Category Archives: Higan

Higan, perfections

Higan: The Energy of Desire

Today is the fifth day of Higan week, the three days before the equinox and the three days after. As explained in a Nichiren Shu brochure:

For Buddhists, this period is not just one characterized by days with almost equal portions of light and dark. Rather, it is a period in which we strive to consciously reflect upon ourselves and our deeds.

The today we consider the Perfection of Energy.

One place where the mental and physical dimensions of human life converge is the domain of desire. Our desires cut across the body/mind divide because they always seem to implicate both. Perhaps this is one reason why all classical religions hold desire in suspicion. In the throes of desire, we can hardly tell where matter stops and spirit begins. No traditional religion had given desire a more negative role than Buddhism. Desire was named in the Four Noble Truths as the singular cause of suffering. Desire was precisely what was to be eliminated in enlightened life.

At this point in the development of Buddhist thought and practice, however, it is not difficult to see the limitation of this perspective. Desires, more than anything else, get us moving in life. They provide the energy for accomplishments of all kinds, including the quest for enlightenment. We can learn to desire the good, we can desire a comportment of peace and compassion, and when they are fully developed, desires can help us work for the enlightenment and health of all beings. The question before us therefore is: What is the relation between human desire and the energy that moves us? How can we conceive of desire so that we can contemplate both the problematic side of desire that early Buddhists saw so clearly and the inevitable role that desire plays in any life of excellence?

Six Perfections: Buddhism & the Cultivation of Character, p 153-154
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Higan: Life’s Transience and Our Practice

Today is the Fall Equinox, the middle of Higan week, the three days before the equinox and the three days after. As explained in a Nichiren Shu brochure:

For Buddhists, this period is not just one characterized by days with almost equal portions of light and dark. Rather, it is a period in which we strive to consciously reflect upon ourselves and our deeds.

Below is a 2017 lecture on Higan by Ven. Kenjo Igarashi of the Sacramento Nichiren Buddhist Church.

As Buddhists, we observe several religious customs throughout the year, many of which involve praying for our ancestors. Most recently, we had the Obon (お盆) service in August, followed by the upcoming Ohigan (お彼岸) service in the fall. While there may be many meanings and reasons behind observing these Buddhist traditions, there are two that I would like to focus on in this article. They include (1) acknowledging life’s impermanence and most importantly, (2) reflecting on the importance of our Buddhist practice.

(1) Recognizing Life’s Transience
There are certain Buddhist customs, including those mentioned above, that remind me of the notion of shogyo mujo (諸行無常), or in English, “the impermanence of worldly things”. I first learned this concept in college when training to become a priest. We are made aware of this impermanence in our daily lives, ranging from daily tasks that we do (e.g. watering plants to prevent them from wilting) to happenings that we hear about from others that are beyond our control (e.g. the unexpected deaths we hear about on the news). However, it is often funerals and memorial services that amplify this notion of impermanence. They evoke a stronger sentiment because of our direct connection to the deceased. It also forces us to face and acknowledge that life on this earth, including our own, is transient.

Throughout my approximate 50-year career as a minister, I have always reflected on this notion of impermanence as a way to help me understand death as a sad, but unavoidable end to the course of one’s life. However, no matter how many funerals I have attended or conducted, it remains one of the most difficult tasks that I must do as a priest.

(2) The Importance of One’s Buddhist Practice
As previously mentioned, many Buddhist customs focus on expressing gratitude and remembering those that have passed. However, some people tend to focus too much on this idea. In fact, many spend little or no time understanding the significance that these traditions play in furthering a person’s Buddhist practice and faith.

Many of Nichiren Shonin’s writings include letters he wrote to his followers who expressed their individual concerns about reaching Enlightenment. As many of you know, in Buddhism we believe that the deceased goes on a 49-day journey after their death, where they will reflect on their lifetime of memories. They will be reminded of the most joyous moments of their life, as well as some of the difficult times. Nichiren Shonin knew of the hardships that one might face throughout this journey, as explained in a letter to one of his followers:

“I, Nichiren, am the world’s utmost devotee of the Lotus Sutra. If you pass away after me, remember that there are many trials that you must undergo (throughout your 49-day journey). Pass each trial by declaring in front of the judge that you are the follower of Nichiren, the world’s utmost devotee of the Lotus Sutra. When you must cross the fast ripples of the deep river, the Lotus Sutra will become your boat. When you must climb the treacherous mountains, it will become your vehicle. And when you must travel along a dark road, it will become that glimmer of light in the darkness. I, Nichiren, will promise to wait for you at the entrance to the Northeast gate to Enlightenment, so that you do not lose your way.”

Nichiren Shonin provides positive reassurance in his letter thus far. Yet his tone changes in the subsequent lines, informing the individual of consequences that could result from lack of Buddhist practice and faith. He continues:

“However, I must warn you of the importance of having faith (in the Lotus Sutra). An individual lacking piety should not expect to receive help upon claiming to be Nichiren’s follower. They will enter into the suffering world as quickly as the large rock that tumbles down the cliff, and the raindrops that fall from the sky and hit the earth.”

Nichiren Shonin’s statement directly relates to the teachings in Chapter 6 of the Lotus Sutra. It states that while everyone has the potential to become the Buddha, whether or not the individual achieves enlightenment depends on his or her level of commitment to practicing Buddhism. The hope is that they do not just rely on praying during services at the temple, but also make an effort to individually practice Buddhism in their daily lives.

Since an individual’s life is transient, we have a limited time (i.e. our individual lifespan) in which we can practice our faith in this world. I am hoping that many of you will try to incorporate both of these ideas as you continue to practice and find ways to deepen your faith in Buddhism.

Ven. Kenjo Igarashi
September 2017

Higan, perfections

Higan: The Balance and Timing of Tolerance

Today is the third day of Higan week, the three days before the equinox and the three days after. As explained in a Nichiren Shu brochure:

For Buddhists, this period is not just one characterized by days with almost equal portions of light and dark. Rather, it is a period in which we strive to consciously reflect upon ourselves and our deeds.

The today we consider the Perfection of Tolerance.

For the perfection of tolerance, wisdom is the art of understanding when to be tolerant and how. This is why tolerance or patience is a skill of character that is so difficult – it depends on the insight and subtlety of mind to know when it ought to be practiced and when not, and in each case how to practice it to good effect. The appropriateness and effectiveness of patience, like generosity, is context dependent, and the capacity to see these subtle nuances of context takes wisdom. In this way, patience is a matter of balance, wisdom to sense the whole of the situation in which we find ourselves and to act in accordance with just proportion and sound timing.

Both balance and timing indicate to us that it will not always be appropriate to be patient or tolerant. Wisdom guides us to ask – tolerant or patient of what? For what reasons and on behalf of what larger goal? Knowing when to be patient entails knowing how to place this present situation in the context of overriding goals, especially one’s “thought of enlightenment.” Limited practices of patience must fit into a larger scheme of practices aimed at more and more encompassing ends, both personal and communal. There are times, clearly, when it is unwise and unenlightening to wait patiently, times when, for the good of everyone, only direct action will do.

Six Perfections: Buddhism & the Cultivation of Character, p 123
Higan, perfections

Higan: Morality With Wisdom

Today is the second day of Higan week, the three days before the equinox and the three days after. As explained in a Nichiren Shu brochure:

For Buddhists, this period is not just one characterized by days with almost equal portions of light and dark. Rather, it is a period in which we strive to consciously reflect upon ourselves and our deeds.

The today we consider the Perfection of Generosity.

Morality is to the benefit of the selfish and selfless alike. Very often, though, the texts skillfully shift the orientation away from what you will receive if you behave morally toward more encompassing spheres of justification and less self-centered motivation. The self-centered motives that might have attracted someone to the practices of morality in the first place will gradually be replaced by others if the practice advances to any degree of depth. Undermined by the transformative effects inherent in moral action, old mental habituation begins to fade, replaced by new thoughts and new motives that have altered the mental landscape behind the practice. The bodhisattva encourages the practice of morality by skillfully articulating the rewards that follow from the practice on whatever level that they can be meaningfully understood and motivationally active.

To the extent possible, bodhisattvas are encouraged to eschew those rewards in their own practice and to raise their minds to a more profound grasp of what is at stake in moral life. This is the crucial point in “perfecting” moral practice. Perfection, in all six dimensions of human character, consists in the application of wisdom.

Six Perfections: Buddhism & the Cultivation of Character, p 61
Higan, perfections

Higan: Generosity Outside the Family

Today is the first day of Higan week, the three days before the equinox and the three days after. As explained in a Nichiren Shu brochure:

For Buddhists, this period is not just one characterized by days with almost equal portions of light and dark. Rather, it is a period in which we strive to consciously reflect upon ourselves and our deeds.

The today we consider the Perfection of Generosity.

To alleviate suffering among one’s own family and friends while leaving untouched the larger world of suffering is to have fallen short in one’s quest for authentic generosity. The “perfection of generosity” demands that we give our attention and our labor toward the creation of a human world in which compassion and kindness are the human norm, a world in which the diminishment of suffering and the extension of opportunities to everyone are among our foremost goals. Practices of generosity, therefore, include efforts to enhance human equality, efforts toward guaranteeing through social and political action that all children begin their lives with an equal chance for happiness and well-being and end it with some share of peace and dignity. Those who give of themselves through personal and political means toward these ends are in this respect admirable exemplars of the perfection of generosity. Although traditional Buddhists were content to recommend that we avoid doing injustice ourselves, a contemporary perfection of generosity would need to go beyond this. It would suggest that we give our time and energy in a thoughtful effort to minimize the society’s collective injustice in as many forms as it can be found.

Six Perfections: Buddhism & the Cultivation of Character, p 47-48
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A Higher Practice

Recently I was browsing my library and noticed the Dalai Lama’s book, “Transcendent Wisdom,” his commentary on the Wisdom section of Santideva’s “The Bodhicaryavatara: A Guide to the Buddhist Path to Awakening.”  I picked up the Dalai Lama’s book and read it. In the book, the Dalai Lama makes reference to “The Precious Garland, An Epistle to a King” by Ācārya Nāgārjuna. I purchased it and read it. That’s how my system works. Random journeys along various streams, imagining these flowing into the great ocean of the Lotus Sutra.

Sometimes in this randomness I forget that I’ve been on this path before. Back in November 26, 2018, I published a blog post entitled, “The Purpose of a Buddhist Practice,” in which I bemoaned my early Buddhist focus on “my wishes” to the exclusion of all else.

Then in 2021 I read “The Six Perfections: Buddhism and the Cultivation of Character,” Dale Wright’s detailed discussion of Buddhist teachings about six dimensions of human character that require “perfecting” – generosity, morality, tolerance, energy, meditation, and wisdom. I was immediately struck by how much I admired the concept of setting the goal of your practice to perfect these characteristics.

On March 1, 2021, I wrote “On the Way to the Other Shore,” in which I pointed out that twice a year during the spring and fall Equinox, Nichiren Shu officially observes a week of focus on self-improvement guided by the six perfections. The only problem was that at that time in 2021, none of the American sanghas I was familiar with offered such a practice. Only Rev. Igarashi at the Sacramento Nichiren Buddhist Church made reference to Paramita Week.

Today is the first day of Higan week, the three days before the equinox and the three days after. And as I mark the occasion I want to offer some quotes from Chapter 5 of “The Precious Garland, An Epistle to a King” by Ācārya Nāgārjuna.

In short, the good qualities that a bodhisattva should develop are generosity, morality, tolerance, heroic effort, concentration, wisdom, loving kindness, and so on. 35

To be generous is to give up one’s wealth; to be moral is to endeavor to help others; tolerance is the abandonment of anger; heroic effort is enthusiasm for virtue. 36

Concentration is unafflicted one-pointedness; wisdom is definitively determining the truths’ meaning. Loving kindness is a state of mind that savors only compassion for all sentient beings. 37

From generosity comes wealth, happiness from morality. From tolerance comes beauty, splendor from heroic effort. Through meditation, one is peaceful, through understanding comes liberation. Compassion is what accomplishes all aims. 38

Through the simultaneous perfection of all these seven, one attains the object of inconceivable wisdom – lordship over the world. 39

The Precious Garland, An Epistle to a King, p78-79

For me, Nichiren Buddhism does not do enough to encourage striving to perfect oneself and benefit others. It shouldn’t just be two weeks out of the year.

Where is the vow encouraged by Nāgārjuna?

As long as there is even some single sentient being somewhere who is not yet free, may I remain (in the world) for that being’s sake, even if I have attained unexcelled awakening. 85

The Precious Garland, An Epistle to a King, p86

Higan, perfections

The Practice of Wisdom

Today is the final day of Higan week, the three days before the equinox and the three days after. As explained in a Nichiren Shu brochure:

For Buddhists, this period is not just one characterized by days with almost equal portions of light and dark. Rather, it is a period in which we strive to consciously reflect upon ourselves and our deeds.

Each of the days before and after the equinox are devoted to one of the Six Paramitas, the practice of perfection taught to Bodhisattvas. Today we consider the sixth perfection, Wisdom.

[T]he Buddha raises the question: If you were given a choice between many sacred relics of the Buddha or a copy of the Perfection of Wisdom Sutra, which one should you choose? The author of this sutra has the respondent say: “The perfection of wisdom. And why? It is not that I lack respect for the relics of the Buddha, and it is not that I am unwilling to honor, revere, and worship them. But I am fully aware that the relics of the Buddha have come forth from the perfection of wisdom and that for that reason they are honored, revered, and worshipped; I am aware that they are saturated with the perfection of wisdom, and for that reason they become an object of worship. ”

The logic generating these passages appears to be this: Yes, the Buddha is enlightened and worthy of great respect, even worship. But how did he become so exalted a being? Through practice of the perfection of wisdom, not, primarily, through acts of worship. Therefore, in asking yourself what practice you should undertake, follow the example of the Buddha. The practice of wisdom is wiser than the worship of those who engage in this practice. It is better to be one of them than to worship them.

Six Perfections: Buddhism & the Cultivation of Character, p 231
Higan, perfections

The Meditative Life

Today is the sixth day of Higan week, the three days before the equinox and the three days after. As explained in a Nichiren Shu brochure:

For Buddhists, this period is not just one characterized by days with almost equal portions of light and dark. Rather, it is a period in which we strive to consciously reflect upon ourselves and our deeds.

Each of the days before and after the equinox are devoted to one of the Six Paramitas, the practice of perfection taught to Bodhisattvas. Today we consider the fifth perfection, Meditation.

The ideal of this fifth perfection is to live in a meditative frame of mind regardless of whether we happen to be meditating. The goal, therefore, is not always to be meditating, always to be practicing a preparatory activity, but rather to live in the spirit of composure and insight that the practice has produced.

Six Perfections: Buddhism & the Cultivation of Character, p 214
Higan, perfections

The Same Thing Done Energetically

Today is the fifth day of Higan week, the three days before the equinox and the three days after. As explained in a Nichiren Shu brochure:

For Buddhists, this period is not just one characterized by days with almost equal portions of light and dark. Rather, it is a period in which we strive to consciously reflect upon ourselves and our deeds.

Each of the days before and after the equinox are devoted to one of the Six Paramitas, the practice of perfection taught to Bodhisattvas. Today we consider the fourth perfection, Energy.

It is easy to see how the capacity for energy of spirit might be important to the conception of the bodhisattva. Imagine a truly good person – thoughtful and compassionate in living – who in spite of that goodness lacks the vitality that significant accomplishments require. This person acts selflessly for the benefit of the community, but lacks energy.

Although meaningful contributions are made, they are insubstantial and limited – local in character. By contrast, imagine the same sort of person, thoughtful, compassionate and overflowing with energy and the capacity for focused work. The enlightening effect of the second far overshadows the first, even though their compassion and selflessness are equal. The difference between anything done meekly and that same thing done energetically is enormous, and justifies our attention.

Six Perfections: Buddhism & the Cultivation of Character, p 146
Higan

The Practice of Higan

Today is the Spring Equinox, the middle of Higan week, the three days before the equinox and the three days after. As explained in a Nichiren Shu brochure:

For Buddhists, this period is not just one characterized by days with almost equal portions of light and dark. Rather, it is a period in which we strive to consciously reflect upon ourselves and our deeds.

Below is a 2016 newsletter article on Higan by Ven. Kenjo Igarashi of the Sacramento Nichiren Buddhist Church.

Higan is the practice of leaving our deep attachments in order to reach the world of enlightenment. Specifically, Higan is a practice comprised by six components. They are: charity, observing precepts, perseverance, energy, meditation, and wisdom. There is a story I would like to share with you concerning this practice. In the 9th century, a monk named Kyoukai wrote a series of books called Nippon Reiiki. Spanning three volumes long, these books contained stories concerning his experiences that seemed to transcend the logic and understanding of this world. This particular story I would like to share with you comes from this book, in the second volume of the series in the 38th chapter.

During the era in which Emperor Shomu ruled, there was a monk who lived in a temple in the mountains of Maniwa, located in the city of Nara. That monk had told his disciples upon his deathbed, “After my death, you must not open the entrance to my room for three years.” Saying this, he passed away. Forty-nine days after his death, a venomous snake had appeared before the deceased monk’s door, coiled in place, refusing to move. The disciples quickly realized that this snake was the reincarnation of their master. By chanting towards the snake, the disciples were able to move it, and enter the monk’s room. In the room, the disciples discovered thirty kan (currency used at the time, equaling approximately $30,000 today) saved up and hidden away. Realizing that their master had reincarnated as a venomous snake to protect this money, the disciples used the money to invite many ministers and hold a memorial service for him.

Kyoukai realizes that this particular monk was so desperate to protect his money, that he reincarnated into a snake in order to protect it. Kyoukai says, “No matter how high the mountain, we are able to see its peak. The mountain residing in humans called greed however is so great, that we cannot see its peak.” In other words, the greed and desire residing in humans is so vast and ever-growing, that it has no limit. Higan is a very important practice which aims to rid this greed and desire within us.

Ven. Kenjo lgarashi
March 2016