All posts by John Hughes

Daily Dharma

Daily Dharma – Jan. 18, 2020

Those who believe in the Lotus Sutra are like the winter season, for many hardships come incessantly. Winter is surely followed by spring. We have never heard nor seen that winter returned to fall. We have never heard that the believers in the Lotus Sutra go back to ordinary people. The Lotus Sutra says, “All people who listen to this sutra will attain Buddhahood.”

Nichren wrote this in a letter to one of the lay women who followed his teachings, Myoichi Ama. Knowing the hardships Nichiren faced in his life helps us understand his great fearlessness and determination to spread the Wonderful Dharma. One of the most difficult things about hardship is that it can seem like it will never end. Nichiren reminds us that hardships do end, and that we who practice the Lotus Sutra are assured of our future enlightenment. The example of Nichiren’s life also shows us that as Bodhisattvas, we can use our hardships to lead other beings to enlightenment.

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

LS32

Day 7

Day 7 concludes Chapter 3, A Parable, and begins Chapter 4, Understanding by Faith.

Day 7 Text with annotationsPlay MP3

Having last month considered the Buddha’s expedient teachings, we consider the benefits of rejoicing at hearing the sutra.

I am the King of the Dharma.
I expound the Dharma without hindrance.
l appeared in this world
In order to give peace to all living beings.

Śāriputra!
I expound this seal of the Dharma
In order to benefit
[All living beings] of the world.
Do not propagate it carelessly
At the place where you are!

Anyone who rejoices at hearing this sūtra,
And who receives it respectfully,
Know this, has already reached
The stage of avaivartika.

Anyone who believes and receives this sūtra
Should be considered
To have already seen the past Buddhas,
Respected them, made offerings to them,
And heard the Dharma from them
In his previous existence.

Anyone who believes what you expound
Should be considered
To have already seen all of us,
That is, you and me,
And the Saṃgha of bhikṣus,
And the Bodhisattvas.

I expound only to people of profound wisdom
This Sūtra of the Lotus Flower of the Wonderful Dharma
Because men of little wisdom would doubt this sūtra,
And not understand it even if they heard it.
No Śrāvaka
Or Pratyekabuddha
Can understand
This sūtra.

Even you, Śāriputra,
Have understood this sūtra
Only by faith.
Needless to say,
The other Śrāvakas cannot do otherwise.
They will be able to follow this sūtra
Only because they believe my words,
Not because they have wisdom.

See The Fourteen Sins of Slandering the Law

b4today, LS32, d7b

The Fourteen Sins of Slandering the Law

The fourteen sins of slandering the Law are the following:

  1. haughtiness, or kyōman (to be conceited and to think one has understood what one has not understood);
  2. neglect, or kedai (to be lazy and to be absorbed in trivial things);
  3. self-centeredness, or kriga (to act only for selfish ends);
  4. shallowness, or senshiki (to look only at the surface of things, not trying to grasp their essence);
  5. sensuality, or jakuyoku (to be deeply attached to the desires of the senses and to material things);
  6. irrationality, or fuge (to interpret everything according to one’s own limited viewpoint and to not understand important points);
  7. unbelief, or fushin (not to believe in the sutra and to vilify it because of one’s shallow understanding);
  8. sullenness, or hinshuku (to frown upon the sutra and to show ill feeling toward it);
  9. doubting, or giwaku (to harbor doubts of the truth of the sutra and to hesitate to believe in it);
  10. slander, or hibō (to speak ill of the sutra) ;
  11. scorning goodness, or kyōzen (to despise those who read and recite, write and keep the sutra);
  12. hating goodness, or zōzen (to hate those who practice the above mentioned goodness);
  13. jealousy of goodness, or shitsuzen (to envy those who practice this goodness);
  14. grudging goodness, or konzen (to grudge those who practice this goodness).
Buddhism for Today, p61-62
2buddhas, WONS

Nichiren as Interpreter

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The Japanese Buddhist teacher Nichiren (1222-1282), arguably the Lotus Sūtra’s most famous interpreter, lived and taught in a historical and cultural milieu quite different from that of the sūtra’s original compilers. As Buddhism spread through the Sinitic world, the Lotus had come to be widely revered as Śākyamuni Buddha’s highest and final teaching, and Nichiren asserted that only this sūtra represented his complete message. Like his contemporaries, Nichiren believed he was living in the age of the Final Dharma (J. mappō), a degenerate era when people are burdened by heavy karmic hindrances and liberation is difficult to achieve. Now in this evil era, he claimed, only the Lotus Sūtra leads to buddhahood; other teachings had lost their efficacy and must be set aside. Nichiren taught a form of Lotus practice accessible to all, regardless of social class or education: chanting the sūtra’s daimoku, or title, in the formula Namu Myōhō-renge-kyō. By chanting the daimoku with faith in the Lotus Sūtra, he said, one could realize buddhahood in this very lifetime. And, as faith in the Lotus Sūtra spread, the ideal buddha land would be realized in the present world.

Two Buddhas, p21-22
Lecture on Lotus Sutra

Changing Theory into Tool for Daily Living

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We learn in the Lotus Sutra that we each are already Buddhas; we each already possess that condition within our lives. We merely need to manifest it. We can change the theory of the Ten Worlds into a tool for us to navigate our way from suffering to Enlightenment. The Lotus Sutra and the Odaimoku are the means by which to make it possible. If we think of the Ten Worlds as a map or even a GPS, then the Lotus Sutra and the Odaimoku are the fuel that powers our life as it travels through life guided by the map of the Ten Worlds.

Lecture on the Lotus Sutra

WONS

Repaying What One Owes to One’s Country

One studies Buddhism in order to repay what one owes to one’s country even at the cost of one’s life; it is not at all for one’s own sake. Grand Master T’ien-t’ai declares in his Words and Phrases of the Lotus Sūtra: “Looking at heavy rainfall, one can tell the size of the dragon which causes it; looking at the abundance of lotus flowers, one can tell the depth of the pond.” Likewise, we should realize the seriousness of the coming event by looking at unusual omens. National disaster seems imminent, so I have written to you repeatedly. No one listens to me; yet I keep warning.

Yadoya Nyūdō Sai-gojō, Second Letter to Lay Priest Yadoya, Writings of Nichiren Shōnin, Doctrine 1, Page 152-153

Daily Dharma

Daily Dharma – Jan. 17, 2020

The children who had not lost their right minds saw that this good medicine had a good color and smell, took it at once, and were cured completely. But the children who had already lost their right minds did not consent to take the medicine given to them, although they rejoiced at seeing their father come home and asked him to cure them, because they were so perverted that they did not believe that this medicine having a good color and smell had a good taste.

In Chapter Sixteen of the Lotus Sūtra, the Buddha tells a parable of a wise physician who prepares medicine for his children who have accidentally poisoned themselves. He compares the children to us whose minds are poisoned by the delusions of greed, anger and ignorance. He also compares himself to the wise father and the medicine to the Lotus Sūtra that he has left for us. Until the children took the medicine and tasted it for themselves, they could not be cured of the poison. Until we make this practice of the Wonderful Dharma an active part of our lives, we

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

LS32

Day 6

Day 6 continues Chapter 3, A Parable

Day 6 Text with annotationsPlay MP3

Having last month considered the rich man’s decision to give each child a large cart, we repeat the Parable of the Burning House in gāthās:

Thereupon the Buddha, wishing to repeat what he had said, sang in gāthās:

I will tell you a parable.
A rich man had a manor house.
It was old, rotten,
Broken and ruined.
The house was about to collapse.
The lower parts of the pillars were rotten;
The beams and ridge-poles, tilting and slanted;
The foundation and steps, broken;
The fences and walls, corrupt;
The plaster of the walls, peeling;
The rush thatched on the roof, falling;
The rafters and eaves, slipping out of each other;
The hedges around the house, bent;
And refuse and debris, scattered all over.

In this house lived
Five hundred people.
Kites, owls, crested eagles,
Eagles, crows,
Magpies, doves, pigeons,
Lizards, snakes, vipers, scorpions,
Millipedes, wall lizards, centipedes,
Weasels, badgers, mice, rats,
And poisonous vermin
Were moving about.

Maggots and other vermin
Assembled on the excretions
Scattered all over
In the house.

Foxes, wolves, and small foxes
Were crawling on corpses,
Biting them, chewing them,
And dismembering them.

Many dogs were scrambling for their prey.
Weak and nervous from hunger,
They were seeking food here and there.
They were fighting with each other,
Snapping at each other,
And barking at each other.
The house was
So dreadful, so extraordinary.

Mountain spirits, water spirits,
Yakṣas and other demons
Lived here and there.
They fed on people and poisonous vermin.

Wild birds and beasts
Hatched their eggs,
Suckled or bred.
They protected their offspring.
Yakṣas scrambled for their young,
Took them, and ate them.
Having eaten to their hearts’ content,
They became more violent.
They fought with each other.
Their shrieks were dreadful.

The demons called kumbhandas
Crouched on the ground
Or jumped a foot or two above the ground.
They walked to and fro
And played at their will.
They seized dogs by the legs,
Or hit them
Until they lost their voices,
And held their feet against their necks.
They enjoyed seeing them frightened.

Some demons,
Tall, large,
Naked, black, and thin,
Lived in the house.
They were crying for food
With loud and evil voices.

The necks of some demons
Were as slender as needles.
The heads of some demons
Were like that of a cow.
They ate people or dogs.
Their hair was disheveled
Like mugworts.
They were cruel and dangerous.
Always hungry and thirsty,
They were running about, shrieking.

Yakṣas, hungry spirits,
And wild birds and beasts
Were unbearably hungry.
They were looking out of the windows
In all directions for food.
The house was so dangerous, so dreadful.

See The Great Spirit of the Lotus Sutra

b4today, LS32, d5b, d6b, d7b

The Great Spirit of the Lotus Sutra

The Buddha’s compassion is useless unless all living begins can realize it. For this reason, he purposely does not use his divine power.

If we penetrate further beneath the surface of this meaning, we can see that if the Buddha were to lead all living beings straight to enlightenment, they could not understand his teachings and would lapse because they are so absorbed in pleasures of the senses and material things. Therefore, he desires to lead them from the first step, which is to cause them to realize the dreadful state of this world.

In spite of the compassionate consideration of the Buddha, living beings often only glance at their father’s face (the Buddha’s teachings); they do not consider how these teachings concern their own lives, and they do not listen to them wholeheartedly. We have often experienced this, which shows clearly the mental state of ordinary people.

Then the Buddha as a final measure displays goat carts (the śrāvaka-vehicle), deer carts (the pratyekabuddha-vehicle), and bullock carts (the bodhisattva-vehicle). Now all living beings are attracted to the Buddha’s teachings for the first time. Hearing his words, “Take whichever teaching of these three that you like; I will give you any of them,” they run out of the burning house while imagining these attractive playthings to themselves.

To imagine attractive playthings to oneself means that one has already entered into the mental state of śrāvaka, pratyekabuddha, or bodhisattva. To run out of the burning house means that one is already seeking after the Buddha’s teachings. When living beings remove illusions from their minds, they can immediately escape from the burning house of suffering in this world.

However, they do not yet think of being saved from the burning house. Their minds are filled with the desire to obtain one of the attractive carts—the enlightenment of a śrāvaka, a pratyekabuddha, or a bodhisattva. Then they ask the Buddha for these carts. This means that each asks for his own enlightenment. Then quite unexpectedly, beyond the enlightenment of the three vehicles, they see the supreme teaching, that is, the enlightenment of the One Buddha-vehicle (the great white-bullock cart), shining brilliantly.

The Buddha really wishes to give this great cart to all living beings. So he gives the same thing unsparingly and equally to anyone who has advanced to the mental state of seeking supreme enlightenment. How wonderful the Buddha’s consideration is! All can attain the Buddha’s enlightenment equally — this is the great spirit of the Lotus Sutra.

Buddhism for Today, p58-59
2buddhas

Esoteric teachings

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The buddha of the esoteric teachings is not the historical buddha Śākyamuni but the cosmic buddha who is timeless and omnipresent: all forms are his body, all sounds are his voice, and all thoughts are his mind, although the unenlightened do not realize this. Through the performance of the secretly transmitted “three mysteries” — the performing of mudrās or ritual gestures, the chanting of mantras, and the ritual use of mandalas — the esoteric adept was said to unite his body, speech, and mind with those of cosmic Buddha, thus “realizing buddhahood with this very body” (sokushin jōbutsu). Esoteric Buddhism contributed to the rise, in Japan’s medieval period, of the Tendai doctrine of original enlightenment (hongaku hōmon). According to this doctrine, buddhahood is not a distant goal but the true status of all things: the purpose of practice is not to “attain” buddhahood as a future aim but to realize that one is a buddha inherently. These developments all helped to shape the context in which Nichiren would read the Lotus Sūtra.

Two Buddhas, p21