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The Bodhisattva Vow

SHUJO-MUHEN SEIGANDO

Sentient beings are innumerable:
I vow to save them all.

LS32

Day 24

Day 24 concludes Chapter 19, The Merits of the Teacher of the Dharma, and closes the Sixth Volume of the Sutra of the Lotus Flower of the Wonderful Dharma.

Day 24 Text with annotationsPlay MP3

Having last month considered the twelve hundred merit of the tongue, we consider the eight hundred merits of the body.

“Furthermore, Constant-Endeavor! The good men or women who keep, read, recite, expound or copy this sūtra, will be able to obtain eight hundred merits of the body. Their bodies will become as pure as lapis lazuli. All living beings will wish to see them. Some of the living beings in the one thousand million Sumeru-worlds are just born or have just died. All living beings are either noble or humble. They are either handsome or ugly. They are destined to be reborn either in a better region or in a worse region. All of them will be reflected on the pure bodies [of the good men or women]. The Surrounding Iron Mountains, the Great Surrounding Iron Mountains, Mt. Meru, Mt. Maha-Meru, and the other great mountains, and the living beings in those mountains also will be reflected on their bodies. [All the six regions] down to the Avici Hell and up to the Highest Heaven and the living beings therein also will be reflected on their bodies. The Śrāvakas, Pratyekabuddhas, and Bodhisattvas as well as the Buddhas who are expounding the Dharma, also will show their reflections on their bodies.”

Thereupon the World-Honored One, wishing to repeat what he had said, sang in gāthās:

Anyone who keeps
This Sūtra of the Lotus Flower of the Wonderful Dharma
Will be able to have his body purified like lapis lazuli.
All living beings will wish to see him.

Just as a reflection is seen
In a clear mirror
All things in the world will be reflected
On the pure body of this [person, that is, of this]
Bodhisattva.
No one but he
Will be able to see all things clearly.

The gods, men, asuras,
Hellish denizens,
Hungry spirits and animals,
That is, all living beings
Of the one thousand million Sumeru-world
Will be reflected on his body.

The palaces of the gods in the heavens
Up to the Highest Heaven,
The Surrounding iron Mountains,
Mt. Meru, Mt. Maha-Meru,
And the great oceans also
Will be reflected on his body.

The Buddhas, Śrāvakas, Bodhisattvas who are sons of the Buddhas
[That is, the saints] of whom some live a solitary life
While others are expounding the Dharma to the multitude,
Also will be reflected on his body.

Although he has not yet obtained the wonderful body
[Of the Bodhisattva who knows] the nature of the Dharma-without-āsravas,
He will be able to have all these things
Reflected on his pure and natural body.

See The Five Kinds of Practices

b4today, LS32, d23b, d24b

The Five Kinds of Practices

[Chapter 18] details the merits of a beginner, one who has just entered the teaching. [Chapter 19] expounds the merits of a preacher who has moved to a higher level. “Preacher” does not necessarily mean monk or nun but means any person – including Buddhist monks, nuns, laymen, and laywomen – who receives and keeps the Buddha’s teachings and endeavors to spread them. The practices of a preacher are of five kinds (goshu hosshi): receiving and keeping the sutra (juji), reading it (doku) and reciting it (ju), expounding it (gesetsu), and copying it (shosha). … In each of these five practices, the state of our gradually deepening faith is clearly shown.

If we believe and discern the teaching after hearing it, and if we raise the mind of joyful acceptance of it, we proceed first to keep it firmly, then, reading and reciting the sutra, to inscribe it on our memory. As a personal discipline, this practice is done to establish the foundation of our faith. When our faith reaches this stage, we cannot help transmitting the teaching to others. As a result, we expound the sutra (the teaching) and copy it. We cannot say we have attained true faith until we go through each process of the five kinds of practices of the preacher.

Buddhism for Today, p295
2buddhas, d21b, WONS

The Constantly Abiding Pure Land

Another important implication that [the Life Span] chapter held for Nichiren was indeed this very possibility of realizing the buddha land in the present world. In the “Parable” chapter of the Lotus Sūtra, Śākyamuni describes the world as a “burning house” in which there is no safe place. But now in the “Lifespan” chapter, having revealed his true identity as the primordially awakened buddha, Śākyamuni declares that, even in the fire that destroys the world at the end of the cosmic cycle, his land — the present world — is “tranquil” and “never decays”; it is a place where sentient beings are “joyful.” This is the realm depicted on Nichiren’s mandala. Alluding to this sūtra passage, Nichiren writes, “Now the Sahā world of original time is the constantly abiding pure land, liberated from the three disasters and beyond the [cycle of the] four kalpas [eons]. Its buddha has not already entered nirvana in the past, nor is he yet to be born in the future. And his disciples are of the same essence. This [reality] … is the three thousand realms of one’s own mind.”

Two Buddhas, p188
WONS

The Power of Good to Pardon Evil

In any event, no matter how evil the parent, his transgression may be forgiven if his child is a good person. Likewise, if a child is evil, his crime may be pardoned if his parent is virtuous. Therefore, even though the late Yashirō may have committed sins, when you, his true mother, say prayers for him day and night in front of the altar of Śākyamuni Buddha, he will surely attain Buddhahood. Moreover, since he believed in the Lotus Sūtra during his lifetime, he must have certainly attained Buddhahood by now and has become one to lead his mother to Buddhahood.

Kōnichi-bō Gosho, A Letter to Nun Kōnichi, Writings of Nichiren Shōnin, Biography and Disciples, Volume 5, Pages 53

Daily Dharma

Daily Dharma – March 8, 2020

I have expounded many sūtras. I am now expounding this sūtra. I also will expound many sūtras in the future. The total number of the sūtras will amount to many thousands of billions. This Sūtra of the Lotus Flower of the Wonderful Dharma is the most difficult to believe and the most difficult to understand.

The Buddha declares these lines to Medicine-King Bodhisattva in Chapter Ten of the Lotus Sūtra. At the beginning of this Sūtra, the Buddha held back from teaching because he thought people might not be ready to hear it. He also said that the Dharma he teaches cannot be understood by reasoning. We need both faith and understanding to practice the Wonderful Dharma. The Buddha also reminds us to appreciate how difficult faith and understanding are, both for ourselves and others.

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

LS32

Day 23

Day 23 covers all of Chapter 18, The Merits of a Person Who Rejoices at Hearing This Sutra, and opens Chapter 19, The Merits of the Teacher of the Dharma.

Day 23 Text with annotationsPlay MP3

Having last month concluded today’s portion of Chapter 19, The Merits of the Teacher of the Dharma, we return to Chapter 18, The Merits of a Person Who Rejoices at Hearing This Sutra and consider the benefits of the fiftieth person who rejoices.

Thereupon Maitreya Bodhisattva-mahāsattva said to the Buddha: “World-Honored One! How many merits will be given to a good man or woman who rejoices at hearing this Sūtra of the Lotus Flower of the Wonderful Dharma?” He sang in a gāthā:
How many merits will be given
To a person who rejoices
At hearing this sūtra
After your extinction?

Thereupon the Buddha said to Maitreya Bodhisattva-mahāsattva: “Ajita! Suppose a bhikṣu, a bhikṣunī, an upāsakā, an upāsikā, or some other wise person, whether young or old, rejoices at hearing this sūtra in a congregation after my extinction. After leaving the congregation, he or she goes to some other place, for instance, to a monastery, a retired place, a city, a street, a town, or a village. There he or she expounds this sūtra, as he or she has heard it, to his or her father, mother relative, friend or acquaintance as far as he or she can. Another person who has heard [this sūtra from him or her], rejoices, goes [to some other place] and expounds it to a third person. The third person also rejoices at hearing it and expounds it to a fourth person. In this way this sūtra is heard by a fiftieth person. Ajita! Now I will tell you the merits of the fiftieth good man or woman who rejoices at hearing [this sūtra]. Listen attentively!

See To Have a Sense of Joyful Acceptance

b4today, LS32, d23b

To Have a Sense of Joyful Acceptance

This chapter preaches in further detail the merits of first rejoicing over the Buddha’s teachings. The reason such merits are repeatedly preached is that our joyful acceptance of the Buddha’s teachings, our deep feeling of gratitude for them, is indispensable to faith. Even if we have read many sutras and have memorized all Buddhist doctrines, so long as we do not accept the Buddha’s teachings with heartfelt joy this means merely that we are knowledgeable in Buddhism; it does not indicate that we believe in the Buddha. To have a sense of joyful acceptance of the Buddha’s teachings is to have faith in them. Therefore the merits that we obtain by the joyful acceptance of his teachings are preached repeatedly in this chapter.

Buddhism for Today, p283
2buddhas, d21b, WONS

The Good Medicine of the Daimoku

Medieval Japanese Tendai thinkers of various teaching lineages shared a loose consensus that the enlightenment of the primordial Śākyamuni Buddha was “hidden in the depths” of the “Lifespan” chapter and could be accessed through the practitioner’s “mind contemplation” or “mind discernment” (J. kanjin). Kanjin in the Tiantai/Tendai tradition was originally a broad term for practice, in contrast to doctrinal study. Though interpretations varied, by Nichiren’s time, kanjin had come to mean the essence of the Tendai Lotus teachings and was often associated specifically with the “Lifespan” chapter. For Nichiren, now in the mappō era, the “mind discernment” that opens the primordial buddha’s awakening to all people is the chanting of Namu Myōhō-renge-kyō. He took the daimoku to be the “good medicine” that the excellent doctor leaves for his children in the “Lifespan” chapter’s narrative. In his reading, this chapter’s revelation of the primordial buddha’s constant presence in this world immediately collapses all temporal and spatial separation between the Buddha and the devotee. “Two thousand years and more have passed since the Buddha entered nirvāṇa,” he wrote. “But for those who embrace the Lotus Sūtra, at each day, each hour, each moment, the Buddha’s voice reaches them, conveying to them the message, ‘I do not die.’ ” Through chanting the daimoku, the timeless realm of the Buddha’s original enlightenment is retrieved in the present moment; ordinary people manifest buddhahood just as they are, and their world becomes the buddha land.

Two Buddhas, p187-188
Lecture on Lotus Sutra

All the Secrets; All the Answers

Quote

In the Lotus Sutra for the first time the Buddha reveals all the secrets, all the answers, all the possibilities. As the Buddha states, the one reason for the appearance of any Buddha is for the purpose of making it possible for all beings to attain enlightenment equal to the Buddha himself. The Buddha opens the gate showing the near to reveal the far. The Buddha opens the gate, causes people to purify themselves, and shows the insight of the Buddha so that all beings may enter the Way to enlightenment.

Lecture on the Lotus Sutra