The Stories of the Lotus Sutra, p11-12A Chinese/Japanese term often used for “introduction” is more literally “entrance gateway.” And while that is not what the first chapter of the Lotus Sutra is called, that is exactly what it is. It is a gateway through which one can enter a new and mysterious world, an enchanting world – a world of the imagination.
The setting, the opening scene, is on Holy Eagle Peak. This Holy Eagle Peak is not off somewhere in another world. It is a real place on a mountain in northeast India. I was there a few years ago. But as well as being an actual, physical, and historical place, the Holy Eagle Peak of the Dharma Flower Sutra is a mythical place.
The place we visited, the geographical place, is like a ledge set on a steep mountainside, perhaps three-fourths of the way up the mountain. Above and below it, the mountain is both steep and rough, not the kind of place where anyone could sit and listen to a sermon or lecture. And the ledge itself would not hold more than three dozen or so people at a time.
In the Sutra this little place is populated by a huge assembly, with thousands of monks and nuns and laypeople, eighty thousand bodhisattvas, and a large number of gods, god-kings (including Indra, King of the Gods), dragon kings, chimera kings, Centaur kings, ashura kings, griffin kings, satyrs, pythons, minor kings, and holy wheel-rolling kings. Already, just from the listing of such a population, and there is more, we know we have entered a realm that is special, even magical.
We do not know much about the Indian origins of the Lotus Sutra, but we can be reasonably confident that it was produced in northern India by monks, and it is very likely that many of its first hearers and readers would have known perfectly well that Holy Eagle Peak was in actuality much too small for the kind of assembly described at the beginning of Chapter 1. We are to understand from the very beginning, in other words, that this is a story, not a precise description of historical events, but a mythical account of historical events. It is meant not just for our knowledge, but for our participation. It invites us to use our own imagination to participate in the Sutra’s world of enchantment.
Category Archives: d1b
A Person of Perfect Generosity
Buddhism for Today, p36-37If I were asked to explain with a single phrase the character of Sakyamuni Buddha as a man, I would answer without hesitation, “A person of perfect generosity.” Therefore, I think that there is no action that makes Sakyamuni Buddha more sorrowful than when we become angry about something and reproach others or when we blame others for our own wrongs. Above all else, we should refrain from such actions toward each other. Perseverance is, in short, generosity. As we persevere in the practice of the bodhisattvas, we cease to become angry or reproachful toward others, or toward anything in the universe. We are apt to complain about the weather when it rains and to grumble about the dust when we have a spell of fine weather. However, when through perseverance we attain a calm and untroubled mind, we become thankful for both the rain and the sun. Then our minds become free from changes in our circumstances.
When we advance further, we come not only to have no feeling of anger and hatred toward those who hurt, insult, or betray us but even to wish actively to help them. On the other hand, we should not be swayed by flattery or praise of the good we may do but should quietly reflect on our conduct. We should not feel superior to others but should maintain a modest attitude when everything goes smoothly.
Helping Even Such an Evil King as Ajātaśatru
With such great virtues as these, the Buddha was able to help even such an evil king as Ajātaśatru who called together wrong doers from 16 major states, took non-Buddhists in the world into his circle, had Devadatta as his teacher, incited slander among scoundrels, physically abused and even murdered the Buddha’s disciples. Moreover, Ajātaśatru crucified his father, a great Buddhist king reputed to have been a wise ruler, by nailing him on the cross with seven 12-inch long nails, and also destroyed his own mother’s jeweled ornamental hairpin and threatened to have her beheaded. Due to such serious sins compounded Ajātaśatru suffered from seven malignant tumors for which he was destined to fall into the Hell of Incessant Suffering within three weeks time on the seventh day of the third month through a hole in the earth and suffer in the hell for as long as one kalpa (aeon). Nevertheless, when he visited the Buddha and paid homage to Him, his malignant tumors were healed, he was saved from the severe torment of the Hell of Incessant Suffering, and moreover, his life span was prolonged by 40 years. Minister Jīvaka is said to have entered a blazing flame to save a child of millionaire Campā. It was only because he was the messenger of the Buddha that he was able to do this. Reflecting on this, there is no doubt that anyone who made an offering to the Buddha is bound to attain Buddhahood no matter how evil a man or woman is.
Hōren-shō, Letter to Hōren, Writings of Nichiren Shōnin, Volume 6, Followers I, Page 47-48
Our Stagnation or Retrogression Hinders Others
Buddhism for Today, p31-32The Buddha’s teachings instruct us that sin and evil did not originally exist in this world. They are due to the cessation of the proper progress of human life or the return to a wrong course. Therefore, the moment we abandon such negative uses of energy, that is, as soon as we are free from illusion, evil disappears and the world of the light of the brilliant rays of the Buddha is revealed before us. Our “non-advance,” our “non-approach” to the Buddha, is sin and evil because such action is contrary to the proper course of human life.
From the selfish point of view of ego, we think that we can do as we like so long as we are prepared to accept the consequences of our actions, and we ask only to be left alone and not be interfered with by others. However, such an attitude is a fundamental error because our lives are related in some way to the lives of all others, so that the evil produced by one per son inevitably exerts an influence upon other people somewhere, and the negligence of one person is sure to prevent others from advancing. If we understand this, we can be spiritually awakened to the fact that our own stagnation or retrogression hinders others, so that we determine to advance upward bit by bit. This is the true spirit of the law that nothing has an ego, and this is the reason why the true spirit of Buddhism consists in constant endeavor.
The Great Instruction
Two Buddhas, p39-40With the audience having been enumerated [in Chapter 1, Introductory], the Buddha then teaches a Mahāyāna sūtra identified in Sanskrit as Mahānirdeśa. However, nothing of the content of that teaching is provided, and mahānirdeśa is a generic term that simply means “great instruction.” Kumārajīva’s Chinese translation, however, renders this as “a Mahāyāna sūtra named Immeasurable Meanings,” and by the fifth century, a text purporting to be this very sutra was circulating in China, also with the name Sūtra of Immeasurable Meanings (Ch. Wuliang yi jing), said to have been translated by a monk named Dharmāgatayaśas. No Sanskrit original, or reference to the Sanskrit original, has been located, nor are any other translations attributed to Dharmāgatayaśas, leading scholars to consider the text to be a Chinese apocryphon, a work composed in China that purports to be not only of Indian origin but spoken by the Buddha himself. It achieved canonical status in China, where it is regarded as the first of three sūtras comprising the so-called threefold Lotus Sūtra. The text itself is short, not quite thirty pages in English translation, and has only three chapters. The first describes the bodhisattvas present in the assembly and reports their lengthy praise of the Buddha. In the second, the Buddha praises the importance of the Sūtra of Immeasurable Meanings and then gives the actual teaching, which is that, although buddhas teach immeasurable meanings, they all originate from a single dharma, which is without form. Also in the chapter the Buddha says, “For more than forty years I have expounded the dharma in all manner of ways through adeptness in skillful means, but the core truth has still not been revealed.” East Asian commentators would find great meaning in this statement, for it serves to position the Lotus Sūtra as the Buddha’s final teaching. The third and longest chapter is devoted to ten benefits accruing to those who hear one verse of this sūtra or keep, read, recite, and copy the sūtra.
The Meaning of the Title
Buddhism for Today, p23-24Before discussing the Sutra of the Lotus Flower of the Wonderful Law itself, I wish to comment on the title of the sutra, which expresses in brief the form and content of the sutra. I believe that this title is unique in its succinct expression of the profound meaning of the entire sutra.
The Sutra of the Lotus Flower of the Wonderful Law, written in Sanskrit, is called Saddharma-puṇḍrika-sūtra. The title as translated into Chinese by Kumārajīva is Miao-fa-lien-hua-ching (Japanese, Myōhō Renge-kyō). In the Sutra of the Lotus Flower of the Wonderful Law the absolute truth realized by Sakyamuni Buddha is presented. This truth is called the “Wonderful Law” (saddharma, miao-fa, myōhō) because of its profound meaning, as shown in the discussion of the Sutra of Innumerable Meanings.
First, as shown by the words “real state of all things, “Law” means all things that exist in the universe and all events that occur in the world. Secondly, it means the one truth that penetrates all things. Thirdly, it means the Law as an established rule when the truth appears as a phenomenon that we can see with our eyes and hear with our ears. Fourthly, it means the teaching of the truth.
The truth that expresses the original idea of these four meanings of “Wonderful Law” is the Buddha. Accordingly, the Law that rules the relationships of all things, including man, is also the Buddha; and the teaching, explaining how one should live on the basis of the truth, is the Buddha too. In short, the Law and the Buddha are one and the same. In other words, the Buddha and all the functions of the Buddha can be expressed with the word “Law.” Because the Law has such a supreme, profound, and inexpressible meaning, it is modified by the adjective “Wonderful.”
“Lotus” (puṇḍarīka, lien-hua, renge) means the lotus flower. In India this flower was regarded as the most beautiful in the world, for a lotus is rooted in mud but opens as a pure and beautiful flower unsoiled by the mud. This is an allegorical expression of thee fundamental idea of the Lotus Sutra, that though man lives in this corrupt world, he is not tainted by it nor swayed by it, and he can live a beautiful life with perfect freedom of mind.
“Sutra” literally means a string or the warp threads in weaving. The people of ancient India had a custom of decorating their hair with beautiful flowers threaded on a string. In the same way, the holy teachings of the Buddha were gathered into compositions called sutras. Altogether, the title “Sutra of the Lotus Flower of the Wonderful Law” means “the supreme teaching that man can lead a correct life, without being swayed by illusions, while living in this corrupt world.”
Familiar and Unfamiliar Appearances
Two Buddhas, p41Maitreya was the only bodhisattva of the present time familiar to the non-Mahāyāna, mainstream tradition of Buddhism. But he does not understand the Buddha’s miracle and so he is made to ask a bodhisattva unknown to that mainstream. Here again, this would give the traditional reader pause. The question that would typically open a sūtra is a question addressed to the Buddha from an unenlightened person. Here, the question is asked by an advanced bodhisattva, a bodhisattva a mere one lifetime away from buddhahood, and it is addressed to another bodhisattva, one not part of the mainstream Buddhist tradition. As we shall see, such things occur throughout the Lotus Sūtra, where something or someone familiar appears in a way that also seems unfamiliar, evoking recognition but also hesitation. Something is not quite right; indeed, the ground has shifted, and conventional expectations no longer apply.
The Greatest of the Lotus Sūtra Interpreters
Two Buddhas, p8Chinese commentaries on the Lotus and other sūtras were produced in great numbers, especially during the fifth through tenth centuries. Through commentary, and other forms of interpretation as well, the sūtras were given innovative readings and made to speak to issues specific to the interpreter’s own time and place. Thus, a third aim of the current volume is to explore this living interface between text and commentary in Buddhism, using the Lotus as an exemplar.
Rather than taking on the impossible task of cataloging the long tradition of commentary on the Lotus Sūtra across Asia, we focus on the Japanese figure Nichiren (1222-1282), who stands among the greatest of the Lotus Sūtra interpreters.
The Brilliance and Power of the Lotus Sūtra
Two Buddhas, p4The authors of the Lotus Sūtra were deeply learned in the language of Buddhism, and the text is filled with all manner of allusions to, and radical reinterpretations of, the Buddha’s teachings. A second goal of this book, therefore, is to focus on what was at stake in the compilation of a Mahāyāna sūtra — what it meant to compose a revelation of a new teaching, to legitimize that revelation as the Buddha’s words, and then to use it as a polemic against the established tradition. Readers accustomed to the traditional claim held by many devotees, that the Lotus Sūtra is the teaching of the historical Buddha expounded in the last eight years of this life, may initially find this perspective challenging. We suggest, however, that one’s appreciation of the brilliance and power of the Lotus Sūtra is only enhanced when the historical circumstances of its composition are taken into consideration. That is, the genius of the Lotus Sūtra becomes fully apparent only when one engages with the kinds of questions the compilers themselves were compelled to address.
Nichiren’s Understanding of the Lotus Sūtra’s Title
Two Buddhas, pPage 48-50This introductory chapter marks a convenient place in the present study to say more about Nichiren’s understanding of the Lotus Sūtra’s title.
First, we might consider the individual words that make up the title. Myō has the connotations of “wonderful,” “marvelous,” and “inconceivable.” The use of this character in the title was Kumārajīva’s innovation; an earlier translation by Dharmaraksa (230?-316) uses shō (Ch. Zheng), meaning “true” or “correct.” Fayun (467-529), an early Chinese commentator on the Lotus Sūtra, took myō (miao) to mean “subtle” as opposed to “crude” or “coarse.” Zhiyi argued that myō has both a relative and an absolute meaning. From a relative standpoint, myō, denoting the perfect teaching, is superior to all others, which by comparison are incomplete. But from an absolute standpoint, myō is perfectly encompassing; there is nothing outside it to which it could be compared. This reading laid the groundwork for later understandings of the Lotus Sūtra as both superior to, and at the same time inclusive of, all other teachings.
Nichiren said that myō has three meanings. The first is to open, meaning that it opens the meaning of all other sūtras. “When the Buddha preached the Lotus Sūtra, he opened the storehouse of the other sūtras preached during the preceding forty-some years, and all beings of the nine realms were for the first time able to discern the treasures that lay within those sūtras,” he wrote. Second, myō means “perfectly encompassing; each of the 69,384 characters of the sūtra contains all others within itself. “It is like one drop of the great ocean that contains water from all the rivers that pour into the ocean, or a single wish-granting jewel that, although no bigger than a mustard seed, can rain down all the treasures that one might gain from all wish-granting jewels.” And third, myō means “to restore to life,” meaning that it revives the seeds, or causes, of buddhahood in those who have neglected or destroyed them.
Renge means “lotus blossom,” and the Sanskrit puṇḍarīka indicates a white lotus. Lotuses grow in muddy water to bloom untainted above its surface and thus represent the flowering of the aspiration for awakening in the mind of the ordinary, deluded person. The lotus plant also produces flowers and seedpods at the same time. To Chinese Tiantai patriarchs, as well as medieval Japanese Tendai interpreters, this suggested the simultaneity of “cause” (the nine realms, or states of those still at the stage of practice) and “effect” (the buddha realm or state of buddhahood), meaning that all ten realms are mutually inclusive. Nichiren draws on the analogy of the lotus to stress his claim that the Lotus Sūtra enables the realization of buddhahood in the very act of practice. As he expressed it: “The merit of all other sūtras is uncertain, because they teach that first one must plant good roots and [only] afterward become a buddha. But in the case of the Lotus Sūtra, when one takes it in one’s hand, that hand at once becomes a buddha, and when one chants it with one’s mouth, that mouth is precisely a buddha. This is just like the moon being reflected on the water the moment it rises above the eastern mountains, or like a sound and its echo occurring simultaneously.”
The last character, kyō, means “sūtra.” Kyō in the title of the Lotus Sūtra, Nichiren said, encompasses all the teachings of all buddhas throughout space and time. Namu, which prefaces the title in chanting, comes from Sanskrit namas, meaning “reverence,” “devotion,” or “the taking of refuge.” Ultimately, Nichiren took it as expressing the willingness to offer one’s life for the dharma. Nichiren made clear, however, that the significance of the daimoku does not lie in its semantic meaning. The daimoku, he said, is neither the text nor its meaning but the intent, or heart, of the entire sūtra. He defined it alternately as the seed of Buddhahood, the father and mother of all buddhas, and the “three thousand realms in a single thought moment in actuality… .”