Because original enlightenment is seen as the true status of all phenomena, practice cannot be the “cause” of enlightenment. Thus its role becomes ambiguous. It must undergo redefinition, whether as predisposing one to the insight that “all dharmas are the Buddha-Dharma,” or as solidifying and deepening such insight, or as the exemplary form of the nonduality of the Buddha and the beings. But just as some version of “acquired enlightenment” cannot ultimately be dispensed with, neither can practice, as becomes clear from a close reading of texts. And from the perspective of history, medieval Tendai monks participating in hongaku discourse can be shown to have engaged in diverse forms of religious practice. (Page 359)
Original Enlightenment and the Transformation of Medieval Japanese BuddhismMonthly Archives: March 2019
The Subtlety of Positions
Fu-san Hsien-i (Covering the three and revealing the one) is the function related to the Subtlety of Positions. This is spoken of by Chih-i in terms of various expedient methods that are skillfully employed by the Buddha. Instead of destroying the Three Vehicles, the Buddha covers them in order to reveal the One Vehicle, which is for the purpose of creating more possibilities of transforming living beings. Covering the three instead of destroying them leaves the possibility to use them once again, should the causes and conditions rise later on. Since the Buddha’s skillful employment of various expedient methods can result in different levels of attainment, this function is associated with the Subtlety of Positions. (Vol. 2, Page 446)
The Profound Meaning of the Lotus Sutra: Tien-tai Philosophy of BuddhismDay 15
Day 15 concludes Chapter 10, The Teacher of the Dharma, and opens Chapter 11, Beholding the Stūpa of Treasures.
Having last month heard Śākyamuni’s explanation that the Wonderful Dharma is the most difficult to believe and the most difficult to understand, we consider the prediction that people will oppose the Lotus Sūtra.
“Medicine-King! This sūtra is the store of the hidden core of all the Buddhas. Do not give it to others carelessly! It is protected by the Buddhas, by the World-Honored Ones. It has not been expounded explicitly. Many people hate it with jealousy even in my lifetime. Needless to say, more people will do so after my extinction.
Nichiren focuses on this paragraph in Essay on Gratitude letter:
When Queen Māyā became pregnant with her child, the future Śākyamuni Buddha, the Demon King of the Sixth Heaven saw through her womb and said: “The queen is pregnant with a sharp sword called the Lotus Sūtra, which is our sworn enemy. How can we eliminate it before it is born?” Pretending to be a great doctor, the Demon entered the palace of King Śuddhodana and talked the queen into drinking poison, saying it was medicine effective for easy childbirth. At the very moment when the Buddha was born, the Demon King caused a rain of stones to fall and mixed the baby’s milk with poison. When Prince Siddhārtha left the palace to become a monk, the Demon King, this time, pretended to be a black poisonous snake blocking the prince’s way. Furthermore, the Demon King entered the bodies of Devadatta, Kokālika, King Virūḍhaka, and King Ajātaśatru, making them throw huge rocks at the Buddha to draw blood or to kill members of the Śākya people and Buddha’s disciples. These almost fatal obstacles to the Buddha were the work of the Demon King of the Sixth Heaven to stop the Buddha from preaching the Lotus Sūtra. They are what is referred to when the Lotus Sūtra, chapter 10 on “The Teacher of the Dharma,” mentions, “Many people hate it with jealousy even in My lifetime.” These were the difficulties the Buddha experienced quite early in His lifetime, and many terrible difficulties awaited Him later. Since Śāriputra, Maudgalyāyana, and the other great bodhisattvas could not believe in the Lotus Sūtra, they, in spite of living close to the Buddha, were the worst enemies in the forty or so years before the Lotus Sūtra was preached.
These things happened in the Buddha’s lifetime, and in the future, more horrible difficulties will probably occur as predicted in the chapter which says: “It will be worse after I die.” How can ordinary people bear those difficulties while even the Buddha could hardly bear them? How much more so, as the difficulties we are to face are said to be more tremendous than those that the Buddha had encountered! No difficulties seem more horrible than Devadatta’s attempted murder of the Buddha with a huge rock thirty feet long and sixteen feet wide or King Ajatasatru’s attempt to hurt the Buddha by releasing a drunken elephant. Nevertheless, according to the sūtra, we shall encounter difficulties greater than those. One who often encounters such difficulties, through no fault of his own, must be a practicer of the Lotus Sūtra after the Buddha’s death.
Hōon-jō, Essay on Gratitude, Writings of Nichiren Shōnin, Doctrine 3, Pages 8.
Three Unchanging Principles of Hinayāna Buddhism
The Distinct teaching is a Mahāyāna doctrine that expounds the Three Learnings: Buddhist precepts, meditation, and wisdom. The Buddhist precepts in this teaching, different from those of the Tripiṭaka or Common teaching, are the Diamond Treasure Precepts, which will never be broken.
Bodhisattvas of the Distinct teaching are not intimidated by the Three Evil Realms of hell, nor are they afraid of the realms of hungry souls and beasts. Instead, they fear the practices of the Two Vehicles, regarding them as the true Three Evil Realms. For in the Three Evil Realms the seed of Buddhahood will not die out, while in the Vehicles practices of śrāvaka and pratyekabuddha the seed of Buddhahood will vanish. As it is written in the Commentary on Adornment of the Mahāyāna Teachings, “Though being always in hell is not the obstacle against attaining the great Buddhahood, it would be an obstacle if one seeks self-interest.” This means that the true evil realm lies in the burning pit of the three unchanging principles of Hinayāna Buddhism, and that the truly evil ones are the men of the Two Vehicles. Therefore, it is preached that it is preferable to commit evil acts than to keep the precepts of the Two Vehicles.
Ichidai Shōgyō Tai-I, Outline of All the Holy Teachings of the Buddha, Writings of Nichiren Shōnin, Doctrine 3, Page 75-76
Daily Dharma – March 31, 2019
The father thought, ‘These sons are pitiful. They are so poisoned that they are perverted. Although they rejoice at seeing me and ask me to cure them, they do not consent to take this good medicine. Now I will have them take it with an expedient.’
The Buddha gives this description as part of the Parable of the Wise Physician in Chapter Sixteen of the Lotus Sūtra. In the story, the physician’s children have mistakenly taken poison, yet refuse the remedy their father provides for them. The children are just like us as we cling to our attachments and delusions and refuse the good medicine of the Buddha Dharma. This refusal can be for many reasons. The children may think the remedy is worse than the poison. They may be holding out for another remedy that may be even more pleasant. They may enjoy being poisoned. They may not trust that their father can cure them. As the father in the story faked his death to bring the children to their right minds, the Buddha seems to disappear from our lives so that we may learn to accept the teaching he provides for us. And as the father reappeared to the children once they took the remedy, the Buddha reappears to us when we practice his teaching.
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Faith that All Dharmas Are the Buddha-Dharma
A close reading of texts suggests that such statements as “the defilements are none other than enlightened insight” are articulated from the standpoint of having realized nonduality, not that of having yet to realize it. Great as the attempt has been to minimize or even elude it, inevitably, something remains here of the notion of “acquired enlightenment.” We have seen how Nichirenshū scholars in the early decades of the century distinguished between Tendai original enlightenment thought as a statement of naturally inherent enlightenment (jinen hongaku), and Nichiren’s teaching as the actualizing of inherent enlightenment through practice (shikaku soku hongaku). The distinction, however, is overdrawn. Even the nondual Tendai original enlightenment stance remains, ultimately, one of shikaku soku hongaku, for the insight into original enlightenment and the transformation such insight is said to bring about are mediated by the knowledge (or faith) that “all dharmas are the Buddha-Dharma,” achieved at the stage of verbal identity. It is only from the standpoint of this nondual insight that the hongaku doctrine may be accurately characterized as “absolute affirmation.” (Page 358)
Original Enlightenment and the Transformation of Medieval Japanese BuddhismThe Subtlety of Retinues
Chu-san Yung-i (Abiding in the three and employing the one) is the function related to the Subtlety of Retinues. This is spoken of by Chih-i in terms of the disciples as the retinues formed by the subtle response of the dharntakāya. The disciples of the Three Vehicles (denoting abiding in the three vehicles) are actually the manifestation of the dharmakāya (denoting employing the one). (Vol. 2, Page 446)
The Profound Meaning of the Lotus Sutra: Tien-tai Philosophy of BuddhismDay 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.
Having last month considered the consequences of speaking ill of someone who keeps the Lotus Sūtra, we repeat in gāthās the need to make offerings to the keeper of the Lotus Sūtra.
Thereupon the World-Honored One, wishing to repeat what he had said, sang in gāthās:
If you wish to dwell in the enlightenment of the Buddha,
And to obtain the self-originating wisdom,
Make offerings strenuously to the keeper
Of the Sūtra of the Lotus Flower of the Wonderful Dharma!If you wish to obtain quickly the knowledge
Of the equality and differences of all things,
Keep this sūtra, and also make offerings
To the keeper of this sūtra!Anyone who keeps
The sūtra of the Lotus Flower of the Wonderful Dharma,
Know this, has compassion towards all living beings
Because he is my messenger.
Anyone who keeps
The Sūtra of the Lotus Flower of the Wonderful Dharma
Should be considered to have given up his pure world and come here
Out of his compassion towards all living beings.Know that he can appear wherever he wishes!
He should be considered
To have appeared in this evil world
In order to expound the unsurpassed Dharma.Offer flowers and incense of heaven,
Jeweled garments of heaven,
And heaps of wonderful treasures of heaven
To the expounder of the Dharma!Join your hands together and bow
To the person who keeps this sūtra
In the evil world after my extinction,
Just as you do to me!Offer delicious food and drink,
And various garments to this son of mine,
And yearn to hear the Dharma [from him]
Even if for only a moment!
Nichiren addressed this idea of praising and making offerings to the keeper of the Lotus Sūtra in his Letter to Hōren:
The Buddha preached the two doctrines … that those who slander the practicer of the Lotus Sūtra will fall into the Hell of Incessant Suffering and those who praise and admire the practicer of the Lotus Sūtra will be rewarded with merit superior to that of those who embrace the Buddha, but they are difficult to understand. Just how, one may wonder, can serving an ordinary person be more meritorious than serving the Buddha? If, however, we say that these two doctrines are false, we call into question the golden words of Śākyamuni Buddha, neglect the testimony of the Buddha of Many Treasures, and negate the proof of the long, wide tongues of the numerous Buddhas in manifestation from all the worlds in the universe. We will then fall into the Avici Hell. It is as dangerous as riding a wild horse running on the rocks. On the other hand, if we believe in these two doctrines, we will become Buddhas of great Enlightenment. We therefore must establish a firm faith in the Lotus Sūtra during this lifetime. Practicing this sūtra without having a firm faith is like trying to grab hold of a jewel in a mountain of treasures without hands or walking a journey of 1,000 ri (4,000 km) without feet. It is best for us to put faith in the Buddha by observing the objective phenomena.
Hōren-shō, Letter to Hōren, Writings of Nichiren Shōnin, Volume 6, Followers I, Page 48
Right Speech
Right speech means abstaining from lying, slander, hypocrisy (including causing trouble among friends by saying one thing to one and something different to another), and idle talk (including loquacity, obscenity, and silliness). From the positive viewpoint, right speech means speaking the truth, praising where praise is due, criticizing compassionately when criticism is called for, and always stimulating harmony and love among all people by speaking in a way that is constructive and useful and that benefits both oneself and others.
Basic Buddhist Concepts
The Permanence of the Three Bodies of the Buddha
In the ninth fascicle of his Annotations on the Words and Phrases of the Lotus Sūtra, Grand Master Miao-lê declares: “Before the eternal life of the Buddha Śākyamuni was revealed in ‘The Life Span of the Buddha’ chapter, the permanence of the three bodies of the Buddha had not been revealed. When the permanence of the Buddha’s lifetime was revealed in this chapter of the Lotus Sūtra, the unified threefold body in both the essential and theoretical sections of this sūtra was clarified.” In his Words and Phrases of the Lotus Sūtra, fascicle 9, Grand Master T’ien-t’ai preaches: “The three bodies of the Buddha have always been fused into one throughout the past, present and future lives. However, this was kept in secrecy and not revealed in the pre-Lotus sūtras.”
Hasshū Imoku-shō, A Treatise on the Differences of the Lotus Sect from Eight Other Sects, Writings of Nichiren Shōnin, Doctrine 2, Page 16