Monthly Archives: December 2018

LS32

Day 15

Day 15 concludes Chapter 10, The Teacher of the Dharma, and opens Chapter 11, Beholding the Stūpa of Treasures.

Day 15 Text with annotationsPlay MP3

Having last month considered Śākyamuni’s answer to why a voice was heard from within the Stupa of Treasures, we learn of Śākyamuni’s replicas.

“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!’ ”

Thereupon Great-Eloquence Bodhisattva, resorting to the supernatural powers of [Śākyamuni] Tathāgata, said to him, “World-Honored One! We wish to see that Buddha.”

The Buddha said to Great-Eloquence Bodhisattva-mahāsattvas:

“Many-Treasures Buddha made another great vow: ‘If a Buddha wishes to show me to the four kinds of devotees when my stūpa of treasures appears before him in order that l may be able to hear the Sūtra of the Lotus Flower of the Wonderful Dharma [directly from him], he must call back all the Buddhas of his replicas who will be expounding the Dharma in the worlds of the ten quarters at that time. Then I will show myself [to the four kinds of devotees].’ Great-Eloquence! Now I will collect the Buddhas of my replicas who are now expounding the Dharma in the worlds of the ten quarters.”

Great-Eloquence said to him, “World-Honored One! We also wish to see the Buddhas of your replicas, bow to them, and make offerings to them.”

The Daily Dharma from July 17, 2018, offers this:

Great-Eloquence! Now I will collect the Buddhas of my replicas who are now expounding the Dharma in the worlds of the ten quarters.

The Buddha makes this declaration to Great-Eloquence Bodhisattva in Chapter Eleven of the Lotus Sūtra. In the story, a large tower has sprung up from underground. From inside, the voice of Many-Treasures Buddha proclaims the truth of the Lotus Sutra that Śākyamuni Buddha is teaching. Before the Buddha can open the door to this tower and allow the congregation to see this Buddha, Śākyamuni must summon all the other Buddhas in the other worlds throughout the universe. We often say of others, “They live in their own world.” We are surrounded by as many worlds as there are people in our lives. When we summon their Buddha-Nature using our Buddha-Nature, we open doors to treasures we can barely imagine.

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

Lotus World

Protectors of the Lotus Sutra

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Nichiren taught that all the gods had promised to protect those who uphold the Lotus Sutra. He frequently invoked the Vedic deities and the Shinto kami as his protectors, as in the following passage from Persecutions of the Sage: “Even those who have a great demonic spirit [on their side] cannot harm Nichiren because he is protected by Brahma, Indra, the gods of the sun and moon, the four heavenly kings, Tensho Daijin, and Hachiman.”

Lotus World: An Illustrated Guide to the Gohonzon

Daily Dharma

Daily Dharma – Dec. 25, 2018

I see the [perverted] people sinking
In an ocean of suffering.
Therefore, I disappear from their eyes
And cause them to admire me.

The Buddha sings these verses in Chapter Sixteen of the Lotus Sūtra. With the story of the wise physician in this chapter, the Buddha explains how he disappears from our view even though he is always present to us. The children in the story would not accept the remedy their father prepared for them to counteract the poison they had taken. Some of them hoped for another remedy, some believed the remedy would be worse than the poison. It was not until the father left and told them he would not return that the children realized the value of what they already had. When we take the Buddha for granted, as the children in the story took their father for granted, and ignore the path he has laid out for us, we lose sight of the Buddha. It is only when we realize we are lost that we look for a guide. When we bring the Buddha’s teachings to life, we find him everywhere.

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

original

An “Experiential” Philosophy

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Hakamaya [Noriaki] sees original enlightenment thought as an “experiential” philosophy stressing the ineffability of suchness. Thus, in his view it makes light of faith, intellect, and the use of language, by which the truth of dependent origination is to be discerned and investigated. Hakamaya sees the critical use of intellect and language as inseparable from normative Buddhism: Śākyamuni’s hesitation to preach was not because his realization was ineffable, but because of the difficulty of communi cating a teaching that goes “against the current” of the reality-affirming ideas that most people hold, based on the notion of topos. Without words, error cannot be criticized, nor truth demonstrated. Moreover, without language, we would not only be unable to recall and reflect crit ically upon the past but would lose all sense of time itself, becoming locked in a timeless, eternal present—a loss of the very faculty that distinguishes us as humans. (Page 81)

Original Enlightenment and the Transformation of Medieval Japanese Buddhism


Profound

Three Tracks In One Vehicle

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[T]he Threefold Track and the One Buddha-vehicle are two names of the same thing: the one is in the three, and the three are in the one. Chih-i illustrates this indefinite nature by quoting the formula of affirmation, negation and double negation (i.e., one, not one, neither one nor not one). (i) The formula of affirmation “one” expresses the concept “Supreme Truth” (Ti-i-i Ti) so that the absoluteness of the True Reality is denoted. Chih-i uses this term Supreme Truth to declare that all dharmas are converged into One Buddha-vehicle. (ii) The formula of negation “not one” expresses the concept tathāgatagarbha (Ju-lai-tsang), indicating the functional nature of the True Reality. This term is used by Chih-i to refer to the richness of the tathāgatagarbha in terms of its immeasurable dharma-doors for teaching sentient beings. To suite the different faculties of beings, the Buddha expounds upon various vehicles in his teaching. (iii) The formula of double negation “neither one nor not one” delineates the concept “Supreme Meaning of Emptiness” (Ti-i-i K’ung). This term refers to the function that rises from the nature of emptiness, and Chih-i associates it with the skillful and expedient means of True Reality: The Relative contains the Ultimate, and vice versa. The Buddha teaches the dharma according to these conditions. The teaching seems to be definite but not definite, since the Buddha expounds the Ultimate of the One Buddha-vehicle as well as the Relative of the Three Vehicles (śrāvaka, pratyekabuddha, and bodhisattva). Although there is Relative of the Three Vehicles in the teaching of the Buddha, in the end, all of them are converged into the Ultimate of the One Vehicle. (Vol. 2, Page 241)

The Profound Meaning of the Lotus Sutra: Tien-tai Philosophy of Buddhism


LS32

Day 14

Day 14 covers all of Chapter 9, The Assurance of Future Buddhahood of the Śrāvakas Who Have Something More to Learn and the Śrāvakas Who Have Nothing More to Learn, and opens Chapter 10, The Teacher of the Dharma.

Day 14 Text with annotationsPlay MP3

Having last month concluded Chapter 9, we open Chapter 10, The Teacher of the Dharma, with Śākyamuni’s instructions to Medicine-King Bodhisattva.

Thereupon the World-Honored One said to Medicine-King Bodhisattva in the presence of the eighty thousand great men:

“Medicine-King! Do you see the innumerable gods, dragon­kings, yakṣas, gandharvas, asuras, garuḍas, kiṃnaras, mahoragas, men, and nonhuman beings, and [the four kinds of devotees:] bhikṣus, bhikṣunīs, upāsakās, and upāsikās, and those who are seeking Śrāvakahood or Pratyekabuddhahood or the enlightenment of the Buddha in this great multitude? If in my presence any of them rejoices, even on a moment’s thought, at hearing even a gāthā or a phrase of the Sūtra of the Lotus Flower of the Wonderful Dharma, I will assure him of his future Buddhahood, saying to him, ‘You will be able to attain Anuttara-samyak-saṃbodhi.’ ”

The Buddha said to Medicine-King:

“If after my extinction anyone rejoices, even on a moment’s thought, at hearing even a gāthā or a phrase of the Sūtra of the Lotus Flower of the Wonderful Dharma, I also will assure him of his future attainment of Anuttara-samyak-saṃbodhi. If anyone keeps, reads, recites, expounds and copies even a gāthā of the Sūtra of the Lotus Flower of the Wonderful Dharma, and respects a copy of this sūtra just as he respects me, and offers flowers, incense, necklaces, incense powder, incense applicable to the skin, incense to burn, canopies, banners, streamers, garments and music to it, or just joins his hands together respectfully towards it, Medicine-King, know this, he should be considered to have appeared in the world of men out of his compassion towards all living beings, although he already made offerings to ten billion Buddhas and fulfilled his great vow under those Buddhas in a previous existence.

The Daily Dharma from March 26, 2018, offers this:

If after my extinction anyone rejoices, even on a moment’s thought, at hearing even a gāthā or a phrase of the Sūtra of the Lotus Flower of the Wonderful Dharma, I also will assure him of his future attainment of Anuttara-samyak-saṃbodhi.

The Buddha declares these lines to Medicine-King Bodhisattva at the beginning of Chapter Ten of the Lotus Sūtra. Other teachings had described beings becoming enlightened after making exorbitant offerings or strenuous practices over many lifetimes. In the teaching of the Wonderful Dharma, a single moment of joy at hearing the Dharma is enough to assure us that we will become enlightened.

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

Summer Writings

Looking into the Future

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Nichiren Shonin said, “If you want to see your previous life look at your present situation, and if you want to see your future life look at your behavior in the present.” How much bad karma do we have now? Please think about it calmly. There may be some who feel that they have deep bad karma, and there may also be those who say, “I don’t care about any bad karma.” Whichever, it is actually impossible to measure the depth of bad karma exactly, but you can guess by looking at your life as a whole.

Summer Writings

Daily Dharma

Daily Dharma – Dec. 24, 2018

If a person born a commoner states that he is equal to a samurai, he is bound to be punished. If he states that he is equal to or superior to the king, it is not only he himself but also his parents, wife, and children who are bound to be punished. If those who believe that some other sutra is the same as or superior to the Lotus Sutra according to what they believe without knowing the comparative superiority of the sutras, they are happy because their sutras are being praised. However, it will be a crime of slandering the True Dharma, for which priests and their disciples, as well as their lay followers, will all go to hell as speedily as a flying arrow. On the contrary, to say that the Lotus Sutra is superior to all other sutras is no crime at all. Instead it will be an act of great merit because it is so stated in the sutras.

Nichiren wrote this passage in his Response to My Lady the Nun, Mother of Lord Ueno (Ueno-dono Haha-ama Gozen Gohenji). In other writings, Nichiren explains that the superiority of the Lotus Sutra is not due to some inherent magical power it has to get us what we want. The superiority of the Lotus Sutra comes from its embodiment of the Buddha’s highest teaching, the revelation of his Ever-Present existence, and the ability of the Lotus Sūtra to lead all beings to enlightenment.

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

original

Nichiren, Dōgen And Their ‘Radical Break’

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Several structural similarities can be identified between the “radical break” arguments of both Nichiren Shū and Sōtō Shū scholars. In both cases, the founder—whether Nichiren or Dōgen—is seen as a critic of medieval Tendai hongaku thought. Specifically, he is seen as restoring a normative emphasis on practice that medieval Tendai is said to have lost sight of in a one-sided emphasis on original enlightenment. This move is then more broadly ascribed to all the founders of the new Kamakura Buddhist movements. The sources of the founder’s inspiration are located not in the “corrupt” religious milieu of his own time and place, which he is said to have rejected, but in an “orthodox” tradition rooted in China, which he reformulates in a distinctive way. Lastly, his later medieval successors who bring hongaku discourse to bear on their interpretation of his work—and whose readings become normative for the premodern period and beyond—are seen not as developing possibilities latent in his thought, but as betraying his original critical stance. These parallels suggest that similar concerns have informed the scholarship on both sides. (Page 77)

Original Enlightenment and the Transformation of Medieval Japanese Buddhism


Profound

The Threefold Track In Buddhism

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In Chih-i’s view, track is dharma and dharma is track: “What is called the dharma can be named as the track, which is tracked by all Buddhas in attaining Buddhahood.”

To be specific, the Threefold Dharma, also called Threefold Track (San-kui), refers to the Track of Real Nature (Chen-hsing Kui), the Track of the Illumination of Wisdom (Kuan-chao Kui), and the Track of Accomplishment (Tzu-ch ‘eng Kui). These Three Tracks are Chih-i’s theoretical delineation of the phenomenal world: there are three dharmas that can be tracked and all things in the Ten Dharma-realms contain these three dharmas. In other words, the whole universe is constituted by these Three Tracks. Horizontally, the Three Tracks cover the width of the ten directions; vertically they penetrate the three periods of time, including the beginning as the cause and the end as the effect. According to Chih-i’s definitions, the Track of Real Nature refers to the never-changing true reality of sentient beings that is characterized by non-illusion and non-differentiation; the Track of the Illumination of Wisdom refers to the wisdom that destroys delusions and reveals the real nature of beings; and the Track of Accomplishment concerns the wholesome performance of deeds that is required in realizing this wisdom of penetrating the true reality. The Threefold Track is related to the Buddha-nature as the Triple Cause of Buddhahood. The Track of Real Nature corresponds to the Fundamental Cause (Chen-yin), which refers to the fact that all beings are inherently endowed with the true nature of reality. The Track of the Illumination of Wisdom corresponds to the Understanding Cause (Liao-yin), that is, the inherent potential for wisdom in all sentient beings which allows them to eventually uncover their true nature from within. The Track of Accomplishment corresponds to the Conditional Cause (Yüan-yin), or the inherent potential and propensity for Buddhahood within all sentient beings, which allows them to perform meritorious deeds in order to attain wisdom. According to this definition, Chih-i believes that the Threefold Buddha-nature is an invisible state of Buddhahood that causes the attainment of Buddhahood, and sheds light on the universal salvation of all sentient beings. The Threefold Track, on the other hand, is the visible state as the effect of Buddhahood the ultimate fruition of enlightenment. Chih-i names the Triple Buddha-nature as the “Threefold Track of the Virtue of Nature” (Hsing-te San-kui).

Furthermore, Chih-i’s theory of the Threefold Track attempts to illustrate the One Buddha-vehicle as the core of the teaching of the Lotus Sūtra. Chih-i points out that this One Buddha-vehicle consists of the Threefold Track. Only if the practitioner rides on the vehicle that is formed by the Threefold Track, can he directly arrive at the bodhimaṇḍa and attain perfect enlightenment. This indicates that the Threefold Track is the “Threefold Track of the Virtue of Cultivation” (Hsiu-te San-kui). To Chih-i, the Threefold Track in Buddhism is extremely significant as it reflects all the causes and effects of attaining Buddhahood. Considering that the Threefold Track contains all dharmas from beginning to end, the noumenon and the phenomenon of the universe can all be concluded and delineated by the Threefold Dharma. The Threefold Track that forms the great vehicle can be taken as noumenon, and the Threefold Track that contains all things can be taken as phenomenon. (Vol. 2, Page 239-240)

The Profound Meaning of the Lotus Sutra: Tien-tai Philosophy of Buddhism