All posts by John Hughes

WONS

Rewarded with an Easy Delivery

Candlelight brightens the darkness. Even dirty water reflects the moonlight beautifully. In this world nothing is brighter than the sun and the moon; nothing is more noble than the lotus flowers. As the Lotus Sūtra is like the sun and the moon and the lotus flowers, it is called the Sūtra of the Lotus Flower of the Wonderful Dharma. I, Nichiren, am also like the sun and the moon and the lotus flowers. If you truly believe in the Lotus Sutra, you will be rewarded and protected by the Buddha so that you will have an easy delivery. It is said in the Lotus Sutra: “It is rare to meet this marvelous teaching,” and “If you believe in this, you will have an easy birth.”

Shijō Kingo Nyōbō Gosho, A Letter to the Wife of Shijō Kingo, Nyonin Gosho, Letters Addressed to Female Followers, Page 60

Daily Dharma

Daily Dharma – Jan. 7, 2020

If anyone speaks ill of you, or threatens you
With swords, sticks, tile-pieces or stones
While you are expounding this sūtra,
Think of me, and be patient!

The Buddha sings these verses to Medicine-King Bodhisattva in Chapter Ten of the Lotus Sūtra. By patience, the Buddha does not mean to toughen ourselves and allow others to harm us. The patience he speaks of allows to increase our capacity to handle the mental suffering that comes when others abuse us. If we keep in mind that nothing anyone does can remove the seed of Buddha nature that is within them, and remember that this seed is within all beings, we can treat even those who mean us harm with respect and compassion, rather than contempt and derision.

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

LS32

Day 30

Day 30 covers all of Chapter 26, Dhāraṇīs

Day 1 Text with annotationsPlay MP3

Having last month concluded Chapter 26, Dhāraṇīs, we begin again with Medicine-King Bodhisattva’s question:

Thereupon Medicine-King Bodhisattva rose front his seat, bared his right shoulder, joined his hands together towards the Buddha, and said to him:
“World-Honored One! How many merits will be given to the good men or women who keep, read, recite, understand or copy the Sūtra of the Lotus Flower of the Wonderful Dharma?”

The Buddha said to him:

“Suppose some good men or women make offerings to eight hundred billion nayuta Buddhas, that is, as many Buddhas as there are sands in the River Ganges. What do you think of this? Are the merits given to them many or not?”

“Very many, World-Honored One!”

The Buddha said: “More merits will be given to the good men or women who keep, read or recite· even a single gāthā of four lines of this sūtra, understand the meanings of it or act according to it.”

See The Workings of the Ten Rāksasis

2buddhas, LS32, d30b, WONS

The Workings of the Ten Rāksasis

Nichiren saw the workings of the ten rāksasis in the events surrounding him, both great and small. He saw their roles as protecting Lotus devotees, occasionally testing their faith, aiding their practice, relieving their sufferings, and chastising those who obstruct their devotion. To a follower, the lay monk Myōmitsu, he wrote: “The ten rāksasis in particular have vowed to protect those who embrace the daimoku of the Lotus Sūtra. Therefore they must think of you and your wife as a mother does her only child … and safeguard you day and night.” To two new parents, the samurai Shijō Kingo and his wife, Nichiren wrote that the ten rāksasis would watch over their infant daughter, so that “wherever she may frolic or play, no harm will come to her; she will ‘travel fearlessly, like a lion king’.” He saw the protection of the ten rāksasis in the kindness of an elderly lay monk on Sado Island who had come to his aid, helping him to survive in exile, and in the devotion of a woman who had made him a robe to shield him from the cold in the recesses of Mount Minobu. Their protection was further evident to him in the fact that he had been able to escape unscathed from an attack on his dwelling in Kamakura and survived other threats as well. To two brothers whose father had threatened to disinherit them on account of their faith in the Lotus Sūtra, he suggested: “Perhaps the ten rāksasis have possessed your parents and are tormenting you in order to test your resolve.” He also asserted that the ten rāksasis, along with other deities, had induced the Mongol ruler to attack Japan to chastise its people for abandoning the Lotus Sūtra.

Two Buddhas, p247
Kaleidoscope

The Buddha-way as Bodhisattva Practice

Quote

The way in which you and I can develop our buddha-nature is by following the Buddha-way, doing what buddhas have always done, namely, following the way of bodhisattva practice. It is absolutely central to the Lotus Sutra, I think, that Śākyamuni Buddha is, first of all, a bodhisattva. We are told that he has been doing bodhisattva practice, helping and leading others, for innumerable kalpas. Whenever the enormously long life of the Buddha is described, it is not meditation that he has been doing, at least not primarily, but teaching and leading and changing others, thus turning them into bodhisattvas.

Because all the living have various natures, various desires, various activities, various ideas and ways of making distinctions, and because I wanted to lead them to put down roots of goodness, I have used a variety of explanations, parables, and words and preach various teachings. Thus I have never for a moment neglected the Buddha’s work.

Thus it is, since I became Buddha a very long time has passed, a lifetime of unquantifiable asamkhyeya kalpas, of forever existing and never entering extinction. Good children, the lifetime which I have acquired pursuing the bodhisattva-way is not even finished yet, but will be twice the number of kalpas already passed.

But the Buddha and those with the title of bodhisattva are not the only bodhisattvas. Śrāvakas are also bodhisattvas. That is why there are plenty of them in every paradise, or paradiselike Buddha-land described in the Lotus Sutra. Most śrāvakas, of course, don’t know they are bodhisattvas, but they are nonetheless.

What you are practicing
[the Buddha says to the disciple Kāśyapa] Is the bodhisattva-way.
As you gradually practice and learn,
Every one of you should become a buddha.

And, of course, most importantly, you and I are bodhisattvas. No matter how tiny our understanding or merit, no matter how trivial our practice, we are, to some extent, perhaps tiny, already bodhisattvas. And we are called to grow in bodhisattvahood by leading others to realize that potential in themselves.
A Buddhist Kaleidoscope; Gene Reeves, Appropriate Means as the Ethics of the Lotus Sutra, Page 384-385

Lotus Seeds

The Mutual Possession of the Ten Worlds

Quote

The principle of the mutual possession of the Ten Worlds states that each of these Ten Worlds, or state’s of mind, contains all of the others within itself. They are not mutually exclusive. Despair, craving, impulsiveness, reasoning, pride, rapture, self­-discipline, insight, compassion, and awakening are all states of being that influence and even cause each other. For instance, we might experience great frustration driving to work through city traffic, but then become delighted the next moment when a favorite song comes on the radio, and listening to that song might lead to an insight about our own lives. This is just one example of an infinite number of combinations that we experience over the course of lifetimes, in the course of a single day, or even in a single moment. Though one or two states tend to predominate, they are all bound up in one another. The transformations between them are governed by the law of cause and effect.

Lotus Seeds

d20b, WONS

Escaping the Evil Realms Without Understanding the Lotus Sūtra

The Buddha preaches in “The Appearance of Bodhisattvas from Underground” of the Lotus Sūtra that those who doubt and do not believe in this sūtra will fall into the evil realms of hell, hungry spirits, and beasts. This means that all who have the ability of understanding but do not have faith in the Three Treasures will fall into the evil realms. Nevertheless, scholars today wonder how those who only have belief in the Three Treasures but cannot understand what the sūtra means are able to avoid falling into the evil realms by just chanting Namu Myōhō Renge Kyō. These scholars are those who will go down to the most terrible hell, according to the sūtra cited above. Therefore, people can escape the evil realms without understanding the sūtra perfectly as long as they chant Namu Myōhō Renge Kyō.

Hokke Daimoku Shō, Treatise on the Daimoku of the Lotus Sūtra, Writings of Nichiren Shōnin, Faith and Practice, Volume 4, Page 37

Daily Dharma

Daily Dharma – Jan. 6, 2020

Anyone who does not keep our spells
But troubles the expounder of the Dharma
Shall have his head split into seven pieces
Just as the branches of the arjaka-tree [are split].

The ten rakṣasī demons and Mother-of-Devils sing these verses in Chapter Twenty-Six of the Lotus Sūtra. They are among the many gods and other supernatural beings who vow to protect all those who keep and practice the Buddha Dharma. These verses help us to understand the nature of those who create harm in the world and to develop a heart of compassion towards them. The nature of delusion is that it sets up a world separate from the world we all share. It puts a barrier between us and the world out of fear that this world will harm us. The Buddha’s teachings show us how to develop the courage to live in harmony with this world, rather than splitting ourselves from it, and splitting ourselves in it.

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

LS32

Day 29

Day 29 covers all of Chapter 25, The Universal Gate of World-Voice-Perceiver Bodhisattva.

Day 29 Text with annotationsPlay MP3

Having last month considered how World-Voice-Perceiver Bodhisattva goes about this Sahā-World, we witness Endless-Intent Bodhisattva’s gift to World-Voice-Perceiver Bodhisattva.

The Endless-Intent Bodhisattva said to the Buddha, “World-Honored One! Now I will make an offering to World-Voice-Perceiver Bodhisattva.” From around his neck, he took a necklace of many gems worth hundreds of thousands of ryo of gold, and offered it [to the Bodhisattva], saying, “Man of Virtue! Receive this necklace of wonderful treasures! I offer this to you according to the Dharma!”

World-Voice-Perceiver Bodhisattva did not consent to receive it. Endless-Intent said to World-Voice-Perceiver Bodhisattva again, “Man of Virtue! Receive this necklace out of your compassion towards us!”

Thereupon the Buddha said to World-Voice-Perceiver Bodhisattva:

“Receive it out of your compassion towards this Endless-Intent Bodhisattva, towards the four kinds of devotees, and towards the other living beings including gods, dragons, yakṣas, gandharvas, asuras, garuḍas, kiṃnaras, mahoragas, men and nonhuman beings!”

Thereupon World-Voice-Perceiver Bodhisattva received the necklace out of his compassion towards the four kinds of devotees, and towards the other living beings including gods, dragons, men and nonhuman beings. He divided [the necklace] into two parts, and offered one part of it to Śākyamuni Buddha and the other to the stupa of Many-Treasures Buddha.

See Representing the Compassionate Workings Inherent in the Daimoku

2buddhas, LS32, d29b

Representing the Compassionate Workings Inherent in the Daimoku

[Given Avalokiteśvara’s] popularity, Nichiren occasionally sought to disengage Avalokiteśvara from a Pure Land context and assimilate him to the Lotus Sūtra. In one rather humorous passage, he depicts Avalokiteśvara and Mahāsthāmaprāpta, another bodhisattva attendant of Amitābha, as being utterly dismayed on hearing the Lotus Sūtra preached directly by Śākyamuni Buddha himself and learning that the teachings associated with Amitābha’s pure land were merely provisional. When Amitābha himself confirms this (since all buddhas assemble to testify to the Lotus Sūtra’s truth), Avalokiteśvara reflects that it would be pointless now to return to Amitābha’s land and instead joins the other eighty thousand bodhisattvas who are attending the Lotus assembly, “vowing in all sincerity to protect practitioners of the Lotus Sūtra as he, in the words of the ‘Avalokiteśvara’ chapter, ‘wanders throughout the Sahā world.’ ”

Some temples within the Nichiren tradition have incorporated Avalokiteśvara among the various protectors enshrined on their premises. In such cases, the bodhisattva is understood as representing the compassionate workings inherent in the daimoku of the Lotus Sūtra, Namu Myōhō-renge-kyō, and protecting its propagation.

Two Buddhas, p241-242