Category Archives: Tamura-Intro

Tamura-Intro

How the Lotus Sutra Came To Be

The Lotus Sutra in its present form has twenty-eight chapters. But since chapter 12, “Devadatta,” did not appear as a separate chapter until the time of Tiantai Zhiyi in the sixth century, the sutra originally had only twenty-seven chapters. Traditionally, the sutra was divided in two between chapters 14, “Safe and Easy Practices1,” and 15, “Springing Up from the Earth.” But in modern times various attempts have been made to divide it according to research on and explication of original texts. If we now reexamine it with reference to these various divisions, the following seems reasonable: The part of the sutra that spans from chapter 2, “Skillful Means,” through chapter 9, “Assurance for Arhats,” can be seen as the first part, which we can assume to have been formed around 50 CE. Then the part that spans from chapter 10, “Teachers of the Dharma,” through chapter 22, “Entrustment,” together with the first chapter, “Introduction,” can be regarded as the second part, which we may assume to be from around 100 CE. And finally, chapter 23, “Previous Lives of Medicine King Bodhisattva,” through chapter 28, “Encouragement of Universal Sage Bodhisattva,” can be seen as a third part, formed around 150 CE.

As previously stated, the first group of chapters, formed around 50 CE, is the original part of the Lotus Sutra. Later the second group was put together and added to the first. It seems that chapter 1, “Introduction,” was created at that time and placed at the beginning in order to create some coherence between the first and second groups. I imagine that the third group was created after the formation of the second as a way of assimilating the general thought and faith that arose at that time. It seems that each of these chapters were created individually and then successively added to the sutra. The reason for regarding this third group to be from around 150 CE lies in the fact that citations from the Lotus Sutra, even from its last chapter, appear in the Great Perfection of Wisdom Discourse, written by Nagarjuna around 200 CE. …

When we explore the division into first and second groups, we see that between chapter 9, “Assurance for Arhats” and chapter 10, “Teachers of the Dharma,” the audience of Shakyamuni’s sermon changes. Up to chapter 9, Shakyamuni addresses the shravakas, one of the two kinds of followers of the Small Vehicle, while from chapter 10 on, he addresses bodhisattvas. In chapter 1 as well, bodhisattvas are the audience. As discussed, chapter 1 was created at the time of the formation of the second group in order to provide coherence between the two groups of chapters.

Next, it is worth noting that in chapters 2-9 the Buddha gives individual assurances of becoming a buddha, while from the latter part of chapter 10 on he advocates social propagation of the Dharma. The assurance of becoming a buddha is meant mainly to signify that Small Vehicle shravakas are equally assured of becoming buddhas in the future, after being awakened and transformed by the Wonderful Dharma of One Vehicle. In general, “assurance” (vyakarana) refers to assurance by the Buddha that one will become a buddha in the future. The special entrustment, general entrustment, and the like signify the transmission of the Buddha’s mission to those who put truth into actual practice, thereby propagating it in society. Such assurance symbolizes the paragon of Mahayana Buddhism and has a deep relationship with the Mahayana bodhisattvas. …

Here I want to mention briefly the chronological divisions involved in the formation of the Lotus Sutra. In the earliest part of the sutra the prose sections amplify the verse sections, or conversely, the verses repeat what is in the prose sections. This seems to indicate that the verse sections were created first and then the prose sections added to supplement them. On the other hand, in the second group of chapters there are many things in verse form that are not merely repetitions of what was in prose, and we can only make sense of the whole through a combination of the prose and verse sections. Therefore, we can imagine that in this case the prose and verse sections were created at the same time. In this respect, too, there seems to be some difference between the first and second groups of chapters.

Moreover, within the first group, the terms “receive and embrace,” “read and recite,” and “explain” occur regularly, but “copy” is not mentioned. “Copy” was added in the second group, completing the set that later came to be known as the five kinds of Dharma teacher practice—receive and embrace, read, recite, explain, and copy. Thus we see, again, a chronological difference between the first and second groups. The fact that “copy” is not mentioned in the first group is a vestige of the period of memorization prior to the development of writing in India, indicating that the first group is older. Also, the six lower realms or paths—i.e., those of purgatories or hells, hungry spirits, animals, asuras, people, and heavenly beings—are found in the first group, but the idea of the ten realms of living beings, which include the realms of shravakas, pratyekabuddhas, bodhisattvas, and buddhas, was not yet formulated. We see the ten realms, however, in the second group, which provides another reason for maintaining that there is a chronological division between the formation of the first and second groups. It was not until sometime after the beginnings of Mahayana Buddhism that the realms of shravakas, pratyekabuddhas, bodhisattvas, and buddhas were added to the six lower realms. Beyond this, there are several other reasons, in terms of contents and chronological period, for maintaining a distinction between the first and second groups of chapters.

Yoshiro Tamura, "Introduction to the Lotus Sutra", p44-47
  1. Chapter title names come from Gene Reeves’ 2008 translation of the Lotus Sutra. return
Blog, Tamura-Intro

The Buddha’s Practices

Yoshiro Tamura has a curious interpretation of the Lotus Sutra’s Chapter 16 in his book, “Introduction to the Lotus Sutra.”

Tamura writes:

Chapter 16, “The Lifetime of the Tathagata,” as it has been traditionally understood, reveals the eternal life of Shakyamuni Buddha. But the occasion for doing this was provided by a question raised in the previous chapter: How could the innumerable bodhisattvas who have emerged from below the earth have been taught and led to the Buddha way over the short span of the Buddha’s life? The answer is given that the innumerable bodhisattvas have been authentic disciples of Shakyamuni Buddha. That is, in view of the fact that Shakyamuni Buddha only recently became awakened and became a buddha, how could he have so many disciples? Chapter 16 reveals that in reality Shakyamuni Buddha became a buddha an infinitely long time ago, thus an infinite amount of time has passed since he became Buddha. In this way we can see that the advocacy of the Buddha’s universality is related to bodhisattvas.

The important thing to notice in chapter 16 is the way in which the Buddha’s everlasting life is revealed. The text says:

Thus, since I became Buddha, a very long time has passed, a lifetime of innumerable countless eons of constantly living here and never entering extinction. The time that I have devoted to walking the bodhisattva way is not finished even now, but will be twice as many eons as have already passed.

This means that the eternal life of the Buddha is shown through infinite, never-ending bodhisattva practice. The everlasting or eternal life is realized by endlessly doing bodhisattva practice in this actual world.

Yoshiro Tamura, "Introduction to the Lotus Sutra", p52-53

Tamura’s quote from Chapter 16 has a note indicating that it comes from Reeve’s 2008 English translation of the Lotus Sutra. However, it is not a direct quote from Reeve’s translation, which states:

Thus, since I became Buddha a very long time has passed, a lifetime of innumerable countless eons of constantly living here and never entering extinction. Good sons, from the beginning I have practiced the bodhisattva way, and that life is not yet finished, but will be twice as long as what has already passed.

I stumbled over Tamura’s quote because this is not how Senchu Murano translates this portion of Chapter 16. Murano offers:

“Good men! The duration of my life, which I obtained by the practice of the way of Bodhisattvas, has not yet expired. It is twice as long as the length of time as previously stated.

Clearly, the Bodhisattva practices preceded Śākyamuni’s enlightenment. There’s no suggestion that he continued these Bodhisattva practices.

Leon Hurvitz’s 2009 translation is even clearer on this point:

O good men ! The life-span I achieved in my former treading of the bodhisattva path even now is not exhausted, for it is twice the above number.

None of the other English translations of Kumārajīva’s Chinese Lotus Sutra suggests an unceasing practice of the bodhisattva way by the Buddha.

The BDK English Tripiṭaka translation offers:

O sons of a virtuous family! The lifespan that I first attained through practicing the bodhisattva path has not yet expired. It is twice as great as the number previously mentioned.

The Rissho Kosei-Kai Modern Translation says:

Good children, the life span I gained through my long practice of the bodhisattva way is still unending and will continue for twice the duration that I described before.

Burton Watson, in his translation for Soka Gakkai in 1993, offers:

Good men, originally I practiced the bodhisattva way, and the life span that I acquired then has yet to come to an end but will last twice the number of years that have already passed.

Tamura declares that the eternal life of the Buddha is shown through infinite, never-ending bodhisattva practice. That seems too narrow to me. The entire Lotus Sutra – Myōhōrengekyō – is realized by endlessly doing bodhisattva practice in this actual world. This is how Namu Myōhōrengekyō is put into practice daily.

As for the Buddha:

I am always thinking:
“How shall I cause all living beings
To enter into the unsurpassed Way
And quickly become Buddhas?”

The eternal life of the Buddha is realized in this vow.

Blog, original, Tamura-Intro

Yoshiro Tamura and Original Enlightenment Thought

Search for Yoshiro Tamura on this website and you’ll find that he is “famous” for his views on Original Enlightenment. (He’s also one of the translators of Rissho Kosei-kai’s 1975 edition of The Threefold Lotus Sutra.)

The publisher’s description of Jacqueline Stone’s “Original Enlightenment and the Transformation of Medieval Japanese Buddhism” explains what’s meant by “original enlightenment”:

Original enlightenment thought (hongaku shiso) dominated Buddhist intellectual circles throughout Japan’s medieval period. Enlightenment, this discourse claims, is neither a goal to be achieved nor a potential to be realized but the true status of all things. Every animate and inanimate object manifests the primordially enlightened Buddha just as it is.

In Tamura’s “Introduction to the Lotus Sutra,” he explains original enlightenment in this way:

Saicho skillfully merged the Lotus Sutra’s comprehensive and unifying view of truth with the Flower Garland Sutra’s fundamental and purifying view of the truth. In his thought, the Lotus Sutra’s worldview, which encompasses the actual world, is united with the worldview of the Flower Garland Sutra, which shines with the ideal. This is a unity of the ideal and the actual. In further developments along this line, thinkers after Saicho combined typical Mahayana Buddhist ideas from the Lotus Sutra, the Flower Garland Sutra, the esoteric sutras, Zen, and so forth, eventually achieving the ultimate in philosophical theory—the Tendai doctrine of original enlightenment. The Tendai doctrine of original, innate or intrinsic, enlightenment is the culmination of Buddhism, subsuming all Buddhist teachings on the basis of Tendai Lotus Sutra doctrine. In general, it makes it clear that breaking through the bounds of right and wrong, good and evil, beauty and ugliness—human relative and dualistic thought and judgment—so thoroughly breaks through that barrier that it discloses a very different absolute and monistic world. Here, the boundary between heaven and earth vanishes, the distinction between above and below disappears, and only infinite cosmic space and eternal absolute time remain. From this standpoint, there is a radical affirmation that the actual world is like a dynamic pulsation of ideal light in which a moment is like an eternity. Life and death and everything else come to be affirmed as the activity of eternal life. Tendai doctrine includes such teachings as “The eternal sun and moon, today’s sun and moon, and the future sun and moon are all one sun and moon,” “The wonderful coming of noncoming, the true birth of nonbirth, the perfect going of nongoing, and the great death of nondeath,” and “All things in the universe have the life span of the original Buddha.”

Yoshiro Tamura, "Introduction to the Lotus Sutra", p121-122

In “Original Enlightenment and the Transformation of Medieval Japanese Buddhism,”Stone explains her understanding of Tamura’s theory:

Tamura [Yoshirō] … characterizes Tendai original enlightenment thought as “absolute affirmation of reality” and the “climax” of Buddhist philosophy, a synthesis of Tendai, Kegon, esoteric, and Zen elements that carried to the farthest possible point the denial of any separation between ordinary worldlings and the Buddha’s enlightened reality. Tamura himself terms original enlightenment thought a teaching of “absolute nonduality” (zettaifuni) or “absolute monism” (zettai ichtgen ron), a term now commonly used in Japanese scholarly writing in reference to Tendai hongaku thought. By “absolute monism,” Tamura means not a single entity or essence underlying all phenomena, but that the realm of the Buddha’s enlightenment (i.e., the realm of principle, or ri) and the conventional realm of changing phenomena (ji) are thoroughly conflated. This identification is on the one hand ontological, consistent with classic Madhyamaka teachings about the emptiness of the dharmas and the nonduality of ultimate and conventional truth, as expressed in the phrase “saṃsāra is nirvāṇa.” But in Tendai hongaku thought, the identification holds on the existential level as well: the deluded thoughts of ordinary beings as such are the Buddha’s enlightenment. In Tamura’s terms, both the “existential aspect” and “illusional aspect” of reality are “absolutely affirmed. ”

Original Enlightenment and the Transformation of Medieval Japanese Buddhism


The controversy surrounding this theory is summarized in the publisher’s description of Stone’s book:

Scholars and commentators have long recognized the historical importance of original enlightenment thought but differ heatedly over how it is to be understood. Some tout it as the pinnacle of the Buddhist philosophy of absolute non-dualism. Others claim to find in it the paradigmatic expression of a timeless Japanese spirituality. According to other readings, it represents a dangerous anti-nomianism that undermined observance of moral precepts, precipitated a decline in Buddhist scholarship, and denied the need for religious discipline. Still others denounce it as an authoritarian ideology that, by sacralizing the given order, has in effect legitimized hierarchy and discriminative social practices. Often the acceptance or rejection of original enlightenment thought is seen as the fault line along which traditional Buddhist institutions are to be differentiated from the new Buddhist movements (Zen, Pure Land, and Nichiren) that arose during Japan’s medieval period.

In Gene Reeves’ Introduction to Tamura’s book, he writes:

Some might think that the section of this book dealing with Tendai thought should be updated somehow to reflect how Tamura would have responded to recent critiques of Tendai original enlightenment thought. In fact, we can only speculate on how Tamura might have responded to such developments. My own guess is that he would have rejected any form of monistic ground, while supporting the affirmation of the reality of all things, a notion found both in the Lotus Sutra and some forms of Tendai original enlightenment thought. But, since this is simply speculation on my part, it would seem inappropriate to change Tamura’s text to reflect developments of which he was not a part.

Though Tamura does discuss Tendai thought in this book, it is really about the Lotus Sutra, and very little of what is known about the Lotus Sutra has changed since Tamura wrote it.

Yoshiro Tamura, "Introduction to the Lotus Sutra", p5
Blog, Books, Tamura-Intro

Yoshiro Tamura’s Introduction to the Lotus Sutra

tamura-introduction-bookcover
Available at Amazon

Yoshiro Tamura’s Introduction to the Lotus Sutra was originally published in 1969 in Japan. Michio Shinozali and Gene Reeves translated the book into English, which was published in 2014. Rissho Kossei-kai holds the copyright.

Reeves offers this about Tamura in his Introduction:

Tamura was not a popular writer. When we met (in 1983) he was a professor at Rissho University, Nichiren-shu’s university in Tokyo. This followed his retirement from the University of Tokyo in 1982, where he held the chair in Japanese Buddhism. He was an academic and a historian. Yet he also had a kind of layman’s love of the Lotus Sutra, which is reflected in his Preface to this book. He knew as well as anyone that the Lotus Sutra was not merely something fit for academic scrutiny, but a religious text very much alive in the contemporary world.

His small book, first published in Japan in 1969, was intended for a popular audience. It introduces the teachings of the Lotus Sutra, some of the scholarly work on its composition, and the role it has had in East Asian, especially Japanese, history. Part of a popular but sophisticated series, the book was intended to inform educated, nonspecialist Japanese readers about the Lotus Sutra and its uses and evaluations in history. Since the Lotus Sutra is the primary Buddhist text for several traditional Japanese Buddhist denominations of the Nichiren and Tendai traditions, as well as for several new Buddhist organizations that emerged in the twentieth century, particularly for the Reiyūkai, Rissho Kosei-kai, and Soka Gakkai, the number of potential readers in contemporary Japan would have been very substantial. Well over twenty million Japanese recite regularly from the Lotus Sutra.

So the audience Tamura intended for his book was not made up of his fellow academics—at least not primarily—but of serious lay Buddhists who already had some familiarity with the Lotus Sutra.

Underscore Reeves description of Tamura as an academic and a historian. Yet he also had a kind of layman’s love of the Lotus Sutra….

Tamura’s Preface offers an academic overview of the Lotus Sutra and its development, but what I want to focus on is this:

Soon after entering university in December of 1943, I was sent to the front as a student soldier. I wondered if I were allowed to bring but a single book on the trip, possibly to my death, which would I want to bring? Many of my fellow student soldiers were thinking the same thing. We all worked at part-time jobs in order to be able to buy books, and we often lent them to each other. Yet we were perplexed by the idea of selecting only one. One fellow insisted on bringing Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason. Some Christian students, not surprisingly, chose the Bible, as was natural for Christians.

Since in those days my own interest was shifting from Western philosophy to Buddhist thought, I decided to select one appropriate book from among the many related to Buddhism. It was the Lotus Sutra. …

Leaving ten soldiers behind, my military unit was moved to the Philippines and suffered a crushing defeat just before landing there. I was one of the ten who remained behind. As he was leaving, the commander of my company asked me to teach him a few passages from a sutra that would be suitable for mourning the dead. I gave him some famous verses taken from chapter 16 of the Lotus Sutra, “The Lifetime of the Tathagata.” I imagine that that company commander died with his soldiers before he had time to mourn them. Later, I was ordered to transfer several times, and I sometimes had to face death. But I was never without the Lotus Sutra. When I was discharged, my copy of the sutra was more worn out than I was.

I am filled with deep emotion as I set out to explain the Lotus Sutra, the book that has been the most important in my own life.

End of June 1969
Yoshiro Tamura

Tamura’s book has a great deal of background on the development of the Lotus Sutra. I’ll be posting quotes which I want to keep available. After that, I’ll be posting his chapter-by-chapter comments on the Lotus Sutra, which I’ll also incorporate into my annotated Lotus Sutra.

Before that, I want to address two topics:

 
Book List