Category Archives: LS32

LS32

Day 6

Day 6 continues Chapter 3, A Parable

Day 6 Text with annotationsPlay MP3
Having last month considered how the Budddha lured the children to safety, we consider how each cart relates to each Dharma vehicle.

“Śāriputra! Those who have intelligence, who receive the Dharma by faith after hearing it from the Buddha, from the World Honored One, and who seek Nirvāṇa with strenuous efforts in order to get out of the triple world, are called Śrāvakas. They may be likened to the children who left the burning house in order to get the sheep-carts. Those who receive the Dharma by faith after hearing it from the Buddha, from the World-Honored One, who seek the self-originating wisdom with strenuous efforts, who wish to have good tranquility in seclusion, and who perfectly understand the causes of all things, are called Pratyekabuddhas. They may be likened to the children who left the burning house in order to get the deer-carts. Those who receive the Dharma by faith after hearing it from the Buddha, from the World-Honored One, who strenuously seek the knowledge of all things, the wisdom of the Buddha, the self-originating wisdom, the wisdom to be obtained without teachers, and the insight and powers and fearlessness of the Tathāgata, who give peace to innumerable living beings out of their compassion towards them, and who benefit gods and men, that is to say, who save all living beings, are called men of the Great Vehicle. Bodhisattvas are called Mahasattvas because they seek this vehicle. They may be likened to the children who left the burning house in order to get the bullock-carts.

See Appropriate Means and Ends

LS32, d5b, d6b, stories

Appropriate Means and Ends

Even the very fancy carriage that the father gives to the children is, after all, only a carriage, a vehicle. All of our teachings and practices should be understood as devices, as possible ways of helping people. They should never be taken as final truths.

Appropriate means are means, not ends. In this sense they have only instrumental and provisional importance. While it is true that the notion of skillful means is sometimes used to describe something provisional, it is important to recognize that being instrumental and provisional does not mean that such methods are in any sense unimportant. At one point at least, the Dharma Flower Sutra even suggests that it is itself an appropriate means. The context is one in which the Sutra is praising itself and proclaiming its superiority over others (“those who do not hear or believe this sutra suffer a great loss”), but then has those who embrace the Sutra in a future age say:

When I attain the Buddha way,
I will teach this Dharma to them
By skillful means,
That they may dwell within it. (LS 273)

The Stories of the Lotus Sutra, p53-54
d3b, Vasubandhu

The Meaning of Fixedness and Doubt

Hereafter is shown the meaning of three things [concerning the great assembly]. It should be known that these [three] are: 1) the meaning of fixedness, 2) the meaning of doubt, and 3) the meaning of doubt that is based on a certain event.

Regarding “the meaning of fixedness,” there are disciples who through the expedient means [of the tathāgatas] have obtained a profound Dharma to be realized, and they have become fixed in resolve. And there are those in the path of the disciples who have attained the realization of an expedient nirvana. These two types of Dharma as realization illustrate the Dharma as conditioned and as unconditioned. Just as it says in the Lotus Sutra:

At that time in the great assembly there were disciples, arhats [who were free of depravities, beginning with Ājñāta-Kauṇḍinya, twelve thousand in all, monks, nuns, laymen, and laywomen who had set out to become disciples or self-enlightened buddhas. Each of them thought, “Why has the Buddha so wholeheartedly praised expedient means and said, ‘The Dharma that the buddhas have attained is profound and difficult to comprehend. The import of what they say is difficult to understand. None of the disciples or self-enlightened buddhas are capable of knowing it.’ As long as the Buddha taught the meaning of one emancipation, I thought I had also] attained that Dharma and reached nirvana.”

“The meaning of doubt” refers to all the disciples, self-enlightened buddhas, and so on who became doubtful because they could not understand. Just as it says in the Lotus Sutra, “now we do not understand the import of this meaning.”

“The meaning of doubt that is based on a certain event” means [those in the assembly] became doubtful when they heard the Tathāgata say, “The emancipation of the disciples is neither different nor distinct from my emancipation.” The skeptics became doubtful about the reason [for this statement], saying “What is this all about?” Since the Tathāgata uses various [means] to explain his profound realm, the profundity of what he explains in the beginning is different from the profundity of what he explains in the end. This is why they became doubtful. Just as it says in the Lotus Sutra:

At that time Śāriputra, being aware of the doubt in the minds of those in the fourfold assembly, [and being in doubt himself, addressed the Buddha saying, “O Blessed one! What is the cause and what is the reason for your wholehearted praise of the foremost expedient means of the buddhas and their profound and subtle Dharma that is difficult to understand? Never before have I heard the Buddha say anything like this. Now the fourfold assembly is in doubt. Please, O Blessed One, explain this matter. O Blessed One! Why have you so wholeheartedly praised this profound and subtle Dharma that is difficult to understand?” Thereupon, Śāriputra, wanting to further explain what he meant,] spoke these verses.

Vasubandhu's Commentary on the Lotus Sutra, p 128-129
LS32

Day 5

Day 5 begins Chapter 3, A Parable

Day 5 Text with annotationsPlay MP3
Having last month considered Śāriputra’s doubts, we consider the Parable of the Burning House.

Śāriputra! Now I will explain this with a parable. Those who have wisdom will be able to understand the reason if they hear the following parable.

“Śāriputra! Suppose there lived a very rich man in a certain country, in a certain village, in a certain town. He was old. His wealth was immeasurable. He had many paddy fields, houses, and servants. His manor house was large, but had only one gate. In that house lived many people, numbering a hundred or two hundred or five hundred. The buildings were in decay, the fences and walls corrupt, the bases of the pillars rotten, and the beams and ridgepoles tilting and slanted.

“All of a sudden fires broke out at the same time from all sides of the house, and it began to burn. In this house lived children of the rich man, numbering ten or twenty or thirty. The rich man was very frightened at the great fires breaking out from the four sides of the house. He thought, ‘I am able to get out of the gate of the burning house safely, but my children are still inside. They are engrossed in playing. They do not know that the fires are coming towards them. They are not frightened or afraid. They are about to suffer, but do not mind. They do not wish to get out.’ Śāriputra! He also thought, ‘I am strong-muscled. I will put them in a flower-plate or on a table and bring them out.’

“But he thought again, ‘This house has only one gate. Worse still, the gate is narrow and small. My children are too young to know this. They are attached to the place where they are playing. They may fall [out of the plate or table] and get burned. I had better tell them of the danger. This house is already burning. They must come out quickly so as not to be burned to death.’

“Having thought this, he said to his children as he had thought, ‘Come out quickly!’ He warned them with these good words out of his compassion towards them, but they were too much engrossed in playing to hear the words of their father. They were not frightened or afraid. They did not wish to come out. They did not know what a fire was, what a house was, and what they would lose. They ran about happily. They only glanced at their father occasionally.

See Leaving Our Burning House

LS32, d5b, d6b, stories

Leaving Our Burning House

The parable is interpreted as saying that the world is like a burning house. … [T]he verse version of the parable goes to great lengths to describe the terrors inside the burning house, perhaps leading some to think that our goal should be to escape from the burning house that is this world.

But escaping from the world is not at all what the Sutra teaches. Elsewhere it makes clear that we are to work in the world to help or save others. The point here is more that we are like children at play, not paying enough attention to the environment around us. Perhaps it is not the whole world that is in flames but our own playgrounds, the private worlds we create out of our attachments and out of our complacency. Thus leaving the house is not escaping from the world but leaving behind our play-world, our attachments and illusions, or at least some of them, in order to enter the real world.

The Stories of the Lotus Sutra, p56
d3b, Vasubandhu

Why Tathāgatas Use Expedient Means

Just as it says in the Lotus Sutra:

O Śāriputra! Since I became a buddha I have broadly expounded the teachings. Through innumerable expedient means I have attracted living beings and caused them to attain emancipation from all attachments.

Furthermore, as for “innumerable expedient means,” [the tathāgatas use them] to cause [living beings] to enter beneficial teachings. They also use expedient means to cut off all doubts and to cause [living beings] to enter the highest knowledge. Furthermore, [they use] expedient means, based on the four methods of conversion, to influence living beings and to cause them to attain emancipation. “All attachments” means the attachment to objects – that is, the attachment to the spheres, stages, positions, or vehicles. “Attachment to the realms” means [being attached to] the realms of desire, form, or formlessness. “Attachment to the stages” means being attached to [the stages of contemplation in] the [three] realms. According to the meditative trance, it means taking up the stages of contemplation, namely, the stage of the first contemplation to the stage of [the contemplation called] “neither perception nor nonperception” and the stage of the contemplation [called] the “cessation [of consciousness and feeling].” “Attachment to positions” means being attached to the position of either a lay Buddhist or a renunciant. “Attachment to the position of a lay Buddhist” means being attached to one’s relatives and producing various actions, false views, and so on. “Attachment to the position of a renunciant” means being attached to fame, gain, enlightenment, and various defilements, and so on. “Attachment to the vehicles” means being attached to either the vehicle of the disciples or the bodhisattva vehicle. “Attachment to the vehicle of the disciples” means to take delight in upholding the precepts of the Small Vehicle and seek [to become] a stream-winner (srota-āpanna), once-returner (sakṛdāgāmin), never-returner (anāgāmin), or arhat. “Attachment to the Great Vehicle” means being attached to gain, honor, veneration, and so on, and also to be attached to distinctions, the marks of various things (dharmas), and the stage of buddhahood.

Vasubandhu's Commentary on the Lotus Sutra, p 124-125
LS32

Day 4

Day 4 concludes Chapter 2, Expedients, and completes the first volume of the Sūtra of the Lotus flower of the Wonderful Dharma.

Day 4 Text with annotationsPlay MP3
Having last month learned of the Buddha’s immeasurable power to employ expedients, we learn there is only one teaching.

There is only one teaching, that is, the One Vehicle
In the Buddha-worlds of the ten quarters.
There is not a second or a third vehicle
Except when the Buddhas teach expediently.

The Buddhas lead all Living beings
By tentative names [of vehicles]
In order to expound their wisdom.
They appear in the worlds
Only for the One Vehicle.

Only this is true; the other two are not.
The Buddhas do not save living beings by the Lesser Vehicle.
They dwell in the Great Vehicle.
The Dharma they attained is adorned
With the power of concentration of mind
And with the power of wisdom.
They save all living beings by the Dharma.

I attained unsurpassed enlightenment,
The Great Vehicle, the Truth of Equality.
If I lead even a single man
By the Lesser Vehicle,
I shall be accused of stinginess.
It is not good at all to do this.

I do not deceive
Those who believe me and rely on me.
I am not greedy or jealous
Because I have eliminated all evils.
Therefore, in the worlds of the ten quarters,
I am fearless.

I am adorned with the physical marks of a Buddha.
I am illumining the world with my light.
To the countless living beings who honor me, I will expound
The seal of the truth, that is, the reality of all things.

Know this, Śāriputra!
I once vowed that I would cause
All living beings to become
Exactly as I am.

That old vow of mine
Has now been fulfilled.
I lead all living beings
Into the Way to Buddhahood.

The Daily Dharma from Aug. 11, 2020, offers this:

Know this, Śāriputra!
I once vowed that I would cause
All living beings to become
Exactly as I am.

That old vow of mine
Has now been fulfilled.
I lead all living beings
Into the Way to Buddhahood.

The Buddha sings these verses in Chapter Two of the Lotus Sūtra. Earlier in the chapter he explained that all the teachings he used before the Lotus Sūtra were mere expedients, intended to use our desire for happiness to bring us out of our suffering and onto the path of enlightenment. The expedient teachings were tailored to the ignorant and deluded minds of those who heard them, but had not yet revealed the true wisdom and compassion of the Buddha. Now that we have met this Wonderful Dharma, we are assured of our enlightenment and that of all beings. We learn to see innumerable Buddhas in limitless worlds through unimaginable time, and our own true selves at the heart of reality.

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

d3b, Vasubandhu

Four Types of Merit of the Tathāgatas

It says in the Lotus Sutra, “Why is this, Śāriputra? Because all the buddhas, the tathāgatas, are accomplished in explaining that which has its own cause.” Since the tathāgatas have accomplished four types of merit they are able to emancipate living beings. What are these four?

  1. The accomplishment of being established. Just as it says in the Lotus Sutra, “The tathāgatas have perfected various expedient means, [various insights, various interpretations, and various explanations].” [The perfection of] “various expedient means” indicates [a tathāgata’s] descent from Tusita Heaven until he reveals his entrance into [final] nirvana.
  2. The accomplishment of teaching that converts [living beings]. Just as it says in the Lotus Sutra, “various insights…” [The perfection of] “various insights” shows [the tathāgatas can reveal] the causes of defilement and purity.
  3. The accomplishment of distinctions. Just as it says in the Lotus Sutra, “various interpretations…” [The perfection of] “various interpretations” means that he is able to achieve results by how he preaches in accordance with the Dharma.
  4. The accomplishment of teaching. Just as it says in the Lotus Sutra, “various explanations…” [The perfection of] “various explanations” means [the tathāgatas] use the four analytical knowledges to teach [the Dharma] through whichever names, words, or letters [are required] according to whatever capacity a living being has to accept it.
Vasubandhu's Commentary on the Lotus Sutra, p 123
d25b, WONS

The Gist of Practicing the Lotus Sūtra

A wise man named Confucius of China is said to have thought over what he intended to say nine times before he uttered a word. It is also said that Tan, the Duke of Chou, interrupted washing his hair, or having a meal, three times in order to see visitors without keeping them waiting. How much more you who have faith in Buddhism should take these examples to heart! Otherwise you will regret it later. Please do not bear a grudge against me. This is the teaching of the Buddha. The essence of Buddhism is the Lotus Sūtra, and the gist of practicing the Lotus Sūtra is shown in the “Never-Despising Bodhisattva” chapter. Contemplate why the Never-Despising Bodhisattva stood on the street to bow to passersby. The true purpose of Śākyamuni Buddha appearing in this world was to teach us how to behave ourselves on a daily basis. Consider this well. The wise are called human beings while the foolish are beasts.

Sushun Tennō Gosho, The ‘Emperor Sushun’ Letter, Writings of Nichiren Shōnin, Faith and Practice, Volume 4, Page 124

LS32

Day 3

Day 3 covers the first half of Chapter 2, Expedients.

Day 3 Text with annotationsPlay MP3
Having last month learned the expediency of the teaching of the Three Vehicles, we consider the reaction of the Śrāvakas and the Arhats.

The great multitude at that time included Śrāvakas. [They also included] Ājñāta-Kauṇḍinya, and other Arhats, twelve hundred altogether, who had already eliminated āsravas. [They also included] the bhikṣus, bhikṣunīs, upāsakās, and upāsikās, [that is, the four kinds of devotees] who had already aspired for Śrāvakahood or Pratyekabuddhahood. All of them thought:

“Why does the World-Honored One extol so enthusiastically the power of the Buddhas to employ expedients? Why does he say that the Dharma attained by him is profound and difficult to understand, and that the true purpose of his teachings is too difficult for Śrāvakas and Pratyekabuddhas to know? He expounded to us the teaching of emancipation. We obtained this teaching and reached Nirvāṇa. We do not know why he says all this.”

Thereupon Śāriputra, seeing the doubts of the four kinds of devotees, and also because he, himself, did not understand [why the Buddha had said this], said to the Buddha:

“World-Honored One! Why do you extol so enthusiastically [what you call] the highest [Truth, and the power of the Buddhas to employ) expedients? [Why do you extol) the Dharma which [you say] is profound, wonderful, and difficult to understand? I have never heard you say all this before. The four kinds of devotees also have the same doubts. World-Honored One! Explain all this! Why do you extol so enthusiastically the Dharma which [you say] is profound, wonderful, and difficult to understand?”

Lotus Path: Practicing the Lotus Sutra Volume 1 offers this on the followers’ puzzlement:

Previous to teaching the Lotus Sutra the Buddha taught expedients to lead people to the ultimate teaching of the Lotus Sutra. In many ways it was as if he were leading the blind to the train station so they could then find the way to the true complete teachings contained in the Lotus Sutra. But we need to remember that the train station is not the destination, the expedients are not the sum of the Buddha’s teachings.
Lotus Path: Practicing the Lotus Sutra Volume 1