I would like to remind you there are the Three Jewels in Buddhism of the Buddha, the Dharma, and the Sangha. The Buddha and the Dharma are usually easy for people to respect and cherish. It is frequently the jewel of the Sangha that seems less important to some. I believe this is a great mistake and deprives us of tremendous benefit, if we choose to ignore the community of practitioners. If we think Buddhism is a solitary practice then I think we are missing many of the messages the Buddha tells us.
Lecture on the Lotus SutraMonthly Archives: February 2018
Daily Dharma – Feb. 6, 2018
Suppose parents who had an aversion to alcohol had a son who loved to drink liquor. Because of their love for their son and also to cater to his whim, they made it a point to offer him alcohol, pretending that they were also drinkers of liquor. The hopeless son then assumed that his parents truly loved alcohol. Sutras preached according to others’ minds are the same.
Nichiren wrote this passage in his treatise, The Sutra Preached in Accordance to [the Buddha’s] Own Mind (Zui-jii Gosho). In the Lotus Sūtra, the Buddha sets aside his expedient teachings and leads us to his own way of thinking. He knew the difficulty of changing our habits and beliefs, so he started by catering to our selfish desires to be happy and end our own suffering. For us to realize our full potential for wisdom and compassion, we must stand up to our fears and nourish our true nature as Bodhisattvas: beings who exist to create benefits for the entire universe.
The Daily Dharma is produced by the Lexington Nichiren Buddhist Community. To subscribe to the daily emails, visit zenzaizenzai.com
Day 12
Day 12 concludes Chapter 7, The Parable of the Magic City, and completes the Third Volume of the Sutra of the Lotus Flower of the Wonderful Dharma.
Having last month heard the 16 princes plea for the Buddha to expound the teaching of Anuttara-samyak-saṃbodhi, the Buddha assented to the appeal of the śramaṇeras.
“Seeing the sixteen princes having renounced the world, eight billion followers of the wheel-turning-holy-king begged the king to allow them to do the same. He conceded to them immediately.
“The Buddha assented to the appeal of the śramaṇeras, but it was twenty thousand kalpas afterwards that he expounded to the four kinds of devotees the sūtra of the Great Vehicle called the ‘Lotus Flower of the Wonderful Dharma, the Dharma for Bodhisattvas, the Dharma Upheld by the Buddhas.’
“When the Buddha completed the expounding of this sūtra, the sixteen śramaṇeras kept, recited and understood this sūtra in order to attain Anuttara-samyak-saṃbodhi. The sixteen śramaṇeras, [ who were] Bodhisattvas, received this sūtra by faith. Some Śrāvakas understood it by faith, but the other Śrāvakas and other living beings, thousands of billions in number, doubted it.
The Central Buddha
This is the narrative of Great-Universally-Excelling-Wisdom Buddha. After telling this story, Sakyamuni discloses that these sixteen Bodhisattva-disciples have already attained enlightenment and are now Buddhas. …
By listing the names of the Buddhas, Sakyamuni reveals that in a previous existence, he himself had been one of those sixteen princes who had become Bodhisattva-disciples. What is more, he proclaimed that he was the central Buddha, since he was the sixteenth of those princes, and the one who was to conclude the story.
Introduction to the Lotus SutraThe Unity of the Three Bodies of the Buddha
In the Lotus Sutra, the unity of the Three Bodies in the person of Shakyamuni Buddha is a key teaching. The reason this unity is so important is that none of the three aspects of Buddhahood makes any sense without the others. They are all aspects of one buddha, of one reality. By focusing on only one aspect, we lose sight of the living reality of Buddhahood and are left with mere abstractions. For example, the Dharma-body by itself cannot he perceived through concepts or images, but only through a spiritual intuition of its universal nature. The Enjoyment-body is the embodiment of that intuition in an ideal spiritual form that can impart his awakening to others. But this awakening remains hidden from us until it is expressed in this world by the Transformation-body in the form of the historical Buddha.
Lotus SeedsThe Boundless Emptiness of Everything
The word “Emptiness” can sound very bleak and intimidating. However, the word was not chosen to be comforting. It is used in Mahayana Buddhism to challenge the fixed idea that we can grasp the nature of reality or anything within it, or that we can find any real boundaries between one thing and another. Emptiness means that all people, places, and things are empty of anything we can hold on to as unchanging or separate from everything else. Looked at in a positive way, this means that all of reality is without any real boundaries. As the Lotus Sutra says, “all things are open like the sky.” They are not non-dual, which means that they have no fixed boundaries, because all things are bound up with one another as part of the overall dynamic process of life. So Emptiness is not a dark nothingness. It is a way of helping us to open up our minds to the true nature of reality that transcends the rigid and ultimately false categories of birth and death, of self and other.
Lotus SeedsDaily Dharma – Feb. 5, 2018
Seeing [these wonders displayed by] the supernatural powers of his sons, the father had the greatest joy that he had ever had. He joined his hands together towards his sons [staying in the sky], and said, ‘Who is your teacher? Whose disciples are you?’
King Wonderful-Adornment makes this declaration to his sons in Chapter Twenty-Seven of the Lotus Sūtra. His sons had been asked by their mother to display their supernatural powers to their father and awaken the desire in him to hear the Buddha Dharma. We all have abilities of which we are not aware, and can cultivate those abilities so that they may seem miraculous to those who do not understand them. But it is important for us not to fall in the trap of using these abilities to strengthen our ego delusion. Instead we should dedicate our talents towards awakening the joy of the Wonderful Dharma in all beings.
The Daily Dharma is produced by the Lexington Nichiren Buddhist Community. To subscribe to the daily emails, visit zenzaizenzai.com
Day 11
Day 11 continues Chapter 7, The Parable of the Magic City
Having last month concluded this day’s portion of Chapter 7, we start again at the top.
The Buddha said to the bhikṣus:
“When Great-Universal-Wisdom-Excellence Buddha attained Anuttara-samyak-saṃbodhi, five hundred billion Buddha-worlds in each of the ten quarters quaked in the six ways, and all those worlds, including those intercepted from the brilliant rays of light of the sun and the moon by the neighboring worlds, were illumined [by great rays of light], and the living beings of those worlds were able to see each other for the first time. They said to each other, ‘How did you appear so suddenly?’ The palaces of the gods of those worlds, including the palace of Brahmans, also quaked in the six ways. The great rays of light which illumined all those worlds were brighter than the rays of light emitted by those gods.
The Blessed Sardine
We can come to faith only by encountering the absolute Buddha and believing his words. This is an act beyond the working of our knowledge. In Chapter Two, the Buddha says, “Sariputra, know this! The Buddhas do not speak differently.” The Buddhas speak truth. We can recognize that truth even when it is beyond our full understanding.
On the other hand, this does not mean that we should believe blindly. There is a Japanese saying that “even the head of a sardine seems blessed if you have faith in it.” This is not what we mean by faith. We can maintain a belief that is inspired by the experience of something beyond our ordinary capacities. We can evaluate it by means of our intellect and reason, and form our own mental attitudes. The title of Chapter Four, “Understanding by Faith,” refers to this process of the formation of our own psychological attitudes.
Introduction to the Lotus SutraNichiren Shu Creed
Nichiren Shu creed:
- We base our life on the example of the Lotus Sutra as personally experienced by Nichiren Shonin.
- We put our faith in the Eternal Buddha Sakyamumi, who is the true teacher of wisdom and compassion for all people.
- We train ourselves to attain Buddhahood by upholding Namu Myoho Renge Kyo, both in action and in spirit.
- Our teacher is Nichiren Shonin, who vowed to cultivate the Buddha nature of all people and create the land of the Buddha in this world. We also vow to work for that goal.
- We are all the Buddha’s children, and we will live together peacefully with all people in our search for the Truth.