However, we now live in the Latter Age of Degeneration, when disputes and quarrels are rampant while the True Dharma is lost. There is nothing but evil lands where evil rulers, evil subjects and evil people reject the True Dharma, showing respect only to evil dharmas and evil teachers. Evil spirits take advantage of this, filling the lands with the so-called three calamities and seven disasters.

Nichiren wrote this passage in his Treatise on the True Way of Practicing the Teaching of the Buddha (Nyosetsu Shugyō-shō). It can be hard for us to imagine how what we believe can change our society. We think we have to create a new political system, or put the right people in power, or acquire wealth before we can have peace. What would happen in a world where people believed their happiness was intertwined with that of others? What happens in a world where people believe their happiness has to come at the expense of others? Our beliefs are far more powerful than we realize. When we put our belief in the Buddha’s description of the world as it is, and see our place in it as Bodhisattvas who have chosen to be here to benefit others, the world changes before our eyes.

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

To those who have accumulated merits,
And who are gentle and upright,
And who see me living here,
Expounding the Dharma,
I say:
“The duration of my life is immeasurable.”

The Buddha declares these verses in Chapter Sixteen of the Lotus Sūtra. This chapter is where the Buddha reveals for the first time his ever-present nature. He became enlightened in the remotest past, and will continue teaching all beings far into the future. There is a view that to see a Buddha in our time requires a supernatural way of seeing, even a personal vision or a revelation not available to ordinary people. What the Buddha teaches here is that he is always visible to anyone, anywhere. It is when we look for him to teach us and are compassionate and disciplined in our desires that he appears to us.

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

Your face is most wonderful.
Your light illumines the worlds of the ten quarters.
I once made offerings to you.
Now I have come to see you again.

Gladly-Seen-By-All-Beings Bodhisattva sings these verses to Sun-Moon-Pure-Bright-Virtue Buddha in a story told in Chapter Twenty-Three of the Lotus Sūtra. That Bodhisattva was the previous life of Medicine-King Bodhisattva who accepted all of the misfortunes of this world of delusion and ignorance so that he could benefit all beings living here. When we awaken our nature as Bodhisattvas, and resolve to use the Buddha’s teachings to purify this world, then we are assured we will never fail to meet Buddhas and repay the good they do for us.

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

World-Honored One! The bhikṣus, bhikṣunīs, upāsakās or upāsikās who seek, keep, read, recite and copy this Sūtra of the Lotus Flower of the Wonderful Dharma in the defiled world in the later five hundred years after [your extinction], if they wish to study and practice this sūtra, should concentrate their minds [on study and practice] strenuously for three weeks. When they complete [the study and practice of] three weeks, I will mount a white elephant with six tusks, and appear before them with my body which all living beings wish to see, together with innumerable Bodhisattvas surrounding me.

Universal-Sage Bodhisattva (Fugen, Samantabhadra) makes this declaration to the Buddha in Chapter Twenty-Eight of the Lotus Sūtra. Nichiren interprets “the later five hundred years” as the time in which we live today. Universal sage describes the ways in which we can practice this Sūtra. To seek it is to find it in all aspects of our lives. To keep it is to rely on its teachings and have confidence in its ability to lead us to the Buddha’s wisdom. To read and recite it is to continue to remind ourselves and others of the details of the teachings. To copy it is to make it available to others. The merits we gain through these practices allow us to see the world for what it is and be part of making it better for everyone.

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

My words are true.
Believe me with all your hearts!
I have been teaching them
Since the remotest past.

The Buddha sings these verses to Maitreya Bodhisattva and others gathered to hear him teach in Chapter Fifteen of the Lotus Sūtra. Maitreya had never seen any of the other Bodhisattvas who sprang up from underground in this chapter, despite his memory of previous lives and other worlds. The Buddha explains that the beings who had just appeared are also his disciples and have come to spread this Wonderful Dharma in our world. Nichiren teaches that when he realized that he was an incarnation of Superior-Practice, the leader of the Bodhisattvas from underground, then all of us who follow Nichiren and continue to keep the Lotus Sūtra are the followers of Superior-Practice. We do not need to wait for someone to come to our world and lead us. The world does not need anyone other than those already here to teach the Dharma. We are the Bodhisattvas from underground.

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

The Buddhas, the Leaders, expound the teaching of Nirvāṇa
In order to give a rest [to all living beings].
When they see them having already had a rest,
They lead them to the wisdom of the Buddha.

The Buddha sings these verses in Chapter Seven of the Lotus Sūtra. These are part of his explanation of the parable of the Magic City. In this story, a group of people hire a guide to lead them through a dangerous wilderness to reach a city of treasures. Halfway through the journey, the people lose confidence and ask the guide to take them back to where they started. The guide conjures up a magic city and gives the people a chance to rest. The people believed this illusion was their destination. The guide then made the city disappear and implored his charges to continue their journey. The Buddha compares his teachings of the end of suffering to the fabricated city, and the true city of treasures to his enlightenment. As the travelers had to leave their delusions about suffering and continue on the way of the Bodhisattva towards enlightenment, so must we set aside the Buddha’s expedient teachings and uphold the Wonderful Dharma of the Lotus Sūtra.

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

I know who is practicing the Way and who is not.
Therefore I expound various teachings
To all living beings
According to their capacities.

The Buddha sings these verses in Chapter Sixteen of the Lotus Sūtra. Even though the Buddha knows when we have strayed from the way of compassion and wisdom that he has opened for us, he knows that the innate capacity we have for enlightenment remains unchanged. Therefore, he does not judge us, or give up in his efforts to lead us away from our delusions. When we maintain our determination to save all beings despite their delusions, we maintain this mind of the Buddha and nourish the seeds of our own enlightenment.

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

The written words of the Lotus Sutra express in a visible and tangible form the Brahma’s voice of the Buddha, which is invisible and intangible, so that we can see and read them with our eyes. The Buddha’s pure and immaculate voice, which had disappeared, is resuscitated in the form of written characters for the benefit of humankind.

Nichiren wrote this passage in his Treatise on Opening the Eyes of Buddhist Images, Wooden Statues or Portraits (Mokue Nizō Kaigen no Koto). Living in this world, 2500 years after the Buddha Śākyamuni walked the Earth, it is difficult to hear his voice leading us to enlightenment and encouraging us to let go of our attachments. In the Lotus S̄ūtra we have an instrument for creating the Buddha’s voice in our own time. This is his highest teaching. It brings all beings to liberation, whether they are clever or dull, stupid or wise, focused or distracted. It reminds us of our true nature as Bodhisattvas who chose this life out of our determination to benefit all beings. It shows us how to transform the poison of suffering into the medicine of compassion, and the poison of ignorance into the medicine of wisdom.

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

They also had already obtained [the four states of mind towards all living beings:] compassion, loving-kindness, joy and impartiality.

The Buddha gives this description in Chapter Twenty-Seven of the Lotus Sutra of two boys who had been the previous lives of Medicine-King and Medicine-Superior Bodhisattvas. These four states of mind are those which allow to see the world for what it is and bring true benefit for all beings. Any living being is capable of them. Their opposites: cruelty, indifference, misery and prejudice, are never what we aspire to, even though we find ourselves in them far too often. But even these states can be used as an indication that we are not seeing things for what they are, and lead us back to a true curiosity and appreciation for what we have.

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

Join your hands together and bow
To the person who keeps this sūtra
In the evil world after my extinction,
Just as you do to me!

The Buddha sings these verses to Medicine-King Bodhisattva at the beginning of Chapter Ten of the Lotus Sūtra. By extension he is giving this instruction to all Bodhisattvas and great beings of the universe, and explaining to them that those who keep the Lotus Sūtra are as precious in this world of conflict at the Buddha himself. If we hear these verses with a mind of ego and attachment, we could conclude that we deserve respect and begin to demand it from others. Those who demand respect only generate fear. The Buddha gained respect by respecting all beings. When we treat others as Buddhas, we are certain to have that treatment reflected back towards us.

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