Monthly Archives: December 2018

LS32

Day 13

Day 13 covers all of Chapter 8, The Assurance of Future Buddhahood of the Five Hundred Disciples.

Day 13 Text with annotationsPlay MP3

Having last month heard Śākyamuni’s prediction for Pūrṇa’s future enlightenment in gāthās, we hear the Buddha’s prediction for the twelve hundred Arhats.

Thereupon the twelve hundred Arhats, who had already obtained freedom of mind, thought:

“We have never been so joyful before. How glad we shall be if we are assured of our future Buddhahood by the World-Honored One just as the other great disciples were!”

Seeing what they had in their minds, the Buddha said to Maha-Kāśyapa:

“Now I will assure these twelve hundred Arhats, who are present before me, of their future attainment of Anuttara-samyak-saṃbodhi one after another. My great disciple Kauṇḍinya Bhikṣu, who is among them, will make offerings to six billion and two hundred thousand million Buddhas, and then become a Buddha called Universal-Brightness, the Tathāgata, the Deserver of Offerings, the Perfectly Enlightened One, the Man of Wisdom and Practice, the Well-Gone, the Knower of the World, the Unsurpassed Man, the Controller of Men, the Teacher of Gods and Men, the Buddha, the World-Honored One. The others of the five hundred Arhats, including Uruvilvā-Kāśyapa, Gaya­Kāśyapa, Nadī-Kāśyapa, Kālodāyin, Udāyin, Aniruddha, Revata, Kapphina, Bakkula, Cunda, and Svāgata, also will attain Anuttara-samyak-saṃbodhi, and become Buddhas also called Universal-Brightness.”

Thereupon the World-Honored One, wishing to repeat what he had said, sang in gāthās:

Kauṇḍinya Bhikṣu will see
Innumerable Buddhas.
After asaṃkhya kalpas from now,
He will attain perfect enlightenment.

He will emit great rays of light [from his body].
He will have all supernatural powers.
His fame will spread over the worlds of the ten quarters.
Respected by all living beings,
He will expound unsurpassed enlightenment to them.
Therefore, he will be called Universal-Brightness.

His world will be pure.
The Bodhisattvas [of that world] will be brave.
They will go up to the tops of wonderful, tall buildings,
And then go out into the worlds of the ten quarters.
There they will make the best offerings
To the Buddhas of those worlds.

After making offerings, they will have great joy.
They will return to their home world in a moment.
They will be able to do all this
By their supernatural powers.

[Universal-Brightness] Buddha will live for sixty thousand kalpas.
His right teachings will be preserved twice as long as his life;
And the counterfeit of them, also twice as long as his right teachings.
When his teachings are eliminated, gods and men will be sad.

The five hundred bhikṣus
Will become Buddhas one after another.
They also will be called Universal-Brightness.
One who has become a Buddha will say to another:
“You will become a Buddha after my extinction.
[The living beings of] the world
To be saved by that Buddha
Will be like those whom I am teaching today.”

The beauty of the worlds [of those Buddhas],
And the supernatural powers [of those Buddhas],
And the number of the Bodhisattvas and Śrāvakas [of those worlds],
And the number of kalpas of the lives [of those Buddhas],
Of their right teachings, and of the counterfeit of them,
Will be the same [as in the case of Kauṇḍinya].

Kāśyapa! Now you have heard of the future
Of the five hundred Arhats
Who have freedom of mind.
All the other Śrāvakas also will [become Buddhas].
Tell this to the Śrāvakas
Who are not present here!

The Introduction to the Lotus Sūtra offers this explanation of the early disciples.

Kaundinya was one of Sakyamuni’s original disciples who followed him when he first gave up his princely throne and set forth on the quest for enlightenment. There had been five of them, and together with their master they had performed arduous ascetic practices (practices which Sakyamuni later said were useless). After the Buddha attained enlightenment, these five ascetics became his first disciples.

Others of the five hundred arhats included Uruvilva-Kasyapa, Gaya-Kasyapa, Nadi-Kasyapa, and Aniruddha. The first three arhats were three of the Kasyapa brothers, who had once been leaders of a group of fire-worshippers. It is said that originally these brothers had bitterly opposed Sakyamuni, and had used supernatural powers to discredit him. They were defeated, however, and they together with most of their followers became loyal disciples of the Buddha. Aniruddha, another of the arhats mentioned, was a cousin of Sakyamuni. He was famous for his clairvoyance, the alleged power of seeing beyond the natural range of the senses. It is said that during his early days of severe ascetic practices, he went blind. In place of his natural sight, he developed clairvoyance.

Introduction to the Lotus Sutra

d19b, d20b, Lecture on Lotus Sutra

Ordinary People

We each may think we are rather ordinary people, not capable of great things. Yet our ordinariness is in fact a disguise for our true self, Bodhisattvas from beneath the ground, the disciples of the Buddha from the infinite past, and beings perfectly endowed with Buddhahood.

Lecture on the Lotus Sutra

Daily Dharma

Daily Dharma – Dec. 23, 2018

It cannot be that the good man or woman who obtained merits [by understanding my longevity by faith even at a moment’s thought] falters in walking the Way to Anuttara-samyak-saṃbodhi.”

The Buddha makes this declaration to the Bodhisattva Maitreya in Chapter Seventeen of the Lotus Sūtra. We all have experiences that take a long time either to understand or to realize what affect they have had on our lives. We may even forget the experience and not be able to connect it with a present situation. This is also true with the experience of hearing the Buddha teach. We hear him declare that he is ever-present, always leading us to enlightenment. Then the memory of that teaching becomes obscured by our daily pursuits and attachments. By reminding ourselves and each other of this highest teaching, we regain our right minds and walk confidently on the path to the Buddha’s own enlightenment (Anuttara-samyak-saṃbodhi).

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

original

Overthrowing The Abstract

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Asai Yōrin‘s locating of Nichiren in opposition to medieval Tendai was explicitly extended to the other Kamakura founders by one of his disciples, Shigyō Kaishū (1907-1968). …

Where, according to Shigyō, medieval Tendai simply declared that the defilements are expressions of original enlightenment just as they are (jinen hongaku), in Dōgen’s thought, original enlightenment is mediated by practice and self-awakening, and in Shinran’s thought, by the relinquishing of egotistical reliance on one’s own efforts (jiriki). In addition, where medieval Tendai thought had taught contemplation of the mind of ordinary persons, the new Kamakura schools stressed faith in the enlightenment of the Buddha.

Similar statements have continued to emerge from the Nichiren Shū academic circle based at Risshō University and appear to represent a certain orthodoxy. Asai Endō, for example, writing twenty years after Shigyō, claims that medieval Tendai stressed only the Buddhahood inherent in ordinary people and “disregarded even [the stage of] hearing the Dharma and embracing it with faith,” which he terms “a confusion of theory and practice, a pernicious equality.” Its insistence on the identity of ordinary persons with an originally enlightened Buddha “became an empty theory divorced from the times,” unable to bring about positive spiritual results in an age of turmoil accompanying the rise of the warrior class. “The founders of the new Kamakura Buddhism left Mount Hiei, weary of this kind of Buddhist thought that gave priority to theory, being divorced from reality. Therefore, while Hōnen, Shinran, Dōgen, and Nichiren each have their own unique religious qualities, they are all alike in the point of having resolved to overthrow abstract theory.” (Page 71-72)

Original Enlightenment and the Transformation of Medieval Japanese Buddhism


Profound

The Poison That Kills Ignorance

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Chih-i cites another allegory from the twenty-seventh chapter in the Nirvāṇa sūtra:

“It is like someone who puts poison in milk that can kill people, even the flavor of ghee can also kill people.”

This allegory is used for the purpose of illustrating that the Buddha nature is everywhere, and that all positions of the Perfect Teaching are equally significant, seeing that one can realize truth at any one of these stages. Chih-i analogizes fresh milk with the mind of an ignorant man, and poison with the knowledge of the Ultimate Truth. Poison can perish a life. Similarly, knowledge of the Ultimate Truth that is symbolized by poison possesses power to destroy ignorance. Chih-i points out that like poison, knowledge of the Ultimate Truth is always right here embedded in the mind of an ignorant man. This provides an underlying meaning of uncertainty, viz. it is not certain whether or not poison might start to break out in any given moment. Since the Five Flavors are filled with poison, all of them can kill. This means that a person can attain knowledge of the Buddha in any one of these given stages without having to go through each of them gradually. (Vol. 2, Page 232-233)

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


LS32

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.

Day 12 Text with annotationsPlay MP3

Having last month witnessed Great-Universal-Wisdom-Excellence Buddha turning the wheel of the dharma in gāthās, we consider the reaction of the 16 princes when the Buddha retired to quiet contemplation for eighty-four thousand kalpas.

Having expounded this sūtra, the Buddha entered a quiet room,
And practiced dhyāna-concentration.
Concentrating his mind, he sat at the same place
For eighty-four thousand kalpas.

Seeing him still in dhyāna,
The śramaṇeras wished to expound
The unsurpassed wisdom of the Buddha
To many hundreds of millions of living beings.

They each sat on a seat of the Dharma
And expounded this sūtra of the Great Vehicle.
Also after the peaceful extinction of that Buddha,
They proclaimed this sūtra, and helped propagate it.

They each saved
Six hundred billions of living beings,
That is, as many living beings
As there are sands in the River Ganges.

After the extinction of that Buddha,
Some heard the Dharma [from one of the śramaṇeras].
They were reborn in the world of a Buddha,
Accompanied by [the śramaṇera, that is,] their teacher.

Those sixteen śramaṇeras practiced the Way to Buddhahood.
They are now in the worlds of the ten quarters.
They have already attained
Perfect enlightenment [and become Buddhas].

Those who heard the Dharma from those śramaṇeras
Are now living under those Buddhas.
To those who are still in Śrāvakahood
[The Buddhas] teach the Way to Buddhahood.

I was one of the sixteen śramaṇeras.
You were among those to whom I expounded the Dharma.
Therefore, I now lead you with expedients
To the wisdom of the Buddha.

Because I taught you in my previous existence,
I expound the Sūtra of the Lotus Flower of the Wonderful Dharma
In order to lead you into the Way to Buddhahood.
Think it over! Do not be surprised! Do not be afraid!

“Because I taught you in my previous existence…” I am able to hear today the Sūtra of the Lotus Flower of the Wonderful Dharma. Imagine that.

Lotus Seeds

The Middle Way

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The Truth of the Middle Way is the teaching that Emptiness and Provisionality are different ways of pointing out that the reality of anything, including our own lives, transcends the categories of existence and non-existence. From the point of view of Emptiness, things do not exist as separate or permanent. From the point of view or Provisionality, things do exist for a time in accord with the law of cause and effect. The Middle Way recognizes thal both points of view are true and have their place.

Lotus Seeds

Daily Dharma

Daily Dharma – Dec. 22, 2018

For example, in building a huge tower, a scaffold is assembled from many small pieces of wood set up ten or twenty feet high. Then, using this scaffold, the huge tower is built with lumber. Once the tower is completed, the scaffold is dismantled. The scaffold here represents all Buddhist scriptures other than the Lotus Sutra, and the Great Tower is the Lotus Sutra. This is what is meant by “discarding the expedient.” A pagoda is built by using a scaffold, but no one worships a scaffold without a pagoda.

Nichiren wrote this passage in his Response to My Lady the Nun, Mother of Lord Ueno (Ueno-dono Haha-ama Gozen Gohenji). In this simile, Nichiren compares the Buddha’s expedient teachings to the Wonderful Dharma he provides in the Lotus Sūtra.

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

original

The Original Purity Of Nichiren’s Doctrine

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For Asai Yōrin, hongaku thought was a defilement that had to be removed if the original purity of Nichiren’s doctrine were to be restored. He was vehement about its corruptive tendencies. The kanjin style of interpretation that it fostered had contributed not only to a decline in faithful scholarly exegesis, he said, but also to the degeneracy of monks who took advantage of the decline of imperial authority in the Insei period to flaunt their power. “From the outset, the original enlightenment doctrine of medieval Tendai actually spurred on corruption.” Asai saw its claim that “the worldly passions are enlightenment” as serving to rationalize widespread monastic license in the Muromachi period, such as descents from Mt. Hiei on nightly pleasure-seeking forays or homosexual relations with male novices (chigo). Nichiren, he argued, had stressed text-based exegesis, not subjective interpretation; the primordial Buddha of the Lotus Sūtra was for him a transcendent object of faith, not equated with the mind of deluded beings. In short, Nichiren’s thought was not to be grasped within the same frame as medieval Tendai, which was permeated throughout by the very Mikkyō that Nichiren had so bitterly criticized. (Page 70)

Original Enlightenment and the Transformation of Medieval Japanese Buddhism


Profound

Attaining Ghee

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With regard to the five flavors that are used to analogize five levels of the position of the Perfect Teaching, Chih-i cites an allegory from the Nirvāṇa Sūtra:

“In the Snow Mountains, there is a type of grass named ‘enduring humility.’ If a cow eats the grass, it immediately attains ghee.” “The cow is analogous with an ignorant man, and the grass is analogous with the Eightfold Correct Path. [If one] can cultivate the Eightfold Correct Path, [one] instantaneously perceives the Buddha-nature, which is called the attainment of ghee. This is analogous with the Perfect Teaching, with which [one] walks on the wide and straight road and observes that all sentient beings are identical to the characteristic of Nirvāṇa, which can no longer be extinguished.”

By quoting the Nirvāṇa Sūtra, Chih-i intends to say that the bodhisattva of the Perfect Teaching does not need to go through the first four stages of flavor before he can directly arrive at the final stage of ghee. This is an expression of the superiority of the Perfect Teaching. Chih-i affirms that there are four subtleties that constitute the Perfect Teaching and can be drawn from this analogy. (i) The fact that the cow can instantly attain the ghee as truth through eating grass signifies that the conception of truth of the Perfect Teaching is ultimate. Thus, the grass of acquiescence (Jents ‘ao) is the metaphor for the Subtlety of Objects (Ching-miao). (ii) The attainment of liberation as the result of the cow eating grass suggests that the cow is the metaphor for the Subtlety of Knowledge (Chih-miao) that penetrates truth. (iii) The fact that the actualization of liberation is due to the action of eating grass indicates that this action of eating is used as the metaphor for the Subtlety of Practice (Hsing-miao). (iv) Finally, ghee is used as the metaphor for the Subtlety of Positions (Weimiao). (Vol. 2, Page 232)

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