Peaceful Action, Open Heart, p66Living beings cannot see into their own true nature right away, but the Buddha can. The Tathagata looks deeply into different beings, their forms, their essence, and their innate dispositions, and so is able to offer the Dharma in the way that is most beneficial to them. Seeing that one kind of disciple will best be able to follow a particular path of practice, the Buddha opens that Dharma gate. Mahayana sutras often mention “84,000 Dharma doors,” which is a way of saying that there are an infinite number of teachings and methods by which living beings may be liberated.
The Dharma is described as being “of a single flavor.” Just as the rain has one function, one effect – to nourish all the different species of plants and cause them to grow – the different teachings offered by the Tathagata as skillful means have but one taste – the taste of liberation and universal wisdom that delivers all beings to the realm of peace and joy.
Category Archives: LS32
Day 8
Day 8 concludes Chapter 4, Understanding by Faith, and closes the second volume of the Sutra of the Lotus Flower of the Wonderful Dharma.
Having last month considered consider the rich man in gāthās, we consider the poor son in gāthās.
At that time the poor son
Wandered from village to village,
From country to country,
Seeking food and clothing.
Sometimes he got what he wanted,
At other times he could not.
Getting thinner from hunger,
He had scabs and itches on his skin.
Wandering from one place to another,
He came to the city of his father.
Employed at places from day to day,
He came to the house of his father.At that time the rich man was sitting
On the lion-like seat
Under the great awning of treasures
Inside the gate of the house.
Many attendants were surrounding him.
Many people were on his guard.Some of his attendants were counting
Gold, silver, and other treasures.
Some were keeping accounts;
Others, writing notes and bills.Seeing his father noble and honorable,
The poor son thought:
“Is he a king,
Or someone like a king?”Frightened and scared,
He wondered:
“Why did I come here?”
He thought:
“If I stay here any longer,
I shall be forced to work.”Having thought this, he ran away.
He asked someone
For the way to a village of the poor
In order to get a job.From his lion-like seat,
The rich man saw the poor son in the distance,
And recognized him as his son.
But he did not tell this to the others.He immediately dispatched a messenger
To chase, catch, and bring him back.
The poor son cried out with fright,
And fell to the ground in agony, thinking:
“He caught me. I shall be killed.
What use was it coming here
For food and clothing?”The rich man thought:
“He is ignorant, narrow-minded, and mean.
If I tell him that I am his father,
He will not believe me.”
See Basic Lessons
Basic Lessons
The Stories of the Lotus Sutra, p72One of the basic lessons of the Lotus Sutra is that one can find in every situation that there is something to be learned. Sometimes an unpleasant situation or task can be understood as being a present given to us by the Buddha, an opportunity for learning and growth, just as the son in this story received from his father the present of shoveling dung. We can learn from just about any situation, even from very unpleasant ones, if we approach it with a right attitude.
The Dharma Is Universal
Peaceful Action, Open Heart, p65-66In [Chapter 5] the Buddha uses the example of medicinal herbs. Throughout the worlds there are innumerable valleys, fields, and gardens that contain countless species of plants. Every species has its own name and character, its own life cycle, its specific strengths and properties. None is exactly like another. Living beings are the same. They are of many different types. The sphere of activities of one person is like this; the social circumstance of another person is like that. Living beings are thus like the innumerable kinds of plants that grow in different environments.
One day the clouds came and covered the entire cosmos, and rain fell on all the species of plants. Some plants were very small with slim branches, some were very large with broad leaves, and some were neither small nor large. There were so many species, so many types of plants, yet they all benefited fully from the rain, each according to its own needs and capacity.
The teachings of the Buddha are like this. The rain of the Dharma falls not just on one class or type of human being. Whether they are shravakas, pratyekabuddhas, or bodhisattvas, monastics or laypeople, nobles or peasants, workers or warriors, male or female, child, youth, adult, or elder – all beings benefit from the Tathagata’s teachings. The Dharma is universal and has the capacity to serve all kinds of people, not just one social class, one nation, or one kind of understanding.
Day 7
Day 7 concludes Chapter 3, A Parable, and begins Chapter 4, Understanding by Faith.
Having last month learned that all living beings taught by Buddhas are Bodhisattvas, we consider the Buddha’s warning not to propagate this sutra carelessly.I am the King of the Dharma.
I expound the Dharma without hindrance.
I appeared in this world
In order to give peace to all living beings.Śāriputra!
I expound this seal of the Dharma
In order to benefit
[All living beings] of the world.
Do not propagate it carelessly
At the place where you are!Anyone who rejoices at hearing this sūtra,
And who receives it respectfully,
Know this, has already reached
The stage of avaivartika.Anyone who believes and receives this sūtra
Should be considered
To have already seen the past Buddhas,
Respected them, made offerings to them,
And heard the Dharma from them
In his previous existence.Anyone who believes what you expound
Should be considered
To have already seen all of us,
That is, you and me,
And the Saṃgha of bhikṣus,
And the Bodhisattvas.I expound only to people of profound wisdom
This Sūtra of the Lotus Flower of the Wonderful Dharma
Because men of little wisdom would doubt this sūtra,
And not understand it even if they heard it.
No Śrāvaka
Or Pratyekabuddha
Can understand
This sūtra.Even you, Śāriputra,
Have understood this sūtra
Only by faith.
Needless to say,
The other Śrāvakas cannot do otherwise.
They will be able to follow this sūtra
Only because they believe my words,
Not because they have wisdom.
Gateways to More Sincere Practice
The Stories of the Lotus Sutra, p215It is a fact that Shakyamuni Buddha, who was once alive and who taught the Dharma, died. He became a “historical figure,” someone really dead in an important sense. In his place as objects of devotion were such things as relics, stupas, pictures, and statues. Compared with a living human being, such things are dead. And then these dead things are put into museums and become even less alive. Or temples housing them become museums, tourist attractions, or funeral parlors, where the Dharma can be said to be dead. Teachings may be followed, but not in a very profound or sincere way.
But while an “image” of the Buddha is not the real thing, neither is it without value. It can be a way of keeping the Buddha alive in the world and in ourselves, though not in the way he was alive as a historical human being. I will always be grateful to “the Buddha” in the basement of Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts with whom I sat quite regularly when experiencing difficult times as a student. I did not receive the whole Dharma, the living Dharma, from that Buddha, but I did receive something very valuable. So, too, if a temple comes to function mainly as a tourist attraction, or as only a place for funerals and memorial services for the dead, it may serve as a skillful means to lead some to deeper interest in the Buddha Dharma. And teachings that are not followed in a very profound way can nonetheless be gateways to more sincere practice. This is, I believe, one reason that in the Dharma Flower Sutra, periods of merely formal Dharma are not followed by periods of the decline of the Dharma but rather by new periods of true Dharma.
Day 6
Day 6 continues Chapter 3, A Parable
Having last month considered why the Buddha gives the large cart, we repeat in gāthās the description of the manor house.Thereupon the Buddha, wishing to repeat what he had said, sang in gāthās:
I will tell you a parable.
A rich man had a manor house.
It was old, rotten,
Broken and ruined.
The house was about to collapse.
The lower parts of the pillars were rotten;
The beams and ridge-poles, tilting and slanted;
The foundation and steps, broken;
The fences and walls, corrupt;
The plaster of the walls, peeling;
The rush thatched on the roof, falling;
The rafters and eaves, slipping out of each other;
The hedges around the house, bent;
And refuse and debris, scattered all over.In this house lived
Five hundred people.
Kites, owls, crested eagles,
Eagles, crows,
Magpies, doves, pigeons,
Lizards, snakes, vipers, scorpions,
Millipedes, wall lizards, centipedes,
Weasels, badgers, mice, rats,
And poisonous vermin
Were moving about.Maggots and other vermin
Assembled on the excretions
Scattered all over
In the house.Foxes, wolves, and small foxes
Were crawling on corpses,
Biting them, chewing them,
And dismembering them.Many dogs were scrambling for their prey.
Weak and nervous from hunger,
They were seeking food here and there.
They were fighting with each other,
Snapping at each other,
And barking at each other.
The house was
So dreadful, so extraordinary.Mountain spirits, water spirits,
Yakṣas and other demons
Lived here and there.
They fed on people and poisonous vermin.Wild birds and beasts
Hatched their eggs,
Suckled or bred.
They protected their offspring.
Yakṣas scrambled for their young,
Took them, and ate them.
Having eaten to their hearts’ content,
They became more violent.
They fought with each other.
Their shrieks were dreadful.The demons called kumbhandas
Crouched on the ground
Or jumped a foot or two above the ground.
They walked to and fro
And played at their will.
They seized dogs by the legs,
Or hit them
Until they lost their voices,
And held their feet against their necks.
They enjoyed seeing them frightened.Some demons,
Tall, large,
Naked, black, and thin,
Lived in the house.
They were crying for food
With loud and evil voices.The necks of some demons
Were as slender as needles.
The heads of some demons
Were like that of a cow.
They ate people or dogs.
Their hair was disheveled
Like mugworts.
They were cruel and dangerous.
Always hungry and thirsty,
They were running about, shrieking.Yakṣas, hungry spirits,
And wild birds and beasts
Were unbearably hungry.
They were looking out of the windows
In all directions for food.
The house was so dangerous, so dreadful.
See Problem Children
Problem Children
The Stories of the Lotus Sutra, p117In many stories in the Dharma Flower Sutra we find that characters who represent the Buddha have problems leading their children. In the early parable of the burning house, for example, the children in the burning house initially refuse to pay any attention to their father. Similarly, the children of the physician in Chapter 16 … also refuse to obey their father’s exhortation to take the good medicine he has prepared for them. The poor son in Chapter 4 is a runaway. In addition, we also often find sympathy being expressed for Shakyamuni Buddha because he is responsible for this world of suffering.
Collectively, both of these elements, disobedient children and sympathy from others, and many other things as well, point to the similarity of the Buddha to ordinary human beings. Some might think of the Buddha as being extremely distant and different from ourselves – along the lines of how the famous Christian theologian Karl Barth describes God: “totally other.” But in the Dharma Flower Sutra it is the opposite: the Buddha is very close to us, concerned about us, affected by us – thus similar to us. That is why the Buddha’s work, so to speak, is difficult. It is only because he cares about this world that his job is difficult.
We will often have the most difficulty leading those who are closest to us, our own children, or parents, or wives, or husbands. Often this can be a sign that things are as they can be. If life is difficult for the Buddha because he is close to the world, we should expect to have difficulties with those who are closest to us. Those difficulties should be taken as a sign that we should strive to improve our relationships with those closest to us, even though we can expect this to be difficult at times.
Dharma Doors
Peaceful Action, Open Heart, p52-53The Buddha says in a gatha:
I am the Dharma King,
With respect to the Dharma acting completely at will.The Buddha, the Dharma King, grasps the true nature, the ultimate dimension, of all things (dharmas) and therefore has the ability to use various skillful means to teach beings in the phenomenal realm – this world of form and appearances called “samsara.” The various teachings are Dharma doors, and a Buddha is someone who can enter any of these Dharma gateways at will and use them in a very free and skillful way, just as a great poet knows how to use words with great artistry and skill. So the teachings may appear in different forms, but ultimately they all lead to the One Vehicle, the Buddha vehicle, in which all beings realize their innate Buddha nature. This is absolute freedom in the field of time and space, nirvana right in the realm of samsara, and this is the great insight of the Buddha that was renewed in the Mahayana.
Day 5
Day 5 begins Chapter 3, A Parable
Having last month concluded today’s portion of Chapter 3, A Parable, we begin again with Śāriputra’s reaction to the Dharma he had never heard before.Thereupon Śāriputra, who felt like dancing with joy, stood up, joined his hands together, looked up at the honorable face, and said to the Buddha:
“Hearing this truthful voice of yours, I feel like dancing [with joy]. I have never felt like this before. Why is that? We [Śrāvakas and the Bodhisattvas] heard this Dharma before. [At that time] we saw that the Bodhisattvas were assured of their future Buddhahood, but not that we were. We deeply regretted that we were not given the immeasurable insight of the Tathāgata.“World-Honored One! I sat alone under a tree or walked about mountains and forests, thinking, ‘We [and the Bodhisattvas] entered the same world of the Dharma. Why does the Tathāgata save us only by the teachings of the Lesser Vehicle?’
“Now I understand that the fault was on our side, not on yours, because if we had waited for your expounding of the Way to Anuttara-samyak-saṃbodhi, we would have been saved by the Great Vehicle. When we heard your first teaching, we did not know that that teaching was an expedient one expounded according to our capacities. Therefore, we believed and received that teaching at once, thought it over, and attained the enlightenment [to be attained by that teaching].
“World-Honored One! I reproached myself day and night [after I saw that the Bodhisattvas were assured of their future Buddhahood]. Now I have heard from you the Dharma that I had never heard before. I have removed all my doubts. I am now calm and peaceful in body and mind. Today I have realized that I am your son, that I was born from your mouth, that I was born in [the world of] the Dharma, and that I have obtained the Dharma of the Buddha.”