All posts by John Hughes

WONS

Blue Lotus Flowers

[T]he lotus flowers, the namesake of the Lotus Sūtra, are the greatest of the panaceas. An evil king Virūḍhaka in ancient India murdered more than 500 women who were close to the Buddha. The Buddha sent his disciple Ānanda to Mt. Himalaya to get a blue lotus flower, with which He touched the murdered women, thereby they were resuscitated and reborn in the Trāyastriṃsá Heaven seven days later. The lotus flowers are so wonderful that the Buddha likened them to the Wonderful Dharma.

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

===

Daily Dharma

Daily Dharma – Dec. 24, 2019

Therefore, anyone who has wisdom should copy this sūtra with all his heart, cause others to copy it, and also keep, read and recite it, memorize it correctly, and act according to it.

The Buddha declares this to Universal-Sage Bodhisattva in Chapter Twenty-Eight of the Lotus Sūtra. It is important to remember that early in the sūtra, the Buddha explained that he teaches only Bodhisattvas, beings who exist for the benefit of all beings. Our practice of the Lotus Sūtra is not just for ourselves. When we use it to lead others to enlightenment, we create the cause for our own enlightenment.

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

LS32

Day 16

Day 16 concludes Chapter 11, Beholding the Stūpa of Treasures, and completes the Fourth Volume of the Sūtra of the Lotus Flower of the Wonderful Dharma.

Day 16 Text with annotationsPlay MP3

Having last month heard the Buddha ask the great multitude: Who will protect and keep this sūtra, and read and recite it after my extinction?, we compare difficult and easy tasks.

Good men! Think this over clearly!
It is difficult
[To expound this sūtra].
Make a great vow to do this!

It is not difficult
To expound all the other sūtras
As many as there are sands
In the River Ganges.

It is not difficult
To grasp Mt. Sumeru
And hurl it to a distance
Of countless Buddha-worlds.

It is not difficult to move [a world]
[Composed of] one thousand million Sumeru-worlds
With the tip of a toe
And hurl it to another world.

It is not difficult
To stand in the Highest Heaven
And expound innumerable other sūtras
To all living beings.

It is difficult
To expound this sūtra
In the evil world
After my extinction.

See Nine Easy and Six Difficult Acts

2buddhas, LS32, d16b

Nine Easy and Six Difficult Acts

In the concluding verse section of this chapter, now seated in midair within the jeweled stūpa beside Prabhūtaratna, Śākyamuni Buddha again stresses how difficult it will be to uphold the Lotus Sūtra after his passing, setting forth the analogy of what Nichiren summarized as the “nine easy and six difficult acts.” There is some irony in this term; the “nine easy acts” are virtually impossible. They involve either extraordinary physical feats, such as placing the earth on one’s toe and ascending with it to the heavens of Brahmā, or teaching incalculable numbers of sentient beings by means of provisional teachings, leading them to lesser attainments than buddhahood, such as arhatship or the six supernormal powers. In contrast, the “six difficult acts” all entail the practice of the true teaching, the Lotus Sūtra, in the troubled world after the Buddha’s passing. The six acts are: (1) to teach the Lotus Sūtra; (2) to copy it, or cause others to copy it; (3) to recite it, even for a short while; (4) to teach it to even one other person; (5) to hear and accept it, and inquire about its meaning; and (6) to preserve it. The compilers of the Lotus Sūtra may have sought to ensure the Lotus Sūtra’s survival into the future by showing that the Buddha himself praised the heroism of those who would brave any adversity to uphold it after he was gone from the world.

Two Buddhas, p146-147
Kaleidoscope

Chih-i’s Affirmation of Phenomenal Existence

Quote

Chih-i affirms that the phenomenal entities do provisionally (dependently) exist; simultaneously empty and dependently arising, their interpenetrating existence is a positive phenomenon, a reality that while not independent of conceptual activity is not merely the groundless correlate of conceptual acts. Chih-i’s affirmation of phenomenal existence is intimated by the Lotus Sutra’s elaborate descriptions of the wonder of the Buddha realm. This realm of the Buddha, filled with gardens of jewel trees, magnificent towers and halls, incense and music, is not a pure land beyond this world but the realm of phenomenal existence itself seen in its truth. In contrast to the Prajn͂āpāramitā sūtras, which emphasize the illusory nature of the phenomenal realm, the Lotus Sutra celebrates its “true aspect” with a profusion of concrete images.
A Buddhist Kaleidoscope; Susan Mattis, Chih-i and the Subtle Dharma of the Lotus Sutra: Emptiness or Buddha-nature?, Page 256

Daily Dharma

Daily Dharma – Dec. 23, 2019

They will see the reality of all things.
Knowing the position [of this sūtra in the series of sūtras],
And the names and words [of this sūtra], according to the meanings of it,
They will expound [this sūtra] as they understand it.

The Buddha sings these verses to Constant-Endeavor Bodhisattva in Chapter Nineteen of the Lotus Sūtra, describing those who keep the Lotus Sūtra. In our practice of the Wonderful Dharma, we may be able to enjoy the circumstances of being able to spend lots of time studying the Lotus Sūtra and the guidance given by our leader in this age of degeneration, Nichiren Shonin. But even if we do not have that luxury of time, as long as we remember how the Lotus Sūtra uses expedients to lead all beings to enlightenment, that the goal of this sūtra is not just to end suffering, we can teach it using our own capacities, however limited those may be. Each word of the sūtra is an embodiment of the Buddha. When we share these words with others, we share the Buddha.

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

LS32

Day 15

Day 15 concludes Chapter 10, The Teacher of the Dharma, and opens Chapter 11, Beholding the Stūpa of Treasures.

Day 15 Text with annotationsPlay MP3

Having last month considered the reaction of the four kinds of devotees to the arrival of the Stupa of Treasures, we conclude today’s portion of Chapter 11, Beholding the Stūpa of Treasures.

Thereupon Great-Eloquence Bodhisattva, resorting to the supernatural powers of [Śākyamuni] Tathāgata, said to him, “World-Honored One! We wish to see that Buddha.”

The Buddha said to Great-Eloquence Bodhisattva-mahāsattvas:

“Many-Treasures Buddha made another great vow: ‘If a Buddha wishes to show me to the four kinds of devotees when my stūpa of treasures appears before him in order that l may be able to hear the Sūtra of the Lotus Flower of the Wonderful Dharma [directly from him], he must call back all the Buddhas of his replicas who will be expounding the Dharma in the worlds of the ten quarters at that time. Then I will show myself [to the four kinds of devotees].’ Great-Eloquence! Now I will collect the Buddhas of my replicas who are now expounding the Dharma in the worlds of the ten quarters.”

Great-Eloquence said to him, “World-Honored One! We also wish to see the Buddhas of your replicas, bow to them, and make offerings to them.”

Thereupon the Buddha emitted a ray of light from the white curls [between his eyebrows, and faced the east]. The congregation saw the Buddhas of five hundred billion nayuta worlds, that is, as many worlds as there are sands in the River Ganges, in the east. The ground of those worlds was made of crystal. Those worlds were adorned with jeweled trees and garments, and filled with many thousands of billions of Bodhisattvas. Jeweled curtains were stretched and jeweled nets were hung over those worlds, where the Buddhas were expounding the Dharma with loud and wonderful voices. The congregation also saw that many thousands of billions of Bodhisattvas, with whom those worlds were filled, were expounding the Dharma to the living beings of those worlds.

The Buddha also illumined the worlds of the south, west, north, the four intermediate quarters, zenith, and nadir, with rays of light emitted from the white curls [between his eyebrows]. The worlds of those quarters looked like those of the east.

See The Buddha Realm Within Oneself

2buddhas, LS32, d16b

The Buddha Realm Within Oneself

We have already touched on how, in part under the influence of the esoteric Buddhist teachings, medieval Tendai notions of practice and attainment shifted from a linear model of practice, in which one gradually cultivates merit and wisdom, striving for buddhahood as a future goal, to what one might call a timeless or “mandalic” model, in which buddhahood is revealed in the very act of faith and practice. Medieval Tendai texts sometimes express this conceptual shift with the phrase, “The assembly on Sacred Vulture Peak is still awesomely present and has not yet dispersed.” Just as enlightenment was redefined as accessible in the present, so the assembly of the Lotus Sūtra where the two buddhas sat side by side in the jeweled stūpa came to be represented not as an event in the distant past, but as still ongoing. Some medieval Tendai writings identify this ever-present Lotus assembly with the liberating discernment of the three thousand realms in a single thought-moment, or more specifically, of the buddha realm within oneself.

Two Buddhas, p144-145
Kaleidoscope

Ultimate Truth of the Phenomenal Realm

Quote

In the Profound Meaning of the Lotus Sutra, Chih-i reminds his audience that the “mind” in no way differs from all other dharmas and is singled out as the object of contemplation only because it is closest to us. (p.197)

Every dharma, contemplated in its ultimate truth, reveals itself as pervading all phenomena. Most significantly, the ordinary moment of consciousness encompasses all dharmas: “All one can say is that the mind is all dharmas and that all dharmas are the mind.” We are now in a better position to understand how the image of Śākyamuni in the Lotus Sutra represents the ultimate truth of the phenomenal realm, the Buddha-nature. From Chih-i’s standpoint, the depiction of the all-pervading Śākyamuni does not figure a “pure” consciousness that is devoid of conceptuality and its objects and simultaneously the ground of phenomenal existence; it is rather an image of the “true aspect” of the phenomena themselves, the ordinary dharmas that are at once empty and provisionally existent, each encompassing the totality and therefore both “one” and “many.” This ultimate truth of the phenomenal realm is the “Middle Way” that Chih-i refers to as the resplendent realm of the Buddha which is “eternal, blissful, selfhood and pure.” The ultimate truth may be identified as the cause of Buddhahood or the Buddha-nature (tathāgata-garbha) because it is the identity of one’s own mind with this truth which makes the realization of the truth and the attainment of Buddhahood possible. However, it must be stressed that the Buddha-nature for Chih-i is not the transcendent pure mind of the Tathāgata-garbha sutras, but simply the “true aspect” of the moment of ordinary consciousness and of all phenomena.
A Buddhist Kaleidoscope; Susan Mattis, Chih-i and the Subtle Dharma of the Lotus Sutra: Emptiness or Buddha-nature?, Page 255-256

WONS

Don’t Give Up the Lotus Sūtra

If those of high rank reproach you, view them as formidable enemies of the Lotus Sūtra. Consider the opportunity as rare as seeing an udumbara that blooms only once in 1,000 years or a blind turtle by chance encountering a log floating in the ocean and respond with confidence. Even a person who possesses a huge fief as large as 1,000 or 10,000 chō may have his land confiscated and lose his life over a small matter. If you must lay down your life for the sake of the Lotus Sūtra, have no regrets. Once Bodhisattva Medicine King practiced Buddhism by burning his own body for as long as 1,200 years before becoming a Buddha. King Suzudan allowed his body to be Asita’s seat for 1,000 years and served him. With those merits, he became the Śākyamuni we know Buddha today.

Therefore, make no mistake. If you give up the Lotus Sūtra now, you will become a laughing stock.

Ueno-dono Gohenji, A Reply to Lord Ueno, Writings of Nichiren Shōnin, Faith and Practice, Volume 4, Page 113