Category Archives: WONS

WONS

Myō Equals Perfection

The Chinese character “myō” is “sad” in Sanskrit, and “miao” in Chinese. It means to be equipped with everything. To be equipped means satisfactory, lacking nothing. Each character of the Lotus Sūtra contains every one of 69,384 characters. It is like a drop of water in the ocean consisting of the water of all the rivers, or a single crystal ball as small as a poppy seed, pouring out all the treasures.

It is as the plants that died with ice and snow in autumn and winter, sprout, put out leaves, blossom and bear fruits in spring and summer. This is a parable in which the people in nine realms before the Lotus Sūtra are compared to the plants of autumn through winter. The character myō of the Lotus Sūtra is likened to the sunshine of spring through summer, and blossoming and bearing fruits mean aspiration for and attainment of Buddhahood by those people. Bodhisattva Nāgārjuna says in his Great Wisdom Discourse that it is “like a great medicine master turning poison into medicine.” This is his explanation of how virtuous “myō” of the Lotus Sūtra was. Grand Master Miao-lê says also that the Lotus Sūtra is named “myō” because it was able to heal all the sick people with obstinate diseases that had not been cured by any other sūtras.

Hokke Daimoku Shō, Treatise on the Daimoku of the Lotus Sūtra, Writings of Nichiren Shōnin, Faith and Practice, Volume 4, Page 42

WONS

The Pure Perfect Teaching

Generally speaking, there are two things which we should keep in mind as to the Perfect Teachings of the pre-Lotus sūtras. Before Ānanda assembled disciples of the Buddha to compile the sūtras, the Buddha added the doctrine of Distinct and Perfect Teachings and the Four Teachings and Three Teachings to every teaching. Thus, the pure Perfect Teaching was not preached in the sūtras expounded prior to the Lotus Sūtra. In this sense, the Perfect Teachings prior to the Lotus Sūtra are classified as the Distinct Teachings in the Lotus Sūtra. It is said in the tenth fascicle of the Commentary on the Profound Meaning of the Lotus Sūtra that in every stage there are two doctrines, fugen (mutually identical and mutually penetrating) and gyōfu (independence of every stage of the order); thus, we should know that the Perfect Teaching (prior to the Lotus Sūtra) is classified as the Distinct Teaching. Therefore, Buddhahood will not be attained in the pre-Lotus sūtras.

Nijō Sabutsu Ji, Obtaining Buddhahood by the Two Vehicles, Writings of Nichiren Shōnin, Doctrine 3, Page 227

Daily Dharma, d17b, WONS

Daily Dharma – April 21, 2020

This is indeed inexplicable yet precious. If Devadatta does not become a Buddha, the numerous evil people who were induced by him to enter into his evil comradeship would never be able to escape the torment of the Hell of Incessant Suffering. It is solely due to the great favor of the Lotus Sutra that all of Devadatta’s comrades, too, are allowed to be Buddhas.

Nichiren wrote this passage in his Treatise on Prayers (Kitō-shō). Devadatta was a cousin of the Buddha who was jealous of the Buddha’s accomplishments. He tried to set those who followed the Buddha against each other, and even tried several times to kill the Buddha. In the Lotus Sūtra, even Devadatta is assured of becoming a Buddha, opening the path of enlightenment even to those as perverse and deluded as him. When we learn to see even those who cause great harm as being capable of becoming enlightened, then it changes not only how we treat them, but how we see the world.

The Daily Dharma is produced by the Lexington Nichiren Buddhist Community. To subscribe to the daily emails, visit zenzaizenzai.com

WONS

Seeing Our Reflection in the Clear Mirror of the Lotus Sūtra

QUESTION: I have learned that the “3,000 existences contained in one thought” doctrine was first expounded in the fifth fascicle of the Great Concentration and Insight, one of the three major works of Grand Master T’ien-t’ai. Now I would like to know the meaning of spiritual contemplation (kanjin) of the “3,000 existences contained in one thought.”

ANSWER: Spiritual contemplation means for one to meditate on his own mind, observing through it ten realms, from the hells up to the realm of Buddhas, all of which are by nature contained in every mind. For instance, one can see the six sense-organs (eyes, ears, nose, tongue, body, and mind) of other people, but one cannot see and know one’s own six sense organs unless one sees one’s reflection in a clear mirror. Despite the fact that various sūtras often preach six realms of illusion (realms of hells, hungry spirits, beasts, asura demons, men, and gods) and four realms of holy beings (Buddhas, bodhisattvas, pratyekabuddha and śrāvaka), we do not see how our mind contains ten realms, 100 realms, 1,000 aspects, and 3,000 modes of existence, unless we see our reflection in the clear mirror of the Lotus Sūtra and writings of Grand Master T’ien-t’ai such as Great Concentration and Insight.

Kanjin Honzon-shō, A Treatise Revealing the Spiritual Contemplation and the Most Verable One, Writings of Nichiren Shōnin, Doctrine 2, Page 131-132

WONS

A Blue Agate Kalpa

Speaking of a kalpa, suppose there is a huge blue agate, an 80,000 ri cube, which does not erode even if it were filed for aeons. Suppose an angel descends once in three years to caress it with her extremely beautiful and light robe. The length of time required for the angel to wear out the blue agate is referred to as a kalpa.

Matsuno-dono Goshōsoku, Letter to Lord Matsuno, Writings of Nichiren Shōnin, Volume 7, Followers II, Page 66

LS32, WONS

Day 30

Day 30 covers all of Chapter 26, Dhāraṇīs

Day 30 Text with annotationsPlay MP3
Having last month received Brave-In-Giving Bodhisattva’s dhārāni spells, we receive Vaiśravaṇa Heavenly-King’s dhārāni spells.

Thereupon Vaiśravaṇa Heavenly-King, the Protector of the World, said to the Buddha, “World-Honored One! I also will utter dhārānis in order to protect this teacher of the Dharma out of my compassion towards all living beings.”

Then he uttered spells, “Ari (1), nari (2), tonari (3), anaro (4), nabi (5), kunabi (6).”

[He said to the Buddha:]

“World-Honored One! I will protect this teacher of the Dharma with these divine spells. I also will protect the person who keeps this sūtra so that he may have no trouble within a hundred yojanas’ distance [from here].”

It is appropriate here to offer Nichiren’s understanding of the promise these spells entailed:

Life is fleeting! No matter how many powerful enemies join forces against you, do not retreat and never be afraid. Even if your head is sawed off, your torso pierced through with a spear, and your feet shackled and drilled with a gimlet, you should continue chanting “Namu Myōhō-renge-kyō” as long as you have life. If you die chanting it, Śākyamuni Buddha, the Buddha of Many Treasures, and Buddhas in manifestation throughout the universe will immediately come flying, lead you by the hand or carry you on their shoulders to Mt. Sacred Eagle as they had promised at the assembly on Mt. Sacred Eagle. At that moment, two sages (Bodhisattvas Medicine King and Brave Donor), two heavenly kings (World Holding and Vaiśravaṇa), and ten female rākṣasa demons will protect you, upholders of the Lotus Sūtra, and various gods and deities will hold up a canopy over your head, wave banners, guard you, and certainly will send you to the Jeweled Land of Tranquil Light. Is not this the utmost happiness?

Nyosetsu Shugyō-shō, True Way of Practicing the Teaching of the Buddha, Writings of Nichiren Shōnin, Faith and Practice, Volume 4, Page 87-88

Eyes, WONS

The Myriad Indian Views of Causality

Quote

As far as Nichiren and his contemporaries were concerned, these myriad views of causality held by the non-Buddhists of India all boiled down to the following three views: (1) the effect can be found within the cause, (2) the effect cannot be found within the cause, and (3) the effect does and does not exist within the cause. These views concerning causality are important because they are denials of the law of cause and effect as taught by the Buddha, and the law of cause and effect taught by the Buddha relates to right view and right practice that leads to awakening.
In the Outline of All the Holy Teachings of the Buddha (Ichidai Shōgyō Tai-i), Nichiren associates Kapila with the view that effects are the transformations of the cause that is their substance or self-nature. This is justified in that Sāmkhya teaches that an effect exists as a potential within a cause and is produced when the cause transforms itself. For example, it is like clay (the cause) being shaped into a jar (the effect). The clay remains clay, though it has become a jar. In this view nothing is ever really created or destroyed, there are only transformations of what has always and will always exist. Cause and effect are identified as simply two different modes of an eternal unchanging substance. This is the view that Buddhism calls “eternalism.”

Uluka is associated with the view that effects are generated by external causes. This is justified in that the Vaiśeshika held that the cause gives rise to the effect; but the cause does not enter into the being of the effect. The effect then becomes a cause for something else and in turn passes away. For example, once the moist lump of clay has been shaped by the potter and fired in the kiln it is no longer clay but a jar. In this view the cause disappears when the effect comes into existence and the effect itself disappears when it becomes the cause for some other effect. Cause and effect are denied any underlying substantial identity as the former vanishes without a trace when the latter comes into being. Buddhism calls this view “annihilationism.”

Rishabha is associated with the view that effects are the product of causes external and internal to them. This is consistent with the Jain teaching of relativity in respect to conceptual statements. In other words, one should grant the relative truth of a variety of positions if one is not to fall into one-sided or partial views. Due to their teaching of relativity, the Buddhists attributed to Rishabha the position that a cause may in some respects transform into its effect but in other respects the cause and effect are distinct entities. Using the example of clay being turned into a jar: in some respects, the clay remains as the basis of the jar, but in other respects the jar has qualities the lump of clay did not have in terms of its shape, firmness, and ability to function as a container. Cause and effect are thereby identical in terms of some qualities but separate entities in terms of others.

Finally, the materialists are associated with the view that chance or fate governs the appearance and disappearance of phenomena and that there are no causal relations, that is to say no causes or effects. This is the view that things just happen without any rhyme or reason.

The Ichidai Shōgyō Tai-i passage that aligns the thinkers of India in terms of four alternatives uses the tetralemma, a Buddhist way of presenting two alternatives, their combination, and the negation of both alternatives. The tetralemma supposedly exhausts all the possible solutions to a question. The present tetralemma about the relationship between cause and effect is often taken in Buddhism to really be about the relationship between the one who acts and the one who experiences the karmic fruition of that act either within the same lifetime or in some future lifetime. In other words, is the person who makes the cause the same as the person who will experience the effect? Kapila would say yes, Uluka would say no, Rishabha would say that both Kapila and Uluka are correct in some sense, and the materialists would deny any kind of causal connection. All four alternatives, however, contain an assumption that the Buddha did not share: that causes and effects are substantial entities that do or do not endure through time. Furthermore, the Buddha denied that there is an unchanging, independent, “self” that performs causes and suffers effects. Without that assumption, none of the proposals makes any sense.

Open Your Eyes, p100-101
WONS

If Easy To Believe, the sūtra is not the True Dharma

After all, those with capacity to understand and have full faith in Buddhism who had the luck of listening to Śākyamuni Buddha preach the Lotus Sūtra in India must have accumulated a great deal of merit in their past lives. Moreover, they were fortunate to have been assisted and guided by the Lord Śākyamuni Buddha, the Buddha of Many Treasures, who had come to attest to the truth of Śākyamuni’s words, various Buddhas in manifestation who had come from all over the universe, numerous bodhisattvas who had sprung up from underground, and such distinguished disciples of Śākyamuni Buddha as Mañjuśrī and Maitreya. Nevertheless, there were some who were not converted to the Lotus Sūtra. This is the reason why those self-conceited, as many as 5,000, moved out when the Buddha was about to start preaching (chapter 2, “Expedients”), and why some men and gods were transferred to other worlds (chapter 11, “The Appearance of the Stupa of Treasures”). It was so even while Śākyamuni Buddha was alive. How much more difficult is it to believe in the Lotus Sūtra in the Ages of the True Dharma and Semblance Dharma after the death of Śākyamuni Buddha, not to say in the beginning of the Latter Age of Degeneration? If you could easily believe in the sūtra, it would mean that the sūtra is not the True Dharma.

Kanjin Honzon-shō, A Treatise Revealing the Spiritual Contemplation and the Most Verable One, Writings of Nichiren Shōnin, Doctrine 2, Page 134

Eyes, WONS

The Outside Way

Quote

The religions and philosophies of India rate higher than the Chinese traditions
in Nichiren’s evaluation because some of them did teach the law of cause and effect, rebirth in the six paths of transmigration, and the need to strive for rebirth in the heavens through the cultivation of morality and meditative disciplines. Nichiren does not actually use the word “Brahmanism” to refer to them, but instead the Chinese character for “outside” in reference to all the teachings in India that Buddhists considered the “outside way” in contrast to the Buddha Dharma. In this outside way he is encompassing both the teachings of the brahmins who followed the Vedic revelation and the ascetics whose teachings rejected the Vedas.
Open Your Eyes, p74

WONS

Predictions Proven True

These are the predictions in the “Risshō Ankoku-ron.” Now I, Nichiren, would like to add my views to them. The Buddha once predicted that Kutoku, a Jain, would die in seven days and be reborn a hungry spirit. Refuting the Buddha, Kutoku declared that he would not die in seven days and that he would be an arhat, who would not be reborn in the realm of hungry spirits. Nevertheless, Kutoku died in seven days, showing the very appearance of the hungry spirit just as predicted by the Buddha.

When the wife of a rich man in the city of Campā, in central India, became pregnant, six non-Buddhist masters insisted that she would give birth to a baby girl. However, just as the Buddha predicted, a baby boy was born.

Upon finishing the preaching of the Lotus Sūtra, the Buddha predicted in the Sūtra of Meditation on the Universal Sage Bodhisattva that He would enter Nirvāṇa in three months. Although non-Buddhist masters all called it a lie, the Buddha entered Nirvāṇa on the fifteenth of the second month.

It is stated in the Lotus Sūtra, fascicle 2, chapter three on “A Parable”: ” Śāriputra! After a countless, inconceivable number of kalpa from now you will become a Buddha called Flower Light Buddha.” The sūtra also asserts in the third fascicle, chapter eight, “Assurance of Future Buddhahood”: “This Mahā-Kāśyapa, a disciple of Mine, will see 300 trillions of Buddhas in future lives. … After that in the final stage of his physical existence, he will become a Buddha called Light Buddha.” It is declared in the fourth fascicle, chapter ten, “The Teacher of the Dharma, “If anyone rejoices even for a moment at hearing a verse or a phrase of the Sūtra of the Lotus Flower Of the Wonderful Dharma after My death, I also assure him of his future attainment of Perfect Enlightenment.”

These passages in the Lotus Sūtra are predictions of the Buddha about future lives. Nevertheless, who would believe in them if His three predictions cited above, such as the death of Kutoku, a Jain, had not proved to be true? It would be difficult to believe in them even if the Buddha of Many Treasures attested them to be true, and Buddhas in manifestation swore to their truth with their long tongues touching the Brahma Heaven. The same can be said about me today. Even if I, Nichiren, were able to preach as fluently as or show the divine powers of Maudgalyāyana, who would believe in me if my predictions had not proven to be true?

When a letter of state came from the Mongol Empire in the fifth year of the Bun’ei Era (1268), a wise man, if there had been one in Japan, should have wondered whether or not my prediction was proving to be true. I uttered harsh words to Hei no Saemonnojō who arrested me on the twelfth of the ninth month in the eighth year of the Bun’ei Era (1271). Those harsh words have proved to be true on the eleventh of the second month in the following year, when a domestic disturbance erupted. Anyone with a human mind should have believed in me. People should have believed in me even more so, as Mongol troops have invaded Japan this year, plundering the two provinces of Iki and Tsushima. Even pieces of wood and stone or birds and beasts would be startled by the exact agreement between what I had predicted and what actually happened. Yet, nobody listens to me. This is no trivial matter. Possessed by evil spirits, all the people in this country are drunk and insane. It is sad, pitiful, fearful, and hateful.

Ken Risshō-i Shō, A Tract Revealing the Gist of the “Risshō Ankoku-ron,” Writings of Nichiren Shōnin, Doctrine 1, Page 164-165