All posts by John Hughes

LS32

Day 31

Day 31 covers Chapter 27, King Wonderful-Adornment as the Previous Life of a Bodhisattva.

Day 31 Text with annotationsPlay MP3

Having last month heard Cloud-Thunderpeal-Star-King-Flower-Wisdom Buddha’s prediction for King Wonderful-Adornment, we consider the king’s reaction and the role of the two sons.

“Thereupon the king abdicated from the throne in favor of his younger brother, renounced the world, and with his wife, two sons, and attendants, practiced the Way under that Buddha. After he renounced the world, the king acted according to the Sūtra of the Lotus Flower of the Wonderful Dharma constantly and strenuously for eighty-four thousand years. Then he practiced the samādhi for the adornment of all pure merits. Then he went up to the sky seven times as high as the tala-tree, and said to that Buddha, ‘World-Honored One! These two sons of mine did the work of the Buddha. They converted me from wrong views by displaying wonders. They caused me to dwell peacefully in your teachings. They caused me to see you. These two sons of mine are my teachers. They appeared in my family in order to benefit me. They inspired the roots of good which I had planted in my previous existence.’

“Thereupon Cloud-Thunderpeal-Star-King-Flower-Wisdom Buddha said to King Wonderful-Adornment, ‘So it is, so it is. It is just as you say. The good men or women who plant the roots of good will obtain teachers in their successive lives. The teachers will do the work of the Buddha, show the Way [to them], teach them, benefit them, cause them to rejoice, and cause them to enter into the Way to Anuttara-samyak-saṃbodhi. Great King, know this! A teacher is a great cause [of your enlightenment] because he leads you, and causes you to see a Buddha and aspire for Anuttara-samyak-saṃbodhi. Great King! Do you see these two sons of yours, or not? They made offerings to six trillion and five hundred thousand billion Buddhas, that is, as many Buddhas as there are sands in the River Ganges, in their previous existence. They attended on those Buddhas respectfully. They kept the Sūtra of the Lotus Flower of the Wonderful Dharma under those Buddhas, and caused the people of wrong views to have right views out of their compassion towards them.

See The Importance of Family Relations in Promoting Faith

2buddhas, LS32, d31b

The Importance of Family Relations in Promoting Faith

Nichiren regarded King Śubhavyūha [King Wonderful-Adornment] as an example of an “evil man” attaining buddhahood through the power of the Lotus Sūtra. He often referenced this chapter in letters to his followers to stress the importance of family relations in promoting faith and to assuage the anxieties they sometimes felt about the postmortem fate of their deceased parents or children. One example occurs in a letter to his follower Jōren-bō, whose father had been a follower of Hōnen’s Pure Land teaching. Jōren-bō was presumably anxious about what karmic retribution his father would incur in his next life. Indeed, Nichiren says, those who support teachers who slander the dharma, such as Hōnen and other Pure Land teachers, must fall into the Avici hell. In this case, however, the father will surely be saved by the son’s devotion. He writes: “A ruler’s mind is broadened by his minister, and parents’ pain is eased by their children. Maudgalyāyana saved his mother from the sufferings of the realm of hungry ghosts, and the sons Vimalagarbha and Vimalanetra persuaded their father to rectify his false views. … The merit that you have acquired by embracing the Lotus Sūtra will become your father’s strength.”

Two Buddhas, p251
Kaleidoscope

In the Lotus Sutra Everything Matters

Quote

Use of the notion of emptiness (śūnya or śūnyāta) is not much in the Lotus Sutra. Of course, all things are empty. But undue emphasis on emptiness can too easily become a kind of nihilism in which nothing matters. In the Lotus Sutra everything matters.

The Buddha works to save all beings. Even 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 he later became the Buddha Śākyamuni!
A Buddhist Kaleidoscope; Gene Reeves, The Lotus Sutra as Radically World-affirming, Page 195

WONS

Call Yourself a Disciple of Nichiren

If you pass away before I, call yourself a disciple of Nichiren, the foremost practicer of the Lotus Sūtra in Japan, in front of the King of the Brahman Heaven, Indra, the Four Great Heavenly Kings, King Yama, and so forth. They will not treat you carelessly.

Nanjō Hyōe Shichirō-dono Gosho, A Letter to Lord Nanjō Hyōe Shichirō, Writings of Nichiren Shōnin, Doctrine 3, Pages 146.

WONS

Two Different Kinds of Hell

Two different kinds of hell exist beneath the earth. The first is a hell of flame; the fire of this hell is like molten iron, which ignites charcoal, burns fields, and consumes all things. To burn sinners in such a fire is simple, exactly like throwing paper or wood chips into a bonfire. Those who commit arson-robbery, who attack their enemies with fire, or women whose hearts burn with jealousy fall into this flaming hell and must suffer the intense heat.

The second kind of hell is a hell of ice. There are eight hells of ice as explained by the Nirvana Sutra: “Eight hells of ice and cold exist. They are the Ahaha Hell, the Atata Hell, the Arara Hell, the Ababa Hell, the Ubara Hell, the Hazuma Hell, the Kumozu Hell, and the Fundari Hell.” The names of the eight hells of ice and cold arise from sinners’ different screams of pain and their different skin colors caused by the cold. The bitter cold of these hells is like the north wind of Lake Suwa in Shinano Province (Nagano Prefecture) or on Mount Tateyama in Etchū Province (Toyama Prefecture). Imagine the intense cold which causes the birds atop Mount Hakusan of Kaga Province (Ishikawa Prefecture) to huddle with their wings folded. Imagine the lonely cold of the widow’s feet. Imagine the desperate cold of the pheasant, forced down and surrounded by snow. Having to endure the cold, the sinners shiver with their chins chattering, and they say, “ahaha, atata, arara.” The cold causes the sinners’ skins to turn red, a condition called “red lotus” or “great red lotus.”

Those who fall into this hell are those who steal clothes, or who warm themselves while their parents or teachers suffer from the cold in this life.

Otā-dono Nyōbō Go-henji, A Response to the Wife of Lord, Nyonin Gosho, Letters Addressed to Female Followers, Page 144-146

Daily Dharma

Daily Dharma – Dec. 4, 2019

Thereupon Cloud-Thunderpeal-Star-King-Flower-Wisdom Buddha said to King Wonderful-Adornment, ‘So it is, so it is. It is just as you say. The good men or women who plant the roots of good will obtain teachers in their successive lives. The teachers will do the work of the Buddha, show the Way [to them], teach them, benefit them, cause them to rejoice, and cause them to enter into the Way to Anuttara-samyak-saṃbodhi (Perfect Enlightenment). Great King, know this! A teacher is a great cause [of your enlightenment] because he leads you, and causes you to see a Buddha and aspire for Anuttara-samyak-saṃbodhi.

These lines are part of a story told by the Buddha in Chapter Twenty-Seven of the Lotus Sūtra. The Buddha uses this story to remind us of how much benefit we get from our teachers. When we see the world with the eyes of the Buddha, and know that he is always thinking of how to lead us, we can find innumerable teachers, and know to show our gratitude to them.

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 30 Text with annotationsPlay MP3

Having last month met the ten rākṣasas and the Mother-Of-Devils and her children and attendants, we conclude Chapter 26, Dhāraṇīs.

The Buddha said to the rākṣasas:

“Excellent, excellent! Your merits will be immeasurable even when you protect the person who keeps only the name of the Sūtra of the Lotus Flower of the Wonderful Dharma. Needless to say, so will be your merits when you protect the person who keeps the sūtra itself, and makes to a copy of this sūtra hundreds of thousands of offerings such as flowers, incense, necklaces, powdered incense, incense applicable to the skin, incense to burn, streamers, canopies, music, and various lamps like lamps of butter oil, oil lamps, lamps of perfumed oil, lamps of sumanas-flower oil, lamps of campaka flower oil, lamps of vārṣika-flower oil, and lamps of utpala-flower oil. Kunti! You [rākṣasas] and your attendants should protect this teacher of the Dharma.”

When the Buddha expounded this chapter of Dhārānis, sixty-eight thousand people obtained the truth of birthlessness.

See The Protection of the Ten Rāksasis

2buddhas, LS32, d30b, WONS

The Protection of the Ten Rāksasis

Nichiren’s own writings … give less attention to Kishimojin than to the ten rāksasis, whom he mentions more than fifty times. Unlike such bodhisattvas as Bhaiṣajyarāja, Gadgadasvara, and Avalokiteśvara of the immediately preceding chapters, whom he understood to have been active chiefly in the True Dharma and Semblance Dharma ages, the ten demon women were, in Nichiren’s understanding, presently active on behalf of Lotus devotees and devising plans to facilitate the sūtra’s spread. Toward the end of the present chapter, the Buddha praises them, saying, “Splendid, splendid! You protect those who preserve the name of the Lotus Sūtra! Your merit is immeasurable.” In the sūtra, the Buddha goes on to say that the merit of protecting those who serve the sūtra in various other ways is greater still. For Nichiren, however, the passage just quoted underscored the overriding importance of the daimoku:

QUESTION: What proof is there that one should embrace the name of the Lotus Sūtra, in particular, in the same way that people embrace the name of a buddha?

ANSWER: The sūtra states, “The Buddha said to the rāksasis, ‘Splendid, splendid! You protect those who preserve the name of the Lotus Sūtra! Your merit is immeasurable’ (322). This passage means that, when the ten rāksasis vowed to protect those who embrace the title of the Lotus Sūtra, the world-honored one of great enlightenment praised them, saying, “Splendid! Splendid! The merit you will receive for protecting those who accept and uphold Namu Myōhō-renge-kyō will be incalculable and marvelous!” This passage implies that, whether walking, standing, sitting, or lying down, we living beings should chant Namu Myōhō-renge-kyō.

Elsewhere, Nichiren interprets the same sūtra passage to stress the unfathomable benefits of the chanting the daimoku: “This merit [deriving from the vow of the ten rāksasis] to protect those who embrace the daimoku of the Lotus Sūtra is beyond even the reach of the buddha wisdom, which perfectly comprehends the past, present, and future. One might think that nothing could exceed the grasp of the buddha wisdom, but the Buddha here declares that the merit accruing from accepting and upholding the daimoku of the Lotus Sūtra is the one thing alone that it cannot fathom.”

Two Buddhas, p245-246
Kaleidoscope

The Embodied Dharma

Quote

The Dharma can be found embodied in concrete teachings, including actions which are instructive, just as the Buddha can be found embodied — in Śākyamuni, and in you and me.

Thus Lotus Sutra Buddhism is radically world-affirming. This sahā (suffering) world is Śākyamuni Buddha’s world. It is in this world that he is a bodhisattva and encourages us to be bodhisattvas. This world is our home, and it is the home of Śākyamuni Buddha precisely because he is embodied, not only as the historical Buddha, but as the buddha-nature in all things.

Thus, ordinary things, including ourselves and our neighbors, are not primarily to be seen as empty, though they are; not primarily to be seen as phenomenal, though they are; not primarily to be seen as illusions, though in one sense they are; not primarily to be seen as evil even though they may be in part. It is in dharmas (things/”conventional” existence) that the Dharma is. It is in transient, changing things that the Buddha is. All things are, therefore, to be treated with insight and compassion and respect.
A Buddhist Kaleidoscope; Gene Reeves, The Lotus Sutra as Radically World-affirming, Page 194-195

WONS

The Way of Sages and Wise Men

Filial devotion preached in Confucianism is limited to this life. Confucian sages and wise men exist in name only because they do not help parents in their future lives. Non-Buddhist religions in India know of the past as well as the future, but they do not know how to help parents. Only Buddhism is worthy of being the way of sages and wise men, as it helps parents in future lives. However, both the Mahāyāna and Hinayāna sūtras expounded before the Lotus Sūtra preach Buddhahood in name only, without substance. Therefore the practicers of such sūtras will not be able to obtain Buddhahood even for themselves, not to speak of helping parents obtain Buddhahood. Now coming to the Lotus Sūtra, when the enlightenment of women was revealed, the enlightenment of mothers was realized; and when a man as wicked as Devadatta could attain Buddhahood, the enlightenment of fathers was realized. These are the two proclamations of the Buddha in the “Devadatta” chapter, and this is the reason why the Lotus Sūtra is the sūtra of the filial way among all the Buddhist scriptures.

Kaimoku-shō, Open Your Eyes to the Lotus Teaching, Writings of Nichiren Shōnin, Doctrine 2, Page 91