All posts by John Hughes

b4today, LS32, d4b

Attaining the Buddha Way

The Murano translation of Chapter 2, Expedients, contains this:

I will expound this sūtra of the Great Vehicle to them,
And assure them of their future Buddhahood, saying:
“You will attain the enlightenment of the Buddha
In your future lives.”

Referencing the 1989 version of The Threefold Lotus Sutra, offers this:

The words of the Buddha that we must be particularly careful to understand correctly here are:

“I predict that such men as these
In the world to come
Will accomplish the Buddha-way.”

We should pay special attention to the phrase “the world to come.” This does not mean “after one’s death” but “sometime in the future, when one will gradually have advanced, step by step.”

The Lotus Sutra teaches us that when one attains enlightenment, one becomes a buddha immediately and this world instantaneously becomes the Land of Eternally Tranquil Light. The sutra also teaches us not that we cannot go to paradise until we die, but that the Buddha dwells in our minds and paradise exists in our daily lives.

Buddhism for Today, p51
2buddhas

Intertwining of Mahāyāna threads

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One way to think about the Mahāyāna is not as an internally consistent movement, but as an intertwining of texts made up of threads of varying circumference, weight, and texture. Among those threads, none is more luminous than the Lotus Sūtra, in part because of its influence and in part because so many things that we associate with “the Mahāyāna” are found there. Yet it is also a distinctive text with its own psyche and its own legacy of influence and interpretation. Indeed, the brilliance of the sūtra only becomes clear when one considers (or at least imagines) the circumstances of its composition, and the questions its authors wrestled with.

Two Buddhas, p11-12
Basics

A Subjective Stimulant to Objective Health, Prosperity

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A person struggling with what appears to be an insuperable financial problem worries and frets, cannot sleep, and finds that food has no appeal. Failing health makes it difficult to work. The sudden advent of religious faith changes the person’s attitude toward life overnight. Realizing that one can do no more than one’s best, the person ceases to worry. As anxiety vanishes, the person is once again able to sleep and eat properly. Soon, healthy again, the person is able to attack work with new vigor. The person’s fortunes improve, the apparently insuperable problem fades into insignificance, and before long the person is better off than ever before.

This kind of thing has happened often in the past and will continue to happen. Undeniably, a spiritual awakening can lead to improved health and even to business success. Though perhaps not its highest goal, physical and financial recovery is a frequent side effect of religious faith. Materialist critics of religion as an opiate ignore its positive effects as a subjective stimulant to objective health and prosperity. In addition, while bringing inner peace and a change of mind, religion insists that instead of resting content with an improved state of private affairs, human beings do all within their power to reform the social evils that lead to misery and strife and try to rid the world of both natural and human-caused disasters. It goes without saying that this is a prime consideration in the Buddhist law of dependent origination.
Basic Buddhist Concepts

WONS

The Mutual Possession of the Ten Realms Doctrine

These people are those who do not know the difference between the pre-Lotus sūtras and the Lotus Sūtra. They are not only wandering blindly in their own stupidity and ignorance but also closing the Buddha-eye of all living beings. Wishing to be reborn in the Tuṣita Heaven is encouraged in many Hinayāna sūtras. It is also preached in some Mahāyāna sūtras. Many Mahāyāna sūtras encourage the rebirth in the Pure Land of the Utmost Bliss to the West. They are provisional sūtras that are later merged into the One Vehicle teaching in the Lotus Sūtra. According to the teaching of the Lotus Sūtra, both the Tuṣita Heaven and the Pure Land to the West are not separated. Both of them as well as the worlds of humans and gods are contained in the Buddha lands all over the universe. Expounding the mutual possession of the Ten Realms doctrine, the Lotus Sūtra reveals to evil persons the evil doings of the Ten Realms, and at the same time informs them that they are endowed with the five kinds of eyes (human eye, eye of heaven, eye of wisdom, eye of dharma, and the Buddha-eye). This is done in an effort to save even the most wicked among the evil. Regarding women, it can be said that all of the realms are inhabited by women because according to the doctrine of the mutual possession of the Ten Realms, women are included in the Ten Realms. Thus, the enlightenment of women is a reality. Therefore, those who believe in the Lotus Sūtra and seek Buddhahood cannot be led down to the nine realms of delusions by the force of karma.

Ichidai Shōgyō Tai-I, Outline of All the Holy Teachings of the Buddha, Writings of Nichiren Shōnin, Doctrine 3, Page 94

Daily Dharma

Daily Dharma – Jan. 14, 2020

Ignorant people will speak ill of us,
Abuse us, and threaten us
With swords or sticks.
But we will endure all this.

Medicine-King Bodhisattva and Great-Eloquence Bodhisattva, along with their attendants, declare these verses to the Buddha in Chapter Thirteen of the Lotus Sūtra. The Buddha had asked previously who would teach the Lotus Sūtra after the Buddha’s death. These Bodhisattvas realize the difficulty of teaching and keeping this sūtra. They know that some who come to hear the Buddha Dharma are strongly attached to their anger. These Bodhisattvas vow to look beyond the violence and suffering of these people and promise to lead even them to enlightenment.

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 learned one great purpose of the Buddha’s teaching, we learn that the Buddhas teach only Bodhisattvas.

“The Buddhas, the Tathāgatas, teach only Bodhisattvas. All they do is for one purpose, that is, to show the insight of the Buddha to all living beings, to cause them to obtain the insight of the Buddha.

“Śāriputra! I also expound various teachings to all living beings only for the purpose of revealing the One Buddha-Vehicle. There is no other vehicle, not a second or a third. Śāriputra! All the present Buddhas of the worlds of the ten quarters also do the same.

“Śāriputra! All the Buddhas in the past expounded various teachings to all living beings with innumerable expedients, that is to say, with stories of previous lives, parables, similes and discourses, only for the purpose of revealing the One Buddha-Vehicle. The living beings who heard those teachings from those Buddhas finally obtained the knowledge of the equality and differences of all things.

“Śāriputra! All the Buddhas who will appear in the future also will expound various teachings to all living beings with innumerable expedients, that is to say, with stories of previous lives, parables, similes and discourses, only for the purpose of revealing the One Buddha-Vehicle. The living beings who hear those teachings from those Buddhas also will finally obtain the knowledge of the equality and differences of all things.

See An Enlightening Method Appropriately Applied

b4today, LS32, d3b, d4b

An Enlightening Method Appropriately Applied

Called the core of the Law of Appearance, this important chapter is the pivot of the Buddha’s preaching in the first half of the Lotus Sutra. The Japanese title of this chapter, “Hōben,” is a compound word consisting of two characters, hō and ben. Hō originally means “a square” but sometimes means “right.” Ben means “method” or “means.” Therefore hōben means “a right method” or “a right means.” As seen in the Japanese proverb Uso mo hōben (A lie can be expedient), it is regrettable to see how far the understanding of this word has deviated from its true meaning. The word hōben originally indicated the idea, “an enlightening method appropriately applied to the person and the occasion.” Unless we keep in mind this original meaning, we cannot correctly understand this chapter.

Buddhism for Today, p41
2buddhas

The perspective of two historical moments

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[Two Buddhas Seated Side by Side] takes the form of a chapter-by-chapter discussion of the twenty-eight chapters of the Lotus Sūtra. We consider the significance of each chapter from the perspective of two historical moments: what it may have meant in the first centuries of the Common Era in the Indian cultural sphere as the Lotus Sūtra came to take its present form, and how it was read by Nichiren in Japan roughly a thousand years later. Rather than divide the volume into two sections, the first commenting on the Lotus Sūtra itself and the second introducing Nichiren’s reading, we have intentionally alternated our discussion of the Lotus text with Nichiren’s comments in each chapter, to avoid as much as possible a somewhat artificial division between the original text and Nichiren’s later interpretations. For devotees of the Lotus Sūtra, text and interpretation have been inseparable – in effect, parts of the same scripture – as has been the case with many great religious texts over the course of history.

Two Buddhas, p9-10
WONS

The Mirror of Buddhism

Some might wonder: “How do you know that your banishment and death sentence are results of your sins in your past lives?” To them I would answer that copper mirrors reflect only colors and shapes, and the mirror the First Emperor of Ch’in used to test his subjects showed only present sins, but the mirror of Buddhism shows the virtues or vices of one in the past. Therefore, it is said in the six-fascicled Nirvana Sūtra (Hatsunaion-gyō): “Good men! Since you have committed numerous evil deeds and accumulated bad karma, you have to suffer in compensation for them. (…) You may be slighted, may look ugly, may suffer from lack of clothing or from insufficient food, unable to make a fortune, born to a poor family or to a heretic family, or suffer from royal persecutions, and many other difficulties. The reason you receive relatively light punishment like these in this world is due to your merit of upholding the dharma. Otherwise you might have been punished much more severely.”

This matches me, Nichiren, as perfectly as two halves of a tally. It explains why I have been persecuted, and all of my numerous doubts have faded away. Let us tally this sūtra, phrase by phrase against me. As for “being slighted,” which is phrased in the Lotus Sūtra, “A Parable” chapter, as “being slighted, despised, hated with jealousy,” I, Nichiren, have been despised for more than twenty years. “Being ugly looking,” and “suffering from lack of food and clothing,” “unable to make a fortune, being born to a poor family,” “suffering from royal persecutions,” and so on are all about me. Who can doubt it?

Kaimoku-shō, Open Your Eyes to the Lotus Teaching, Writings of Nichiren Shōnin, Doctrine 2, Page 106

Daily Dharma

Daily Dharma – Jan. 13, 2020

Good men! I think that the Buddha, the World-Honored One, wishes to expound a great teaching, to send the rain of a great teaching, to blow the conch-shell horn of a great teaching, to beat the drum of a great teaching, and to explain the meaning of a great teaching.

Mañjuśrī declares this to Maitreya and all others gathered to hear the Buddha teach in Chapter One of the Lotus Sūtra. The Buddha had just produced the light from between his eyebrows illuminating the worlds of the ten directions, a sight none but Mañjuśrī had experienced. The great teaching the Buddha was about to expound is the Lotus Sutra. This statement awakens our interest and shows us how to listen to this teaching, as if it were a great cooling rain or the loud call of a conch-shell or drum.

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