai and Tripiṭaka Master Śubhākarasiṃha who preached Buddhism in China. These are the golden words of Lord Preacher Śākyamuni Buddha, which are like the words of the Son of Heaven.

Matsuno-dono Goshōsoku, Letter to Lord Matsuno, Writings of Nichiren Shōnin, Volume 7, Followers II, Page 65

Daily Dharma

Daily Dharma – March 21, 2020

Their tongues will be purified.
Their tongues will not receive anything bad.
Anything they eat will become
As delicious as nectar.

The Buddha sings these verses to Constant-Endeavor Bodhisattva in Chapter Nineteen of the Lotus Sūtra, describing those who keep the Lotus Sūtra. With food and drink it is easy to see how different people will find the same food either delicious or disgusting. Our experience and beliefs shape what we are comfortable putting into our bodies, and whether we do so for the sake of our health or the pleasure that comes from experiencing their flavor. But when we find that something with good flavor is bad for our health, or vice versa, we can change our tastes. This is another example of how the Lotus Sūtra teaches us how to live in the world. We learn to embrace situations we once found frightening or intolerable. We increase our capacity with our focus on benefiting others. As a wise teacher once said, we learn to enjoy problems the way we enjoy ice cream.

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

LS32

Day 2

Chapter 1, Introductory (Conclusion).

Day 2 Text with annotationsPlay MP3

Having last month considered what happened after the Buddha Sun-Moon-Light preached Innumerable Teachings, we meet a Bodhisattva called Wonderful-Light and hear the Lotus Sūtra.

“Maitreya, know this! There were two thousand million Bodhisattvas in that congregation. They wished to hear the Dharma. They were astonished at seeing the Buddha-worlds illumined by this ray of light. They wished to know why the Buddha was emitting this ray of light.

“At that time there was a Bodhisattva called Wonderful-Light. He had eight hundred disciples. Sun-Moon-Light Buddha emerged from his samādhi, and expounded the sūtra of the Great Vehicle to Wonderful-Light Bodhisattva and others without rising from his seat for sixty small kalpas. It was called the ‘Lotus Flower of the Wonderful Dharma, the Dharma for Bodhisattvas, the Dharma Upheld by the Buddhas.’ The hearers in the congregation also sat in the same place for sixty small kalpas, and their bodies and minds were motionless. They thought that they had heard the Buddha expounding the Dharma for only a mealtime. None of them felt tired in body or mind. Having completed the expounding of this sūtra at the end of the period of sixty small kalpas, Sun-Moon-Light Buddha said to the Brahmans, Maras, śramaṇas, brahmanas, gods, men, and asuras, ‘I shall enter into the Nirvāṇa-without-remainder at midnight tonight.’

This is a good place to point out the Shaking Up Conventional Hierarchies taking place in the first chapter.

In response to Maitreya’s question about why the Buddha has illuminated the worlds, Mañjuśrī responds that he has seen this happen before. That is, he remembers something that Maitreya does not, suggesting that the power of his memory to encompass distant space and time — one of the markers of enlightenment in Buddhism — surpasses even that of Maitreya. It also suggests that Mañjuśrī has been cultivating the bodhisattva path far longer even than Maitreya, who was said to be but one lifetime away from achieving buddhahood. This is but one of many moments in which the Lotus Sūtra reverses conventional hierarchies by revealing hitherto unimagined expanses of the past.
Two Buddhas, p42-43

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Pounded in the Fire, Iron Is Forged into Swords

During the hardships of his exile to Sado Island, Nichiren became convinced that his own trials were not retributions for ordinary misdeeds. Rather, in previous lives, he himself must have slandered the dharma, the offense that he now so implacably opposed. He reflected: “From time without beginning I must have been born countless times as an evil ruler who robbed practitioners of the Lotus Sūtra of their clothing and food, paddies and fields … countless times I must have beheaded Lotus Sūtra practitioners.” Ordinarily, he explained, the karmic retribution for such horrific offenses would torment a person over the course of innumerable lifetimes. But by asserting the unique truth of the Lotus Sūtra and meeting persecution as a result, he had in effect summoned the consequences of those misdeeds into the present lifetime to be eradicated once and for all. “By being pounded in the fire, iron is forged into swords,” he said. “Worthies and sages are tested by abuse. My present sentence of exile is not because of even the slightest worldly wrongdoing. It has come about solely that I may expiate my past grave offenses in this lifetime and escape [rebirth in] the three evils paths in the next.”

Two Buddhas, p210
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Helping Even Such an Evil King as Ajātaśatru

With such great virtues as these, the Buddha was able to help even such an evil king as Ajātaśatru who called together wrong doers from 16 major states, took non-Buddhists in the world into his circle, had Devadatta as his teacher, incited slander among scoundrels, physically abused and even murdered the Buddha’s disciples. Moreover, Ajātaśatru crucified his father, a great Buddhist king reputed to have been a wise ruler, by nailing him on the cross with seven 12-inch long nails, and also destroyed his own mother’s jeweled ornamental hairpin and threatened to have her beheaded. Due to such serious sins compounded Ajātaśatru suffered from seven malignant tumors for which he was destined to fall into the Hell of Incessant Suffering within three weeks time on the seventh day of the third month through a hole in the earth and suffer in the hell for as long as one kalpa (aeon). Nevertheless, when he visited the Buddha and paid homage to Him, his malignant tumors were healed, he was saved from the severe torment of the Hell of Incessant Suffering, and moreover, his life span was prolonged by 40 years. Minister Jīvaka is said to have entered a blazing flame to save a child of millionaire Campā. It was only because he was the messenger of the Buddha that he was able to do this. Reflecting on this, there is no doubt that anyone who made an offering to the Buddha is bound to attain Buddhahood no matter how evil a man or woman is.

Hōren-shō, Letter to Hōren, Writings of Nichiren Shōnin, Volume 6, Followers I, Page 47-48