Category Archives: LS32

LS32

Day 9

Day 9 covers Chapter 5, The Simile of Herbs, and introduces Chapter 6, Assurance of Future Buddhahood.

Day 9 Text with annotationsPlay MP3

Having last month heard Śākyamuni explain how he reveals the Dharma with the Simile of the Herbs, we conclude Chapter 5.

Both the Śrāvakas and the cause-knowers,
Who live in mountains or forests,
Who have reached the final stage
of their physical existence,
And who have attained enlightenment by hearing the Dharma,
May be likened to the herbs
Which have already grown up.

The Bodhisattvas
Who resolve to seek wisdom,
Who understand the triple world,
And who seek the most excellent vehicle,
May be likened to the short trees
Which have already grown up.

Those who practice dhyāna,
Who have supernatural powers,
Who have great joy
When they hear that all things are insubstantial,
And who save all living beings
By emitting innumerable rays of light,
May be likened to the tall trees
Which have already grown up.

As previously stated, Kāśyapa, I expound the Dharma
And lead human flowers
[To the fruits of Buddhahood]
Just as the large cloud waters all flowers
By a rain of the same taste
And causes them to bear their fruits.

Kāśyapa, know this!
I reveal the enlightenment of the Buddha
With various stories of previous lives,
With various parables and similes,
That is, with various expedients.
All the other Buddhas do the same.

Now I will tell you [, Śrāvakas,]
The most important truth.
You, Śrāvakas,
Have not yet attained [true] extinction.
What you are now practicing is
The Way of Bodhisattvas.
Study and practice it continuously,
And you will become Buddhas.

See The Blessings of Faith in the Lotus Sūtra

2buddhas, LS32, d22b, d23b, d26b, d27b, d9b

The Blessings of Faith in the Lotus Sūtra

The promise in this chapter that those who embrace the one vehicle will be “at peace in this world” and in the next, will be “born into a good existence” articulates what most people sought from religion in Nichiren’s day: good fortune and protection in their present existence and some sort of assurance of a happy afterlife. Traditionally, as with other religions, people expected from Buddhism not only wisdom and insight, but also practical benefits: healing, protection, and worldly success. Nichiren often cited this passage to assure followers that faith in the Lotus Sūtra does indeed offer such blessings. “Money changes form according to its use,” he wrote. “The Lotus Sūtra is also like this. It will become a lamp in the darkness or a boat at a crossing. It can become water; it can also become fire. This being so, the Lotus Sūtra guarantees that we will be ‘at peace in this world’ and be ‘born into a good existence in the future.’ “

Two Buddhas, p100-101
Lecture on Lotus Sutra, d20b

Our Daily Celebration

As we gather our thoughts and purify our altar then we sit down to celebrate the teaching of the Lotus Sutra, to hear once again the beautiful teaching of the Buddha telling us of the ever-­existing nature of Buddhahood and of the enlightenment of our own lives, we are engaging in a celebration. It is as if we are going before the Eternal Buddha and asking him not so much what we can get for ourselves but knowing our own lives are secure because of our practice we can focus on the beauty and truth of the message contained in the Lotus Sutra. We are not supplicants going before some great dispenser of benefit. No, we are the golden-hued erect Bodhisattvas who emerge from the ground and bow to the Buddha and fulfill our vow of teaching and practicing the Lotus Sutra in this age in which we live.

Lecture on the Lotus Sutra

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.

Day 8 Text with annotationsPlay MP3

Having last month considered how the Buddha is like the rich man training his son, we begin the Parable of the Rich Man and His Poor Son in gāthās:

Thereupon Mahā-Kāśyapa, wishing to repeat what they had said, sang in gāthās:

Hearing your teaching of today,
We are dancing with joy.
We have never had
Such joy before.

You say:
“The Śrāvakas will be able to become Buddhas.”
We have obtained unsurpassed treasures
Although we did not seek them.

Suppose there lived a boy.
He was young and ignorant.
He ran away from his father
And went to a remote country.
He wandered from country to country
For more than fifty years.

The father anxiously sought him
In all directions.
Finally tiring of looking for him,
He settled in a certain city.

He built a house,
And enjoyed satisfaction
Of the five desires.
He was very rich.
He had a great deal of gold, silver,
Shell, agate, pearl and lapis lazuli;
And many elephants, horses,
Cows, sheep,
Palanquins, carts,
Farmers and attendants.
He invested his money in all the other countries,
And earned interest.
Merchants and customers
Were seen everywhere [around him].

Thousands of billions of people
Surrounded him respectfully.
He was favored by the king,
And respected
By the ministers,
And by the powerful families.

Many people came to see him
For various purposes. Because he was rich,
He was very powerful.
As he became older,
He thought more of his son.
He thought from morning till night:
“I shall die before long.
It is more than fifty years
Since my ignorant son left me
What shall I do
With the things in the store-houses?”

See The Rich Man, the Poor Son and the Five Periods

2buddhas, LS32, d7b, d8b

The Rich Man, the Poor Son and the Five Periods

[A]fter Zhiyi’s time, through the efforts especially of Zhanran and the Korean scholar-monk Chegwan, the Tiantai school gradually developed a model that divides the Buddha’s teaching career into five periods that span fifty years. According to this model, the Buddha began by preaching the Flower Garland Sūtra (Avatamsaka Sūtra), a highly advanced doctrine directed solely to bodhisattvas. None of the śrāvakas in the assembly could understand it and were struck dumb, just as the impoverished son was terrified when first forcibly approached by his father’s attendants. Seeing that the Flower Garland teaching was beyond his auditors’ capacity, the Buddha then backtracked and for twenty years preached the āgamas, … emphasizing the four noble truths, the twelve-linked chain of dependent origination, and the goal of nirvāṇa — that is, the teachings sometimes disparaged as the “Hinayāna.” This period corresponds to the wealthy man hiring his son to sweep manure for twenty years. In the third period, seeing that his followers were maturing, the Buddha preached the vaipulya or introductory Mahāyāna teachings such as the Vimalakirti Sūtra, which criticize the one-sided emphasis on emptiness and detachment found in the āgamas and instead extol the way of the bodhisattva. This corresponds to the son having “free access to his father’s house” yet still living in his own humble quarters. In the fourth period, the Buddha preached the prajn͂ā or wisdom teachings, which integrate all of his teachings up to that point in the two discernments of emptiness and wisdom by which bodhisattvas both uproot attachment and act compassionately in the world. This corresponds to the wealthy man entrusting the care of his fortune to his impoverished son. Then finally, in the fifth period, during the last eight years of his life, the Buddha set aside the coarse and incomplete provisional teachings of the preceding four periods and preached the perfect teaching that opens buddhahood to all. This teaching is represented by the Lotus Sūtra, and — in the Tiantai reading — restated in the Nirvāṇa Sūtra, said to have been preached just before the Buddha’s passing. This corresponds to the father, now approaching death, publicly acknowledging his son and bequeathing all of his wealth to him. In this way, the parable of the wealthy householder provided a basis for grasping the entirety of the Buddha’s teachings as integrated into a single, comprehensive chronological and soteriological agenda, by which he sought to gradually cultivate his followers’ capacity until they were mature enough to receive and accept the message of the one buddha vehicle.

Two Buddhas, p91-93
LS32

Day 7

Day 7 concludes Chapter 3, A Parable, and begins Chapter 4, Understanding by Faith.

Day 7 Text with annotationsPlay MP3

Having last month concluded today’s portion of Chapter 4, Understanding by Faith, we return to the Buddha’s explanation that “This triple world is my property. All living beings therein are my children.

There are many sufferings
In this world.
Only I can save
[All living beings].

I told this to all living beings.
But they did not believe me
Because they were too much attached
To desires and defilements.

Therefore, I expediently expounded to them
The teaching of the Three Vehicles,
And caused them to know
The sufferings of the triple world.
I opened, showed, and expounded
The Way out of the world.

Those children who were resolute in mind
Were able to obtain
The six supernatural powers
Including the three major supernatural powers,
And to become cause-knowers
Or never-faltering Bodhisattvas.

See Reverse Connection

2buddhas, LS32, d7b, WONS

Reverse Connection

Because the consequences of slandering the Lotus Sūtra are so frightful, in the verse section of this third chapter of the sūtra, after summarizing the karmic retribution that would attend that offense, the Buddha admonishes Śāriputra “never to expound this sūtra to those who have little wisdom. … You should teach the Lotus Sūtra to those who are able to accept it.” Some among Nichiren’s disciples wondered why he himself failed to follow this injunction. Would one not do better to lead people gradually through provisional teachings, as Śākyamuni Buddha himself had done, rather than insisting on immediately preaching the Lotus Sūtra to persons whose minds were not open to it? In Nichiren’s understanding, however, the sūtra’s warning against preaching the Lotus Sūtra to the ignorant had applied only to the Buddha’s lifetime and to the subsequent two thousand years of the ages of the True Dharma and the Semblance Dharma, when people still had the capacity to achieve buddhahood through provisional teachings. Now, in the age of the Final Dharma, he argued, no one can achieve liberation through such incomplete doctrines. Therefore, the Buddha had permitted ordinary teachers such as himself to preach the Lotus Sūtra directly, so that people could establish a karmic connection with it, “whether by acceptance or rejection.” Here Nichiren invoked and assimilated to the Lotus Sūtra the logic of “reverse connection” (J. gyakuen), the idea that even a negative relationship to the dharma, formed by rejecting or maligning it, will nonetheless eventually lead one to liberation. Persons who have formed no karmic connection to the true dharma may perhaps avoid rebirth in the lower realms but lack the conditions for attaining buddhahood; those who slander the dharma paradoxically form a bond with it. Though they must suffer the fearful consequences of disparaging the Lotus Sūtra, after expiating that offense, they will be able to encounter the Lotus again and achieve buddhahood by virtue of the very karmic connection to the sūtra that they formed by slandering it in the past. Now, in the age of the Final Dharma, Nichiren maintained, most persons are so burdened by delusive attachments that they are already bound for the hells. “If they must fall into the evil paths in any event, it would be far better that they do so for maligning the Lotus Sūtra than for any worldly offense. … Even if one disparages the Lotus Sūtra and thereby falls into hell, the merit gained [by the relationship to the sūtra that one has formed thereby] will surpass by a billion times that of making offerings to and taking refuge in Śākyamuni, Amitābha, and as many other buddhas as there are sands in the Ganges River.” Thus in this age, Nichiren maintained, one should persist in urging people to embrace the Lotus Sūtra, regardless of their response, for the Lotus alone can implant the seed that bears the fruit of buddhahood.

Two Buddhas, p86-88
d26b, d27b, WONS

The Moon that Brightens the Darkness of Night

The three delusions (delusions arising from incorrect views and thoughts, delusions which hinder knowledge of salvation methods, and delusions which hinder knowledge of the ultimate reality) that exist in the mind of all people as well as the karma of committing the ten evil acts, and the five rebellious sins are like the darkness of night. All the Buddhist scriptures such as the Flower Garland Sūtra are like stars in the dark night whereas the Lotus Sūtra is comparable to the moon that brightens the darkness of night. Those who believe in the Lotus Sūtra only half-heartedly are like the half-moon shining in the dark night. Those who deeply believe in the sūtra are likened to the full moon brightening the darkness of night. In the night with only stars twinkling in the sky without the moon, aged persons, women and children are unable to go out, though strong and healthy persons may. When the full moon brightens the night, even older persons and women and children are free to go out to play, attend parties, or meet friends and acquaintances. Likewise, in sūtras other than the Lotus Sūtra, though bodhisattvas and ordinary people with superior nature may be able to attain Buddhahood, the Two Vehicles, ordinary people, evil persons, women, or aged people, idlers and those without precepts in the Latter Age will never be able to be reborn in the Pure Land or attain Buddhahood. That is not the case with the Lotus Sūtra. The Two Vehicles, evil persons and women all attain Buddhahood in the Lotus Sūtra, not to speak of bodhisattvas and ordinary people with superior nature. Again, the moon shines brighter at dawn than in the early evening and in autumn and winter than in spring and summer. Likewise, the Lotus Sūtra has more divine help in the Latter Age of Degeneration than during the 2,000 years of the Ages of the True Dharma and the Semblance Dharma.

Yakuō-bon Tokui-shō, The Essence of the “Medicine King Bodhisattva” Chapter, Writings of Nichiren Shōnin, Faith and Practice, Volume 4, Page 31

LS32

Day 6

Day 6 continues Chapter 3, A Parable

Day 6 Text with annotationsPlay MP3

Having last month heard Śākyamuni explain how the burning house represents this Sahā World, we consider Śākyamuni decision to use expedients.

“Śāriputra! Seeing all this, I [also] thought, ‘I am the father of all living beings. I will eliminate their sufferings, give them the pleasure of the immeasurable wisdom of the Buddha, and cause them to enjoy it.’

“Śāriputra! I also thought, ‘If I extol my insight, powers, and fearlessness in the presence of those living beings only by my supernatural powers and by the power of my wisdom, that is to say, without any expedient, they will not be saved because they have not yet been saved from birth, old age, disease, death, grief, sorrow, suffering and lamentation, but are burning up in the burning house of the triple world. How can they understand the wisdom of the Buddha?’

“Śāriputra! The rich man did not save his children by his muscular power although he was strong enough. He saved them from the burning house with a skillful expedient and later gave them each a large cart of treasures.

“In the same manner, I save all living beings from the burning house of the triple world, not by my powers or fearlessness, but with a skillful expedient. I expounded the teaching of the Three Vehicles: the Śrāvaka-Vehicle, Pratyekabuddha-Vehicle, and Buddha-Vehicle, as an expedient. I said, ‘Do not wish to live in the burning house of the triple world! Do not crave for inferior forms, sounds, smells, tastes or things tangible! If you cling to them and crave for them, you will be burned by them. Get out of the triple world quickly and obtain the teaching of the Three Vehicles: the Śrāvaka-Vehicle, Pratyekabuddha-Vehicle, and Buddha-Vehicle! I now assure you that you will never fail [to obtain those vehicles]. Exert yourselves, make efforts!’

“With this expedient, I caused them to advance. I said to them again, ‘Know this! This teaching of the Three Vehicles is extolled by the saints. This teaching saves you from any attachment or bond or desire. Ride in these Three Vehicles, eliminate āsravas, obtain the [five] faculties, the [five] powers, the [seven] ways to enlightenment, and the [eight right] ways, and practice dhyāna concentrations, emancipations, and samadhis so that you may be able to enjoy immeasurable peace and pleasure!’

See “A Vehicle To Carry Lotus Sūtra Practitioners to ‘Pure land of Vulture Peak’”

2buddhas, LS32, d5b, d6b, d7b

A Vehicle To Carry Lotus Sūtra Practitioners to ‘Pure land of Vulture Peak’

By Nichiren’s time, educated people were often familiar with these stories, and the Lotus Sūtra’s message that all could attain buddhahood was widely accepted — although how that buddhahood was to be achieved and how long it might take were subjects of debate. Nichiren himself sometimes alludes to these parables in advocating the daimoku as the path of realizing buddhahood in the present age, but he rarely dwells on them at length.

Nichiren makes only limited reference to the parable of the burning house that occupies most of this chapter’s narrative. In a few passages, he refers to the great cart drawn by a white ox metaphorically as the vehicle that will carry Lotus Sūtra practitioners to “the pure land of Vulture Peak,” that is, the realm of enlightenment, or as a war chariot that he rides in a great dharma battle between true and provisional teachings. He does not provide an extended discussion of the parable itself. Rather, as we go through these initial chapters of the Lotus, we will see how Nichiren drew out the significance of other passages that might not seem central to the sūtra’s narrative but that assume considerable importance in his reading, a reading that was shaped by the sūtra’s reception history, by his contemporary circumstances, and by his own perspective.

Two Buddhas, p82