All posts by John Hughes

Daily Dharma

Daily Dharma – Jan. 22, 2020

Have faith in the Great Mandala Gohonzon, the Most Venerable One in the entire world. Earnestly endeavor to strengthen your faith, so that you may be blessed with the protective powers of Śākyamuni Buddha, the Buddha of many treasures, and Buddhas in manifestation throughout the Universe. Strive to carry out the two ways of practice and learning. Without practice and learning Buddhism will cease to exist. Endeavor yourself and cause others to take up these two ways of practice and learning, which stem from faith. If possible, please spread even a word or phrase of the sutra to others.

Nichiren wrote this as part of his letter to monk Sairen-bō about the nature of reality (Shohō-Jissō Shō). One way of reading this passage is that as we develop our faith in the Great Mandala Gohonzon, the Buddhas will provide more protection for us. Another way to read it is that as our faith develops, so does the power we have to protect others, free them from suffering and help them to awaken their Buddha nature. Either way, Nichiren shows us the practical results of our faith.

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

LS32

Day 11

Day 11 continues Chapter 7, The Parable of the Magic City

Day 11 Text with annotationsPlay MP3

Having last month witnessed what happened when Great-Universal-Wisdom-Excellence Buddha attained Anuttara-samyak-saṃbodhi, we consider the reaction of the Brahman-heavenly-kings of the five hundred billion worlds in the southeast.

“Bhikṣus! The great Brahman-[heavenly-]kings of the five hundred billion worlds in the southeast, who saw their palaces illumined more brightly than ever, danced with joy. They also wondered why [their palaces were so illumined]. They visited each other and discussed the reason. There was a great Brahman-heavenly-king called Great-Compassion among them. He said to the other Brahmans in gāthās:

Why is it
That we see this light?
Our palaces are illumined
More brightly than ever.

Did a god of great virtue or a Buddha
Appear somewhere in the universe?
We have never seen this [light] before.
Let us do our best to find [the reason].

Let us go even to the end of one thousand billion worlds,
And find the place from where this light has come.
A Buddha may have appeared somewhere in the universe
In order to save the suffering beings.

“Thereupon the Brahman-heavenly-kings of the five hundred billion [ worlds] went to the northwest, carrying flower-plates filled with heavenly flowers, in order to find [the place from where the light had come]. Their palaces also moved as they went. They [reached the Well-Composed World and] saw that Great-Universal-Wisdom-Excellence Tathāgata was sitting on the lion-like seat under the Bodhi tree of the place of enlightenment, surrounded respectfully by gods, dragon-kings, gandharvas, kiṃnaras, mahoragas, men, and nonhuman beings. They also saw that the sixteen princes were begging the Buddha to turn the wheel of the Dharma. Thereupon the Brahman-heavenly-kings worshipped the Buddha with their heads, walked around him a hundred thousand times, and strewed heavenly flowers to him. The strewn flowers were heaped up to the height of Mt. Sumeru. The Brahman-heavenly-kings offered flowers also to the Bodhi-tree of the Buddha. Having offered flowers, they offered their palaces to the Buddha, saying, ‘We offer these palaces to you. Receive them and benefit us out of your compassion towards us!’ In the presence of the Buddha, they simultaneously praised him in gāthās with all their hearts:

Saintly Master, God of Gods!
Your voice is as sweet as a kalavinka’s.
You have compassion towards all living beings.
We now bow before you.
You, the World-Honored One, are exceptional.
You appear only once in a very long time.

No Buddha has appeared
For the past one hundred and eighty kalpas.
The three evil regions are crowded;
And the living beings in heaven, decreasing.

Now you have appeared in this world
And become the eye of all living beings.
As their refuge, you are saving them.
As their father, you are benefiting them
Out of your compassion towards them.
We are now able to see you
Because we accumulated merits
In our previous existence.

“Thereupon the Brahman-heavenly-kings, having praised the Buddha with these gāthās, said, ‘World-Honored One! Turn the wheel of the Dharma and save all living beings out of your compassion towards them!’ Then they simultaneously said in gāthās with all their hearts:

Great Saint, turn the wheel of the Dharma
And reveal the reality of all things!
Save the suffering beings
And cause them to have great joy!

If they hear the Dharma, some will attain enlightenment;
Others will be reborn in heaven.
The living beings in the evil regions will decrease;
And those who do good patiently will increase.

“Thereupon Great-Universal-Wisdom-Excellence Tathāgata gave his tacit consent to their appeal.

See Creation Is Joy in Human Life

b4today, LS32, d11b

Creation Is Joy in Human Life

[The Brahma heavenly kings said,] “We have come from many heavens and have left deep meditative joys for the sake of serving the buddha. Our palaces are magnificently adorned as rewards for our former lives. Now we Offer them to the world-honored one and beg him in mercy to accept them.”

The point here is that the heavenly kings have left their deep meditative joys and have descended from heaven to the human world for the sake of hearing the buddhas’ teachings. This important point is at the core of the teaching of the Lotus Sutra. A worthwhile life does not consist in merely spending one’s life in peace and quiet but in creating something good. When one tries to become a better person through his practice, this endeavor is the creation of good. When he does something for the benefit of other people, this is the creation of a still higher standard of good. The various arts are the creation of beauty, and all honest professions are the creation of various kinds of energy that are beneficial to society.

Creation is bound to bring with it pain and hardship. However, one finds life worth living when one makes a strenuous effort for the sake of something good. He endeavors to become a little better a person and to do just a little more for the good of other people. Through such positive endeavor we are enabled to feel deep joy in our human lives.

If we lived for a week in a world where we did not have hardships and the joy of creating something, we would tire of it. If we did not become bored with such a world, it would show that we were basically lazy in nature. Such people are sunk in illusion, and even if they rise to a heavenly world, at any moment they may fall immediately to the world of demons (shura) or to hell (jigoku).

Buddhism for Today, p98-99
2buddhas, WONS

Inherent Buddhahood

Quote

For Nichiren, the Lotus Sūtra alone fully revealed the inherence of the buddha realm in all nine realms of unenlightened beings: By chanting its title, Namu Myōhō-renge-kyō, which instantiates the wisdom of all buddhas, even the most deluded person, he said, can manifest the buddha realm directly. Nichiren likened this to fire being produced by a stone taken from beneath the depths of water or a lamp illuminating a place that has been dark for millions of years.

Two Buddhas, p26
WONS

Revealing Grave Sins of Past Lives

In the immemorable past, I must have been born a wicked king and must have deprived practicers of the Lotus Sūtra of their food and clothing and their properties on numerous occasions just as some people today in Japan have been destroying the Lotus temples. I must have also cut off the heads of numerous practicers of the Lotus Sūtra. I may have purged myself of some of these grave sins but not all of them. Even if I have, there are the residuals. In order to attain Buddhahood, I must completely compensate for all those serious sins. My merits in spreading the Lotus Sūtra are still shallow while my sins in the past are still deep. If I had preached only provisional sūtras, grave sins in my past lives would not have been revealed. It is like a forging iron, for instance. Unless you hit it and forge it hard, hidden scars will not be seen. They appear only when the iron is hit hard many times on an anvil. Or it is analogous to squeezing hemp seeds. Unless squeezed hard, there is little oil. Ever since I, Nichiren, strongly condemned those who slander the True Dharma in Japan, I have been persecuted. It must be that grave sins in my past lives are revealed through my merits in defending the dharma in this life. It is just as a piece of iron remains black unless heated by fire and becomes red when placed in fire. Even calm water makes great waves when quickly stirred by a log. A sleeping lion roars loudly when awakened by a touch of hand.

Kaimoku-shō, Open Your Eyes to the Lotus Teaching, Writings of Nichiren Shōnin, Doctrine 2, Page 107

Daily Dharma

Daily Dharma – Jan. 21, 2020

The good men or women who expound even a phrase of the Sūtra of the Lotus Flower of the Wonderful Dharma even to one person even in secret after my extinction, know this, are my messengers. They are dispatched by me.

The Buddha declares these lines to Medicine-King Bodhisattva at the beginning of Chapter Ten of the Lotus Sūtra. When we are caught up in the suffering and unhappiness of this world of conflict, we can yearn for an escape from its troubles. We can believe that living in this world was not our choice, that we are here by chance or due to an obligation we no longer want to meet. When the Buddha reminds us that we are Bodhisattvas, beings whose existence is for the benefit of all beings, we realize that both the joys and the suffering we experience are for the benefit of others.

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

LS32

Day 10

Day 10 concludes Chapter 6, Assurance of Future Buddhahood, and opens Chapter 7, The Parable of a Magic City.

Day 10 Text with annotationsPlay MP3

Having last month heard the prediction for Great Maudgalyāyana, we repeat in gāthās and complete today’s portion of Chapter 6, Assurance of Future Buddhahood.

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

After he gives up his present existence,
This Great Maudgalyāyana, a disciple of mine,
Will see many Buddhas,
Many World-Honored Ones.
He will see eight thousand of them,
And then two hundred billions of them.

In order to attain
The enlightenment of the Buddha,
He will make offerings to them, and respect them.
He will perform brahma practices under those Buddhas,
And keep the teachings of those Buddhas
For innumerable kalpas.

After the extinction of each of those Buddhas,
He will erect a stūpa of the seven treasures.
There will be a long golden yasti
On the top of the stūpa.
He will offer flowers, incense and music
To the stūpa-mausoleum of the Buddha.

He will finally complete
The Way of Bodhisattvas,
And become a Buddha
Called Tamala [pattral-candana-Fragrance
In a world called
Mind-Happiness.

The duration of the life of that Buddha
Will be twenty-four [small] kalpas.
He will expound to gods and men
The enlightenment of the Buddha.

As many Śrāvakas as there are sands in the River Ganges
Will have the six supernatural powers,
Including the three major supernatural powers.
They will be exceedingly powerful and virtuous.

Innumerable Bodhisattvas also will live there.
They will be resolute in mind, and strenuous.
They will never falter
In seeking the wisdom of the Buddha.

After the extinction of that Buddha,
His right teachings
Will be preserved for forty small kalpas.
So will the counterfeit of them.

The five hundred disciples of mine
Are powerful and virtuous.
They also shall be assured
Of their future Buddhahood.
They will become Buddhas
In their future lives.

Now I will tell you
About my previous existence
And also about yours.
All of you, listen attentively!

See The Admission Permit to the School of Buddhahood

b4today, LS32, d10b, d9b

The Admission Permit to the School of Buddhahood

“Prediction” means that the Buddha gives us the assurance, “You will surely become buddhas.” The term “prediction” (juki) includes three meanings of great importance and subtlety, which it is essential that we understand. The first important point is that Sakyamuni Buddha says not “You are buddhas” but “You will become buddhas.” In the sight of the Buddha, all living beings have the buddha-nature, and any one of them can definitely become a buddha. But if the Buddha says merely, “You are buddhas,” this statement will be greatly misunderstood by ordinary people. They will be liable to take these words to mean that they are already perfected as buddhas while in a state of illusion and will have the idea that they can become buddhas without any effort, like riding an escalator.

The prediction given by the Buddha is often compared to an admission permit to a school, and this comparison is quite just. It is not a diploma but only an admission permit. This assurance signifies, “You have passed the entrance examination of the highest university, which leads to the degree of buddhahood. If you study here for some years, you will surely graduate and will become buddhas.” Having this assurance, ordinary people must hereafter practice all the more, and must make ever greater efforts to realize this goal.

What a joyful thing it is for ordinary people to have obtained admission to the Buddha’s university — to have received the Buddha’s prediction, “You will become buddhas.”

Buddhism for Today, p83
2buddhas, WONS

Where Hell and the Buddha Exist

Quote

Ichinen sanzen is a complex and challenging concept, and in his doctrinal instruction, Nichiren frequently concentrated on one of its key component principles: the mutual inclusion of the ten dharma realms (jikkai gogu). Traditional Buddhist cosmology divides saṃsāra or the realm of rebirth for unenlightened beings into a hierarchy of six paths: hell dwellers, hungry ghosts (preta), animals, demigods (asura), humans, and gods (deva). Above these, Tendai doctrine places four more realms characterized by ascending levels of awakening: the two realms of the śrāvakas and pratyekabuddhas, who cultivate the aims of detachment and cessation of desire set forth in the so-called Hinayāna teachings, aiming for the goal of Nirvāṇa; bodhisattvas, who strive for the liberation of all beings; and fully realized buddhas. In contrast to the buddha realm, which represents enlightenment, the other nine realms represent various levels of delusion, or states not yet fully awakened. Being empty of fixed, independent existence, all ten interpenetrate, meaning that each realm contains all ten within itself. Specifically, this means that the Buddha and all living beings are not separate; the buddha realm does not exist apart from oneself. Nichiren explains this in simple terms: “As to where hell and the Buddha exist: some sūtras say that hell lies beneath the ground, while others say that the Buddha dwells in the west. But close investigation shows that both exist within our five-foot body. For hell is in the heart of a man who despises his father and makes light of his mother, just as flowers and fruit are already present within the lotus seed. What we call ‘buddha’ dwells in our mind, in the same way that stones contain fire and that jewels have value intrinsically.”

Two Buddhas, p25-26
WONS

A Mandala for the Protection of a Young Child

I am granting a mandala for the protection of your very young child. This good-luck charm is the essence of the Lotus Sūtra, the primary object of all the scriptures of Buddhism. For instance, it is like the sun and the moon in the heaven, a great king on the earth, the heart of a human being, a wish-fulfilling gem among treasures, or the pillar that supports and upholds a house.

When we keep this mandala with us, all the Buddhas and deities together keep their watchful eyes on us to protect us day and night without fail just as samurai protect their king, parents love their children, water gives fish life, rain waters plants, and trees provide shelter for birds. Keep your firm faith. Gracious indeed.

Myōshin-ama Gozen Gohenji, A Response to My Lady, the Nun Myōshin Writings of Nichiren Shōnin, Volume 7, Followers II, Pages 105