Buddhism for Today, p71[Another] lesson that we learn from chapter 4 is that an excellent way to progress from faith to discernment is revealed here. The four śrāvakas listened to the Parable of the Burning House and understood it. They not only thought that they had understood it but demonstrated their understanding to the Buddha in another parable. Not only to receive the teaching passively but also to announce actively what we have been able to realize is a very good way both to deepen our discernment and to elevate our faith. Moreover, it also helps to deepen others’ discernment and elevate their faith. We must not overlook the importance of telling others of our own religious experiences, as demonstrated in this chapter.
Category Archives: LS32
Day 7
Day 7 concludes Chapter 3, A Parable, and begins Chapter 4, Understanding by Faith.
Thereupon the men living the life of wisdom: Subhūti, Mahā-Kātyāyana, Mahā-Kāśyapa, and Mahā-Maudgalyāyana felt strange because they heard the Dharma from the Buddha that they had never heard before, and because they heard that the World-Honored One had assured Śāriputra of his future attainment of Anuttara-samyak-saṃbodhi. They felt like dancing with joy, rose from their seats, adjusted their robes, bared their right shoulders, put their right knees on the ground, joined their hands together with all their hearts, bent themselves respectfully, looked up at the honorable face, and said to the Buddha:
“We elders of the Saṃgha were already old and decrepit [when we heard of Anuttara-samyak-saṃbodhi]. We did not seek Anuttara-samyak-saṃbodhi because we thought that we had already attained Nirvāṇa, and also because we thought that we were too old and decrepit to do so.’ You have been expounding the Dharma for a long time. We have been in your congregation all the while. We were already tired [when we heard of Anuttara-samyak-saṃbodhi]. Therefore, we just cherished the truth that nothing is substantial, the truth that nothing is different from any other thing, and the truth that nothing more is to be sought. We did not wish to perform the Bodhisattva practices, that is, to purify the world of the Buddha and to lead all living beings [to Buddhahood] by displaying supernatural powers because you had already led us out of the triple world and caused us to attain Nirvāṇa. Neither did we wish at all to attain Anuttara-samyak-saṃbodhi, which you were teaching to Bodhisattvas, because we were already too old and decrepit to do so. But now we are very glad to hear that you have assured a Śrāvakas of his future attainment of Anuttara-samyak-saṃbodhi. We have the greatest joy that we have ever had. We have never expected to hear such a rare teaching all of a sudden. How glad we are! We have obtained great benefits. We have obtained innumerable treasures although we did not seek them.
All Those Who Hear This Sūtra Will Become Buddhas Without Fail
It is preached in the Lotus Sūtra, “Expedients” chapter, “If there are those who hear the Dharma, not even one will fail to attain Buddhahood.” Although this phrase consists of only ten Chinese characters, it means that reading a line of the Lotus Sūtra has the same merit as reading all the holy teachings that Śākyamuni Buddha preached in his lifetime. Therefore, Grand Master Miao-lê states in his Commentary on the Profound Meaning of the Lotus Sūtra, “In spreading the teaching of the Lotus Sūtra, when we consider the meaning of just one doctrine, we must consider the entire scriptures of the Buddha preached in his lifetime from the beginning to the end.”
The “beginning” here means the Flower Garland Sūtra while the “end” means the Nirvana Sūtra. The Flower Garland Sūtra was preached by four great Bodhisattvas — Hoe, Kudokulin, Kongōban, and Kongozō — upon the request of a bodhisattva called Gedatsugatsu. It was preached in the presence of the Buddha, who had just attained enlightenment. I do not know how many fascicles it consisted of at the time it was housed in India, the Dragon King Palace, or the Tuṣita Heaven, but when it was translated into Chinese and transmitted to Japan, there existed three editions of 60 fascicles, 80 fascicles, and 40 fascicles. Regarding the Nirvana Sūtra, too, we do not know how many fascicles it consisted of in India, the Dragon King Palace, and elsewhere but in Japan there are several editions in 40, 36, 6, and 2 fascicles. Beside these two sūtras, the Āgama sūtras, the sūtras preached in the third of the five periods of the Buddha’s teaching (according to T’ien-t’ai), and the Wisdom Sūtra are said to be more than 5,000 or 7,000 fascicles.
Even if one can’t read or listen to all these voluminous scriptures of Buddhism, if just one character or phrase of the Lotus Sūtra is read, the merit received is equivalent to reading the entire set of sūtras without missing even a single character. For instance, the words for India or Japan consist of merely two Chinese characters each, but included in these two characters are all of the lands, great mountains, plants, people and animals in the five regions of India, 16 major states, 500 medium states, 10,000 minor states and numerous tiny states. Taking another example, a mirror which is as small as one centimeter, two centimeters, three centimeters, four centimeters, or five centimeters square, can reflect people a meter or two meters tall, or a mountain as high as 10, 20, 100, or 1,000 meters. Therefore, as we read a phrase in the, “Expedients” chapter of the Lotus Sūtra, it is stated that all those who hear this sūtra will become Buddhas without fail.
Sennichi-ama Gohenji, A Reply to Sennichi-ama, Writings of Nichiren Shōnin, Volume 7, Followers II, Pages 158-159
Day 6
Day 6 continues Chapter 3, A Parable
(The Buddha said to Śāriputra:)
I am like the father.
I am the Saint of Saints.
I am the father of the world.All living beings are my children.
They are deeply attached
To the pleasures of the world.
They have no wisdom.The triple world is not peaceful.
It is like the burning house.
It is full of sufferings.
It is dreadful.There are always the sufferings
Of birth, old age, disease and death.
They are like flames
Raging endlessly.I have already left
The burning house of the triple world.
I am tranquil and peaceful
In a bower in a forest.
See The Remedy
Day 5
Day 5 begins Chapter 3, A Parable
Thereupon the World-Honored One, wishing to repeat what he had said, sang in gāthās:
Śāriputra! In your future life you will become
A Buddha, an Honorable One of Universal Wisdom,
Called Flower-Light,
And save innumerable living beings.You will make offerings to innumerable Buddhas.
You will perform the Bodhisattva practices.
You will obtain the ten powers and the other merits,
And attain unsurpassed enlightenment.The kalpa [of that Buddha] will come
after innumerable kalpas from now.
It will be called Great-Treasure-Adornment.
The world [of that Buddha] will be called Free-From-Taint.
It will be pure and undefiled.
Its ground will be made of lapis lazuli.
Its roads will be marked off by ropes of gold.
Its trees of the various colors of the seven treasures
Will always bear flowers and fruit.The Bodhisattvas of that world
Will always be resolute in mind.
They will have already obtained
The supernatural powers and the paramitas.
They will have already studied the Way of Bodhisattvas
Under innumerable Buddhas.
Those great people will be taught
By the Flower-Light Buddha.That Buddha will appear in his world at first as a prince.
The prince will give up his princeship and worldly fame.
He will renounce the world at the end of his life as a layman,
And attain the enlightenment of the Buddha.The duration of the life of Flower-Light Buddha
Will be twelve small kalpas.
The duration of the life of the people of his world
Will be eight small kalpas.After the extinction of that Buddha,
His right teachings will be preserved
For thirty-two small kalpas.
All living beings will be saved [by his right teachings].After the end of the period of his right teachings,
The counterfeit of them will last for thirty-two [small kalpas].
His śarīras will be distributed far and wide.
Gods and men will make offerings to them.These will be the deeds
Of Flower-Light Buddha.
That Honorable Biped will be
The most excellent one without a parallel.
You will be he.
Rejoice!
Stairway to Buddhahood
The Stories of the Lotus Sutra, p65What Shariputra gains from realizing that he is a bodhisattva is not a safe quick trip directly to being a buddha, as on an elevator, but something more like admission to a long stairway. The stairway will be difficult. But the most important point is that there is a stairway, a way to overcome suffering from the unsatisfactoriness of life, and the Buddha’s teachings can lead us to such a stairway.
Is life really meaningful? That is what the story of Shariputra is about. And the Sutra’s answer is that life is and can be experienced as meaningful, or can be meaningful, because it is meaningful.
The Sutra understands itself to be good news for everyone – in one sense, a kind of wake-up call to enter a new world, or to experience the world in a new way; in another sense, it is a kind of public announcement that everyone is a bodhisattva and therefore that you are already a bodhisattva and are on your way to becoming a buddha. Hearing such an announcement, really hearing such an announcement, we should all be glad and full of joy!
Fully Embracing the Entire Lotus Sutra
Buddhism is not a practice of isolating ourselves in our homes and doing our daily service, and having it stop there. How can we expect our efforts of sharing Buddhism with others to be effective if we ourselves have no connection to all of the Three Jewels?
No matter how hard one tries, if a person is not himself fully embracing the entire Lotus Sutra of Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha then it is impossible to teach others and to fully share with others the truth, the entire truth of the Lotus Sutra. The Lotus Sutra does not stop at one’s own life. The Buddha demonstrates this when he asks who will teach this on into the future.
Lecture on the Lotus SutraDay 4
Day 4 concludes Chapter 2, Expedients, and completes the first volume of the Sūtra of the Lotus flower of the Wonderful Dharma.
Śāriputra, know this!
Seeing with the eyes of the Buddha
The living beings of the six regions, I thought:
“They are poor, and devoid of merits and wisdom.
They incessantly suffer because they are taken
To the rough road of birth and death.
They cling to the five desires
Just as a yak loves its tail.
They are occupied with greed and cravings,
And blinded by them.
They do not seek the Buddha who has great power.
They do not seek the Way to eliminate sufferings.
They are deeply attached to wrong views.
They are trying to stop suffering by suffering.”My great compassion was aroused towards them.
I for the first time sat at the place of enlightenment[,]
[And attained enlightenment].
For three weeks afterwards,
I gazed on the tree,
Or walked about, thinking:
“The wisdom I obtained is
The most wonderful and excellent.
The living beings [of the six regions]
Are dull, attached to pleasures,
And blinded by stupidity.
How shall I save them?”On that occasion King Brahman,
Heavenly-King Śakra,
The four heavenly world-guardian kings,
Great-Freedom God, and other gods [of each world],
And thousands of millions of their attendants
Joined their hands together [towards me] respectfully,
Bowed to me,
And asked me to turn the wheel of the Dharma.I thought:
“If I extol only the Buddha-Vehicle,
The living beings [of the six regions] will not believe it
Because they are too much enmeshed in sufferings to think of it.
If they do not believe but violate the Dharma,
They will fall into the three evil regions.
I would rather enter into Nirvana quickly
Than expound the Dharma to them.”
Day 3
Day 3 covers the first half of Chapter 2, Expedients.
“Śāriputra! The present Buddhas, the present World-Honored Ones, of many hundreds of thousands of billions of Buddha-worlds of the ten quarters benefit all living beings, and give them peace. These Buddhas also expound various teachings with innumerable expedients, that is to say, with stories of previous lives, parables, similes and discourses, only for the purpose of revealing the One Buddha-Vehicle. The living beings who hear the teachings from these Buddhas will also finally obtain the knowledge of the equality and differences of all things.
“Śāriputra! These [present] Buddhas teach only Bodhisattvas because they wish to show the insight of the Buddha to all living beings, to cause them to obtain the insight of the Buddha, and to cause them to enter the Way to the insight of the Buddha.
“Śāriputra! So do I. I know that all living beings have various desires. I also know that they have attachments deep in their minds. Therefore, I expound various teachings to them with stories of previous lives, parables, similes and discourses, that is to say, with various expedients according to their natures.
“Śāriputra! I do all this for the purpose of causing them to realize the teaching of the One Buddha-Vehicle, that is, to obtain the knowledge of the equality and differences of all things. Śāriputra! There is not a second vehicle in the worlds of the ten quarters. How can there be a third?
Day 2
Chapter 1, Introductory (Conclusion).
The son who became a Buddha last was called Burning-Light. One of the eight hundred disciples [of Wonderful-Light] was called FameSeeking. He was attached to gain. He read and recited many sūtras, but did not understand them. He forgot many parts of those sūtras. Therefore, he was called Fame-Seeking. But he [later] planted the roots of good, and became able to see many hundreds of thousands of billions of Buddhas. He made offerings to them, respected them, honored them, and praised them.
“Maitreya, know this! Wonderful-Light Bodhisattva at that time was no one but myself; and Fame-Seeking Bodhisattva, no one but you. This good omen we see now is not different from what I saw at that time. Therefore, l think that the Tathagata of today also will expound the sūtra of the Great Vehicle called the ‘Lotus Flower of the Wonderful Dharma, the Dharma for Bodhisattvas, the Dharma Upheld by the Buddhas.’