The fact that the Lotus Sutra references the Lotus Sutra taught in the past on several occasions is a matter of some controversy for those who are not devotees of the Lotus Sutra. I’ve written before about this here.) In “Visions of Awakening Space and Time: Dōgen and the Lotus Sutra,” Taigen Dan Leighton has an interesting discussion on the topic:
The Lotus Sutra itself frequently emphasizes the importance of and rewards for the proclamation of the Lotus Sutra, through reading, copying, and reciting it. To be sure, other Mahāyāna sutras talk about the merit to be derived by recalling or copying the sutra being read. However, the Lotus Sutra at times seems to hold this self-referential quality at its center, such that it promotes an extreme mode of self-referential discourse that is unique to it. The sutra often speaks of the wondrous nature of the Lotus Sutra, right in the text commonly referred to as the Lotus Sutra. This rhetorical device can be startling and mind-twisting, like Escher’s painting of two hands drawing each other. Various important figures in the sutra appear within the text of the Lotus Sutra because they have heard that the Lotus Sutra is currently being preached by Śākyamuni Buddha on Vulture Peak. For example, in chapter 11, the stūpa of the ancient Buddha Prabhūtaratna emerges from the earth and floats in midair because he has vowed always to appear whenever the Lotus Sutra is preached. In the same chapter, myriad bodhisattvas [Śākyamuni’s replicas] arrive from world systems in all directions to praise the Buddha for preaching this sutra in which they themselves are appearing.
This quality of the sutra talking about the sutra, and especially its many references to the Lotus Sutra as something expounded many ages ago, as about to be expounded, or even as hopefully to be expounded in the distant future, has led some commentators to observe that the whole text of this sutra, more than any others, is a preface to a missing scripture. As George and Willa Tanabe say, “The preaching of the Lotus sermon promised in the first chapter never takes place. The text, so full of merit, is about a discourse which is never delivered; it is a lengthy preface without a book. The Lotus Sutra is thus unique among texts. It is not merely subject to various interpretations, as all texts are, but is open or empty at its very center.” This is a plausible perspective or interpretation. The text does refer, in third person, to a designated text that one might keep vainly waiting for, as if for Godot.
However, this perspective misses the manner in which the Lotus sermon certainly does exist. Fundamental messages of the Lotus, such as the One Vehicle and the primacy of the Buddha vehicle, are difficult to miss, even if they might be interpreted in various ways, Furthermore, between the lines the Lotus Sutra functions within itself both as a sacred text or scripture and as a commentary and guidebook to its own use, beyond the literal confines of its own written text. The Lotus Sutra is itself a sacred manifestation of spiritual awakening that proclaims its own sacrality. Right within the text’s proclamation of the wonders of a text with the same name as itself, the text celebrates its own ephemeral quality with the visionary splendors of its assembly of buddhas, bodhisattvas, and spirits, and with the engaging qualities of its parables.
The synthesis of the immanent spirit spoken about in the text and the text’s own intended functioning as an instrument or skillful catalyst to spark awakening has been carried on among its followers. This is exemplified in the varieties of Nichiren Buddhism in that they are rooted and focused in devotion to the Lotus Sutra itself as a sacred manifestation, and devotional object, which they are committed to proclaiming and promulgating. But for Dōgen, the self-proclamation of the Dharma in the Lotus Sutra becomes an aspect of his rhetorical style rather than an externalized objectification.
Dōgen and the Lotus Sutra, p23-24
Later he offers:
The extraordinary self-referential quality of the Lotus Sutra also had an important effect on both Dōgen and Nichiren in their responses to the enduring Śākyamuni and the sutra itself. Whereas the impact of the self-referential is most clearly expressed by Dōgen in his style of Dharma proclamation, for Nichiren the manner in which the sutra proclaims its own value and soteriological role becomes the basis for his religious praxis. Nichiren takes the sutra literally in this respect. Perhaps more than any other major Buddhist thinker, he elevates one scripture as sacred essence and object. The sutra itself extensively extols the virtues of copying, reading, and reciting the sutra. Nichiren simplified and consolidated these practices into chanting its name and venerating the written name of the sutra as an icon.
Dōgen and the Lotus Sutra, p59
