All posts by John Hughes

Daily Dharma

Daily Dharma – Dec. 26, 2019

They will expound the Dharma
Already taught by the past Buddhas.
Therefore, they will be fearless
Before the multitude.

The Buddha declares these lines to Constant-Endeavor Bodhisattva in Chapter Nineteen of the Lotus Sūtra, describing those who keep the Lotus Sūtra. By understanding fear, and demonstrating our fearlessness in this world of conflict, we can inspire and bring courage to other beings. One form of fear arises when we believe that we are in a situation that we cannot handle. This is simply a form of arrogance: believing that something is true when in reality we do not know that it is true. When the Buddha assures us who practice this Wonderful Dharma of the certainty of our future enlightenment, we then know how things will turn out. No matter what difficulties we find ourselves in, there are always more choices available to us. Often outcomes that seem horrible at the time can bring us more wisdom and compassion.

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

LS32

Day 18

Day 18 concludes Chapter 13, Encouragement for Keeping this Sutra, and begins Chapter 14, Peaceful Practices.

Day 18 Text with annotationsPlay MP3

Having last month concluded today’s portion of Chapter 13, Encouragement for Keeping this Sutra, we begin Chapter 14, Peaceful Practices and Mañjuśrī’s question.

Thereupon Mañjuśrī Bodhisattva-mahāsattvas, the Son of the King of the Dharma, said to the Buddha:

“World-Honored One! These Bodhisattvas are extraordinarily rare. They made a great vow to protect, keep, read, recite and expound this Sūtra of the Lotus Flower of the Wonderful Dharma in the evil world after your extinction because they are following you respectfully. World-Honored One! How should an [ordinary] Bodhisattva-mahāsattvas expound this sūtra in the evil world after [your extinction]?”

The Buddha said to him:

“A Bodhisattva-mahāsattvas who wishes to expound this sūtra in the evil world after [my extinction] should practice four sets of things.

“First, he should perform proper practices, approach proper things, and then expound this sūtra to all living beings.

See India vs. China’s perspective

2buddhas, LS32

India vs. China’s perspective

[W]hether or not one accepted the Mahāyāna sūtras as the Buddha’s word, it was widely acknowledged that they had appeared long after his passage into nirvāṇa (the period of four hundred years was often mentioned). For their opponents, the sūtras were newly composed; for their proponents, they were newly revealed to the world of humans, having – for example – been hidden and safeguarded for centuries by gods and nāgas.

Things were very different in East Asia. The Mahāyāna sūtras were already being produced when Buddhism first entered China. The Chinese, at least initially, had little sense of the historical progression of the tradition, of what had transpired over the previous four centuries. Under the circumstances, the Mahāyāna sūtras were particularly appealing. Their teachings of nonduality resonated with indigenous notions of an integrated, holistic cosmos, while the bodhisattva ideal paralleled Chinese philosophical notions of human perfectibility. And the Lotus Sūtra, said to have been the Buddha’s ultimate and final teaching, in which he explains his teaching method within the context of his traditional life story, came to hold a special prominence.

Two Buddhas, p14
Kaleidoscope

Realizing The Ideal Buddha-Land

Quote

For Nichiren, the inherence of the pure land in the present world was not merely a matter of philosophical or contemplative insight; when individuals realized enlightenment, he taught, their world would be materially transformed:

When all people throughout the land enter the one Buddha vehicle and the Wonderful Dharma [of the Lotus] alone flourishes, because the people all chant Namu Myōhō Renge-kyō as one, the wind will not thrash the branches nor the rain fall hard enough to break clods. The age will become like the reigns of [the Chinese sage kings] Yao and Shun. In the present life, inauspicious calamities will be banished, and people will obtain the art of longevity. When the principle becomes manifest that both persons and dharmas “neither age nor die,” then each of you, behold! There can be no doubt of the sutra’s promise of “peace and security in the present world.”

This passage points to both continuities and breaks between Nichiren’s teaching and broader, contemporaneous currents of Buddhist thought. Teachings about the nonduality of this world and the Buddha’s pure land, expressed in such terminology as “the sahā world is the land of ever-tranquil light (shaba soku jakkōdo)” or “worldly truth embodies ultimate reality (zokutai nishin),” formed a standard doctrinal feature of both Tendai and Shingon esoteric Buddhist traditions. Similarly, belief in the apotropaic powers of the Buddha-Dharma to ensure harmony with nature and prosperity in the social sphere also was a common assumption underlying the sponsorship of esoteric rites for nation protection (chingo kokka). Nichiren’s distinctive reading of these ideas derived from his “single-practice” stance: The ideal Buddha-land could be realized in this world, but only by exclusive faith in the Lotus Sutra.
A Buddhist Kaleidoscope; Jacqueline I. Stone, When Disobedience Is Filial and Resistance is Loyal: The Lotus Sutra and Social Obligations in the Medieval Nichiren Tradition, Page 263

Basics

The Triple Doctrine

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As a preliminary step for the uninformed or misinformed, the pleasure seeker as well as the misguided ascetic, the Buddha taught the triple doctrine: (1) if one gives to the poor and (2) observes the five precepts, (3) one can expect to be reborn in paradise.

Basic Buddhist Concepts

WONS

Practicers of the Lotus Sūtra

The Buddha Himself had His finger injured by Devadatta, and He met serious crises like this nine times during His lifetime. Wasn’t He a practicer of the Lotus Sūtra? Can’t we call Bodhisattva Fukyō (Never Despising) a practicer of the One Vehicle teaching of the Lotus Sūtra because he was despised and beaten? Venerable Maudgalyāyana was murdered by Brahmans armed with bamboo sticks. This occurred after he was assured that he would be a future Buddha in the Lotus Sūtra. Bodhisattva Kāṇadeva and Venerable Simha (Shishi Sonja), fourteenth and twenty-fifth patriarchs of Buddhism who transmitted the Buddha’s teaching, were both murdered. Were they not practicers of the Lotus? In China, Chu tao-sheng insisted that even an icchantika could attain Buddhahood and was banished to a temple in Su-chou; and Fa-tao was exiled to the south of the Yangtze River with his face branded with a hot iron rod when he remonstrated with the emperor against persecuting Buddhists. Were these monks not practicers of the Lotus Sūtra? Both Sugawara Michizane of Japan and Po Chü-i of China were banished because of their remonstration. Were they not worthy of being practicers of the Lotus Sūtra?

Kaimoku-shō, Open Your Eyes to the Lotus Teaching, Writings of Nichiren Shōnin, Doctrine 2, Page 103-104

Daily Dharma

Daily Dharma – Dec. 25, 2019

Just as a reflection is seen
In a clear mirror,
All things in the world will be reflected
On the pure body of this [person, that is, of this] Bodhisattva.
No one but he
Will be able to see all things clearly.

The Buddha declares these lines to Constant-Endeavor Bodhisattva in Chapter Nineteen of the Lotus Sūtra, describing those who keep the Lotus Sūtra. When we encounter other beings in this world of conflict, we tend to filter our experience through our expectation. If it is a friend, we expect them to care about us and treat us well; an enemy, to harm us and treat us badly; a stranger, we compare them to other beings like them and expect them to be the same. When we use the Buddha Dharma to look for the complexity of all beings, and look for how we can bring out their ability to benefit and protect others, then we reflect back to them their true natures, rather than the clouds of their delusions.

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

LS32

Day 17

Day 17 covers all of Chapter 12, Devadatta, and opens Chapter 13, Encouragement for Keeping this Sutra.

Day 17 Text with annotationsPlay MP3

Having last month greeted Mañjuśrī who has been teaching in the palace of the Dragon-King Sagara, we hear Accumulated-Wisdom Bodhisattva greet Mañjuśrī and Mañjuśrī tell of the skills of the dragon king’s daughter.

Thereupon Accumulated-Wisdom Bodhisattva praised him with gāthās:

Possessor of Great Wisdom and Virtue!
You were brave in saving innumerable living beings.
This great congregation and I understand
That you expounded
The truth of the reality of all things,
Revealed the teaching of the One Vehicle,
And led those innumerable living beings
[Into the Way] to Bodhi quickly.

Mañjuśrī said, “In the sea I expounded only the Sūtra of the Lotus Flower of the Wonderful Dharma.”

Accumulated-Wisdom asked Mañjuśrī:

“The sūtra is exceedingly profound and wonderful. This is the treasure of all the sūtras. It is rare in the world. Do you know anyone who acted according to this sūtra so strenuously that he has already been qualified to become a Buddha quickly?”

Mañjuśrī answered:

“Yes. There is a daughter of Dragon-King Sagara [among those whom I taught]. She is eight years old. She is clever. She knows the karmas of all living beings. She obtained dhārāṇis. She keeps all the treasury of the profound and hidden core expounded by the Buddhas. She entered deep into dhyāna-concentration, and understood all teachings. She aspired for Bodhi in a ksana, and reached the stage of irrevocability. She is eloquent without hindrance. She is compassionate towards all living beings just as a mother is towards her babe. She obtained all merits. Her thoughts and words are wonderful and great. She is compassionate, humble, gentle and graceful. She [has already been qualified to] attain Bodhi[, and to become a Buddha quickly].”

See ‘A Woman Who Embraces This Sūtra’

2buddhas, LS32, d17b

‘A Woman Who Embraces This Sūtra’

To be sure, Nichiren’s assertions about women’s realization of buddhahood tend to foreground the power of the Lotus Sūtra, rather than women’s capacity for buddhahood in and of itself. Unless women place faith in the Lotus, buddhahood lies beyond their reach. But because he believed that no one, male or female, could attain buddhahood through provisional teachings, his stance is hardly discriminatory. Nichiren’s core followers included several women whom, judging by his letters, he held in great respect. Unlike Śāriputra in the “Devadatta” chapter, and against notions of female pollution in his own time, Nichiren did not see the female body as filthy and on at least one occasion explicitly denied that menstrual blood is defiling. He also suggested that faith in the Lotus Sūtra might even in some sense subvert conventional gender hierarchy: “A woman who embraces this sūtra,” he wrote,” not only surpasses all other women but also surpasses all men.”

Two Buddhas, p157
Kaleidoscope

A Body and Its Shadow

Quote

In the influential Tendai Buddhist tradition from which Nichiren emerged, the moral unity of the individual and the world was schematized in terms of the “nonduality of dependent and primary [karmic] recompense” (eshō funi). In other words, the individual’s karma or actions – thoughts, words, and deeds – were thought to bear cumulative fruit in two simultaneous and interconnected modes: as the collection of physical and mental aggregates that form individual living beings, and as those individuals’ outer circumstances or container world. Thus the living subject and his or her objective world were held to be fundamentally inseparable – a relationship that Nichiren likened to that of a body and its shadow. Moreover, because all phenomena are from a Mahayana standpoint without independent substance, the ten realms of existence from hell to Buddhahood were said to interpenetrate, each of the ten realms encompassing the others within itself. Thus for one who achieves awakening, the present world is the Buddha’s pure land.
A Buddhist Kaleidoscope; Jacqueline I. Stone, When Disobedience Is Filial and Resistance is Loyal: The Lotus Sutra and Social Obligations in the Medieval Nichiren Tradition, Page 262-263