The Vajra Prajna Paramita Sutra, p184-186When I was sixteen I wrote a matched couplet upon reading the Sixth Patriarch Sutra. Having lectured to the place where the text says “Dharma is not sudden or gradual, confusion and enlightenment are slow and quick.” I thought, “How can there still be a sudden and a gradual? What is sudden? What is gradual? Are sudden and gradual different? Are they two?” So I wrote the following:
Although sudden and gradual are different,
Upon completion they are one.
Why make divisions of North and South?Sagely and common are parts of the one:
The basic nature is absolutely the same.
Do not discuss East and West.“Although sudden and gradual are different, upon completion they are one.” Sudden refers to instantaneous realization of Buddhahood; gradual refers to slow cultivation to Buddhahood. Sudden and gradual are two distinct methods, but when one finishes the work, there is no sudden and no gradual in evidence. They no longer exist. …
When I read the Sixth Patriarch Sutra, I thought that the reference to Sudden and Gradual lacked equality, so I wrote the line, “Although sudden and gradual are different, upon completion they are one.” What is the origin of sudden? Although one suddenly attains enlightenment, one cultivates life after life for a long time within the Buddhadharma prior to that enlightenment. When one reaps the fruit of that long process of cultivation, that is called sudden. Gradual refers to the long process of cultivation, but the day the cultivation is complete, there is sudden enlightenment. For that reason I say there is no sudden or gradual. …
“Sagely and common are parts of the One.” Sagely refers to the Buddha; common refers to living beings. The world is divided into these two types, but “the basic nature is absolutely the same.” Buddhahood is the realization of the Buddha-nature. Living beings can also realize their Buddha-nature.
Myōhō Renge Kyō Promise for May 17 2025
Accumulated-Wisdom Bodhisattva praised [Mañjuśrī] with gāthās:
Possessor of Great Wisdom and Virtue!
You were brave in saving innumerable living beings.
This great congregation and I understand
That you expounded
The truth of the reality of all things,
Revealed the teaching of the One Vehicle,
And led those innumerable living beings
[Into the Way] to Bodhi quickly.
Mañjuśrī said, “In the sea I expounded only Myōhō Renge Kyō.”
Tao-sheng: Begging the Buddha to Turn the Dharma Wheel
Tao-sheng Commentary on the Lotus Sutra, p253The palaces of the Brahman-heavenly[-kings] of the five hundred billion worlds in the east were illumined {aglow} twice as brightly as ever.
The fact that nothing was left not covered by the first illumination implies that there is nothing that the Tao does not mirror. That the Brahma god [kings] from [all] the ten directions went far in search of this portent shows that, once [the Sage] is stimulated (kan), [beings] are certain to reach [the goal], regardless of the distance. That they did not recognize the portent of the glow tells that li is outside the reach of the senses. Their gift of the palaces [to the Buddha] expresses again their infinitely [sincere, grateful] minds. They abandoned the joy of abstruse meditation and visited the Buddha, coming a long way, and because their sentiment had remained on the wondrous Dharma, they begged the Buddha to turn the Dharma wheel.
Vajra Sutra: Five Aspects of Equality
The Vajra Prajna Paramita Sutra, p184The marks of the dharma are spoken of by the Tathagata as no marks of the dharma; therefore they are called the marks of the dharma. They are merely given a false name.
The Vajra Sūtra expresses prajña, the wonderful principle of true emptiness, and also expresses the dharma door of equality found within the wonderful principle of prajña. In general there are Five Aspects of Equality evident in the sūtra.
- The equality of living beings and Buddhas,
- The equality of emptiness and existence,
- The equality of all dharma,
- The equality of one and many,
- The equality of all views.
Most people do not understand equality dharma doors, so they put a head on top of a head, add marks to marks, and change what is basically equal to what is unequal.
Myōhō Renge Kyō Promise for May 16, 2025
If [the expounder of] Myōhō Renge Kyō is hated and threatened
With swords, sticks, tile-pieces or stones,
I will manifest men and dispatch them to him
In order to protect him.
Tao-sheng: Encouraging Beings to Cherish a Longing for Complete Enlightenment
Tao-sheng Commentary on the Lotus Sutra, p252He sat cross-legged without moving his mind and body for one to ten small kalpas. During all that time the Dharma of the Buddhas did not come into his mind.
By stating that the Buddha-dharmas did not yet appear before him for ten minor kalpas, [the Buddha] means to show that the ultimate li is dark and remote, and difficult to size up at once. Also expressed here is that the will of [the Buddha] Great Penetration was very strong and that his decisive mind could not be blocked, thus encouraging beings to cherish a longing for [complete enlightenment].
When he sat on that seat, the Brahman-heavenly-kings rained heavenly flowers on the area extending a hundred yojanas in all directions from that seat.
The fact that men and gods congregate there, making offerings, [in multitudes] like forests, shows that the utmost virtue is so dignified and weighty that li has moved [even] the gods. The Brahmā kings are the lords of living beings, and yet they are among those who have come to pay reverence [to this Buddha]. Would it not be even more so for the rest [of the beings]?
Before [Great-Universal-Wisdom-Excellence Buddha] left home, he had sixteen sons.
Things caused in the past are depicted here.
Vajra Sutra: The Merit of Small Deeds
The Vajra Prajna Paramita Sutra, p178-179If we travelled by rocket for a great length of time, we would only cover a short distance compared to the extent of three thousand great thousand world systems. Although those world systems are big, they are created from motes of fine dust. The largest things are created from the smallest. Although one mote of dust is small, many of them together become a great thousand world system. In the same way, the merit and virtue we do comes from small deeds. By doing many good deeds we become adorned with ten thousand virtues. You should not think you need not bother doing small good deeds or that you can get away with doing small bad ones. Many seemingly inconsequential good deeds will accumulate into great goodness. Although you may only do minor bad deeds, many will accumulate into great evil. In just the same way, a whole world comes from a collection of small dust motes.
Myōhō Renge Kyō Promise for May 15, 2025
“World-Honored One! The bhikṣus, bhikṣunīs, upāsakās or upāsikās who seek, keep, read, recite and copy Myōhō Renge Kyō in the defiled world in the later five hundred years after [your extinction], if they wish to study and practice Myōhō Renge Kyō, should concentrate their minds [on study and practice] strenuously for three weeks. When they complete [the study and practice of] three weeks, I will mount a white elephant with six tusks, and appear before them with my body which all living beings wish to see, together with innumerable Bodhisattvas surrounding me. I will expound the Dharma to them, show them the Way, teach them, benefit them, and cause them to rejoice. I also will give them dhārāṇi spells. If they obtain these dhārāṇis, they will not be killed by nonhuman beings or captivated by women. Also I myself will always protect them.
Tao-sheng: Reflecting on the Past and Today
Tao-sheng Commentary on the Lotus Sutra, p252Underlying the depiction of [the Buddha named] Victorious through Great Penetrating Knowledge (Mahābhijnā-jnānābhibhū) is a threefold meaning. First, because Victorious through Great Penetrating Knowledge also preached the three and the One, in that order, it lends support to and completes the present preaching. Second, the five hundred disciples and the great multitude were previously in the place of Victorious through Great Penetrating Knowledge and were converted by Śākyamuni. The story of what happened to Śākyamuni [in the past] is certain to lead beings to believe that [achievements made] in earlier times help one to accomplish awakening now. Third, it means that the boundary of [the realm of] birth and death is so remote, and the Great Path (Tao) is so dark and distant, that [the Buddha] urgently devised the two vehicles, which are symbolized in the parable of the conjured city.
“A countless, limitless, inconceivable, asaṃkhya number of kalpas ago, there lived a Buddha called Great-Universal-Wisdom-Excellence {Victorious through Great Penetrating Knowledge}
[What the Buddha] said here, that [that] Buddha passed into extinction a long time ago, is intended to express that Śākyamuni reflects on the remote past as if he had thought of it today, in order to prove that the li he is now preaching is deep and proper.
Vajra Sutra: Seeking The Middle Way
The Vajra Prajna Paramita Sutra, p168-169The deviant path of grasping at the sight or the sound of the Buddha leads one into the extreme of clinging to conditioned existence. When one is not in accord with the Middle Way, one cannot see the Tathagata. The Avataṃsaka Sutra says: “Response and transformations are not the true Buddha.” The thirty-two marks belong to the response and transformation bodies, and certainly not to the Buddha’s dharma body. One who holds to annihilationism views everything as doomed to extinction. One who holds to permanence views everything as eternal. Both views are biased and not the Middle Way. If one seeks the Tathagata’s dharma body by some path other than the Middle Way, it will be impossible to find it.
Once Mahāmaudgalyāyana wanted to see how far the Buddha’s voice carried, so he used his spiritual penetrations and went as far east as he could. He passed through thousands of ten thousands of millions of Buddhalands – 70,000 times farther than a rocket can go in space. But even when he had travelled that great distance, the Buddha’s voice was still as clear as if he were speaking dharma right into Mahāmaudgalyāyana’s ear. That is a case of searching for the Buddha in sound.