I have not read past the Author’s Introduction for Two Buddhas Seated Side by Side. I’m looking forward to reading this chapter-by-chapter introduction to the Lotus Sutra and Nichiren’s interpretation as part of my 32 Days of the Lotus Sutra.
Two Buddhas is written by Jacqueline I. Stone, Emeriti Faculty in the Department of Religion at Princeton University, and Donald S. Lopez Jr., the Arthur E. Link Distinguished University Professor of Buddhist and Tibetan Studies in the University of Michigan’s Department of Asian Languages and Cultures.
I have long admired Stone, whose Original Enlightenment and the Transformation of Medieval Japanese Buddhism, is a marvelous introduction to Nichiren Buddhism. She has edited or contributed to several anthologies of papers discussing the Lotus Sutra. Her fame was such that when the 100th Anniversary Celebration of the Nichiren Order in North America (NONA) was held in Los Angeles in June 2014, Stone was invited to lecture.
Lopez, however, is more of a mystery to me. His academic focus is Tibetan Buddhism, and his University of Michigan biography does not mention the Lotus Sutra. Lopez’s lack of specialization in the Lotus Sutra is underscored by his book The Lotus Sutra A Biography, which I read back in February.
Maybe when I finish Two Buddhas I will better appreciate why Lopez gets top billing here. For now, I want to revisit his Biography of the Lotus Sutra and address two points that cause me to be wary of his influence in Two Buddhas.
First, his opening introduction to Biography:
It must have been the spring of 1972. I was in my sophomore year at the University of Virginia. A friend told me that his roommate had invited a Buddhist teacher to come over from Richmond to give a talk at their apartment in town. I decided to go along. I knew nothing about Buddhism. I was taking a course on Hinduism at the time and understood that Buddhism was somehow like Hinduism. In those days, people still used phrases such as “Oriental philosophy” and “Eastern mysticism” to subsume the various religious traditions of Asia in a single category. When I arrived at my friend’s apartment that night, I was surprised to find that the Buddhist teacher was a white guy, a distinctively unhip white guy. He looked like Matt Foley, the motivational speaker played by Chris Farley on Saturday Night Live. He was dressed in a plaid sport coat, with a white shirt and narrow tie. He wore glasses, and he had short, thinning hair, greased back. He was relatively tall, heavyset, probably in his early fifties. A short Japanese woman was with him, apparently his wife. He gave a brief talk, which I cannot remember. I noticed that in the corner of the room, there was a wooden cabinet sitting on a coffee table. It was about two feet tall. He opened two little doors, and there was a small statue of the Buddha inside. To my amazement, the man got down on his knees, joined his palms together, and started chanting something. We were all supposed to chant along with him. I did not know what it meant or even what language it was.
Later, tea and cookies were served. A guy walked up to me; he was probably in his mid-twenties, someone who had come over from Richmond. He was dressed in the standard uniform of the day, a blue work shirt and bell-bottom jeans. He started telling me about the wonders of chanting. He said, “I was walking down the street the other day, chanting to myself. I happened to look down at the sidewalk, and—I don’t know whether you’re into this, man—I found an ounce of hash.” (Only years later did I learn that Chapter Five of the Lotus Sūtra is called “Medicinal Herbs.”)
The white guy in the sport coat was the first Buddhist I ever met. I guess I was expecting something more exotic, perhaps a shaved head and long robes. I didn’t know that a Buddhist could look like Willy Loman, carrying in his cases a cabinet with a Buddha inside. I now know that the incomprehensible words that he was chanting were Namu Myōhō Renge Kyō, Japanese for “Homage to the Lotus Sūtra.” Millions of Americans would hear Tina Turner chant the phrase on Larry King Live on February 21, 1997.
Lopez is about six months younger than me, according to his university biography. In the Spring of 1972, I was floating in the Gulf of Tonkin aboard the USS Midway, working 7 at night to 7 in the morning in maintenance administration for an F-4 fighter squadron. We both had to decide what to do about the Vietnam War draft. I admit that’s more a curiosity and not germane, but for me it’s a filter that colors my view of what he says.
Anyway, Lopez makes clear he believes he was at a meeting of Nichiren followers, most likely an early Nichiren Shoshu of America propagation effort long before the days of an independent Soka Gakkai International. I make this assumption because, as far as I know, no one else was propagating the teachings of Nichiren in such a way at that time in America.
But if this was a Nichiren Shoshu – or any other Nichiren sect – meeting, that wooden cabinet on a coffee table would not have contained a “small statue of the Buddha inside.” Nichiren Shoshu does not allow any statues, even ones of Nichiren, on altars and certainly not in home shrines. For Nichiren Shu, a solitary Buddha is not an object of worship because it is important to ensure that people understand that this treasure is the eternal Śākyamuni as revealed in the 16th Chapter of the Lotus Sutra. Two Buddhas seated side by side with the Daimoku between is one example of how Śākyamuni can be represented in temples and home shrines. Is this “small Buddha” a case of Lopez’s Tibetan studies bleeding into the dim recollection of a meeting during his sophomore year at the University of Virginia?
Beyond that, Lopez’s use of the tale of the guy who found some hash on the sidewalk and took it as a reward for his practice of chanting Namu Myōhō Renge Kyō underscores everything wrong with the Nichiren Shoshu/Soka Gakkai focus on using the Daimoku as a wish-granting gem. Lopez’s reference to Chapter 5 of the Lotus Sutra, “Medicinal Herbs,” in this context is an unwanted effort at humor.
My other complaint with Lopez’s Biography of the Lotus Sutra was his use of a tale he said came from the Dainihonkoku hokekyōkenki. He retells this story:
In one story, a monk memorizes the first twenty-five chapters of the Lotus but, despite repeated efforts, is unable to memorize the final three. He eventually learns in a dream that in a previous life he had been a grasshopper who perched in a temple room where a monk was reciting the sūtra. After reciting the first seven scrolls of the sūtra (which contain the first twenty-five chapters), the monk rested before beginning the final roll. He leaned against the wall and inadvertently killed the grasshopper. The grasshopper was reborn as a human as a result of the merit he received from hearing the first twenty-five chapters of the Lotus. When he became a monk, however, he was unable to memorize the final three chapters because he, as the grasshopper, had died before he heard them. (Page 79-80)
I want to thank Lopez for mentioning this book. I purchased the English translation of the Miraculous Tales of the Lotus Sutra from Ancient Japan and used its tales of the Lotus Sutra in my 32 Days of the Lotus Sutra practice. I was so impressed with the tale of the monk who in a past life was a grasshopper that I purchased a framed photo of a grasshopper on a lotus flower.
But there is no story of a monk who was a grasshopper in a past life anywhere in the Dainihonkoku hokekyōkenki translation. I purchased Nihon ryōiki, which contains a collection of stories gathered by a monk named Kyōkai, thinking perhaps the earlier stories included the grasshopper monk. Still no story.
So where did this tale come from? There are plenty of stories about monks who in past lives were animals. See Priest Renson A Hokekyo Reciter of Twenty-Seven Chapters. Was this another attempt at humor?
In the end, I’m wary of Lopez’s influence on Two Buddhas Seated Side by Side, but I’m excited about the opportunity to use this book in my daily practice.
See the conclusion of Apocryphal Text.
Viśiṣṭacaritra is a Bodhisattva who is predicted to appear in this impure world in what was termed lawlessness (Mappō in Japanese) two thousand years following Buddha’s passing. Here, in compliance with the spirit of the sage, Śākyamuni, this Bodhisattva is to undertake Buddhist austerities armed with the Lotus Sutra. However, in this sutra it also explains that without fail persecution will be encountered while propagating and teaching the Lotus Sutra in this age of degeneration. It is in the face of this oppression that resolution must not waver, even to the extent of martyrdom, so that teaching of the Lotus Sutra can be carried out. In compliance with this prediction of the Lotus Sutra, Saint Nichiren was born at the beginning of the age of lawlessness (Mappō) during the Kamakura-Era (1185-1333). In preaching this text he suffered repented persecution and at one stage almost became a martyr in its cause. Finally, it was in his pursuit of the course expounded in the Lotus Sutra that Saint Nichiren attained the realization that he was in fact Viśiṣṭacaritra Bodhisattva.
Since ancient times a genre of art called emakimono, in which biographies of individuals and narrative tales were presented in picture and written form, has existed in Japan. This book, following the traditional Japanese method, illustrates the biography of St. Nichiren, founder of the Nichiren-shu (sect) of Buddhism. An explanation of the scenes is also included.
