All posts by John Hughes

LS32

Day 2

Chapter 1, Introductory (Conclusion).

Day 2 Text with annotationsPlay MP3

Having last month heard Mañjuśrī explaining to Maitreya Bodhisattva the meaning of this auspicious sign, we consider the Buddha Sun-Moon-Light.

“Good men! Innumerable, inconceivable, asamkya kalpas ago, there lived a Buddha called Sun-Moon-Light, the Tathagata, the Deserver of Offerings, the Perfectly Enlightened One, the Man of Wisdom and Practice, the Well-Gone, the Knower of the World, the Unsurpassed Man, the Controller of Men, the Teacher of Gods and Men, the Buddha, the World-Honored One. He expounded the right teachings. His expounding of the right teachings was good at the beginning, good in the middle, and good at the end. The meanings of those teachings were profound. The words were skillful, pure, unpolluted, perfect, clean, and suitable for the explanation of brahma practices. To those who were seeking Śrāvakahood, he expounded the teaching of the four truths, a teaching suitable for them, saved them from birth, old age, disease, and death, and caused them to attain Nirvāṇa. To those who were seeking Pratyekabuddhahood, he expounded the teaching of the twelve causes, a teaching suitable for them. To Bodhisattvas, he expounded the teaching of the six paramitas, a teaching suitable for them, and caused them to attain Anuttara-samyak-saṃbodhi, that is, to obtain the knowledge of the equality and differences of all things.

“After his extinction there appeared a Buddha also called Sun-Moon-Light. After his extinction there appeared another Buddha also called Sun-Moon-Light. In the same manner, seventy thousand Buddhas appeared in succession, all of them being called Sun­Moon-Light with the surname Bharadvaja.

“Maitreya, know this! All those Buddhas were called Sun-Moon­-light with the ten epithets. Their expounding of the Dharma was good at the beginning, good in the middle, and good at the end. The last Sun-Moon-Light Buddha was once a king. He had eight sons born to him before he renounced the world. The first son was called Having-Intention; the second, Good-Intention; the third, Infinite-­Intention; the fourth, Treasure-Intention; the fifth, Increasing-­Intention; the sixth, Doubts-Removing-Intention; the seventh, Resounding-Intention; and the eighth, Dharma-Intention. These eight princes had unhindered powers and virtues. Each of them was the ruler of the four continents [of a Sumeru-world]. Having heard that their father had renounced the world and attained Anuttara-samyak-saṃbodhi, they abdicated from their thrones, and followed their father. They renounced the world, aspired for the Great Vehicle, performed brahma practices, and became teachers of the Dharma. They had already planted the roots of good under ten million Buddhas in their previous existence.

See The Power of Impermanence

b4today, LS32, d2b

The Power of Impermanence

When we look back upon the evolutionary process that gave birth to life on the earth, which was originally filled only with melted lava, metals, gas, and vapor, and how lifeforms divided into plants and animals, the latter evolving gradually through insects, fish, amphibians, birds, and mammals, and finally into man, we realize also that wood, stone, metal, and all other substances in the world have the same ultimate ancestors as ourselves. We can regard all plants, birds, and beasts as our kin. We then feel a natural gratitude to plants, insects, fish, birds, and beasts. If we feel grateful to these creatures, how much more deeply thankful should we be for our parents and grandparents, our nearest kin, and for the spirits of other ancestors! We come to understand this clearly and feel it deeply.

Truly all things in the universe are related; what can we say when human beings in this world are not brothers to one another? They oppose each other, hate each other, attack each other, even kill each other. This is not what man’s life was intended to be. The reason that we do not realize this truth is because we are overwhelmed by the changes that impinge on us directly and are blinded by considerations of immediate gain and loss. If all men could see clearly the Buddha’s teaching that all things are impermanent, they would be awakened from such illusion and could realize a peaceful and correct way of life in this world.

Buddhism for Today, p29-30
2buddhas

Variatons on Namu

Quote

We have rendered the daimoku, the invocation of the Lotus Sūtra’s title taught by Nichiren, as Namu Myōhō-Renge-Kyō, which represents the proper romanization for scholarly writing. However, actual pronunciation may vary slightly according to the practice community; some groups collapse the second and third syllables, giving Nam Myōhō-Renge-Kyō (sometimes written without diacritics in their publications). The difference is not one of correct versus incorrect but simply reflects variations among the traditions of individual Nichiren Buddhist lineages.

Two Buddhas, pxii
WONS

Declare Yourself a Disciple of Nichiren

If something happens on your way to the Pure Land, you should declare yourself as a disciple of Nichiren. Even in this small country of Japan, one who claims to be a family member of the Lord of Sagami Province, Shogunal Regent Hōjō Tokimune, is sometimes respected with no questions asked. All the more so I am the foremost priest in the Jambudvīpa as far as the devotion to the Lotus Sūtra is concerned, though worldly the most outrageous priest in Japan. The name of such a man surely resounds in the Pure Lands throughout the universe. His name is known both to heaven and earth. When you declare yourself to be a disciple of Nichiren, even demons, no matter how evil they may be, will not say that they have never heard of such a man.

Myōshin-ama Gozen Gohenji, A Response to My Lady, the Nun Myōshin Writings of Nichiren Shōnin, Volume 7, Followers II, Pages 103-104

Daily Dharma

Daily Dharma – Jan. 12, 2020

World-Honored One! Explain all this so that we may be able to remove our doubts and that the good men in the future may have no doubts when they hear these words of yours!

The Bodhisattva Maitreya makes this request to the Buddha in Chapter Fifteen of the Lotus Sūtra. There are several ways that the Buddha leads us to his enlightenment. One is by making us aware of the mysteries that abound in this world of conflict. The Lotus Sūtra promises in Chapter One that no question will be left unresolved. But unless we are aware of these questions, and these mysteries, then they cannot be explained. When we allow ourselves to wonder, to question, to become aware of the mystery of existence, and resist being ashamed of not knowing. then we are coming to understand the Buddha’s own mind.

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

LS32

Day 1

Day 1 covers the first half of Chapter 1, Introductory

Day 1 Text with annotationsPlay MP3

Having last month considered the Bodhisattvas and kings whom Maitreya sees, we consider some of the practices of the Bodhisattvas that Maitreya sees.

I also see some Bodhisattvas
Becoming bhikṣus,
Living alone in retired places,
And joyfully reciting sūtras.

I also see some Bodhisattvas
Zealously and courageously
Entering remote mountains, and pondering
The enlightenment of the Buddha.

I also see some of them having given up desires,
And living in retired places,
Entering deep into dhyāna-concentration,
And obtaining the five supernatural powers.

I also see some Bodhisattvas finding peace in dhyāna,
Joining their hands together [towards the Buddha],
And praising the King of the Dharma
With tens of millions of gāthās.

I also see some Bodhisattvas resolute in mind.
They have obtained profound wisdom
By questioning the Buddha.
And now they remember what they heard from him.

See The Meaning of the Title

b4today, LS32, d1b

The Meaning of the Title

Before discussing the Sutra of the Lotus Flower of the Wonderful Law itself, I wish to comment on the title of the sutra, which expresses in brief the form and content of the sutra. I believe that this title is unique in its succinct expression of the profound meaning of the entire sutra.

The Sutra of the Lotus Flower of the Wonderful Law, written in Sanskrit, is called Saddharma-puṇḍrika-sūtra. The title as translated into Chinese by Kumārajīva is Miao-fa-lien-hua-ching (Japanese, Myōhō Renge-kyō). In the Sutra of the Lotus Flower of the Wonderful Law the absolute truth realized by Sakyamuni Buddha is presented. This truth is called the “Wonderful Law” (saddharma, miao-fa, myōhō) because of its profound meaning, as shown in the discussion of the Sutra of Innumerable Meanings.

First, as shown by the words “real state of all things, “Law” means all things that exist in the universe and all events that occur in the world. Secondly, it means the one truth that penetrates all things. Thirdly, it means the Law as an established rule when the truth appears as a phenomenon that we can see with our eyes and hear with our ears. Fourthly, it means the teaching of the truth.

The truth that expresses the original idea of these four meanings of “Wonderful Law” is the Buddha. Accordingly, the Law that rules the relationships of all things, including man, is also the Buddha; and the teaching, explaining how one should live on the basis of the truth, is the Buddha too. In short, the Law and the Buddha are one and the same. In other words, the Buddha and all the functions of the Buddha can be expressed with the word “Law.” Because the Law has such a supreme, profound, and inexpressible meaning, it is modified by the adjective “Wonderful.”

“Lotus” (puṇḍarīka, lien-hua, renge) means the lotus flower. In India this flower was regarded as the most beautiful in the world, for a lotus is rooted in mud but opens as a pure and beautiful flower unsoiled by the mud. This is an allegorical expression of thee fundamental idea of the Lotus Sutra, that though man lives in this corrupt world, he is not tainted by it nor swayed by it, and he can live a beautiful life with perfect freedom of mind.

“Sutra” literally means a string or the warp threads in weaving. The people of ancient India had a custom of decorating their hair with beautiful flowers threaded on a string. In the same way, the holy teachings of the Buddha were gathered into compositions called sutras. Altogether, the title “Sutra of the Lotus Flower of the Wonderful Law” means “the supreme teaching that man can lead a correct life, without being swayed by illusions, while living in this corrupt world.”

Buddhism for Today, p23-24
Blog, LS32

Emptiness Inside a Lotus Sutra Circle

Lotus Sutra Burton Watson bookcoverIn 1993 I had been practicing what I considered to be Nichiren Buddhism for four years. I had started with Nichiren Shoshu of America before the split with Soka Gakkai and continued with Soka Gakkai after the divorce was finalized. I don’t recall ever being  encouraged to read the Lotus Sutra. I was certainly never encouraged to do more sutra recitation than the shindoku [the Japanese pronunciation of the Chinese translation using Romanized text] and nothing beyond the Hoben Pon portion of Chapter 2, and Ji Ga Ge of Chapter 16. It was in this setting that I learned that Columbia University Press had published Burton Watson’s translation of the Lotus Sutra. Soka Gakkai held the copyright for the book and the local SGI community center bookstore had the book for sale. I purchased a copy. I read it once. I recall realizing that a single reading would not be sufficient to gain any appreciation of the sutra, but I never picked up that copy again.

It would be another 22 years before I again read the Lotus Sutra.

Today I’m beginning my 49th cycle through my 32 Days of the Lotus Sutra practice. For 40 cycles I used Senchu Murano’s translation. Then I tried Leon Hurvitz’s Scripture of the Lotus Blossom of the Fine Dharma for a couple of cycles and followed that with the 1975 edition of The Threefold Lotus Sutra, which I dropped after just one cycle. I did one cycle with the BDK English Tripitaka translation and then shifted to Gene Reeves’ translation for two cycles. For the previous two cycles I’ve been using the 2019 edition of the Threefold Lotus Sutra.

I’ve now come full circle, back to Burton Watson’s translation. I’m curious what it will be like to read it again after 27 years.

In Watson’s Preface I still have the page corner turned down marking this quote:

The Lotus Sutra tells us at times that the Lotus Sutra is about to be preached, at other times it says that the Lotus Sutra has already been preached with such-and-such results, and at still other times it gives instructions on just how the Lotus Sutra is to be preached or enumerates in detail the merits that accrue to one who pays due honor to the text. But the reader may be forgiven if he comes away from the work wondering just which of the chapters that make it up was meant to be the Lotus Sutra itself. One writer has in fact been led to describe the sutra as a text “about a discourse that is never delivered, a lengthy preface without a book.*” This is no doubt because Mahayana Buddhism has always insisted that its highest truth can never in the end be expressed in words, since words immediately create the kind of distinctions that violate the unity of Emptiness. All the sutra can do, therefore, is to talk around it, leaving a hole in the middle where truth can reside.

Watson, pxx-xxi

* George J. Tanabe, Jr, and Wilma Jane Tanabe, eds., The Lotus Sutra in Japanese Culture (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1989), p. 2 in the introductory chapter by Professor George Tanabe.

When I first read this I could not have possibly fathomed the meaning of that hole in the middle, that central emptiness. As Watson points out in the Preface:

This is the first point to keep in mind in reading the Lotus Sutra. Its setting, its vast assembly of listeners, its dramatic occurrences in the end belong to a realm that totally transcends our ordinary concepts of time, space, and possibility. Again and again we are told of events that took place countless, indescribable numbers of kalpas or eons in the past, or of beings or worlds that are as numerous as the sands of millions and billions of Ganges rivers. Such “numbers” are in fact no more than pseudonumbers or non-numbers, intended to impress on us the impossibility of measuring the immeasurable. They are not meant to convey any statistical data but simply to boggle the mind and jar it loose from its conventional concepts of time and space. For in the realm of Emptiness, time and space as we conceive them are meaningless; anywhere is the same as everywhere, and now, then, never, forever are all one.

Watson, pxvi

How to comprehend this?

Very early in the sutra the Buddha warns us that the wisdom of the Buddhas is extremely profound and difficult to comprehend, and this warning is repeated frequently in later chapters. …

But of course in the view of religion there are other approaches to truth than merely through words and intellectual discourse. The sutra therefore exhorts the individual to approach the wisdom of the Buddhas through the avenue of faith and religious practice. The profound influence which the Lotus Sutra has exerted upon the cultural and religious life of the countries of eastern Asia is due as much to its function as a guide to devotional practice as to the actual ideas that it expounds. It calls upon us to act out the sutra with our bodies and minds rather than merely reading it, and in that way to enter into its meaning.

Watson, pxx-xxi

This is the Essential emptiness. Chih-i equated the Ultimate Truth with the empty space inside a house (The Ulimate Empty Space). The teachings of the Buddha provide the roof beams and pillars, and Lotus Sutra gathers the whole into a house with empty rooms in which to practice. The Emptiness is essential to the function of the house, to the teaching of the Lotus Sutra.

Kaleidoscope

Developing One’s Buddha-Nature

Quote

[N]otice that there is not much use of the notion of emptiness (śūnyā or śūnyāta) in the Lotus Sutra. Of course, all things are empty. But it is because they are empty that there is space, so to speak, for the development of one’s buddha-nature. If things were substantial, they could not truly grow or change. But because they are without substantiality, they can be influenced by and have influence on others. Undue emphasis on emptiness is rejected because it can easily become a kind of nihilism in which nothing matters. In the Lotus Sutra everything matters. The Buddha works to save all beings. Even the poor Bodhisattva Never Disrespectful, who goes around telling everyone that they are to become buddhas, though initially not very successful, eventually “converted a multitude of a thousand, ten thousand, millions, enabling them to live in the state of supreme enlightenment.” And this is to say nothing of the fact that he later became the Buddha Śākyamuni!
A Buddhist Kaleidoscope; Gene Reeves, Appropriate Means as the Ethics of the Lotus Sutra, Page 389

d14b, WONS

Merits of Praising the Practicer of the Lotus Sūtra

It is preached in the “Teacher of the Dharma” chapter of the Lotus Sūtra, fascicle 4, that the merits of those who praise the practicer of the Lotus Sūtra are superior to the merits of those who endeavored to seek the Buddhist Way for as long as a kalpa (aeon). Grand Master Miao-lê interprets this scriptural statement saying, “He who torments the upholder of the Lotus Sūtra will have his head split into seven pieces. On the contrary he who sustains the upholder of the Lotus Sūtra will be rewarded with merit greater than the merit of the one giving offerings to the Buddha, who holds the ten epithets.”

Hōren-shō, Letter to Hōren, Writings of Nichiren Shōnin, Volume 6, Followers I, Page 44-45