Category Archives: Books

Books

Selected Quotes

Here you will find books that I have purchased – sometimes more than once and in multiple formats – and read. Included on this website are extensive quotes I’ve taken from these books. I’ve done this for my own use as a way of helping me remember. (Anyone under 60 will just have to take my word for it.) If you don’t own one of these books, you are strongly encouraged to purchase it. Each book is linked to a website where it can be purchased.

If you wish to dwell in the enlightenment of the Buddha,
And to obtain the self-originating wisdom,
Make offerings strenuously to the keeper
Of the Sutra of the Lotus Flower of the Wonderful Dharma!

If you wish to obtain quickly the knowledge
Of the equality and differences of all things,
Keep this sutra, and also make offerings
To the keeper of this sutra!

Chapter 10, The Teacher of the Dharma

 

Buying these books says, Thank you! to the people who worked to make this information available.

Lotus Sutra Practice Guide bookcover
The Magic City Book Cover
Nichiren The Buddhist Prophet bookcover
History of Japanese Religion bookcover
Awakening to the Lotus bookcover
Physicians Good Medicine bookcover
Lotus Path: Practicing the Lotus Sutra bookcover
Odaimoku bookcover
Lotus World bookcover
Lotus in a Sea of Flames bookcover
Lotus Seeds bookcover
Lecture on the Lotus Sutra bookcover
The Doctrine of Nichiren bookcover
Nichiren, Leader of Buddhist Reformation in Japan bookcover
Spring Writings bookcover
Summer Writings
Basic Buddhist Concepts
Buddha Seed book cover
book cover
book cover
Questions and Answers book cover
A Phrase A Day
The Beginnings of Buddhism
ProfoundMeaningBookCover
orig_enlightenment_bookcover
Lotus Sutra a Biography book cover
saicho-bookcover
Two Buddhas Bookcover
kaleidoscope-cover
BuddhismForToday cover
OpenYourEyes-bookcover
Stories of the Lotus Sutra book cover
dhammapada_cover
Lotus Sutra in Japanese Culture bookcover
shodaigyo_bookcover
peaceful-action-open-heart-bookcover
tien-tai-philosophy
six perfections book
easy-readings-cover
FireInTheLotus-cover
Source Elements of the Lotus Sutra
HisotryTeachingsNichirenBuddhism-bookcover
OnTheOpeningOfTheEyes-bookcover-web
Life and Soul of Buddhism
Important Matters bookcover
Michael Carrithers The Buddha
Lifetime Beginner bookcover
bdkt_collected_teachings_tendai_lotus-bookcover
Petzold book cover
satomi-bookcover-web
Shingyo Hikkei
Vision of Buddhism bookcover
nattier-once-upon-bookcover
dollarhide-nichiren-senji-sho-bookcover
article cover
A Few Good Men: The Bodhisattva Path according to The Inquiry of Ugra
legge-record-of-buddhistic-kingdoms
concise-history-buddhism-bookcover
asvaghosa-life-of-the-buddha
asvaghosa-handsome-nanda
what-the-buddha-taught-bookcover

Suggest a book

Buddha Taught, Blog, Books

What the Buddha Taught

what-the-buddha-taught-bookcoverIn 1959 Walpola Sri Rahula published a concise summary of the teachings of the Buddha. The Rev. Dr. Rahula, 1907-1997, was a trained Buddhist monk in Sri Lanka. As explained by Paul Demieville in the Foreword:

The book … is a luminous account, within reach of everybody, of the fundamental principles of the Buddhist doctrine, as they are found in the most ancient texts, which are called ‘The Tradition’ (Āgama) in Sanskrit and “The Canonic Corpus’ (Nikāya) in Pali.

As Rahula explains in his Preface:

I have tried in this little book to address myself first of all to the educated and intelligent general reader, uninstructed in the subject who would like to know what the Buddha actually taught. For his benefit I have aimed at giving briefly, and as directly and simply as possible, a faithful and accurate account of the actual words used by the Buddha as they are to be found in the original Pali texts of the Tripiṭaka, universally accepted by the scholars as the earliest extant records of the teachings of the Buddha.

In 1974 a second edition was published which added a number of selected sutras.

Personally, as a follower of Nichiren, I have read this book from the perspective of the teachings of the Lotus Sutra. I have set aside a number of quotes from the book which I will be publishing daily through June 12. I’ve selected these quotes as explanations of the foundational teachings of the Buddha.

However, some of what Rahula teaches is problematic for me as a devotee of Japanese Buddhism. In addressing the Buddha’s spirit of tolerance, Rahula writes:

In the third century B.C., the great Buddhist Emperor Asoka of India, following this noble example of tolerance and understanding, honored and supported all other religions in his vast empire. In one of his Edicts carved on rock, the original of which one may read even today, the Emperor declared:

‘One should not honor only one’s own religion and condemn the religions of others, but one should honor others’ religions for this or that reason. So doing, one helps one’s own religion to grow and renders service to the religions of others too. In acting otherwise one digs the grave of one’s own religion and also does harm to other religions. Whosoever honors his own religion and condemns other religions, does so indeed through devotion to his own religion, thinking “I will glorify my own religion.” But on the contrary, in so doing he injures his own religion more gravely. So concord is good: Let all listen, and be willing to listen to the doctrines professed by others.

We should add here that this spirit of sympathetic understanding should be applied today not only in the matter of religious doctrine, but elsewhere as well.

This spirit of tolerance and understanding has been from the beginning one of the most cherished ideals of Buddhist culture and civilization. That is why there is not a single example of persecution or the shedding of a drop of blood in converting people to Buddhism, or in its propagation during its long history of 2500 years. It spread peacefully all over the continent of Asia, having more than 500 million adherents today. Violence in any form, under any pretext whatsoever, is absolutely against the teaching of the Buddha.

What the Buddha Taught, p4-5

It may be true that “Violence in any form, under any pretext whatsoever, is absolutely against the teaching of the Buddha,” but that was not the experience in Japan. As the History of Japanese Religion by Masaharu Anesaki points out, the Tendai soldier monks of Mount Hiei felt compelled to pick up arms and battle Nichiren’s followers.

The last and bitterest of the combats was fought in Miyako in 1536, when the soldier-monks of Hiei in alliance with the Ikkō fanatics attacked the Nichirenites and burnt down twenty-one of their great temples in the capital and drove them out of the city. Shouts of “Namu Myōhō Renge Kyō,” the slogan of the Nichirenites, vied with “Namu Amida Butsu,” the prayer of the Ikkō men; many died on either side, each believing that the fight was fought for the glory of Buddha and that death secured his birth in paradise.

History of Japanese Religion

Again, as a follower of Nichiren and the Lotus Sutra, I stumble when I encounter discussions of “Truth.”

Early in the book The Rev. Dr. Rahula addresses this topic:

The question has often been asked: Is Buddhism a religion or a philosophy? It does not matter what you call it. Buddhism remains what it is whatever label you may put on it. The label is immaterial. Even the label ‘Buddhism,’ which we give to the teaching of the Buddha, is of little importance. The name one gives it is inessential.

What’s in a name?
That which we call a rose,
By any other name would smell as sweet.

In the same way Truth needs no label: it is neither Buddhist, Christian, Hindu nor Moslem. It is not the monopoly of anybody. Sectarian labels are a hindrance to the independent understanding of Truth, and they produce harmful prejudices in men’s minds.

What the Buddha Taught, p5

A few pages later The Rev. Dr. Rahula underscores this with the words of the Buddha:

Asked by the young Brahmin to explain the idea of maintaining or protecting truth, the Buddha said: ‘A man has a faith. If he says “This is my faith,” so far he maintains truth. But by that he cannot proceed to the absolute conclusion: “This alone is Truth, and everything else is false.” In other words, a man may believe what he likes, and he may say ‘I believe this.’ So far he respects truth. But because of his belief or faith, he should not say that what he believes is alone the Truth, and everything else is false.

The Buddha says: ‘To be attached to one thing (to a certain view) and to look down upon other things (views) as inferior — this the wise men call a ‘fetter.’

What the Buddha Taught, p10-11

Is it a “fetter” to hold that the Lotus Sutra is the supreme teaching of the Buddha, that it encompasses and embraces all of the provisional lessons taught before it?

I will leave it at “This is my faith.”

Blog, Books

Handsome Nanda

This continues my discussion of the epic poems of Aśvaghoṣa

asvaghosa-handsome-nandaAśvaghoṣa’s Handsome Nanda is a detailed explanation of how a rich, handsome, happily married young man was persuaded to give it all up to venture upon the good path.

(As this point of the story, Nanda has been told he is to become a monk but Nanda refuses. He is brought to the Buddha, who says:)

What is more, you have seen the flaws of family life, and you have heard of the bliss of giving it up; yet still you have no mind to leave your home, like a death-desiring man who will not leave a place of plague. How can you be so fixated with the wasteland of samsara that you have no urge to venture upon the good path, even when you have been set on that very path? You are like a merchant who has wandered from his caravan!

Only a man who is so stupid that he would settle down to sleep in a house ablaze on all sides, rather than escaping from it, would be oblivious to the world burning with the fire of time, with its flames of disease and old age. It is dreadful that a convicted man being led out for execution should be drunk, laughing and babbling; so too is it dreadful that a man should be careless and contrary-minded while Death stands by with a noose in his hand. When kings and householders have gone, are going and will go forth, leaving behind their relatives and possessions, you give consideration to incidental loves!

Handsome Nanda, p107

Again the Burning House allusion.

Eventually, Nanda is convinced to give up his beautiful wife in exchange for a promise that if he agrees to take vows and follows the path he will be rewarded in heaven where the ápsarases – heavenly beings more beautiful than his wife – will attend him. The futility of this goal is explained to Nanda by Ananda:

́”I understand from your expression your motive in practicing dharma, and knowing it, I am moved to both laughter and compassion on your account. Just as someone would carry a heavy rock on his shoulder to use as a seat, likewise you are laboring to uphold the rules of restraint for the sake of sensual indulgence! Just as a wild ram draws back when he is about to charge, likewise this celibacy of yours is undertaken for the sake of sex. Just as businessmen like to buy goods to make a profit, so you practice dharma as an article for trade, not to become peaceful. Just as a farmer scatters seed to produce a particular fruit, likewise you have let go of sense objects because of your weakness for them.

You are seeking out suffering with your thirst for sensory experience, as though someone would want to be ill just to enjoy the pleasure of a remedy. Just as a man looking for honey does not notice a precipice, so in your focus on the ápsarases you do not see your resulting fall. What is this celibacy of yours? While your heart is ablaze with the fire of lust, you carry out your observances with your body only, and are not celibate in your mind.

Handsome Nanda, p219

I particularly enjoyed the line: “Just as businessmen like to buy goods to make a profit, so you practice dharma as an article for trade, not to become peaceful.” Reminds me of my days in Soka Gakkai: Need something? Chant. Not getting it quick enough? Chant more.

Once Nanda realizes that trading lust for his wife for lust for ápsarases is not a bargain, he goes to see the Buddha. After Nanda explains his change of heart, the Buddha says:

“Oh! This comprehension is the presursor of Excellence arising in you, just as when a firestick is rotated, smoke arises as a precursor of fire.”

Handsome Nanda, p233

The Buddha goes on to explain the role “faith” plays:

When a man believes there is water underground, and is in need of it, then he digs the earth assiduously. If a man doesn’t need a fire, or if he does not believe that fire comes from firesticks, then he would not rotate the firesticks; but when that condition is true, he rotates them. And if a farmer did not believe that corn is produced from the earth, or if he had no need of corn, he would not sow seeds in the ground.

That is why I refer to faith particularly as ‘the hand,’ since it reaches out to the true dharma like an unimpaired hand reaches out for a gift. It is described as ‘the sense organ’ because of its prevalence, and as ‘strong’ because of its persistence, and as ‘wealth’ because it allays the impoverishment of virtue. It is declared to be ‘the arrow’ by reason of its protection of the dharma, and it is named ‘the jewel’ because it is so hard to find in this world. What is more, it is said to be ‘the seed,’ since it causes the arising of Excellence; again, it is called ‘the river’ because it cleanses wickedness.

As faith is the primary factor in the arising of dharma, I have called it different names on various occasions due to its effects. Therefore you should nurture this shoot of faith; when it grows, dharma grows, just as a tree grows when its roots grow. When a man’s vision is blurred and he is weak in resolve, his faith wavers, for it is not operating towards its proper outcome.

As long as reality is not seen or heard, faith is not firm or strongly fixed. But when a man’s senses are governed by the rules of restraint and he sees reality, then the tree of faith is fruitful and supportive.

Handsome Nanda, p237-239

I could have used this definition of faith in my 800 Years of Faith project.

But faith without action has little value. In the chapter describing the Noble Truths, Nanda learns about applying himself to the path.

Just as a substance may be pungent in flavor yet when eaten ripe may prove to be sweet, so an endeavor may be hard in its execution but when it ripens through the accomplishment of its aims, prove to be sweet. Endeavor is paramount, for it is the foundation of doing what needs to be done, and without endeavor there would be no accomplishment at all. All success in the world arises from endeavor, and if there were no endeavor evil would be complete.

Men without endeavor won’t acquire what has not yet been acquired, and they are bound to lose what has been acquired. They experience self-contempt, wretchedness, the scorn of their superiors, mental darkness, lack of brilliance, and a loss of learning, restraint and contentment; a great fall awaits them. When a competent person hears the method but makes no progress, when he knows the supreme dharma but wins no higher estate, when he leaves his home but finds no peace in freedom—the reason for this is his own laziness, and not an enemy.

Handsome Nanda, p313

For me, the discussions covering the law of cause and effect have the deepest resonance. Here are some examples:

The reason for this suffering during one’s active life in the world is not a God, not nature, not time, not the inherent nature of things, not predestination, not accident, but the hosts of faults such as desire. You must understand thereby that man’s active life continues because of its faults. It follows that people who are subject to passion and mental darkness die repeatedly, while someone free from passion and mental darkness is not born again.

Handsome Nanda, p289

Since individuality is produced by conditions, and there is no maker or thinker, and individual activity arises from a network of causes, Nanda saw that this world is empty.

Since the world is not self-dependent and has no power to set things in motion, and no one exercises sovereignty in actions, and since states of existence arise in dependence on all sorts of things, he understood that the world was without self.

Then, like feeling a cool breeze from fanning oneself during the hot season, or like getting fire that is latent in wood by rubbing sticks together, or like finding underground water by digging for it, he reached the hard-to-reach supramundane path.

With his bow of true knowledge, binding on his armor of mindfulness, standing in his chariot of pure vows of moral self-restraint, he stood determined to fight for victory against his enemy, the defilements, which were ranged in the battlefield of his mind. Holding the sharp weapon of the constituents of enlightenment, and standing on the excellent chariot of well-directed effort, with his army which consisted of the elephants of the constituents of the path, he gradually penetrated the ranks of the defilements. With the arrows of the four foundations of mindfulness, each with its own range of application, in an instant he burst apart the four enemies which consist of distorted views, the causes of suffering.

Handsome Nanda, p325

For he who understands that while a particular activity in the here and now is not caused by something else, it is also not without cause, and who recognizes that everything is dependent on a variety of things—he sees the ultimate noble dharma. And he who sees that dharma is tranquil, benign, without age or passion, and unexcelled, and sees that its teacher, Buddha, is the best of the noble ones—he has won insight.

Handsome Nanda, p327

As a postscript I offer this:

Just as a light which is extinguished does not travel to the earth or the sky, nor to the directions or any intermediate directions but, because its oil is used up, merely ceases, so he who has reached nirvana travels not to the earth, not to the sky, nor to any of the directions or intermediate directions, but, because his defilements have ended, just attains peace.

Handsome Nanda, p291

I hope this is my experience when I finally “shuffle off this mortal coil.”

Blog, Books

Aśvaghoṣa’s Epic Poems

I’ve beeen on something of an Aśvaghoṣa kick for the last couple of weeks. I picked up the Clay Sanskrit Library’s Life of the Buddha (Buddhacarita) translated by Patrick Olivelle and published in 2009. This is Aśvaghoṣa’s biography of the Buddha, beginning with his descent from the Tuṣita Heaven into the womb of Queen Maya until his death. I followed that with Handsome Nanda, in which Aśvaghoṣa details the reluctant conversion of Nanda, the Buddha’s half-brother. Linda Covill did the Clay Sanskrit Library’s translation of Handsome Nanda. It was published in 2007.

asvaghosa-life-of-the-buddhaThe Life of the Buddha offered a number of tidbits I wanted to keep here. For example, why Queen Maya died seven days after the birth of Siddhārtha:

But when queen Maya saw the immense might of her son, like that of a seer divine,
she could not bear the delight it caused her; so she departed to dwell in heaven.

Life of the Buddha, p43

Then there’s Aśvaghoṣa’s explanation for Rāhula’s name. Traditionally, it is said the Buddha named his son Rāhula because his son was a fetter or chain to hold him back from the path to enlightenment. Aśvaghoṣa instead suggests Rāhula’s grandfather named him:

Then in time Yashodhara, the “bearer of fame,” bearing alluring breasts and bearing her own fame, begot a son for Śuddhodana’s son, a son who had a face like Rahu’s foe, a son who was, indeed, named Rāhula.

Life of the Buddha, p53

As Olivelle explains in the notes: Rahu was the celestial demon responsible for the eclipses of the sun and the moon.

I was also caught by this reference to escaping a burning house, which plays such a large role in the Lotus Sutra. At this point Siddhārtha has asked his father to allow him to become an ascetic:

To his son making such a hard request, the king of the Śākyas made this response:
“Withdraw this your request, it is inordinate;
An extravagant wish is improper and extreme.”

Then that one, mighty as Meru, told his father:
“If that’s not possible, don’t hold me back;
for it is not right to obstruct a man,
Who’s trying to escape from a burning house.”

Life of the Buddha, p141

Another interesting aspects of Olivelle’s translation is his decision not to translate the word dharma.

One departure from my other translations of Sanskrit texts concerns the pivotal concept of dharma. In my other translations I have regularly translated all Sanskrit terms, including dharma. In Aśvaghoṣa’s vocabulary and argument, however, dharma is used deliberately with so many meanings and nuances that it would have been futile to capture these varying significations in the translation; English does not have a sufficiently rich vocabulary for this purpose. Therefore, I have kept the words dharma and its opposite a/dharma in the translation, inviting thereby the reader to see the different contexts and meanings of this central term.

Olivelle says in his Introduction:

It is within this context of inquiry and debate that we must see the controversies surrounding dharma. Aśvaghoṣa presents the arguments from the Buddhist and the Brahmanical sides as a controversy centered on the correct definition of dharma. It is not so much that some definitions of dharma are considered false. Aśvaghoṣa presents the array of meanings in which his interlocutors used the term, all of them legitimate at some level. What he wants to emphasize, however, is that no dharma can prevent the pursuit of the highest dharma, the dharma that Siddhārtha pursues, the dharma that he preaches once he has become the Buddha. Lower level conceptions of dharma cannot be obstacles on the path to the highest dharma, the “true dharma” of Buddhism called saddharma.

And, of course, it is the Saddharma which is revealed in the Saddharma Pundarika – the Wonderful Law of the Lotus Flower Sutra.

Tomorrow: The Training of Nanda

fa-hien, Blog, Books

A Record of Buddhistic Kingdoms

legge-record-of-buddhistic-kingdomsIn 399 CE, a Chinese Mahāyāna monk named Fa-hien set out for India to find a complete copy of the Vinaya, the rules and precepts for fully ordained monks.

After Fa-hien set out from Ch’ang-gan, it took him six years to reach Central India; stoppages there extended over [another] six years; and on his return it took him three years to reach Ts’ing-chow [China].

A Record of Buddhistic Kingdoms, p115-116

After his trip, Fa-hien wrote a book about what he saw. Fa-hien’s book was translated into English by James Legge (1815-1897). Legge, at the time he published his translation in 1886, was professor of Chinese studies at Oxford University. Throughout the book, Legge offers extensive notes explaining for his Western audience the background and meaning of what Fa-hien saw in his travels.

From Legge’s Introduction:

Nothing of great importance is known about Fa-hien in addition to what may be gathered from his own record of his travels. I have read the accounts of him in the ‘Memoirs of Eminent Monks,’ compiled in A.D. 519, and a later work, the ‘Memoirs of Marvelous Monks,’ by the third emperor of the Ming dynasty (A.D. 1403-1424), which, however, is nearly all borrowed from the other; and all in them that has an appearance of verisimilitude can be brought within brief compass.

His surname, they tell us, was Kung, and he was a native of Wu-yang in P’ing-yang, which is still the name of a large department in Shan-hsi. He had three brothers older than himself; but when they all died before shedding their first teeth, his father devoted him to the service of the Buddhist society, and had him entered as a śramaṇera, still keeping him at home in the family. The little fellow fell dangerously ill, and the father sent him to the monastery, where he soon got well and refused to return to his parents.

When he was ten years old, his father died; and an uncle, considering the widowed solitariness and helplessness of the mother, urged him to renounce the monastic life, and return to her, but the boy replied, ‘I did not quit the family in compliance with my father’s wishes, but because I wished to be far from the dust and vulgar ways of life. This is why I choose monkhood.’ The uncle approved of his words and gave over urging him. When his mother also died, it appeared how great had been the affection for her of his fine nature; but after her burial he returned to the monastery.

On one occasion he was cutting rice with a score or two of his fellow disciples when some hungry thieves came upon them to take away their grain by force. The other śramaṇeras all fled, but our young hero stood his ground, and said to the thieves, “If you must have the grain, take what you please. But, Sirs, it was your former neglect of charity which brought you to your present state of destitution; and now, again, you wish to rob others. I am afraid that in the coming age you will have still greater poverty and distress. I am sorry for you beforehand.” With these words he followed his companions to the monastery, while the thieves left the grain and went away, all the monks, of whom there were several hundred, doing homage to his conduct and courage.

When he had finished his noviciate and taken on him the obligations of the full Buddhist orders, his earnest courage, clear intelligence, and strict regulation of his demeanor were conspicuous; and soon after, he undertook his journey to India in search of complete copy of the Vinaya-piṭaka. What follows this is merely an account of his travels in India and return to China by sea, condensed from his own narrative, with the addition of some marvelous incidents that happened to him, on his visit to the Vulture Peak near Rājagṛha.

A Record of Buddhistic Kingdoms, p1-2

The book offers a fascinating look at Buddhist life and practice at the start of the fifth century. Keep in mind, that at the same time Fa-hien was exploring India, Kumārajīva was busy translating the Lotus Sutra into Chinese.

Several things Fa-hien witnessed were of particular interest to me. For example, having recently finished Jan Nattier’s “A Few Good Men: The Bodhisattva Path according to The Inquiry of Ugra,” it was interesting to note that some Buddhist communities that Fa-hien encountered included both Mahāyāna and Hinayāna monks, while others were strictly Hinayāna or Mahāyāna. In The Inquiry of Ugra the Mahāyāna Bodhisattva path was not a separate teaching but just one of the vehicles available to renunciants. Centuries later, Fa-hien finds evidence of a separation of the Mahāyāna and Hinayāna schools, while still finding areas where they practiced together.

I also found the topic of Pratyeka buddhas fascinating. In the Lotus Sutra, we hear of people seeking Pratyekabuddhahood, one of the three provisional vehicles, but nothing about someone actually attaining this goal.

Fa-hien witnessed:

At this place there are as many as a thousand topes of Arhans and Pratyeka Buddhas.

A Record of Buddhistic Kingdoms, p40

Topes is another word for stupas. Legge offers this note about Pratyeka Buddhas:

In Singhalese, Pasê Buddhas; called also Nidâna Buddhas, and Pratyeka Jinas, and explained by ‘individually intelligent,’ ‘completely intelligent,’ ‘intelligent as regards the nidânas.’ This, says Eitel (pp. 96, 97), is ‘a degree of saintship unknown to primitive Buddhism, denoting automats in ascetic life who attain to Buddhaship “individually,” that is, without a teacher, and without being able to save others. As the ideal hermit, the Pratyeka Buddha is compared with the rhinoceros (khadga) that lives lonely in the wilderness. He is also called Nidâna Buddha, as having mastered the twelve nidânas (the twelve links in the everlasting chain of cause and effect in the whole range of existence, the understanding of which solves the riddle of life, revealing the inanity of all forms of existence, and preparing the mind for nirvāṇa). He is also compared to a horse, which, crossing a river, almost buries its body under the water, without, however, touching the bottom of the river. Thus in crossing saṃsāra he suppresses the errors of life and thought, and the effects of habit and passion, without attaining to absolute perfection.” ‘ Whether these Buddhas were unknown, as Eitel says, to primitive Buddhism, may be doubted.

A Record of Buddhistic Kingdoms, p40

Underscore “without being able to save others,” which tells you all you need to know about Pratyeka buddhas.

(See Pratyekabuddhas Before Śākyamuni)

Legge, who came to China as a Christian missionary, is mostly supportive of Buddhism, but takes offense at Fa-hien’s tale of a monk who attained parinirvāṇa by cutting his own throat.

[At a distance of 50 paces from the rock dwelling of Devadatta] is a large, square black rock. Formerly there was a bhikṣu who, as he walked backwards and forwards upon it, thought with himself: ‘This body is impermanent, a thing of bitterness and vanity, and which cannot be looked on as pure. I am weary of this body, troubled by it as an evil.’ With this he grasped a knife and was about to kill himself. But he thought again: ‘The World-honored one laid down a prohibition against one’s killing himself.’ Further it occurred to him: ‘Yes, he did; but I now only wish to kill three poisonous thieves.’ Immediately with the knife he cut his throat. With the first gash into the flesh he attained the state of a Srotaāpanna; when he had gone half through, he attained to be an Anāgāmin; and when he had cut right through, he was an Arhat, and attained to parinirvāṇa; (and died).

Legge responds in a note:

Our author expresses no opinion of his own on the act of this bhikshu. Must it not have been a good act, when it was attended, in the very act of performance, by such blessed consequences? But if Buddhism had not something better to show than what appears here, it would not attract the interest which it now does. The bhikshu was evidently rather out of his mind; and the verdict of a coroner’s inquest of this nineteenth century would have pronounced that he killed himself ‘in a fit of insanity.’

A Record of Buddhistic Kingdoms, p86

Not everything Fa-hien saw in India accorded with traditional Buddhism.

In this Middle Kingdom there are ninety-six sorts of views, erroneous and different from our system, all of which recognize this world and the future world (and the connection between them). Each has its multitude of followers, and they all beg their food: only they do not carry the alms-bowl. They also, moreover, seek (to acquire) the blessing (of good deeds) on unfrequented ways, setting up on the roadside houses of charity, where rooms, couches, beds, and food and drink are supplied to travelers, and also to monks, coming and going as guests, the only difference being in the time (for which those parties remain).

There are also companies of the followers of Devadatta still existing. They regularly make offerings to the three previous Buddhas, but not to Śākyamuni Buddha.

A Record of Buddhistic Kingdoms, p61-62

I’ll end here with Fa-hien’s tale of the woman who accused the Buddha of having gotten her pregnant.

Outside the east gate of the Jetavana, at a distance of seventy paces to the north, on the west of the road, Buddha held a discussion with the (advocates of the) ninety-six schemes of erroneous doctrine, when the king and his great officers, the householders, and people were all assembled in crowds to hear it. Then a woman belonging to one of the erroneous systems, by name Chañchamana, prompted by the envious hatred in her heart, and having put on (extra) clothes in front of her person, so as to give her the appearance of being with child, falsely accused Buddha before all the assembly of having acted unlawfully (towards her). On this, Śakra, Ruler of Devas, changed himself and some devas into white mice, which bit through the strings about her waist; and when this was done, the (extra) clothes which she wore dropt down on the ground. The earth at the same time was rent, and she went (down) alive into hell. (This) also is the place where Devadatta, trying with empoisoned claws to injure Buddha, went down alive into hell. Men subsequently set up marks to distinguish where both these events took place.

A Record of Buddhistic Kingdoms, p59-60
ugra, Blog, Books

A Few Good Men

The Bodhisattva Path according to The Inquiry of Ugra

A Few Good Men: The Bodhisattva Path according to The Inquiry of UgraAfter reading Jan Nattier’s deconstruction of  the predictions of the extinction of Buddhism in Once Upon A Future Time, I remembered that I had a copy of Nattier’s “A Few Good Men: The Bodhisattva Path according to The Inquiry of Ugra.” In this 2003 book Nattier deconstructs the meaning of the early Mahāyāna. Was it a new doctrinal school, a reformist sect, or simply a “movement”?

She concludes:

If the Mahāyāna as reflected in the Ugra thus fails to conform to any of the three major categories–a new doctrinal school, a reformist sect, or simply a “movement”–to which it has been assigned in buddhological literature to date, how then was this term used by the Ugra’s authors? Somewhat surprisingly, perhaps–given the volume of ink that has been spilled in an attempt to define the “Mahāyāna” in recent years–the Ugra offers us a very simple and straightforward answer. For the authors of this sūtra, the Mahāyāna is nothing more, and nothing less, than a synonym of the “bodhisattva path.” For the Ugra, in other words, the Mahāyāna is not a school, a sect, or a movement, but a particular spiritual vocation, to be pursued within the existing Buddhist community. To be a “Mahāyānist”–that is, to be a bodhisattva–thus does not mean to adhere to some new kind of “Buddhism,” but simply to practice Buddhism in its most rigorous and demanding form.

A Few Good Men, p195

This conclusion originally surprised me, but upon reflection I realized that this accords well with the Lotus Sutra, which promises at the conclusion of the first chapter:

The Buddha will remove
Any doubt of those who seek
The teaching of the Three Vehicles.
No question will be left unresolved.

While the Lotus Sutra goes on to declare that there is only One Vehicle, the lesser path of the Bodhisattva vehicle is clearly a part of the Buddha’s provisional teachings. As Nattier notes:

If the Ugra cannot offer us a glimpse into the very dawn of the bodhisattva enterprise, it nonetheless remains a valuable witness to one of the earliest stages in the development of that path. It portrays a Buddhist community in which the path of the bodhisattva was viewed as an optional vocation suited only for the few; where tensions between bodhisattvas and Śrāvakas were evident, but had not yet led to institutional fission generating a separate Mahāyāna community; and where texts containing instructions for bodhisattva practice were known and transmitted by specialists within the larger monastic saṃgha. It emphatically does not convey a picture of the Mahāyāna as a “greater vehicle” in the sense of a more inclusive option, for the bodhisattva vehicle is portrayed as a supremely difficult enterprise, suited only (to borrow the recruiting slogan of the U.S. Marine Corps) for “a few good men.” And while the Ugra reflects an environment in which lay men were beginning to participate in such practices, there is no evidence that its authors even considered the possibility that women (whether lay or monastic) might do so as well.

A Few Good Men, p196
mappō, Stone Last Age, Books

The Last Age: A Dark Era

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Jacqueline I. Stone wrote the journal article “Seeking Enlightenment in the Last Age: Mappō Thought in Kamakura Buddhism” (PDF) in 1985 while still a UCLA Master’s student who went by Jackie Stone. Her essay declares:

Buddhist tradition maintains that as the world moves farther and farther away from the age of Shakyamuni Buddha, understanding of his teachings grows increasingly distorted and people’s capacity to practice and benefit from those teachings accordingly declines, until eventually Buddhism is lost. Sutras and treatises divide this process of degeneration into three sequential periods beginning from the time of the Buddha’s death: the age of the True Dharma (Skt. saddharma, Jap. shōbō) the age of the Counterfeit Dharma (saddharma-pratirūpaka, zōhō) and the age of the Final Dharma (saddharma-vipralopa, mappō).

Stone: Seeking Enlightenment in the Last Age, p29 of Part 1

Ta-Chi-Ching, the Great Collection Sutra, contains three periods and divides the decline into five consecutive 500-year periods. The fifth 500-year period is the age when “quarrels and disputes will arise among the adherents to my [Shakyamuni’s] teachings, and the Pre Dharma will be obscured and lost.” The “True” and “Counterfeit” ages each last 1,000 years and the “Final Dharma” age was said to last 10,000 years, which also meant an indefinite period.

Stone: Seeking Enlightenment in the Last Age, p33 of Part 1

This was true as far as Buddhism of Kamakura Japan was concerned.

In 1991, however, Jan Nattier, a PhD graduate of Harvard University, published “Once Upon A future Time: Studies in a Buddhist Prophecy of Decline,” which was based on her doctoral thesis delivered in 1988. In her book, Nattier clearly shows that the concept of three ages of decline and especially the last age, mappō, were the product of Chinese commentators and not the product of Indian Buddhism.

But mappō was very real for Buddhists of Japan.

By the latter part of the Heian Period (794-1185), a majority of Japanese believed that the world had entered a dark era known as mappō the age of the Final Dharma. Buddhist tradition held that in this age, owing to human depravity, the teachings of the historical Buddha Shakyamuni would become obscured, and enlightenment all but impossible to attain. By the mid-eleventh century, natural disasters, social instability and widespread corruption among the Buddhist clergy lent seeming credence to scriptural predictions about the evil age of mappō —predictions which in turn gave form to popular anxieties, feeding the growing mood of terror, despair and anomie known as mappō consciousness.

Stone: Seeking Enlightenment in the Last Age, p28 of Part 1

The idea of mappō involves not only the decline of the world—as suggested by the “five defilements”—but the failure of the means of salvation itself. At a time when the bodies of plague victims periodically littered the streets, when fires and earthquakes leveled temples and government offices alike, when warrior clans rose to challenge a tottering nobility in a series of bloody altercations that radically altered the political structure, Japanese on the whole must have come to realize the uncertainty of this world with an immediacy that people but rarely experience under more tranquil conditions. The prediction that in this hour, Buddhism too would decline must have filled them with a horror beyond imagining.

Stone: Seeking Enlightenment in the Last Age, p62 of Part 2

 
Book List

mappō, Dollarhide Senji-Shō, Books

Knowing the Time: The Age of the Last law

dollarhide-nichiren-senji-sho-bookcoverAmong the Kamakura Buddhist leaders Nichiren stands alone in his interpretation and understanding of the Age of the Last Law.14 The Age of the Last Law was in part the basis upon which he established his school. Honen and Shinran also based their schools upon the idea of the Age of the Last Law, but both held that it could not be overcome or conquered. By contrast, Nichiren thought that the Age of the Last Law could be overcome and conquered. Nichiren regarded the Age of the Last Law as the period best suited for the teaching of the Lotus Sutra , and as the best possible period in which to attain salvation. His practice consisted in repeating the words “Namu Myoho Renge Kyo” or “Homage to the Lotus of the Wonderful Law.” This practice, for Nichiren, was the sole means to achieve salvation in the Age of the Last Law.17

Nichiren's Senji-Shō, p12
14
I have translated the three ages of the Buddha’s teaching as follows: 1 . Shōbō (Skt. saddharma), Age Of the Perfect Law; 2. zōbō (Skt. saddharma pratirūpaka), Age of the Counterfeit Law; and 3. mappō (Skt. saddharma vipralopa) Age of the Last Law.return
17
He states in the Kyōgyōshō Gosho (Essay on the Teaching, Practice and Proof), “This age is evil and corrupt and many people slander [the Lotus Sūtra]: I am making an effort to sow the seeds of Buddhahood [in their minds] by causing them [to chant] “Namu Myōhō Renge Kyō” which is the essence of the Lotus Sutra.return
mappō, Nattier Decline, Books

Once upon a Future Time: The Missing Mo-Fa

nattier-once-upon-bookcoverTo the specialist in East Asian Buddhism, one of the most striking features of the texts reviewed in the previous chapter is that not a single one of them contains any reference to the concept of mo-fa (Jpn. mappō), lit. “end-dharma” or “final Dharma.” For it was not any of the timetables discussed above, but rather a three-part system culminating in a prolonged period of mo-fa, that was to become the most influential historical frame of reference in the Buddhist schools of China, Korea, and Japan.

Building on the concepts of saddharma (“True Dharma”) and saddharma-pratirūpaka (“semblance of the True Dharma”) that we have already met in the Indian sources, East Asian Buddhists formulated a system of three periods in the history of the Buddhist religion, which were expected to occur in the following sequence:

  • a period of the “True Dharma” (Ch. cheng-fa /Jpn. shōbō, corresponding to Skt. saddharma) immediately following the death of the Buddha, during which it is possible to attain enlightenment by practicing the Buddha’s teachings;
  • a period of the “Semblance Dharma” (Ch. hsiang-fa / Jpn. zōbō, a term patterned on but not identical to Skt. saddharma-pratirūpaka), during which a few may still be able to reach the goal of enlightenment, but most Buddhists simply carry out the external forms of the religion; and
  • a period of the “Final Dharma” (Ch. mo-fa / Jpn. mappō, a term for which no proper Sanskrit equivalent exists), during which traditional religious practice loses its effectiveness and the spiritual capacity of human beings reaches an all-time low.

While this system is known only in East Asian Buddhist sources, it is clearly constructed with reference to elements that were already known in India.

Once Upon A Future Time, p65-66
mappō, Nattier Decline, Dollarhide Senji-Shō, Stone Last Age, WONS, Blog, Books

The Problem With Mappō

Is it time to let go of our attachment as Nichiren Buddhists to the doctrine of Mappō, the Latter Age of Degeneration?

Back on Aug. 17, 2019, I wrote a blog post entitled “Does the Eternal Buddha’s Teaching Lose Its Potency?” I argued then that the Lotus Sutra clearly teaches that the Eternal Buddha is always present. How could his teaching decline?

To explore the issue, I recently picked up Jan Nattier’s “Once Upon A Future Time: Studies in a Buddhist Prophecy of Decline.” The first half of of Nattier’s 1991 book is devoted to establishing the roots of the prediction of the decline in Buddhism.

From Nattier’s book I learned of Kenneth Dollarhide’s “Nichiren’s Senji-Shō: An Essay on the Selection of the Proper Time.”  The book, published in 1982 as Volume One in Studies in Asian Thought and Religion, includes a description of Nichiren’s life and the Age of the Last Law.

Finally, I picked up Jacqueline Stone’s two-part journal article “Seeking Enlightenment in the Last Age: Mappō Thought in Kamakura Buddhism,” [PDF] which was published in 1985 in the Spring and Autumn editions of The Eastern Buddhist.

Over the next several weeks I will be publishing excerpts from these  sources.

Before that, I want make clear that Nichiren did not contend that the Lotus Sutra would lose its effectiveness over time. In Shugo Kokka-ron, Treatise on Protecting the Nation, Writings of Nichiren Shōnin, Doctrine 1, Pages 25-27, Nichiren writes:

QUESTION: Do you have any scriptural passages proving that the Lotus Sūtra alone will remain even after other sūtras all disappear?

ANSWER: In the tenth chapter on “The Teacher of the Dharma” of the Lotus Sūtra, Śākyamuni Buddha declared in order to spread the sūtra, “The sūtras I have preached number immeasurable thousands, ten thousands, and hundred millions. Of the sūtras I have preached, am now preaching, and will preach, this Lotus Sūtra is the most difficult to believe and to understand ” It means that of all the sūtras which the Buddha has preached, is now preaching, and will preach during 50 years of His lifetime, the Lotus Sūtra is the supreme sūtra. Of the 80,000 holy teachings, it was preached especially to be retained for people in the future.

Therefore, in the following chapter on “The Appearance of the Stupa of Treasures,” the Buddha of Many Treasures emerged from the great earth, and Buddhas in manifestation from the worlds all over the universe gathered. Through these Buddhas in manifestation as His messengers, Śākyamuni Buddha made this declaration to bodhisattvas, śrāvaka, pratyekabuddha, heavenly beings, human beings, and eight kinds of supernatural beings who filled the innumerable (400 trillion nayuta) worlds in eight directions:

“The purpose of the Buddha of Many Treasures to emerge and gathering of Buddhas in manifestation all over the universe is solely in order for the Lotus Sūtra to last forever. Each of you should vow that you will certainly spread this Lotus Sūtra in the future worlds of five defilements after the sūtras which have been preached, are being preached, and will be preached, will have all disappeared and it will be difficult to believe in the True Dharma.”

Then 20,000 bodhisattvas and 80 trillion nayuta of bodhisattvas each made a vow in the 13th chapter on “The Encouragement for Upholding This Sūtra”, “We will not spare even our lives, but treasure the Unsurpassed Way.” Bodhisattvas emerged from the great earth, as numerous as dust particles of the entire world, as well as such bodhisattvas as Mañjuśrī and all also vowed in the 22nd chapter on the “Transmission,” “After the death of the Buddha … we will widely spread this sūtra.” After that, in the 23rd chapter on “The Previous Life of the Medicine King Bodhisattva” the Buddha used ten similes in order to explain the superiority of the Lotus Sūtra over other sūtras. In the first simile the pre-Lotus sūtras are likened to river-water and the Lotus Sūtra, to a great ocean. Just as ocean water will not decrease even when river-water dries up in a severe drought, the Lotus Sūtra will remain unchanged even when the pre-Lotus sūtras with four tastes all disappear in the Latter Age of defilement and corruption without shame. Having preached this, the Buddha clearly expressed His true intent as follows, “After I have entered Nirvana, during the last five-hundred-year period you must spread this sūtra widely throughout the world lest it should be lost.”

Contemplating the meaning of this passage, I believe that the character “after” following “after I have entered Nirvana” is meant to be “after the extinction of those sūtras preached in forty years or so.” It is, therefore, stated in the Nirvana Sūtra, the postscript of the Lotus Sūtra:

“I shall entrust the propagation of this supreme dharma to bodhisattvas, who are skillful in debate. Such a dharma will be able to last forever, continue to prosper for incalculable generations, profiting and pacifying the people. ”

According to these scriptural passages the Lotus-Nirvana Sūtras will not become extinct for immeasurable centuries.

Quotes from Mappō discussion

The Vision of Buddhism, Blog, Books

The Vision of Buddhism

The Wife adheres to a New Year’s Day rule: Don’t do anything on New Year’s Day that you don’t want to end up doing all year long.1 She cleans and straightens the house over the days leading to New Year’s Eve in order to enjoy her relaxed holiday. Having been married 34 years, I’ve adopted her rule – do only things you want to do all year long on New Year’s Day – but without all the preparatory inconvenience.

So today, Jan. 1, 2024, I’ve strictly limited television viewing. I’ve ignored the leaves littering the bottom of the pool in the backyard. And I’ve spent the majority of the day in my recliner reading.

I picked up Richard J. Smith’s “The I Ching: A Biography,” which I had been reading the day before. This is one of the “Lives of Great Books” series which “recount the complex and fascinating histories of important religious texts from around the world.” I’ve previously read “The Lotus Sutra: A Biography” and “The Tibetan Book of the Dead: A Biography,” both by Donald S. Lopez Jr.

Vision of Buddhism bookcoverHowever, in keeping with my “only do things you want to do all year long,” I put The I Ching biography down and picked up “The Vision of Buddhism” by Roger J. Corless. This was an introductory Buddhism text recommended by Jan Nattier in her book “Once Upon A Future Time: Studies in a Buddhist Prophecy of Decline.” (More about that book tomorrow and subsequent days.)

I was attracted to this book by Corless’ effort to reject the Western tendency to teach Buddhism as a linear historical tale.

History is an academic discipline that has developed in the western hemisphere. The western hemisphere has been strongly influenced by the Abrahamic traditions (Judaism, Christianity, and Islam) and their conception of time as something created by God in and through which God manifests himself. On this view, time is meaningful. It has a beginning and an end, and the end is a goal, so that there is development, a progressive achievement of the goal. It makes sense to ask “What is the meaning of life?” A Christian hymn says “God is working his purpose out as year succeeds to year.” As soon as we substitute the word Buddha for God in this sentence, however, there is a problem.

History as a secular discipline has many of the features of the Abrahamic tradition’s view of time. God has been gradually eased out, and the notion of goal or purpose has become suspect, but the assumption that time is meaningful and that development is real does not seem to have been given up by even the most radical critics of the philosophy of history.

Buddhism, on the other hand, sees things as changing over time, but it does not see things as becoming more meaningful as they change. Change, for Buddhism, is a primary characteristic of cyclic existence (samsara), and history is just a lot of change. All that we can say about history, Buddhistically, is that as time goes on we get more of it.

I greatly enjoyed his summary of the basic story of the Buddha’s life, which uses the Tibetan story of the “Twelve Acts of the Buddha”:

  1. Waiting in the Tushita Heaven
  2. Growing in the womb of Mayadevi
  3. Birth as a human for the last time.
  4. Attainment of intellectual and physical skills
  5. Marriage and the enjoyment of sensuality
  6. Renunciation of the worldly life
  7. The practice of extreme self-denial
  8. The march to the center
  9. Overcoming Mara
  10. Attaining enlightenment
  11. Teaching
  12. Final Nirvana

His summary of the teaching of emptiness – or as he explains it, “transparency” – was very useful and I was looking forward to seeing how his college textbook published in 1989 would proceed. At that moment, however, I needed to run an errand with The Wife. (All year long I’ll do this!)

When I was able to return to my recliner, I picked up “The Vision of Buddhism” but instead of returning to where I had left off I decided to first browse the book index.

As a Nichiren Buddhist I’m always interested in what an introductory college text has to say about the Kamakura period of Japan’s Buddhist development.

Nothing. The word Kamakura does not appear in the index. The entry for “Japan, and Buddhism” points to pages 59-62.

This happens to be the place where Corless has devoted a little more than two full pages to “Nichiren Shoshu (“The Orthodox Nichiren Lineage”). There is no other index entry for Nichiren.

In Corless’ Chapter 2, The Value of Worldly Skills (Act 4 of the Buddha), in the subsection entitled “Social Buddhism,” he writes:

Social Buddhism
There are two forms of Buddhism that, in very different ways, emphasize social action above all else: the Nichiren Shoshu of Japan, and the reform movement of Dr. Ambedkar in India.

NICHIREN SHOSHU
Nichiren Shoshu, “The Orthodox Nichiren Lineage,” is nothing if not clear, organized, and motivated. It claims to have the true Buddhism, proves it by its physical success, and aims at the destruction of all other forms of religion. Its roots are in a medium length Mahayana Sutra, Saddharmapundarika Sutra or Sutra on the True Dharma which is like a White Lotus, called the Lotus Sutra for short. This text presents Shakyamuni in his gigantic-sized, Sambhogakaya form preaching the Mahayana doctrines that had been withheld from the Hinayana. It may have been written about the beginning of the Christian era. Partly perhaps because it was chosen by the Chinese monk Chih-i (531-597 C.E.) as the perfect expression of Mahayana, it has become one of the most popular texts of Far Eastern Buddhism. It was studied by Nichiren (1222-1282 C.E.), a Japanese Tendai monk practising on Mount Hiei. He seems to have decided that the scholastic exegesis of the Lotus Sutra had become over-subtle, and that its main points had been missed. The Sutra was not concerned, he felt, with voluminous doctrinal formulae, but with the victory of the oppressed under the leadership of the Bodhisattva Vishishtacharitra (“He of Superlative Action”; known as Jogyo Bosatsu in Japan), who is mentioned in chapter 15 of the Lotus Sutra as the leader of a vast army of Bodhisattvas who emerge from below the earth to worship the Buddha. Coming out of the earth signified, for Nichiren, the release of the lowly from injustice, and he identified Vishishtacharitra with himself. Later followers came to regard Nichiren as the pre-eternal Buddha, superior to all other Buddhas. Only by cleaving to the supreme doctrine of the Lotus Sutra could anyone be free, either relatively (i.e., within samsara) or absolutely (i.e., by leaving samsara). He expressed his contempt for competing forms of Buddhism in four staccato phrases:

  1. “Nembutsu muken”: Those who recite the Buddha’s Name in the hope of paradise will be reborn in hell.
  2. “Zen temma”: The practitioners of Zen are deluding demons.
  3. “Shingon bokoku”: The Tantric Buddhists, who say they are protecting the country, are traitors.
  4. “Ritsu kokuzoku”: The Buddhists who punctiliously observe the monastic regulations are rebels.

The government attempted to execute Nichiren as a troublemaker, but he was saved by a miracle, and exiled to the island of Sado between 1271 and 1274. He founded two temples before he died, and began the Hokke Shu, “Lotus Lineage” which emphasized the great merit of reciting the mantra NAM’MYOHO-REN-GE-KYO, “Hail to the Lotus Sutra.” Since the Lotus Sutra says that reciting a single phrase from it earns as much merit as reciting all of it, and since, according to classical Chinese thought, the essence of a book is encapsulated in its name or title, those who recite NAM’MYO-HO-REN-GE-KYO will find that they get all that they need.

After Nichiren’s death, the lineage did not have a large following until Toda Josei (1900-1958 C.E.) became president of the Soka Gakkai, “Value-Creation Society,” in 1951. Soka Gakkai is a lay organization that grew out of the educational theories of Makiguchi Tsunesaburo (1871-1944) who, in his four-volume work Soka Kyoikugaku Taikei, “A System of Value-Creation Education,” written between 1930 and 1934, offered the unexceptionable idea that education should increase the student’s sense of values. Toda befriended Makiguchi, both joined the Nichiren Shoshu (an outgrowth of the Hokke Shu), and, after Makiguchi’s death, Toda whipped up what had been a study circle into a tightly run missionary society. He vowed to obtain the conversion of seven hundred and fifty thousand families before his death, and far exceeded his goal.

Today, Soka Gakkai is a potent force in Japanese society, able to stage breathtakingly unified mass meetings and, through the Komeito, “Clean Government Party,” it is powerfully influential in the Diet (the Japanese parliament). Its militancy alarms non-members, who may argue that it is not really Buddhism. Soka Gakkai claims, for instance, that Japan lost the Second World War because the Four Divine Kings deserted Japan when the Lotus Sutra was neglected. Soka Gakkai also has a world mission, with an American headquarters near Los Angeles and branches throughout the United States. Members of Soka Gakkai in America, where it is called Nichiren Shoshu of America (N.S.A.), attribute such varied practical benefits as release from drug addiction, a happy sex life, improved sports performance, good business deals, and successful hitch-hiking to the persistent recitation of the mantra NAM’MYO-HO-REN-GE-KYO. Unlike most Buddhists, they make great efforts to gain converts, and may claim that other Buddhists are not “real” Buddhists. And, whereas Nichiren himself originally claimed the Lotus Sutra as the salvation of Japan, American devotees patriotically use it to pay homage to the Stars and Stripes, sometimes with fife-and-drum bands.

After reading this I was exhausted and took a nap. I set my watch’s timer for 30 minutes and closed my eyes.

Napping I don’t mind doing for the rest of the year. Reading Corless’ book, not so much. When I got up from my nap I went to my office to write this. Writing is something I want to do all year. Explaining how many ways Corless gets Nichiren Buddhism wrong, I can do without.

I’ll go do gonyo now while my wife proof-reads this. After I do my 32 Days of the Lotus Sutra post I’ll consider my wife’s suggestions and post this. Tomorrow I plan to pick up Jan Nattier’s “A Few Good Men: The Bodhisattva Path according to The Inquiry of Ugra (Ugraparip̣rcchā)

1
The Wife’s objection: I feel this is misleading. The rule is – What you do on NYD will dominate or be a major focus for the coming year. Therefore you want to do pleasurable and rewarding things. return