Monthly Archives: August 2017

LS32

Day 18

Day 18 concludes Chapter 13, Encouragement for Keeping this Sutra, and begins Chapter 14, Peaceful Practices.

Having last month completed Day 18, we return to the top and the eighty billion nayuta Bodhisattva-mahāsattvas whose offer to spread the dharma goes unanswered.

Thereupon the World-Honored One looked at the eighty billion nayuta Bodhisattva-mahāsattvas. These Bodhisattvas had already reached the stage of avaivartika, turned the irrevocable wheel of the Dharma, and obtained dhārāṇis. They rose from their seats, came to the Buddha, joined their hands together [towards him] with all their hearts, and thought, “If the World-Honored One commands us to keep and expound this sūtra, we will expound the Dharma just as the Buddha teaches.”

They also thought, “The Buddha keeps silence.’ He does not command us. What shall we do?”

In order to follow the wish of the Buddha respectfully, and also to fulfill their original vow, they vowed to the Buddha with a loud voice like the roar of a lion:

“World-Honored One! After your extinction, we will go to any place [not only of this Sahā-World but also] of the worlds of the ten quarters, as often as required, and cause all living beings to copy, keep, read and recite this sūtra, to expound the meanings of it, to act according to the Dharma, and to memorize this sūtra correctly. We shall be able to do all this only by your powers. World-Honored One! Protect us from afar even when you are in another world!”

Imagine being a great Bodhisattva who has “already reached the stage of avaivartika, turned the irrevocable wheel of the Dharma, and obtained dhārāṇis” and still being unsure, waiting for some acknowledgment, some direction, and yet even with these doubts pushing ahead. With a roar like a lion!

Daily Dharma

Daily Dharma – Aug. 3, 2017

We have never seen
These many thousands of billions
Of Bodhisattvas.
Tell me, Most Honorable Biped!
Where did they come from?

Maitreya Bodhisattva sings these verses to the Buddha in Chapter Fifteen of the Lotus Sūtra. In the story, the Buddha has asked who among those gathered to hear him teach will continue teaching this Wonderful Dharma in our world of suffering after the Buddha passes into his final extinction. Some Bodhisattvas say they will teach in other worlds, since the beings of this world are too defiled to hear the Buddha’s teaching. Other Bodhisattvas vow to remain in our world, but the Buddha tells them not to bother. At that moment, the ground cracks open, and innumerable Bodhisattvas spring up and vow to carry on the work of the Buddha. Maitreya and others had never seen these Bodhisattvas before. His asking the Buddha respectfully to explain what they do not understand. This example emphasizes that we must continue to question how the Buddha’s teaching applies to our lives rather than dogmatically accepting whatever happens.

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

Shodaigyo, Blog

Shodaigyo Practice

Video explaining Shodaigo
Click to watch video explaining Shodaigo Basic Practice

This last week I attended the four-day Enkyoji Buddhist Network 2017 Summer Retreat at the Seattle Choeizan Enkyoji Nichiren Buddhist Temple.

I’m not officially a member of this network. I chose to attend the retreat because I was interested in their efforts to promote propagation of Nichiren Shu Buddhism in America, something that no one else seems to be doing. Certainly no one is as focused on propagation as the Enkyoji Buddhist Network.

Before I continue I should note that the Enkyoji Buddhist Network is not a rogue group, but a recognized Nichiren Shu organization. Lots of information is available on their website EnkyojiBuddhistNetwork.org.

My new-found passion for propagation of Nichiren Shu Buddhism is one of the odd but telling things about my migration from Soka Gakkai to Nichiren Shu. In more than 25 years of Soka Gakkai membership I never felt comfortable saying more than “I’m a Buddhist.” I certainly didn’t want to do the sort of compulsory propagation encouraged in the late 1980s before Soka Gakkai’s split with Nichiren Shoshu. The lay-leader-led group meetings were never the sort of gatherings that I could invite, say, my boss to attend.

Now, however, I’m eager to tell people I’m a Nichiren Shu practitioner and invite people I meet in Sacramento to attend services at the Sacramento Nichiren Buddhist Church. But I’m also aware that dropping someone who knows little or nothing about Buddhism into the church’s regular Sunday service – not to mention the monthly Kaji Kito service – would do little more than overawe that person.

This is why I was so excited to learn at the retreat that the  Enkyoji Buddhist Network, working with the Nichiren Shu propagation office in Japan, has developed a simple practice suitable for any level of practitioner.

This is an abbreviated Shodaigyo service. The original Shodaigyo service, which incorporates periods of silent sitting mediation with Odaimoku chanting, was designed by Bishop Nichijun Yukawa of the Nichiren Shu in the 1950s. (Here’s the traditional version of the service.)

From the brochure:

  • Practice this program for a minimum of two weeks, with at least one session a day. You can further deepen your practice by setting a specific time daily in the morning and/or evening.
  • Do not practice this program for a specific purpose such as quitting addictions or to acquire something. As this practice has been arranged in a very short format, attachments and distractions tend to arise easily if a specific goal is set.
  • Think of this practice as an exercise for general well-being in order to taste the preciousness of life. If your well-being increases, the total well being of this world also increases. This is a very important concept in Nichiren Shu Buddhism.
  • This program draws on more than 750-years of history in Nichiren Shu Buddhism as well as the 2500-year tradition of Buddhism as a whole. In the Enkyoji lineage of Nichiren Shu Buddhism, we believe that this traditional program will enrich your life on the way to attaining the Buddha’s enlightenment.

The tri-fold brochure is designed so that it can be used as the focus of the service with Namu-Myoho-Renge-Kyo on the center panel and the instructions for the 8 steps of the service arranged on either side.

Between Ryusho Jeffus Shonin’s 35-Day Practice Guide and Enkyoji Buddhist Network‘s Shodaigyo practice I’m ready to spread Nichiren Shu Buddhism everywhere I go.

LS32

Day 17

Day 17 covers all of Chapter 12, Devadatta, and opens Chapter 13, Encouragement for Keeping this Sutra.

Having last month heard the doubts of Accumulated-Wisdom Bodhisattva at the idea of an 8-year-old female dragon becoming a Buddha, we hear Śāriputra’s doubts.

Thereupon Śāriputra said to the daughter of the dragon-king:

“You think that you will be able to attain unsurpassed enlightenment [and become a Buddha] before long. This is difficult to believe because the body of a woman is too defiled to be a recipient of the teachings of the Buddha. How can you attain unsurpassed Bodhi? The enlightenment of the Buddha is far off. It can be attained only by those who perform the [Bodhisattva] practices with strenuous efforts for innumerable kalpas. A woman has five impossibilities. She cannot become 1. the Brahman-Heavenly-King, 2. King Sakra, 3. King Mara, 4. a wheel-turning-holy-king, and 5. a Buddha. How can it be that you, being a woman, will become a Buddha, quickly [or not]?”

Ryusho Jeffus Shonin in his Lecture on the Lotus Sutra has this to say about prejudice:

In the example of the dragon girl, it is worthy of considering how prejudices can enter our way of thinking and influence us in negative ways. Because a woman bleeds, which is the result of giving birth, she was considered impure, and yet giving birth, bringing new life into the world is one of the purest things. I once heard someone say that women bleed giving birth and men bleed killing. Perhaps we should give this some thought. Nichiren wrote a response to a woman believer saying that because a woman bleeds she is considered impure by society, but in the eyes of the Buddha that distinction does not apply.
Lecture on the Lotus Sutra

The Buddhist Prophet

The Supreme Being in Ourselves

Quote

[T]he object of worship, the Supreme Being, is to be sought nowhere but in the innermost recess of every man’s nature, because the final aim of worship is the complete realization of the Supreme Being in ourselves.

Nichiren, The Buddhist Prophet

Daily Dharma

Daily Dharma – Aug. 2, 2017

Mañjuśrī! A Bodhisattva-mahāsattva who performs this third set of peaceful practices in the latter days after [my extinction] when the teachings are about to be destroyed, will be able to expound the Dharma without disturbance. He will be able to have good friends when he reads and recites this sūtra. A great multitude will come to him, hear and receive this sūtra from him, keep it after hearing it, recite it after keeping it, expound it after reciting it, copy it or cause others to copy it after expounding it, make offerings to the copy of this sūtra, honor it, respect it, and praise it.

The Buddha gives this explanation to Mañjuśrī Bodhisattva in Chapter Fourteen of the Lotus Sūtra in which he describes the peaceful practices of a Bodhisattva. The third set of practices involves not despising those who practice the Wonderful Dharma in any way, or hindering their practice by telling them that they are lazy and can never become enlightened. Such treatment goes against the true nature we all share, and can only create conflict.

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

LS32

Day 16

Day 16 concludes Chapter 11, Beholding the Stūpa of Treasures, and completes the Fourth Volume of the Sutra of the Lotus Flower of the Wonderful Dharma.

Having last month concluded Chapter 11, we start again at the top of Day 16.

The Buddha said to him:

“The perfect body of a Tathāgata is in this stūpa of treasures. A long time ago there was a world called Treasure-Purity at the distance of many thousands of billions of asaṃkhyas of worlds to the east [of this world]. In that world lived a Buddha called Many-Treasures. When he was yet practicing the Way of Bodhisattvas, he made a great vow: ‘If anyone expounds a sūtra called the Lotus Flower of the Wonderful Dharma in any of the worlds of the ten quarters after I become a Buddha and pass away, I will cause my stūpa-mausoleum to spring up before him so that 1 may be able to prove the truthfulness of the sūtra and say ‘excellent’ in praise of him because I wish to hear that sūtra [directly from him].”

“He attained enlightenment[, and became a Buddha]. When he was about to pass away, he said to the bhikṣus in the presence of the great multitude of gods and men, ‘If you wish to make offerings to my perfect body after my extinction, erect a great stūpa!’

“If anyone expounds the Sūtra of the Lotus Flower of the Wonderful Dharma in any of the worlds of the ten quarters, that Buddha, by his supernatural powers and by the power of his vow, will cause the stūpa of treasures enshrining his perfect body to spring up before the expounder of the sūtra. Then he will praise [the expounder of the sūtra], saying, ‘Excellent, excellent!’

“Great-Eloquence! Now Many-Treasures Tathāgata caused his stūpa to spring up from underground in order to hear the Sūtra of the Lotus Flower of the Wonderful Dharma [directly from me]. Now he praised me, saying, ‘Excellent, excellent!’ ”

Ryusho Jeffus Shonin in his Lecture on the Lotus Sutra offers an explanation of our connection to this stupa, Many Treasures Buddha and his vow:

There are two causes at work when the Stupa of Treasures appears that are stated in Many Treasures original vow. In other words there are two things that make the appearance of Many Treasures and his stupa possible. The first cause, or the first requirement was the original vow of Many Treasures. By making his vow originally he set into motion the actualization of it happening. In our own lives it would be comparable to making a determination to do something. Because of our promise or determination we put into motion the actualization of that thing we determined. This is one reason why I feel that when we take vows to practice Buddhism it is so important to really understand the significance of making that promise. We should become people of our word, doing what we promise to do, in all situations.

The second cause, which enabled Many Treasures Buddha to appear, was the supernatural powers he obtained as the result of his own practice of the Lotus Sutra. In other words Many Treasures Buddha made a vow, which he could carry out because of his accumulated benefit of practicing the Lotus Sutra. Many Treasures Buddha, wishing to repay his gratitude for the many benefits he had obtained, promised to appear whenever the Lotus Sutra was taught, and he was able to do this because he received the merit and made the promise.

In our own lives, we have the hidden treasure, the gem of Buddhahood, which we can ignore and let lay dormant. On the other hand we can choose to make a vow, or a determination, to manifest and then carry out the necessary activities to actualize the vow to manifest our Buddhahood. All this we can do through our faith in the Lotus Sutra.

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

Spring Writings

Encouraging the Poor Son

Quote

Even if we meet the teaching of the Lotus Sutra, which makes us awaken our Buddha-nature, most of us do not study or understand it because it is a difficult teaching and is too noble, and we run away just like the son when he saw the rich man. After all, we alone are responsible for making our lives empty or fruitless, because we are unaware of our ability or potential. Even though we tend to be like this, the Eternal Buddha always wishes to lead and support all of us, as his children, with great compassion. In order to make us awaken the Buddha-nature, He leads us according to our natures, capacities and circumstances, and dispatches someone to us to give us various advice, even if it takes a long time. It is just like the rich man who approached his son wearing dirty clothing, to encourage him.

Spring Writings

Daily Dharma

Daily Dharma – Aug. 1, 2017

The Buddhas sat at the place of enlightenment,
And obtained the hidden core.
Anyone who keeps this sūtra will be able
To obtain the same before long.

The Buddha speaks these verses in Chapter Twenty-One of the Lotus Sūtra. They are his assurance to us as those who follow and practice the Lotus Sūtra that we are firmly on the path to enlightenment, no matter what challenges we find in the world.

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