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.
Category Archives: LS32
Day 11
Day 11 continues Chapter 7, The Parable of the Magic City
Having last month considered the reaction of the Brahman-heavenly-kings of the five hundred billion worlds in the south, we consider the reaction of the Brahman-heavenly-kings of the five hundred billion worlds of the zenith and conclude today’s portion of Chapter 7, The Parable of the Magic City.
“The great Brahman-[heavenly-]kings of the five hundred billion worlds in the southwest, west, northwest, north, northeast, and nadir also did the same. The great Brahman-heavenly-kings of the five hundred billion worlds in the zenith, who saw their palaces illumined more brightly than ever, also danced with joy. They wondered why [their palaces were so illumined]. They visited each other and discussed the reason, saying, ‘Why are our palaces illumined so brightly?’ There was a great Brahmanheavenly-king called Sikhin among them. He said to the other Brahmans in gāthās:
Our palaces are adorned
More brightly than ever.
Why are they illumined
By this powerful light?We have never seen nor heard
Of such a wonderful thing as this before.
Did a god of great virtue or a Buddha appear
Somewhere in the universe?“Thereupon the Brahman-heavenly-kings of the five hundred billion [worlds] went down, carrying flower-plates filled with heavenly flowers, in order to find [the place from where the light had come]. Their palaces also moved as they went. They [reached the Well-Composed World and] saw that Great-UniversalWisdom-Excellence Tathāgata was sitting on the lion-like seat under the Bodhi-tree of the place of enlightenment, surrounded respectfully by gods, dragon-kings, gandharvas, kiṃnaras, mahoragas, men and non-human beings. They also saw that the sixteen princes were begging the Buddha to turn the wheel of the Dharma. They worshipped the Buddha with their heads, walked around him a hundred thousand times, and strewed heavenly flowers to him. The strewn flowers were heaped up to the height of Mt. Sumeru. The Brahman-heavenly-kings offered flowers also to the Bodhi-tree of the Buddha. Having offered flowers, they offered their palaces to the Buddha, saying, ‘We offer these palaces to you. Receive them and benefit us out of your compassion towards us!’ In the presence of the Buddha, they simultaneously praised him in gāthās with all their hearts:
How good it is to see a Buddha,
To see the Honorable Saint who saves the world!
He saves all living beings
From the prison of the triple world.The All-Knower, the Most Honorable One of Gods and Men,
Opens the gate of the teachings as sweet as nectar,
And saves all living beings
Out of his compassion towards them.There has been no Buddha
For the past innumerable kalpas.
Before you appeared,
The worlds of the ten quarters were dark.The living beings in the three evil regions
And asuras are increasing.
The living beings in heaven are decreasing.
Many fall into the evil regions after their death.They do not hear the Dharma from a Buddha
Because they did evils,
Their appearances are getting worse;
And their power and wisdom, decreasing.
Because they did sinful karmas,
They lose pleasures and the memory of pleasures.
They are attached to wrong views.
They do not know how to do good.
They are not taught by a Buddha;
Therefore, they fall into the evil regions.Now you have appeared for the first time after a long time,
And become the eyes of the world.
You have appeared in this world
Out of your compassion towards all living beings,
And finally attained perfect enlightenment.
We are very glad.
All the others also rejoice at seeing you,
Whom they have never seen before.Our palaces are beautifully adorned
With your light.
We offer them to you.
Receive them out of your compassion towards us!May the merits we have accumulated by this offering
Be distributed among all living beings,
And may we and all other living beings
Attain the enlightenment of the Buddha!
The Importance of Perseverance in Practice
Two Buddhas, p120-121A third message that Nichiren drew from the story of the buddha Mahābhijfiājfiānābhibhū [Great-Universal-Wisdom-Excellence Tathāgata] and his sixteen sons was the importance of perseverance in practice. In the “Parable” chapter, Śākyamuni tells Śāriputra that he had once followed the bodhisattva path in prior lifetimes but had since forgotten it. What had caused Śāriputra, this wisest of all śrāvakas, to “forget” and abandon the bodhisattva way? The Lotus Sūtra does not tell us, but a story in the Treatise on the Great Perfection of Wisdom (Dazhi du lun) and other sources fills in the gap. It explains that in the past, Śāriputra had already practiced bodhisattva austerities for sixty eons and was cultivating the virtue of giving or generosity, the first of the pāramitās or perfections that a bodhisattva must master on the path to buddhahood. At that point, a certain beggar (in alternate versions, a brahman) asked for one of his eyes. When Śāriputra replied that his eye could not possibly benefit anyone else, the beggar rebuked him, saying that so long as Śāriputra was committed to mastering the practice of generosity, he could not refuse to give what was requested of him. Śāriputra accordingly plucked out an eye and offered it. The beggar sniffed it, flung it to the ground, and stepped on it. Disgusted, Śāriputra concluded that such people were hopeless. At that point, he abandoned the bodhisattva’s commitment to saving others and retreated to the śrāvaka’s pursuit of personal nirvāṇa. In Nichiren’s reading, Śāriputra, deceived by evil influences, had abandoned the Lotus Sūtra for provisional teachings and, as a result, had fallen into the Avici hell, languishing there for vast numbers of eons. Not until he re-encountered Śākyamuni Buddha in the present world was he again able to hear the Lotus Sūtra, regain the bodhisattva path, and receive a prediction of future buddhahood.
In terms of practice, the account of Śākyamuni Buddha’s instruction as unfolding over many lifetimes in the “Apparitional City” chapter assumes a double significance in Nichiren’s thought. On the one hand, this account teaches the need to maintain one’s own practice of the Lotus Sūtra, no matter what hardships or discouragement one might encounter. At the same time, it suggests that teaching the daimoku to others, even if they initially mock or malign it, is always a fruitful effort, establishing for them a karmic connection with the Lotus Sūtra and thus ensuring that they will one day achieve buddhahood.
Day 10
Day 10 concludes Chapter 6, Assurance of Future Buddhahood, and opens Chapter 7, The Parable of a Magic City.
Having last month heard the prediction of Buddhahood for Subhūti, we hear the prediction for Great Kātyāyana.
Thereupon the World-Honored One said to the bhikṣus:
“Now I will tell you. This Great Kātyāyana will make many offerings to eight hundred thousand millions of Buddhas, attend on them, respect them, and honor them in his future life. After the extinction of each of those Buddhas, he will erect a stūpa-mausoleum a thousand yojanas high, and five hundred yojanas wide and deep. He will make it of the seven treasures: gold, silver, lapis lazuli, shell, agate, pearl and ruby. He will offer flowers, necklaces, incense to apply to the skin, incense powder, incense to burn, canopies, banners and streamers to this stūpa-mausoleum. After that he will make the same offerings to two billions of Buddhas. Having made offerings to those Buddhas, he will complete the Way of Bodhisattvas, and become a Buddha called Jambunada-Gold-Light, the Tathāgata, the Deserver of Offerings, the Perfectly Enlightened One, the Man of Wisdom and Practice, the Well-Gone, the Knower of the World, the Unsurpassed Man, the Controller of Men, the Teacher of Gods and Men, the Buddha, the World-Honored One. The ground [of his world] will be even, made of crystal, and adorned with jeweled trees. The roads will be marked off by ropes of gold, and wonderful flowers will cover the ground to purify it. Anyone will rejoice at seeing it. The four evil regions: hell, the region of hungry spirits, that of animals, and that of asuras, will not exist in that world. Many gods and men will live there. Śrāvakas and Bodhisattvas, many billions in number, also will live there to adorn that world. The duration of the life of that Buddha will be twelve small kalpas. His right teachings will be preserved for twenty small kalpas, and the counterfeit of his right teachings also will be preserved for twenty small kalpas.”
Thereupon the World-Honored One, wishing to repeat what he had said, sang in gāthās:
Bhikṣus!
Listen with one mind!
What I say
Is true, not false.This Kātyāyana
Will make
Wonderful offerings
To the Buddhas.After the extinction of each of the Buddhas,
He will erect a stūpa of the seven treasures,
And offer flowers and incense to the śarīras
[Of the Buddha enshrined in the stūpa].On the final stage of his physical existence,
He will obtain the wisdom of the Buddha
And attain perfect enlightenment.
His world will be pure.
He will save many billions of living beings.
All living beings
In the worlds of the ten quarters
Will make offerings to him.No light will surpass
The light of that Buddha.
The name of that Buddha will be
Jambu [nada]-Gold-Light.Innumerable Bodhisattvas and Śrāvakas
Will live in his world, and adorn that world.
They will have already eliminated
The bonds of existence.
The Buddha’s Commentary
Two Buddhas, p5-6In Buddhism, one could perhaps say that, in a certain sense, all scripture is commentary. That is, all Buddhist traditions hold that the Buddha’s enlightenment was complete, that he attained complete knowledge of the state of liberation and the path to it during his meditation on that full-moon night. Thus, everything that he spoke thereafter was in a sense an articulation of that experience, adapted for the audience he was addressing. This is one reason why the events immediately following the Buddha’s enlightenment, the period of forty-nine days in which he savored the experience of his enlightenment without speaking, is the focus of so much interest in the tradition. Should he teach? If so, whom should he teach? And what should he teach them? These questions appear in the earliest renditions of the story of the Buddha’s awakening, and they reappear, with important refinements, in the second chapter of the Lotus Sūtra.
Day 9
Day 9 covers Chapter 5, The Simile of Herbs, and introduces Chapter 6, Assurance of Future Buddhahood.
Having last month concluded Chapter 5, we begin Chapter 6, Assurance of Future Buddhahood, with the prediction for Mahā-Kāśyapa.
Thereupon the World-Honored One, having sung these gāthās, said to the great multitude [of bhikṣus]:
“This Mahā-Kāśyapa, a disciple of mine, will see three hundred billions of Buddhas, of World-Honored Ones, make offerings to them, respect them, honor them, praise them, and expound an innumerable number of their great teachings in his future life. After that, on the final stage of his physical existence, he will become a Buddha, called Light, the Tathāgata, the Deserver of Offerings, the Perfectly Enlightened One, the Man of Wisdom and Practice, the Well-Gone, the Knower of the World, the Unsurpassed Man, the Controller of Men, the Teacher of Gods and Men, the Buddha, the World-Honored One. His world will be called Light-Virtue; and the kalpa in which he will become that Buddha, Great-Adornment. The duration of the life of that Buddha will be twelve small kalpas. His right teachings will be preserved for twenty small kalpas, and the counterfeit of his right teachings will be preserved also for twenty small kalpas. His world will be adorned, and not be defiled with tile-pieces, rubble, thorns or dirt. The ground [of his world] will be even, and devoid of pits and mounds. It will be made of lapis lazuli. Jeweled trees will stand in lines, and the roads will be marked off by ropes of gold. Jeweled flowers will be strewn all over the ground, and the ground will be purified. Many hundreds of thousands of millions of Bodhisattvas and innumerable Śrāvakas will live in that world. Although Mara and his followers also will live there, they will not do any evil but protect the teachings of the Buddha.”
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.
Pre-Lotus Sūtras Are Like Lands of Poverty
Many other similes are cited in [Medicine King Bodhisattva] chapter, including “a ferryboat to cross over a river.” The meaning of this simile is that the pre-Lotus sūtras are like a raft or a light boat for crossing over the ocean of life and death. It is not easy to cross over an ocean aboard a raft or a small boat from this shore of life and death to the other shore of enlightenment. It is impossible to reach the shore of the Pure Land of Utmost Bliss. For instance, a light boat may be able to start from Chikushi Province (Fukuoka Prefecture) and arrive at Kamakura or Enoshima in the Kanto District, but not to reach T’ang China. A large ship from China can travel from Japan to China without trouble. This chapter also compares having faith in the Lotus Sūtra to a person of poverty finding treasure. The pre-Lotus sūtras are like lands of poverty and those who believe in them are likened to hungry souls. The Lotus Sūtra, on the contrary, is like a mountain of treasures and those who have faith in it are people of wealth.
QUESTION: Do you have scriptural support to claim that pre-Lotus sūtras are like countries of destitution?
ANSWER: The “Assurance of Future Buddhahood” chapter of the Lotus Sūtra preaches, “It is like someone coming from a land of famine suddenly encountering the meal of a great king.”
Yakuō-bon Tokui-shō, The Essence of the “Medicine King Bodhisattva” Chapter, Writings of Nichiren Shōnin, Faith and Practice, Volume 4, Page 32
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 begun the Parable of the Rich Man and His Poor Son in gāthās, we consider the poor son’s response when he first sets eyes on the rich man.
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?”
See The Initial Chapters of Lotus Sūtra Open Buddhahood to All Beings
The Initial Chapters of Lotus Sūtra Open Buddhahood to All Beings
Two Buddhas, p96Unlike Saichō, … Nichiren did not ground his own argument that all can attain buddhahood in claims for universal suchness, a term that occurs only rarely in his writings but, rather, in the mutual inclusion of the ten realms. This doctrine also renders irrelevant Hossō and Kegon claims that the Lotus Sūtra should be ranked below the Explanation of the Intention or Flower Garland sūtras because the parable of the wealthy man and his impoverished son, on which the Tendai hierarchy of Buddhist teachings is based, was spoken by śrāvakas. Nichiren wrote, “The four śrāvakas expressed their understanding, saying, ‘The most magnificent jewels have been obtained without being sought or awaited.’ They represent the śrāvaka realm within ourselves.” Central to Nichiren’s understanding was the idea that, because the ten realms are mutually inclusive, if beings of one realm can attain buddhahood, so can those of any other. In his reading, the initial chapters of the Lotus Sūtra open buddhahood not merely to previously exduded śrāvakas, but to all beings.