Category Archives: LS32

LS32

Day 14

Day 14 covers all of Chapter 9, The Assurance of Future Buddhahood of the Śrāvakas Who Have Something More to Learn and the Śrāvakas Who Have Nothing More to Learn, and opens Chapter 10, The Teacher of the Dharma.

Day 14 Text with annotationsPlay MP3

Having last month considered the complaint of the eight thousand Bodhisattvas who had just resolved to aspire for Anuttara-samyak-saṃbodhi, we hear Ānanda’s reaction to the prediction.

Having heard from the Buddha that he was assured of his future Buddhahood, and that his world would be adorned, Ānanda was able to fulfill his wish. He had the greatest joy that he had ever had. At that moment he recollected the store of the teachings of many thousands of billions of past Buddhas perfectly and without hindrance as if he had heard those teachings just now. He also recollected his original vow.

Thereupon Ānanda sang in gāthās:

You, the World-Honored One, are exceptional.
You reminded me of the teachings
Of innumerable Buddhas in the past
As if I had heard them today.

Having no doubts, I now dwell peacefully
In the enlightenment of the Buddha.
I will expediently become the attendant
Of future Buddhas, and protect their teachings.

See Ānanda and the Lotus Sūtra

2buddhas, LS32, d14b

Ānanda and the Lotus Sūtra

Ānanda receives a particularly marvelous prediction, with a very long lifespan and a very long duration of his teaching. This causes some of the bodhisattvas in the audience to be disgruntled, wondering why this monk who is not even an arhat received a better prophecy than they had. The Buddha explains that he and Ānanda had aroused the aspiration for perfect enlightenment in the presence of the same buddha long ago. Ānanda had wanted to preserve the dharma that Śākyamuni would eventually teach. For this reason, he receives this special prophecy. Upon hearing the prophecy, Ānanda is miraculously able to remember the teachings of innumerable buddhas of the past.

This elevation of Ānanda is yet another weapon used by the Lotus Sūtra to assert its legitimacy. If Ānanda can remember the teachings of innumerable buddhas of the past, he is certainly able to remember the teachings of Śākyamuni, suggesting that it was indeed Ānanda who says, “Thus have I heard” at the beginning of the sūtra. In the story of the first council in which he recited the sūtras, Ananda is taken to task by certain senior monks for having encouraged the Buddha to establish the order of nuns, a move that not all (male) members of the saṃgha had approved of. In the centuries that followed, Ānanda would become a beloved figure in the tradition, especially honored by nuns. That he receives a special prophecy in the Lotus Sūtra suggests that the authors of the text not only wished to bring him aboard the great ship of the Mahāyāna (as they did with Śāriputra), but perhaps also that they had a particular affection for him.

Two Buddhas, p123-124
LS32

Day 13

Day 13 covers all of Chapter 8, The Assurance of Future Buddhahood of the Five Hundred Disciples.

Day 13 Text with annotationsPlay MP3

Having last month heard from twelve hundred Arhats and the Buddha’s response, we hear the World-Honored One, wishing to repeat what he had said, sing in gāthās:

Thereupon the World-Honored One, wishing to repeat what he had said, sang in gāthās:

Kauṇḍinya Bhikṣu will see
Innumerable Buddhas.
After asaṃkhya kalpas from now,
He will attain perfect enlightenment.

He will emit great rays of light [from his body].
He will have all supernatural powers.
His fame will spread over the worlds of the ten quarters.
Respected by all living beings,
He will expound unsurpassed enlightenment to them.
Therefore, he will be called Universal-Brightness.

His world will be pure.
The Bodhisattvas [of that world] will be brave.
They will go up to the tops of wonderful, tall buildings,
And then go out into the worlds of the ten quarters.
There they will make the best offerings
To the Buddhas of those worlds.

After making offerings, they will have great joy.
They will return to their home world in a moment.
They will be able to do all this
By their supernatural powers.

[Universal-Brightness] Buddha will live for sixty thousand kalpas.
His right teachings will be preserved twice as long as his life;
And the counterfeit of them, also twice as long as his right teachings.
When his teachings are eliminated, gods and men will be sad.

The five hundred bhikṣus
Will become Buddhas one after another.
They also will be called Universal-Brightness.
One who has become a Buddha will say to another:
“You will become a Buddha after my extinction.
[The living beings of] the world
To be saved by that Buddha
Will be like those whom I am teaching today.”

The beauty of the worlds [of those Buddhas],
And the supernatural powers [of those Buddhas],
And the number of the Bodhisattvas and Śrāvakas [of those worlds],
And the number of kalpas of the lives [of those Buddhas],
Of their right teachings, and of the counterfeit of them,
Will be the same [as in the case of Kauṇḍinya].

Kāśyapa! Now you have heard of the future
Of the five hundred Arhats
Who have freedom of mind.
All the other Śrāvakas also will [become Buddhas].
Tell this to the Śrāvakas
Who are not present here!

See Buddhahood for All

.

2buddhas, LS32, d13b, d14b

Buddhahood for All

The prophecies in these two chapters [Chapters 8 and 9], whether conferred on individuals or groups, each specify the name of the buddha whom the recipient will become, the name of his buddha land or field of activity, and the length of time that his teaching will endure. For the sūtra’s East Asian commentators, such concrete detail lent these predictions a level of credibility beyond any mere abstract assertion that “persons of the two other vehicles can become buddhas.” Because the Buddha knows the past, present, and future and never lies, it was certain that his śrāvaka disciples would in fact attain buddhahood just as he had predicted. For Nichiren, based on the premise that all ten realms are included in any one realm, the fact that śrāvakas can become buddhas meant that anyone else can as well. Thus, the Buddha’s prediction for any one of these figures could be read as a prediction of certain buddhahood for all who embrace the Lotus Sūtra, regardless of their status.

Two Buddhas, p125
LS32

Day 12

Day 12 concludes Chapter 7, The Parable of the Magic City, and completes the Third Volume of the Sutra of the Lotus Flower of the Wonderful Dharma.

Day 12 Text with annotationsPlay MP3

Having last month considered those who were taught by the śramaṇeras, we hear the Parable of the Magic City.

“Bhikṣus! I will collect Bodhisattvas and Śrāvakas and expound this sūtra to them when I realize that the time of my Nirvāṇa is drawing near, that the living beings have become pure in heart, that they can understand the truth of the Void by firm faith, and that they have already entered deep into dhyāna-concentration. No one in the world can attain [true] extinction by the two vehicles. [True] extinction can be attained only by the One Buddha-Vehicle.

“Bhikṣus, know this! I can enter skillfully deep into the natures of all living beings. Because I saw that they wished to hear the teachings of the Lesser Vehicle and that they were deeply attached to the five desires, I expounded the teaching of Nirvāṇa to them. When they heard that teaching, they received it by faith.

“I will tell you a parable. Once upon a time there was a dangerous, bad road five hundred yojanas long. It was so fearful that no men lived in the neighborhood. Now many people wished to pass through this road in order to reach a place of treasures. They were led by a man, clever, wise, and well informed of the conditions of the dangerous road. He took them along this dangerous road, but halfway the people got tired of walking. They said to him, ‘We are tired out. We are also afraid of the danger of this road. We cannot go a step farther. Our destination is still far off. We wish to go back.’

“The leader, who knew many expedients, thought, ‘What a pity!

They wish to go back without getting great treasures.’ Having thought this, he expediently made a city by magic at a distance of three hundred yojanas from the starting-point of this dangerous road. He said to them, ‘Do not be afraid! Do not go back! You can stay in that great city, and do anything you like. If you enter that city, you will be peaceful. If you go on afterwards and reach the place of treasures, then you can go home.’

“Thereupon the worn-out people had great joy. They said, ‘We have never had such joy as this before. Now we shall be able to get off this bad road and become peaceful.’

“Then they made their way forward and entered the magic city.

They felt peaceful, thinking that they had already passed [through the bad road]. Seeing that they had already had a rest and relieved their fatigue, the leader caused the city to disappear, and said to them, ‘Now the place of treasures is near. I made this city by magic in order to give you a rest.’

See Our Karmic Connection to Śākyamuni Buddha

2buddhas, LS32, d12b, d7b, WONS

Our Karmic Connection to Śākyamuni Buddha

As with Chapter Three, Nichiren’s references to this chapter focus, not on the parable from which it takes its name, but on another element entirely, in this case, the story of the buddha Mahābhijfiājfiānābhibhū [Great-Universal-Wisdom-Excellence Tathāgata].

Nichiren drew three chief conclusions from this narrative. The first is that beings of our own, Sahā world have a karmic connection solely to Śākyamuni Buddha and not to the buddhas of other words. Everything about the dharma known in this world originated with Śākyamuni. None of the great Pure Land teachers, Nichiren said, had ever actually met the buddha Amitābha or renounced the world to practice the way under his guidance. The name Sahā, from the Sanskrit word meaning “to bear or endure,” refers to the tradition that this world is an especially evil and benighted place where it is difficult to pursue the Buddhist path — quite unlike the radiant pure lands with which the Mahāyāna imagination populated the cosmos. Thus, Śākyamuni was said to have displayed exceptional compassion in appearing in this world. In the Greater Amitābha Sūtra or Sūtra of Immeasurable Life, Amitābha Buddha vows to accept into his pure land all who place faith in him except those persons who have committed the five heinous deeds or disparaged the dharma. Nichiren accordingly suggested that these most depraved of evil persons had been excluded from the pure lands of the ten directions and were gathered instead in the present, Sahā world, where Śākyamuni had undertaken to save them. This was the meaning, he said, of Śākyamuni Buddha’s statement in Chapter Three, “I am the only one who can protect them.” To forsake the original teacher Śākyamuni was a grave error, as the people of this world cannot escape samsāra by following any other buddha.

Two Buddhas, p116-117
LS32

Day 11

Day 11 continues Chapter 7, The Parable of the Magic City

Day 11 Text with annotationsPlay MP3

Having last month considered the reaction of the Brahman-heavenly-kings of the five hundred billion worlds in the southeast, we consider the reaction of the Brahman-heavenly-kings of the five hundred billion worlds in the south.

“Bhikṣus! The great Brahman-[heavenly-]kings of the five hundred billion worlds in the south, 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 Brahman-heavenly­king called Wonderful-Dharma among them. He said to the other Brahmans in gāthās:

Our palaces are illumined so brightly.
There must be some reason.
Let us find [the place]
[From where the light has come].

We have never seen this [light]
For the past one hundred thousand kalpas.
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 to the north, 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 Great­Universal-Wisdom-Excellence Tathāgata was sitting on the lion­like seat under the Bodhi-tree of the place of enlightenment, surrounded respectfully by gods, dragon-kings, gandharvas, kiṃnaras, mahoragas, men and nonhuman 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-king 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:

It is difficult to see a World-Honored One.
You, the World-Honored One, eliminated all illusions.
We have not seen a World-Honored One
For the past one hundred and thirty kalpas.

Send the rain of the Dharma
On the hungry and thirsty beings!
Possessor of immeasurable wisdom,
We have never seen anyone wiser than you.
You are as rare as an udumbara-flower.
Now we have met you today.

Our palaces are beautifully adorned
With your light.
World-Honored One, receive them
Out of your great compassion towards us!

“Thereupon the Brahman-heavenly-kings, having praised the Buddha with these gāthās, said, ‘World-Honored One! Turn the wheel of the Dharma so that Mara, Brahman, the other gods, śramaṇas, and brahmanas of the world may be peaceful, and that they may be saved!’ They simultaneously praised the Buddha in gāthās with all their hearts:

Most Honorable of Gods and Men!
Turn the wheel of the unsurpassed Dharma,
Beat the drum of the Great Dharma,
Blow the conch-shell horn of the Great Dharma,
Send the rain of the Great Dharma,
And save innumerable living beings!
Devoting ourselves to you, we beg you.
Resound your profound teaching!

“Thereupon Great-Universal-Wisdom-Excellence Tathāgata gave his tacit consent to their appeal.

See Sowing, Maturing, and Harvesting

2buddhas, LS32, d10b, d11b, d12b

Sowing, Maturing, and Harvesting

Nichiren drew from the Mahābhijfiājfiānābhibhū [Great-Universal-Wisdom-Excellence Tathāgata] story an understanding of how the Buddha’s pedagogical method unfolds over time. Zhiyi had identified three standards of comparison by which the Lotus Sūtra could be said to surpass all others. The first, based on Śākyamuni’s declaration of the one buddha vehicle in the “Skillful Means” and subsequent chapters, is that it encompasses persons of all capacities. The second, based on the present, “Apparitional City” chapter, is that it reveals the process of the Buddha’s instruction from beginning to end. Drawing on the Mahābhijfiājfiānābhibhū narrative, Zhiyi described this process with the metaphor of “sowing, maturing, and harvesting.” That is, the Buddha implants the seed of buddhahood in the mind of his disciples with an initial teaching; cultivates it through subsequent teachings, enabling their capacity to mature; and finally reaps the harvest by bringing those disciples to full enlightenment. As the opening passage of this chapter describes, the buddha Mahābhijfiājfiānābhibhū lived an immensely long time ago, so long that one could measure it only by grinding a vast number of world systems to dust and using each dust speck to represent one eon. In that distant time, Mahābhijfiājfiānābhibhū and his sixteen sons planted the seed of buddhahood in the minds of their auditors by preaching the Lotus Sūtra. Those who heard the Lotus Sūtra from the sixteenth son were born together with him in lifetime after lifetime, as he nurtured their capacity, bringing it to maturity with subsequent teachings over the course of innumerable lifetimes. When that son preached the Lotus Sūtra in the Sahā world as Śākyamuni Buddha, some were at last able to reap the harvest of enlightenment, while others would do so in the future. In other words, Śākyamuni’s resolve to lead all beings to the one vehicle was not merely a matter of this lifetime, but a project initiated in the inconceivably remote past. Indeed, this chapter offers another early hint that Śākyamuni’s buddhahood encompasses a time frame far exceeding the present lifetime, a theme that the Lotus Sūtra develops in later chapters.

Two Buddhas, p117-118
LS32

Day 10

Day 10 concludes Chapter 6, Assurance of Future Buddhahood, and opens Chapter 7, The Parable of a Magic City.

Day 10 Text with annotationsPlay MP3

Having last month concluded today’s portion of Chapter 7, The Parable of a Magic City, we return to today’s portion of Chapter 6, Assurance of Future Buddhahood, and the prediction of Buddhahood for Subhūti.

Thereupon the World-Honored One, having understood the wishes of the great disciples, said to the bhikṣus:
“In his future life, this Subhūti will see three hundred billion nayutas of Buddhas, make offerings to them, respect them, honor them, praise them, perform brahma practices, complete the Way of Bodhisattvas, and become a Buddha on the final stage of his physical existence. He will be called Beautiful-Form, 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 kalpa in which he will become that Buddha will be called Having-Treasures; and his world, Treasure-Born. The ground [of his world] will be even, made of crystal, adorned with jeweled trees, and devoid of mounds, pits, rubble, thorns and dirt. Jeweled flowers will cover the ground to purify it. The people of that world will live in buildings of wonderful treasures. His disciples in Śrāvakahood will be numberless, beyond calculation or comparison. The Bodhisattvas will be many thousands of billions of nayutas in number. The duration of the life of that Buddha will be twelve small kalpas. His right teachings will be preserved for twenty small kalpas. The counterfeit of his right teachings will be preserved also for twenty small kalpas. That Buddha will always stay in the sky, expound the Dharma to the multitude, and save innumerable Bodhisattvas and Śrāvakas.

Thereupon the World-Honored One, wishing to repeat what he had said, sang in gāthās:

Bhikṣus!
Now I will tell you.
Listen to me
With one mind!

Subhūti, a disciple of mine,
Will be able
To become a Buddha
Called Beautiful-Form.

He will make offerings
To many billions of Buddhas, and practice
According to the practices of the Buddhas,
And finally attain great enlightenment.

On the final stage of his physical existence,
He will obtain the thirty-two physical marks,
And become as beautiful and as wonderful
As a mountain of treasures.

The world of that Buddha
Will be the purest.
Anyone will be happy to see it.
That Buddha will save
Innumerable living beings
Of that world.

Many Bodhisattvas
In the world of that Buddha
Will be clever.
They will turn
The irrevocable wheel of the Dharma,
And adorn that world.

The Śrāvakas in that world also
Will be countless.
They will have the six supernatural powers,
Including the three major supernatural powers.
They will have the eight emancipations.
They will be exceedingly powerful and virtuous.

The supernatural powers
Employed by that Buddha
For the expounding of the Dharma
Will be inconceivable.

As many gods and men
As there are sands in the River Ganges
Will join their hands together
And listen to the words of that Buddha.

The duration of the life of that Buddha
Will be twelve small kalpas.
His right teachings will be preserved
For twenty small kalpas.
The counterfeit of his right teachings
Also will be preserved for twenty small kalpas.

See Teaching Śrāvakas the Taste of Ghee

2buddhas, LS32, d10b, d9b, WONS

Teaching Śrāvakas the Taste of Ghee

Nichiren explained that these four great śrāvakas “had not even heard the name of the delicacy called ghee,” but when the Lotus Sūtra was expounded, they experienced it for the first time, savoring it as much as they wished and “immediately satisfying the hunger that had long been in their hearts.” Nichiren’s reference here to “ghee,” or clarified butter, invokes the concept of the “five flavors,” an analogy by which Zhiyi had likened the stages in human religious development to the five stages in the Indian practice of making ghee from fresh milk. As we have seen, like other educated Buddhists of his day, Nichiren took the Tendai division of the Buddha’s teaching into five sequential periods to represent historical fact. From that perspective, Nichiren sometimes described the sufferings that he imagined the Buddha’s leading śrāvaka disciples must have endured during the period when Śākyamuni began to preach the Mahāyāna, seeing their status plummet from that of revered elders to targets of scorn and reproach for their attachment to the inferior “Hinayāna” goal of a personal nirvāṇa. Some Mahāyāna sūtras excoriate the śrāvakas as those who have “destroyed the seeds of buddhahood” or “fallen into the pit of nirvāṇa” and can benefit neither themselves nor others. Their “hunger” then would have represented their chagrin and regret at not having followed the bodhisattva path and thus having excluded themselves from the possibility of buddhahood.

At the same time, Nichiren imagined them suffering hunger in the literal sense. As monks, they would have had to beg for their food each day. Nichiren imagined that on hearing the érävakas rebuked as followers of a lesser vehicle, humans and gods no longer viewed them as worthy sources of merit and stopped putting food in their begging bowls. “Had the Buddha entered final nirvāṇa after preaching only the sūtras of the first forty years or so without expounding the Lotus Sūtra in his last eight years, who then would have made offerings to these elders?” he asked. “In their present bodies, they would have known the sufferings of the realm of hungry ghosts.” Serious hunger was a condition that Nichiren had experienced at multiple points in his life and with which he could readily sympathize. But when the Buddha preached the Lotus Sūtra and predicted buddhahood for the śrāvakas, Nichiren continued, his words were like the brilliant spring sun emerging to dissolve the ice of winter or a strong wind dispersing dew from all the grass. “Because [these predictions] appear in this phoenix of writings, this mirror of truth [i.e., the Lotus], after the Buddha’s passing, the śrāvakas were venerated by all supporters of the dharma, both humans and gods, just as though they had been buddhas.”

Two Buddhas, p106-107