[E]ach of the twenty-eight chapters of the Lotus Sūtra is as meritorious as the others, but above all chapter 2, “Expedients,” and chapter 16, “Duration of the Life of the Buddha,” are the most worthy chapters. The other 26 chapters are like branches and leaves of these two. Therefore, you should chant all of chapters 2 and 16 for daily services. You may also practice writing these two chapters.
The merits of these two chapters are accompanied by those of the other 26 chapters just as a body is followed by its shadow and a gem has its intrinsic value. Therefore, when you chant these two chapters, even if you don’t chant the other 26 chapters, the merit of chanting them all is yours.
Gassui Gasho, A Letter on Menstruation, Nyonin Gosho, Letters Addressed to Female Followers, Page 36
Category Archives: WONS
Chanting Chapters 2 and 16
Chapters 12 and 23 of the Lotus Sūtra, “Devadatta” and the “Previous Life of the Medicine-King Bodhisattva,” both preach the attainment of Buddhahood by women, but chapter 12 is a branch of chapter 2 and chapter 23 is a branch of chapter 16. Therefore, I recommend that you make a point of chanting chapters 2 and 16 daily and the other chapters sometimes when you have free time.
Gassui Gasho, A Letter on Menstruation, Nyonin Gosho, Letters Addressed to Female Followers, Page 32
Day 20
Day 20 completes Chapter 15, The Appearance of Bodhisattvas from Underground, and concludes the Fifth Volume of the Sutra of the Lotus Flower of the Wonderful Dharma.
Having last month heard Śākyamuni’s reply to Maitreya question about the Bodhisattva-mahāsattvas who sprang up from underground, he hear Śākyamuni explain that he is the teacher of these Bodhisattva-mahāsattvas.
Thereupon the World-Honored One, having sung these gāthās, said to Maitreya Bodhisattva:
Now I will tell all of you in this great multitude, Ajita! [I know that] you have never seen these great, innumerable, asaṃkhya Bodhisattva-mahāsattvas who sprang up from underground. After I attained Anuttara-samyak-saṃbodhi in this Sahā-World, I taught these Bodhisattvas, led them, trained them, and caused them to aspire for enlightenment. They lived in the sky below this Sahā-World. When they were there, they read many sūtras, recited them, understood them, thought them over, evaluated them, and remembered them correctly. Ajita! These good men did not wish to talk much with others [about things other than the Dharma] but to live in a quiet place. They practiced the way strenuously without a rest. They did not live among gods and men. They had no hindrance in seeking profound wisdom. They always sought the teaching of the Buddha. They sought unsurpassed wisdom strenuously with all their hearts.”
Thereupon the World-Honored One, wishing to repeat what he had said, sang in gāthās:
Ajita, know this, these great Bodhisattvas
Have studied and practiced
The wisdom of the Buddha
For the past innumerable kalpas.They are my sons because I taught them
And caused them to aspire for great enlightenment.
They have been living in this world
[For the past innumerable kalpas].They always practiced the dhuta.
They wished to live in a quiet place.
They kept away from bustling crowds.
They did not wish to talk much.These sons of mine studied my teachings
Strenuously day and night
In order to attain
The enlightenment of the Buddha.
They lived in the sky
Below this Sahā-World.Resolute in mind,
They always sought wisdom,
And expounded
Various wonderful teachings without fear.I once sat under the Bodhi-tree
In the City of Gaya,
Attained perfect enlightenment,
And turned the wheel of the unsurpassed Dharma.Then I taught them,
And caused them to aspire £or enlightenment.
Now they do not falter [in seeking enlightenment].
They will be able to become Buddhas.My words are true.
Believe me with all your hearts!
I have been teaching them
Since the remotest past.
Nichiren offers his perspective on these Bodhisattvas in his letter A Treatise Revealing the Spiritual Contemplation and the Most Verable One:
My disciples, think deeply! The countless bodhisattvas who had sprung up from underground were disciples of Lord Śākyamuni Buddha ever since the time He had first resolved to seek Buddhahood. Nevertheless, they neither came to see Him when He attained Buddhahood under the bodhi tree, nor visited Him when He passed away under the twin śāla trees. Thus, they may very well be accused of not being filial.
Moreover, they did not attend the preaching of the fourteen-chapter theoretical section, and they were absent when the last six chapters of the essential section were preached. They came and left while the first eight chapters of the essential section were being preached. But these great high-ranking bodhisattvas made a vow in the presence of Śākyamuni Buddha, the Buddha of Many Treasures and numerous Buddhas in manifestation that they would propagate the Five Characters transmitted to them at the beginning of the Latter Age of Degeneration. How can they not appear right now?
Kanjin Honzon-shō, A Treatise Revealing the Spiritual Contemplation and the Most Verable One, Writings of Nichiren Shōnin, Doctrine 2, Page 162
Day 17
Day 17 covers all of Chapter 12, Devadatta, and opens Chapter 13, Encouragement for Keeping this Sutra.
Having last month witnessed the daughter of the dragon-king become a Buddha and concluded Chapter 12, Devadatta, we begin today’s portion of Chapter 13, Encouragement for Keeping this Sūtra, with Medicine-King Bodhisattva-mahāsattva and Great-Eloquence Bodhisattva-mahāsattva’s vow to uphold the Lotus Sūtra.
Thereupon Medicine-King Bodhisattva-mahāsattvas and Great-Eloquence Bodhisattva-mahāsattvas, together with their twenty-thousand attendants who were also Bodhisattvas, vowed to the Buddha:
“World-Honored One, do not worry! We will keep, read, recite and expound this sūtra after your extinction. The living beings in the evil world after [your extinction] will have less roots of good, more arrogance, more greed for offerings of worldly things, and more roots of evil. It will be difficult to teach them because they will go away from emancipation. But we will patiently read, recite, keep, expound and copy this sūtra, and make various offerings to it. We will not spare even our lives [in doing all this].”
Nichiren used this chapter’s prediction of the difficulty in spreading the dharma to explain the troubles he faced. For example, in his Letter to Hōren:
It is most important for a man of wisdom to spread the Lotus Sūtra by keeping the difference of time in mind. For instance, for those who are thirsty, water is just what is necessary, not a bow and arrow or arms. What is needed for a naked person is clothing, not water. One can understand the overarching principle through this one example. If a fierce god spreads the Lotus Sūtra, you should donate your own flesh to him because a fierce god is fond of flesh. It is useless to donate clothing or other food to him. If an evil king tries to destroy the Lotus Sūtra, never obey his order even at the cost of life. When high priests who observe the precepts and are devoted to the pursuit of faith pretend to spread the Lotus Sūtra outwardly, but try to destroy it inwardly, you must reprimand them vigorously. The Lotus Sūtra, “Encouragement for Upholding This Sūtra” chapter, admonishes us to, “Solely to venerate the Supreme Way without sparing one’s own life.” It is preached in the Nirvana Sūtra, “Even at the cost of life, one should not conceal the king’s orders.” Grand Master Chang-an interprets this in his Annotation on the Nirvana Sūtra, “The reason why it is said that even at the cost of life one should not conceal the teaching is because life is not as important as the Dharma. We must spread the Dharma even at the cost of life.”
Source
The Object of Worship
Nichiren uses the term “object of worship” or honzon to mean not only a physical icon used for ritual, contemplative, or devotional purposes— the common meaning of the word in his time—but also the principle or reality which that object is said to embody. His various writings explain the object of worship in this latter sense from two perspectives. From one view, it is the original Buddha. For example:
[The people of] Japan as well as all of Jambudvīpa should as one take Śākyamuni, master of teachings, of the origin teaching as their object of worship – that is to say, Śākyamuni and Many-Jewels within the jeweled stūpa along with all the other Buddhas, flanked by Superior Conduct and the others of the four bodhisattvas.
In other writings, the object of worship is said to be the Lotus Sūtra, or Myōhō-renge-kyō, itself:
Question: What should ordinary worldlings in the evil days of the last age take as their object of worship?
Answer: They should make the daimoku of the Lotus Sūtra their object of worship. …
Question: . . . Why do you not take Śākyamuni as the object of worship, but instead, the daimoku of the Lotus Sūtra?
Answer: … This is not my interpretation. Lord Śākyamuni and T’ient’ai [Chih-i] both established the Lotus Sūtra as the object of worship…. The reason is that the Lotus Sūtra is the father and mother of Śākyamuni and the eye of all Buddhas. Śākyamuni, Dainichi, and the Buddhas of the ten directions were all born of the Lotus Sūtra. Therefore I now take as object of worship that which gives birth [to the Buddhas.]
These two views at first seem contradictory. However, if “Säkyamuni” in the passage first cited is understood to be the eternal Buddha, the apparent contradiction dissolves. The eternal Säkyamuni and the Dharma (i.e., the daimoku of the Lotus Sütra) are two aspects of an identity; the “three thousand worlds in one thought-moment as actuality” for Nichiren describes both the insigh t of the original Buddha and the truth by which that Buddha is awakened.
Day 16
Day 16 concludes Chapter 11, Beholding the Stūpa of Treasures, and completes the Fourth Volume of the Sūtra of the Lotus Flower of the Wonderful Dharma.
Having last month witnessed Many-Treasures Buddha in the stūpa of treasures offer a half of his seat to Śākyamuni, we repeat in gāthās with Śākyamuni’s explanation of Many-Treasures Buddha in the stūpa of treasures and the Buddhas of the replicas.
Thereupon the World-Honored One, wishing to repeat what he had said, sang in gāthās:
The Saintly Master, the World-Honored One,
Who had passed away a long time ago,
Came riding in the stūpa of treasures
To hear the Dharma [directly from me].
Could anyone who sees him
Not make efforts to hear the Dharma?It is innumerable kalpas
Since he passed away.
He wished to hear the Dharma at any place
Because the Dharma is difficult to meet.His original vow was this:
“After I pass away,
I will go to any place
To hear the Dharma.”The Buddhas of my replicas
As innumerable
As there are sands in the River Ganges
Also came here
From their wonderful worlds,
Parting from their disciples,
And giving up the offerings made to them
By gods, men and dragons,
ln order to hear the Dharma,
See Many-Treasures Tathāgata,
Who passed away [a long time ago],
And have the Dharma preserved forever.I removed innumerable living beings from many worlds,
And purified those worlds
By my supernatural powers
In order to seat those Buddhas.Those Buddhas came under the jeweled trees.
The trees are adorned with those Buddhas
Just as a pond of pure water is adorned
With lotus flowers.There are lion-like seats
Under the jeweled trees.
Those Buddhas sat on the seats.
The worlds are adorned
With the light of those Buddhas as bright
As a great torch in the darkness of night.Wonderful fragrance is sent forth
From the bodies of those Buddhas
To the worlds of the ten quarters.
The living beings of those worlds
Smell the fragrance joyfully,
Just as the branches of a tree bend before a strong wind.
Those Buddhas employ these expedients
In order to have the Dharma preserved forever.
Nichiren points out in his Open Your Eyes to the Lotus Teaching letter that all of this is preparatory for what’s coming in Chapter 16:
Now in the “Appearance of the Stupa of Treasures,” the eleventh chapter of the Lotus Sūtra, a step was taken in preparation for revealing the Eternal Buddha in the sixteenth chapter on “The Life Span of the Buddha.” It is stated in the “Appearance of the Stupa of Treasures” chapter that Śākyamuni Buddha, who had attained enlightenment for the first time only forty years or so before under the bodhi tree at Buddhagayā, India, called the crowd of Buddhas, who had obtained Buddhahood as far before as a kalpa or ten, “My manifestations.” This was against the principle of equality among Buddhas and greatly surprised everyone. If Śākyamuni Buddha had attained enlightenment only forty years or so before, large crowds of people all over the universe would not be waiting for His guidance. Even if He was capable of appearing in manifestation to guide them in various worlds, it would have been of no use. Grand Master T’ien-t’ai said in his Profound Meaning of the Lotus Sūtra, fascicle 9, “Since there are so many of His manifestations, we should know that He has been the Buddha for a long time.” It represents the consternation of the great assembly, men and gods who were surprised at the great number of Buddhas in manifestation (funjin).
Source
The True Teaching Of Śākyamuni Buddha
Since the Lotus Sūtra is the true teaching of Śākyamuni Buddha, anyone who chants even one character of it will not fall into the three evil regions (hell, realm of hungry spirits, and that of animals) even if he commits such serious sins as the ten evil acts,* five rebellious sins,** or four major sins.*** This means that women who believe in the Lotus Sūtra will never fall into the three evil regions because of their sins committed in this world, even if the sun and the moon should not rise in the east, the ground should be turned upside down, oceans should not have low or high tides, cracked stones should stick back together, or the river water should not flow into the sea.
* Ten evil acts: killing living beings, stealing, adultery, lies, harsh words, words causing enmity between two or more persons, idle talk, greed, anger, and false views.
** Five rebellious sins: killing one’s father, one’s mother, an arhat; injuring the Buddha; and disturbing peace among Buddhist monks.
*** Four major sins: killing living beings, stealing, adultery and lying.
Gassui Gasho, A Letter on Menstruation, Nyonin Gosho, Letters Addressed to Female Followers, Page 32
Day 7
Day 7 concludes Chapter 3, A Parable, and begins Chapter 4, Understanding by Faith.
Having last month considered why the Buddha expounds only to people of profound wisdom this Sūtra of the Lotus Flower of the Wonderful Dharma, we consider the fate of those who scowl at this sūtra.
Some will scowl at this sūtra
And doubt it.
Listen! I will tell you
How they will be punished.In my lifetime or after my extinction
Some will slander this sūtra,
And despise the person
Who reads or recites
Or copies or keeps this sūtra.
They will hate him,
Look at him with jealousy,
And harbor enmity against him.
Listen! I will tell you
How they will be punished.When their present lives end,
They will fall into the Avici Hell.
They will live there for a kalpa,
And have their rebirth in the same hell.
This rebirth of theirs will be repeated
For innumerable kalpas.
Nichiren discusses the depths of hell in his Letter to Hōren:
QUESTION: What kind of hell do slanderers of the practicer of the Lotus Sūtra fall into?
ANSWER: The Lotus Sūtra, fascicle 2 (“A Parable” chapter), preaches, “Those who despise, hate, envy, and bear a grudge against a person who reads, recites, copies and upholds the Lotus Sūtra will fall into Avici Hell upon death. After suffering in this hell for as long as a kalpa, they will again die at the end of the kalpa and fall into the same hell to suffer. They will repeat this countless times and continue to suffer for innumerable kalpa (aeons).”
The palace of King Yama is located 500 yojana below the surface of the earth. Below the palace, between the depths of 500 and 1,500 yojana underground are located 136 hells such as the Eight Great Hells. 128 of the 136 hells are the abodes of minor criminals while the Eight Great Hells are the abodes of felons. Seven of the Eight Great Hells are for the offenders of the Ten Evil Acts while the last of the Eight Great Hells, the Hell of Incessant Suffering, is the abode of those who committed the Five Rebellious Sins, undutiful children, and slanderers of the Lotus Sūtra. To sum up, this passage cited from the “Parable” chapter of the Lotus Sūtra preaches that those who speak ill of or slander the practicer of the Lotus Sūtra in the Latter Age of Degeneration in this world even in jest must fall into the Hell of Incessant Suffering.
Hōren-shō, Letter to Hōren, Writings of Nichiren Shōnin, Volume 6, Followers I, Page 45
The Dependable Lotus Sūtra
If women, who believe in the Lotus Sūtra, should be sent to the evil regions because of sins of envy, malice or greed, the precept against lying that has been observed strictly by Śākyamuni Buddha, Buddha of Many Treasures and Buddhas all over the universe would be broken. This would be a crime more serious than the sin of lying committed by Devadatta and Kōkalika. How can there be such a thing? How dependable the upholders of the Lotus Sūtra can be! How grateful we are!
Gassui Gasho, A Letter on Menstruation, Nyonin Gosho, Letters Addressed to Female Followers, Page 32
Day 5
Day 5 begins Chapter 3, A Parable
Having last month heard Śāriputra’s dancing joy in gāthās, we consider Śāriputra’s fear that he was listening to Mara in the form of a Buddha.
In the midst of the great multitude,
You said to me, “You will become a Buddha.”
Hearing this truthful voice,
All my doubts are gone.When I had heard this from you,
I was much frightened and perplexed; I thought:
“The Buddha troubles me.
Isn’t he Mara in the form of a Buddha?”You skillfully expound the Dharma with various parables and similes,
And with various stories of previous lives.
Now my mind is as peaceful as the sea.
Hearing you, I have removed the mesh of doubts.You said:
“The innumerable Buddhas in the past
Expounded the Dharma with expedients.
The numberless Buddhas at present
Also expound the Dharma
With expedients.
So will the countless Buddhas
In the future.”You appeared in this world,
Left your home, attained enlightenment,
And now turn the wheel of the Dharma,
Also with expedients.You expound the true teaching;
Papiyas does not.
Therefore, I know
That you are not a transformation of Mara.
I thought that the Dharma was expounded by Mara
Because I was in the mesh of doubts.I hear your gentle voice.
Your voice is deep and wonderful.
You expound the Pure Dharma.
My heart is filled with great joy.
All my doubts are gone.
I have obtained true wisdom.I shall become a Buddha without fail.
I shall be respected by gods and men.
I will turn the wheel of the unsurpassed Dharma,
And teach Bodhisattvas.
This expedient lesson is discussed by Nichiren in his letter on Genealogical Chart of the Buddha’s Lifetime Teachings in Five Periods:
When Śāripūtra, a man of the Two Vehicle considered unable to attain Buddhahood in the pre-Lotus sūtras, was guaranteed future Buddhahood, he expressed his astonishment in the third chapter, “A Parable,” “Is this not a devil pretending to be the Buddha, trying to trouble and confuse my mind?” The Buddha preaches in the fifth chapter, “The Simile of Herbs,” “Regarding this essential doctrine, I kept silent for a long time without revealing it at once.” These make clear that the sūtras preached before the Lotus Sūtra are all expedient; only the Lotus Sūtra is the True Dharma.
Ichidai Goji Keizu, Genealogical Chart of the Buddha’s Lifetime Teachings in Five Periods, Writings of Nichiren Shōnin, Doctrine 3, Page 243