Two Buddhas, p50-52In developing his teachings about the daimoku of the Lotus Sūtra, Nichiren drew upon and adapted earlier traditions of Lotus interpretation. Chinese exegetes had often employed a technique known as “analytic division” (Ch. fenke) or parsing that purported to uncover categories of meaning implicit within a particular sūtra, and thus, to reveal the Buddha’s true intent. Zhiyi, for example, divided the Lotus Sūtra into two sections: the first fourteen of its twenty-eight chapters, he said, represent the “trace teaching” (Ch. jimen, J. shakumon), which presents Śākyamuni Buddha as a “trace” or manifestation, that is, a historical figure who lived and taught in this world, while the second fourteen chapters constitute the “origin teaching” (benmen, honmon), which presents Śākyamuni as the primordial buddha, awakened since the inconceivably remote past. The intent of the trace teaching, Zhiyi said, lies in opening the three vehicles to reveal the one vehicle, while the intent of the origin section is to reveal the Buddha’s original awakening in the distant past. Nichiren also regarded these as the two great revelations of the Lotus Sūtra. For him, the trace teaching revealed buddhahood as a potential inherent in all beings, while the origin teaching presented it as a reality fully manifested in the Buddha’s life and conduct. Nichiren saw the core of the trace and origin teachings as Chapters Two and Sixteen, respectively, and urged his followers to recite these chapters as part of their daily practice.
Chinese commentators … typically divided sūtras into three parts: an introductory section, the main exposition, and a “dissemination” section, urging that the sūtra be transmitted to the future. Zhiyi divided the Lotus Sūtra accordingly: Chapter One of the Lotus Sūtra represents “introduction”; Chapters Two through the first part of Seventeen represent the “main exposition”; and the latter part of Chapter Seventeen and the remaining chapters represent “dissemination.” Zhiyi further divided each of the sūtra’s two exegetical divisions, the trace and origin teachings, into these three parts. Nichiren expanded this threefold analysis in two directions. Zooming out, as it were, he applied it to the entirety of the Buddha’s teachings: all teachings that preceded the Lotus Sūtra are “introduction”; the threefold Lotus Sūtra is the “main exposition”; and the Nirvāṇa Sūtra, which Tendai tradition regards as a restatement of the Lotus Sūtra, represents “dissemination.” Zooming in, he identified all the teachings of all buddhas throughout space and time, including the trace teaching of Lotus Sūtra, as preparation, and the daimoku, Namu Myōhō-renge-kyō, the heart of the origin teaching, as the main exposition. Nichiren did not say explicitly what “dissemination” would mean in that case. His later disciples put forth various explanations, for example, that it referred to the spread of Namu Myōhō-renge-kyō in the mappō era.
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 the poor son’s response when he first sets eyes on the rich man, we consider the expedient devices used by the old man to encourage his son.
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.”He thought of an expedient.
He called
Some squint-eyed, short, ugly, powerless and virtueless men,
And said to them:
“Go and tell him:
‘You will be employed
To clear away dirt and dust.
You can get a double day’s pay.”‘Hearing this from them,
The poor son came joyfully with them.
He cleared away dirt and dust,
And cleaned the buildings.The rich man saw him from the window.
He thought:
“He is ignorant.
He willingly does mean work.”
Thereupon the rich man
Put on old and dirty clothes,
Picked up a dirt-utensil,
And walked towards his son.
With this expedient he came to his son,
And told him to work on, saying:
“I will pay you more.
You can use twice as much oil for your feet.
You can take food and drink as you like.
You can use more matting to warm yourself with.”Sometimes he chided him, saying:
“Work hard!”
At other times he coaxed him, saying:
“I will treat you as my son.”
See A Seed that Flowers and Bears Fruit in the Very Moment of Its Acceptance
A Seed that Flowers and Bears Fruit in the Very Moment of Its Acceptance
Two Buddhas, p119-120The concept of sowing, maturing, and harvesting suggests a linear process developing over time. Mahāyāna thought traditionally maintained that fulfilling the bodhisattva path requires three incalculable eons. However, as we have seen, Nichiren drew on both Tendai and esoteric notions of realizing buddhahood “with this body” to argue that buddhahood is accessed in the very act of chanting Namu Myōhō-renge-kyō. The daimoku, in other words, is a “seed” that flowers and bears fruit in the very moment of its acceptance. This goes to the heart of how Nichiren understood the Final Dharma age. In the age of the True Dharma and the age of the Semblance Dharma, people practiced according to a linear model, gradually eradicating delusions and accumulating merit, eventually culminating in the attainment of buddhahood after countless lifetimes of practice. But in chanting the daimoku of the Lotus Sūtra, the practice for the mappō era, practice and enlightenment, sowing and harvest, occur simultaneously, and buddhahood is realized in this very body. In other words, in the Final Dharma age, the direct realization of buddhahood becomes accessible to ordinary people. Nichiren’s claim paradoxically inverts the negative soteriological implications of the benighted mappō era and makes it the ideal time to be alive. “Rather than be great monarchs during the two thousand years of the True Dharma and Semblance Dharma ages, those concerned for their salvation should rather be common people now in the Final Dharma age,” he wrote. “It is better to be a leper who chants Namu Myōhō-renge-kyō than to be chief abbot of the Tendai school,” the highest position in the religious world of Japan at the time.
Abusing a Faithful Believer
As I reflect on things, it is preached in the “Teacher of the Dharma” chapter of the Lotus Sūtra, fascicle 4, “Suppose there is an evil person with a wicked mind who ceaselessly slandered a Buddha for as long as a kalpa (aeon). The sin of such a person would still be considered minor when compared to a person who abused with just a word a faithful believer, clergy or laity, who reads or recites the Lotus Sūtra.” Grand Master Miao-lê interprets this passage stating, “We can say this because the Lotus Sūtra is profound in doctrine and excellent in merit. We cannot say the same about other sutras.”
Hōren-shō, Letter to Hōren, Writings of Nichiren Shōnin, Volume 6, Followers I, Page 43
Day 7
Day 7 concludes Chapter 3, A Parable, and begins Chapter 4, Understanding by Faith.
Having last month considered the greatness of the One Buddha Vehicle, we consider the Buddha’s expedient teachings.
(The Buddha said to Śāriputra:)
All of you
All Are of my you children.
I am your father.You were under the fires of many sufferings
For the past innumerable kalpas.
Therefore, I saved you
From the triple world [ with expedients].I once told you that you had attained extinction.
But you eliminated only birth and death
[By that extinction].
The extinction you attained was not the true one.
What you should do now is
Obtain the wisdom of the Buddha.The Bodhisattvas in this multitude
Should hear
With one mind
The true teaching of the Buddhas.The Buddhas, the World-Honored Ones,
Say only expediently [that some are not Bodhisattvas]
To tell the truth,
All living beings taught by them are Bodhisattvas.[I said:]
“To those who have little wisdom,
And who are deeply attached to sensual desires,
The Buddhas expound the truth that all is suffering.
Those [who hear this truth]
Will have the greatest joy that they have ever had.
The statement of the Buddhas that all is suffering
Is true, not false.
To those who are ignorant
Of the cause of all sufferings,
And who are too deeply attached
To the cause of suffering
To give it up even for a moment,
The Buddhas expound
The [eight right] ways as expedients.The cause of suffering is greed.
When greed is eliminated,
There is nothing to be attached to.
The extinction of suffering
Is called the third truth.
In order to attain this extinction,
The [eight right] ways must be practiced.
Freedom from the bonds of suffering[,]
[That is, from illusions] is called emancipation.”From what illusions can one be emancipated, however,
[By the practice of the eight right ways]?
He can be emancipated only from unreal things
[That is, from the five desires] thereby.
He cannot be emancipated from all illusions.
The Buddhas say
That he has not yet attained
The true extinction
Because he has not yet attained
Unsurpassed enlightenment.
I also do not think that I have led him
To the [true] extinction thereby.
See Avoiding Hell
Avoiding Hell
Two Buddhas, p86The modern reader may quickly grow impatient with Nichiren’s harping on the Avici hell. People at the time, however, envisioned the hells as actual postmortem destinations and depicted their torments in gruesome detail in narrative scroll paintings and didactic tales. Many thought that, without some form of earnest effort in Buddhist practice, rebirth in the lower realms would be inevitable. Hell had come to stand for the entire samsaric process. Although inflected through his Lotus exclusivism, Nichiren’s frequent references to frightful karmic retribution in the afterlife were consistent with his larger religious milieu. The resolve to close off that terrible possibility both for himself and others was part of what motivated his aggressive proselytizing.
Day 6
Day 6 continues Chapter 3, A Parable
Having last month learned the differences in the three carts, we consider the rich man’s decision to give each child a large cart.
“Śāriputra! Seeing that all his children had come out of the burning house safely and reached a carefree place, the rich man remembered that he had immeasurable wealth. So without partiality, he gave them each a large cart. I am also a father, the father of all living beings. Seeing that many hundreds of thousands of millions of living beings have come out of the painful, fearful and rough road of the triple world through the gate of the teachings of the Buddha, and obtained the pleasure of Nirvāṇa, I thought, ‘I have the store of the Dharma in which the immeasurable wisdom, powers and fearlessness of the Buddhas are housed. These living beings are all my children. I will give them the Great Vehicle. I will not cause them to attain extinction by their own ways. I will cause them to attain the extinction of the Tathāgata.’
“To those who have left the triple world, I will give the dhyāna concentrations and emancipations of the Buddhas for their pleasure. These things are of the same nature and of the same species. These things are extolled by the saints because these things bring the purest and most wonderful pleasure.
“Śāriputra! The rich man persuaded his children to come out at first by promising them the gifts of the three kinds of carts. But the carts which he gave them later were the largest and most comfortable carts adorned with treasures. In spite of this, the rich man was not accused of falsehood. Neither am I. I led all living beings at first with the teaching of the Three Vehicles. Now I will save them by the Great Vehicle only. Why is that? It is because, if I had given them the teaching of the Great Vehicle at first directly from my store of the Dharma in which my immeasurable wisdom, powers and fearlessness are housed, they would not have received all of the Dharma. Śāriputra! Therefore, know this! The Buddhas divide the One Buddha-Vehicle into three by their power to employ expedients.”
Saving the Benighted Persons of the Mappō Era
Two Buddhas, p118-119In Nichiren’s understanding, during the ages of the True Dharma and the Semblance Dharma, people had been able to achieve buddhahood through provisional teachings such as nenbutsu or Zen because they had already formed a connection to the Lotus Sūtra by hearing it from Śākyamuni Buddha in previous lifetimes. But people born in the age of the Final Dharma have not yet formed such a connection and thus cannot benefit from the nenbutsu or other provisional teachings, no matter how earnestly they might practice them, just as one cannot reap a harvest from a field where seeds have never been sown. Now in the age of the Final Dharma, Nichiren taught, it is the daimoku, the essence of the Lotus Sūtra, that embodies the seed of buddhahood. “At this time,” he wrote, “Namu Myōhō-renge-kyō of the ‘Fathoming the Lifespan’ chapter, the heart of the origin teaching, should be planted for the first time as the seed [of buddhahood]” in the hearts of the benighted persons of the mappō era.
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 dancing for joy.
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.”
Planting the Seed of Buddhahood
Two Buddhas, p118[The sixth patriarch of the Tiantai school, Zhanran,] argued that only the perfect teaching of the Lotus Sūtra can plant the seed of buddhahood. From this perspective, Śākyamuni’s preaching of the Lotus Sūtra during his lifetime in India both allowed those who had received the seed of buddhahood from him in previous lifetimes to reap the harvest of enlightenment and also planted that seed in the lives of those who had not yet received it. Nichiren understood this process in terms of how it unfolded after Śākyamuni’s final nirvāṇa, and especially in his own time. Like Zhanran, but to a greater degree, he stressed that only the Lotus Sūtra plants the seed of buddhahood; all that provisional teachings can accomplish is to cultivate the capacity of persons who have already received that seed by encountering the Lotus Sūtra in prior lifetimes. Thus, in the final analysis, buddhahood always has its source in the Lotus.