All posts by John Hughes

Daily Dharma

Daily Dharma – Jan. 20, 2020

No, good men! I do not want you to protect or keep this sūtra because there are Bodhisattva-mahāsattvas sixty thousand times as many as the sands of the River Ganges in this Sahā-World. They are each accompanied by attendants also numbering sixty thousand times as many as the sands of the River Ganges. They will protect, keep, read, recite and expound this sūtra after my extinction.

The Buddha makes this declaration to the uncountable number of Bodhisattvas who came from other worlds to hear him teach in Chapter Fifteen of the Lotus Sūtra. These Bodhisattvas had responded to the Buddha’s question of who would keep and expound the Buddha’s highest teaching after his death. They promised that they would remain in this world of conflict and fulfill the Buddha’s request. After the Buddha spoke these words, an unimaginable number of Bodhisattvas came up from underground and paid their respects to the Buddha. We can understand this story, and this image, as showing that our capacity for enlightenment, and our ability to benefit all beings, is already within us. We do not need an outside agent to give these to us.

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 heard the prediction for Mahā-Kāśyapa in gāthās, we conclude Chapter 6, Assurance of Future Buddhahood, with the tale of the starving man permitted eat a king’s feast.

Thereupon Great Maudgalyāyana, Subhūti and Mahā-Kātyāyana trembled, joined their hands together with all their hearts, looked up at the World-Honored One with unblenching eyes, and sang in gāthās in unison:

Great Hero, World-Honored One!
King of the Dharma of the Śākyas!
Give us your voice
Out of your compassion towards us!
If you see what we have deep in our minds,
And assure us of our future Buddhahood,
We shall feel as cool and as refreshed
As if we were sprinkled with nectar.

Suppose a man came
From a country suffering from famine.
Now he saw the meal of a great king.
He did not partake of it in doubts and fears.
After he was told to take it by the king,
He took it at once.
We are like that man.
We know the defects of the Lesser Vehicle.
But we do not know how to obtain
The unsurpassed wisdom of the Buddha.

Although we hear you say [to us],
“You will become Buddhas,”
We are still in doubts and fears about it,
Just as that man was about the meal.
If you assure us of our future Buddhahood,
We shall be happy and peaceful.

You, the Great Hero, the World-Honored One,
Wish to give peace to all the people of the world.
If you assure us of our future Buddhahood, we shall be
Like the man who was permitted to take the meal.

See Devoting Ourselves to Hearing and Receiving the Law

b4today, LS32, d7b, d8b

Devoting Ourselves to Hearing and Receiving the Law

In the [Chapter 4], we were taught that we must not have the servile idea that we have the capacity to understand the Buddha’s teachings only to a certain limited extent. We should abandon such trifling discriminations and devote ourselves to hearing and receiving the Law. The Parable of the Herbs states that every effort of ours will be surely rewarded. That is, though various kinds of plants and trees are produced in the same soil and moistened by the same rain, each develops according to its own nature. In the same way, though the Buddha’s teachings are only one, they are understood differently according to each hearer’s nature, intellect, environment, and so on.

Even if we have only a shallow understanding of the Buddha’s teachings or can practice only a part of them, this is never useless. Every effort will be surely rewarded with the merits of the Law. But we should not be satisfied with this reward. We must always desire and endeavor to deepen our understanding and to elevate ourselves further. Thus, we can use shallow faith and discernment as the first step in advancing ourselves to a higher level of faith and discernment. Ascending step by step, we can unfailingly reach a superior state of mind. We should understand this well when we read the latter part of this chapter. It is stated here that though the Buddha’s teachings are one, there are differences in faith and discernment according to one’s capacity to understand the teachings. But we must not interpret this as stating an absolute condition.

Buddhism for Today, p75
2buddhas, WONS

True vs. Provisional

Quote

Nichiren saw the Lotus Sūtra as all-encompassing, containing the whole of Buddhist truth within itself. All other sūtras reveal but partial aspects of that truth. Or, in Tendai terminology, the Lotus Sūtra is “true,” while all other sūtras are “provisional.” What this meant for Nichiren in practical terms was that the Lotus Sūtra alone enables all persons without exception to become buddhas. Nichiren grounded this claim in the “three thousand realms in a single thought-moment” (ichinen sanzen) a principle first articulated by Zhiyi. … In essence, this principle means that at each moment the smallest phenomenon (“a single thought-moment”) and the entire cosmos (“three thousand realms”) mutually pervade and encompass one another. Where Zhiyi had introduced this idea only briefly, Nichiren developed it as the very foundation of his thought.

Two Buddhas, p24-25
d7b, WONS

The Hell of Slanderers of the Practicer of the Lotus Sūtra

QUESTION: What kind of hell do slanderers of the practicer of the Lotus Sūtra fall into?

ANSWER: The Lotus Sūtra, fascicle 2 (“A Parable” chapter), preaches, “Those who despise, hate, envy, and bear a grudge against a person who reads, recites, copies and upholds the Lotus Sūtra will fall into Avici Hell upon death. After suffering in this hell for as long as a kalpa, they will again die at the end of the kalpa and fall into the same hell to suffer. They will repeat this countless times and continue to suffer for innumerable kalpa (aeons).”

The palace of King Yama is located 500 yojana below the surface of the earth. Below the palace, between the depths of 500 and 1,500 yojana underground are located 136 hells such as the Eight Great Hells. 128 of the 136 hells are the abodes of minor criminals while the Eight Great Hells are the abodes of felons. Seven of the Eight Great Hells are for the offenders of the Ten Evil Acts while the last of the Eight Great Hells, the Hell of Incessant Suffering, is the abode of those who committed the Five Rebellious Sins, undutiful children, and slanderers of the Lotus Sūtra. To sum up, this passage cited from the “Parable” chapter of the Lotus Sūtra preaches that those who speak ill of or slander the practicer of the Lotus Sūtra in the Latter Age of Degeneration in this world even in jest must fall into the Hell of Incessant Suffering.

Hōren-shō, Letter to Hōren, Writings of Nichiren Shōnin, Volume 6, Followers I, Page 45

Daily Dharma

Daily Dharma – Jan. 19, 2020

Enemies find it difficult to attack when two people are together. Therefore, do not keep your brothers at a distance even for a brief period, regardless of what faults they may have; always be close to them. Whenever you get angry, it is clearly written on your face. Please remember that at no time do gods or deities protect those who are short tempered. It is true that you are destined to become a Buddha, but isn’t it regrettable for you to get hurt, pleasing your enemy and causing us grief?

Nichiren wrote this passage in his “Emperor Shushun” Letter (Sushun Tennō Gosho) addressed to his disciple Shijō Kingo. Nichiren knew the temperament of this Samurai warrior, and gave him detailed instructions for how to navigate the political hazards he faced. No matter how vindictive his Lord Ema became, Nichiren reminded him to persist in leading Ema by the Buddha Dharma and to rely on those who kept the Lotus Sūtra with him. As a result, Kingo outlived both Ema and Nichiren himself and is well known as one of Nichiren’s first followers.

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 considered the expedient devices used by the old man to encourage his son, we witness the father reveal the son’s true place.

By his wisdom the rich man succeeded
In leading his son into his household.
Twenty years after that
He had his son manage his house.

The son was entrusted
With the keeping of the accounts
Of gold and silver,
And of pearl, crystal, and so on.
But he still lodged
In the hut outside the gate, thinking:
“I am poor.
None of these treasures are mine.”

Seeing the mind of his son
Becoming less mean and more noble,
The father called in
His relatives, the king, ministers,
Kṣatriyas, and householders,
In order to give his treasures to his son.

He said to the great multitude:
“This is my son.
He was gone
For fifty years.
I found him Twenty years ago.
I missed him
When I was in a certain city.
I wandered, looking for him,
And came here.
Now I will give him
All my houses and men.
He can use them
As he likes.”

The son thought:
“I was poor, base and mean.
Now I have obtained
The treasures, houses,
And all the other things From my father.
Never before
Have I been so happy.”

See Combining Faith and Discernment

b4today, LS32, d8b

Combining Faith and Discernment

The mental state generated by the firsthand encounter with mystery is called faith. A religion whose teachings a person tries to explain entirely by reason has no power to move others because this person has only a theoretical understanding and cannot put his theory into practice. Such a religion does not produce the energy to cause others to follow it. True faith has power and energy. However uneducated a person may be and however humble his circumstances, he can save others and help them promote his religion if he only has faith. But if he has faith in what is fundamentally wrong, his energy exerts a harmful influence on society and those around him. Therefore faith and discernment must go together. A religion cannot be said to be true unless it combines faith and discernment. The Buddha’s teachings can be understood by reason. They do not demand blind, unreasoning faith. We must understand the Buddha’s teachings by listening to preaching and by reading the sutras. As we advance in our discernment of these teachings, faith is generated spontaneously.

When a person who has a flexible mind is not advanced in discernment, he develops faith as soon as he is told, “This is a true teaching.” So far as the teaching of the Lotus Sutra is concerned, that is all right, because he will gradually advance in discernment through hearing and reading its teaching.

In short, we can enter a religion from the aspect either of faith or of discernment, but unless a religion combines both aspects, it does not have true power.

Buddhism for Today, p64
2buddhas, WONS

Relying on the Dharma, not on the Person

Quote

[Nichiren’s] earliest surviving essay, written when he was twenty-one, suggests that he already took the Lotus Sūtra to be the sole teaching of universal buddhahood; his subsequent studies enhanced and deepened this conviction. Throughout, he was guided by the words of the Nirvāṇa Sūtra — regarded in Tendai circles as a restatement of the Lotus — to “rely on the dharma and not on the person.” For Nichiren, this meant that one should rely on the sūtras rather than the works of later commentators or the opinions of contemporary teachers, however eminent. And among the sūtras, one should rely above all on the Lotus, which is complete and final, and not others, which are incomplete and provisional. It is essential to bear in mind that for Nichiren, as for many of his contemporaries, the sūtras were literally the Buddha’s words; the stages of his fifty-year teaching career as mapped out in the Tendai doctrinal classification system represented historical truth; and the ranking of particular scriptures in the Tendai hierarchy of teachings directly mirrored their degree of salvific power.

Two Buddhas, p24
WONS

If They Are Not Moved to Believe in the Lotus Sūtra

As I contemplate this, those who become the king and deities of Japan are bodhisattvas in the rank of sangen (three wisdoms) according to Hinayāna Buddhism and bodhisattvas in the rank of initial ten (jūshin) of the 52 ranks in Mahāyāna. In the six-stage practice of the Lotus Sutra, they are at the second stage of myōji-soku (notional understanding), the stage at which one hears the name of the Lotus Sūtra and thereby has faith in it, or at the third stage of kangyō-soku (perception and practice), perceiving and practicing the “five stages” after the death of the Buddha: rejoicing on hearing the Sūtra, reading and reciting the Sutra, expounding it to others, practicing the six pāramitā, and perfecting the six pāramitā. Therefore, no matter how much merit community deities accumulate, if they are not moved to believe in the Lotus Sūtra upon hearing its name and practice the spiritual contemplation of the “3,000 existences contained in one thought” doctrine, they will become former bodhisattvas who will sink to the Hell of Incessant suffering forever.

Kangyō Hachiman-shō, Remonstration with Bodhisattva Hachiman, Writings of Nichiren Shōnin, Doctrine 1, Page 262