Fei-san Hsien-i (Abandoning the three and revealing the one) is the function related to the Subtlety of Expounding the Dharma. The above-stated first step destroys disciples’ attachment to the three teachings. In Chih-i’s view, the purpose of the previous refutation is to further abandon these three teachings with the revelation of the One Vehicle, in order to prevent beings in the future time from being attached to them once again. This abandonment is associated with the Buddha’s teaching, for without the teaching, the necessity of abandoning the three teachings will not be made clear. (Vol. 2, Page 444-445)
The Profound Meaning of the Lotus Sutra: Tien-tai Philosophy of BuddhismMonthly Archives: March 2019
Day 6
Day 6 continues Chapter 3, A Parable
Having last month begun the Parable of the Burning House in gāthās with the condition of the house, we learn in gāthās about the owner and his concern for his children in the burning house.
This old and rotten house
Was owned by a man.
Shortly after he went out
To a place in the neighborhood,
Fires broke out suddenly
In the house.Raging flames came out
Of all sides at the same time.
The ridges, rafters,
Beams and pillars
Burst, quaked, split, broke and fell.
The fences and walls also fell.All the demons yelled.
The eagles, crested eagles,
And other birds, and kumbhandas
Were frightened and perplexed.
They did not know
How to get out of the house.
The wild beasts and poisonous vermin
Hid themselves in holes.In that house also lived
Demons called pisacakas.
Because they had few merits and virtues,
They suffered from the fire.
They killed each other,
Drank blood, and ate flesh.The small foxes were
Already dead.
Large wild beasts
Rushed at them and ate them.
Ill-smelling smoke rose
And filled the house.The centipedes, millipedes,
And poisonous snakes
Were driven out of their holes
By the fire,
And eaten
By the kumbhanda demons.The hair of the hungry spirits caught fire.
With hunger, thirst and burning,
The spirits ran about
In agony and dismay.The house was so dreadful.
[In that house] there were
Poisonings, killings and burnings.
There were many dangers, not just one.At that time the house-owner
Was standing outside the gate.
He heard a man say to him:
“Some time ago
Your children entered this house to play.
They are young and ignorant.
They are engrossed in playing.”
Hearing this,
The rich man was frightened.
He rushed into the burning house.In order to save them
From burning to death,
He told them
Of the dangers of the house:
“There are demons and poisonous vermin here.
Flames have already spread all over.
Many sufferings are coming
One after another endlessly.
There are poisonous snakes,
Lizards, vipers,
Yakṣas, kumbhanda demons,
Small foxes, foxes, dogs,
Crested eagles, eagles,
Kites, owls and centipedes here.
They are unbearably hungry and thirsty.
They are dreadful.
These sufferings are difficult to avoid.
Worse still, there is a big fire.”Though the children heard his warning,
They were still engrossed in playing.
They did not stop playing
Because they were ignorant.
The Introduction to the Lotus Sūtra offers a discussion of the Buddha as father and we his children.
[The Parable of the Burning House] presents the Buddha as a concerned parent, and so brings an intimacy into the relationship between the Buddha and us ordinary people. On our part, the Buddha appears like a father to be loved and trusted in faith. On the Buddha’s part, living beings like us are his children to be saved with compassion. In all of Buddhist literature, there is no other example quite as vivid as this one in the Lotus Sutra, which presents the Buddha as the Savior of suffering humanity. Here in the Lotus Sutra the Buddha touches our hearts with a clear-cut image of his personality.
Introduction to the Lotus SutraThat Which We Seek
A person in the grip of undeveloped, immature, and ignorant desires usually tries to fulfill these desires by acting in a way that only serves to reinforce them. That is, that person attempts to find some form of lasting satisfaction and security in material or spiritual things. However, there is nothing short of Buddhahood that can bring the kind of true happiness that can fully quench ignorant desires. In this sense, these desires are actually the workings of the Buddha-nature: they cause us to unwittingly seek out our own Buddhahood. One could even say, “that which we seek is that which causes us to seek.”
Lotus SeedsBuddha-nature of Ordinary People
[T]he two teachings – the Tripiṭaka teaching and the Common teaching – do not espouse the idea that ordinary people in the Six Realms originally have the Buddha-nature. They preach instead that one can be a śrāvaka, pratyekabuddha, bodhisattva, or Buddha only by practicing the way leading to each of them.
Ichidai Shōgyō Tai-I, Outline of All the Holy Teachings of the Buddha, Writings of Nichiren Shōnin, Doctrine 3, Page 74
Daily Dharma – March 22, 2019
Those who believe in the Lotus Sutra are like the winter season, for many hardships come incessantly. Winter is surely followed by spring. We have never heard or seen that winter returns to fall. We have never heard that the believers in the Lotus Sutra go back to become ordinary men. The Lotus Sutra says, “All people who listen to this Sutra will attain Buddhahood.”
Nichiren wrote this in his Letter to the Nun Myoichi (Myoichi Ama Gozen Gohenji). Nichiren suffered through many hardships in his life, including exile, banishment from his family and home province, being placed on the execution mat, and having his home at Matsubagayatsu burned by members of the Pure Land sect. Through all these difficulties, Nichiren kept his faith in the Buddha’s wisdom and fulfilled his mission to benefit all beings in this world of conflict by leading them with the Wonderful Dharma of the Lotus Sūtra. Nichiren’s faith and practice inspire our faith and practice. Whatever obstacles we may face, we progress towards enlightenment under the guidance of the Ever-Present Buddha.
The Daily Dharma is produced by the Lexington Nichiren Buddhist Community. To subscribe to the daily emails, visit zenzaizenzai.com
The Origin vs. Trace Teachings
Nichiren … grounded his concept of the single thought-moment comprising three thousand realms in actuality in the origin teaching or latter fourteen chapters of the Lotus Sūtra. Only the origin teaching, in his view, revealed the mutual inclusion of “original cause” (the nine realms) and “original effect” (the realm of Buddhahood). However, his later followers found it necessary to elaborate, on the basis he had established, the precise relationship that obtained between the dharmas of the origin teaching and of the trace teaching (honjaku ron). No debate over this issue appears in any authenticatable writing by the first generation of Nichiren’s followers, who were chiefly concerned with establishing the superiority of the Lotus Sūtra itself over other teachings. The controversy took shape in the Muromachi period and quickly became crucial to the self-definition of rival Hokke lineages. On this issue, the Hokkeshū divided broadly into two positions. Those who stressed the superiority of the origin teaching over the trace teaching were said to occupy the shōretsu (“superior versus inferior”) position, while those who emphasized the essential unity of the two represented the itchi (“unified”) position. Each comprised a number of variations. 9 Those who upheld the shōretsu position differed among themselves as to how the superiority of the origin teaching should be understood. Some said that its superiority lay in all fourteen chapters of the origin teaching; others held that it resided in the eight chapters that represent the assembly in open space presided over by Śākyamuni and Many Jewels seated side by side in the jeweled stūpa; or in the “Fathoming the Lifespan” chapter alone; or in the “Fathoming the Lifespan” chapter plus the latter part of the preceding “Emerging from the Earth” chapter and the first half of the subsequent “Discrimination of Merits” chapter (“one chapter and two halves”); or in the daimoku alone, and so forth. The itchi position was also variously argued. Some maintained that the origin and trace teachings were essentially one (ittai), arguing, for example, that, while a distinction exists between origin and trace teachings with respect to the capacity of the people for whom they were expounded, they are one in the Buddha’s intent; or that they are essentially one in being subsumed within the daimoku. Others held that the two teachings, while essentially different, were nonetheless inseparable (itchi), for example, in representing the inherent nature of enlightenment and its realization in the act of practice; or that the two are unified when the trace teaching is read in light of understanding of the origin teaching. Since very few scholars upholding the shōretsu position went so far as to reject the trace teaching entirely, and since most itchi proponents acknowledged the doctrinal superiority of the origin teaching, the two positions tended to shade off into one another, rather than remaining in absolute confrontation. On the whole, however, those holding the itchi position tended also to be more accommodating in their dealings with other religious traditions, while those committed to the shōretsu position were frequently uncompromising in upholding the exclusive devotion to the Lotus Sūtra through shakulmku and the rebuking of “slander of the Dharma.” (Page 304-305)
Original Enlightenment and the Transformation of Medieval Japanese BuddhismRelative Truth of the Three Vehicles and Ultimate Truth of One Vehicle
P’o-san Hsien-i (Refuting the three and revealing the one) is the function associated with the Subtlety of Knowledge. Given that the Three Vehicles (Śrāvaka, Pratyekabuddha and Bodhisattva) mistake the three teachings (Tripiṭaka, Common and Separate) that are designed for them as the Ultimate Truth and become attached to these teachings, the Buddha felt that it is necessary to destroy their attachment in order to reveal the knowledge of the Buddha as the One Vehicle. Therefore, by introducing the one ultimate Buddha-vehicle, the Three Vehicles are prevented from being attached to the three teachings. The refutation and the revelation are associated with the function of the Buddha’s knowledge. Without this function, the Relative Truth of the Three Vehicles and the Ultimate Truth of the One Buddha-vehicle will not be known. (Vol. 2, Page 444)
The Profound Meaning of the Lotus Sutra: Tien-tai Philosophy of BuddhismDay 5
Day 5 begins Chapter 3, A Parable
Having last month considered Śāriputra’s fear that he was listening to Mara in the form of a Buddha, we hear Śākyamuni’s prediction of the future Buddhahood of Śāriputra.
Thereupon the Buddha said to Śāriputra:
“Now I will tell you in the presence of this great multitude including gods, men, śramaṇas, and brāhmanas. Under two billion Buddhas in the past, I always taught you in order to cause you to attain unsurpassed enlightenment. You studied under me in the long night. I led you with expedients. Therefore, you have your present life under me.
“Śāriputra! I caused you to aspire for the enlightenment of the Buddha in your previous existence. You forgot all this, and thought that you had already attained extinction. In order to cause you to remember the Way you practiced under your original vow, I now expound to the Śrāvakas this sūtra of the Great Vehicle called the ‘Lotus Flower of the Wonderful Dharma, the Dharma for Bodhisattvas, the Dharma Upheld by the Buddhas.’
“Śāriputra! After a countless, inconceivable number of kalpas from now, you will be able to make offerings to many thousands of billions of Buddhas, to keep their right teachings, to practice the Way which Bodhisattvas should practice, and to become a Buddha called Flower-Light, 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 world of that Buddha will be called Free-From-Taint. That world will be even, pure, adorned, peaceful, and fertile, where gods and men will prosper. The ground of that world will be made of lapis lazuli; the roads will fan out from the center to the eight directions. Those roads will be marked off by ropes of gold, and the trees of the seven treasures on the roadsides will always bear flowers and fruit. Flower-Light Tathāgata will also lead the living beings [of his world] by the teaching of the Three Vehicles.
–
“Śāriputra! Although the world in which he appears will not be an evil one, that Buddha will expound the teaching of the Three Vehicles according to his original vow.
This prediction of Śāriputra’s future world is one of the great mysteries to me. After more than 40 times reading the Lotus Sūtra, I simply cannot fathom why Śāriputra, as the Buddha Flower-Light, will teach the Three Vehicles. None of the other predictions of future Buddhahood of the Śrāvakas includes this detail.
The Buddha says, “In order to cause you to remember the Way you practiced under your original vow, I now expound to the Śrāvakas this sūtra of the Great Vehicle called the ‘Lotus Flower of the Wonderful Dharma, the Dharma for Bodhisattvas, the Dharma Upheld by the Buddhas.’ ”
Note the Buddha is concerned with “the Way you [Śāriputra] practiced under your original vow.”
Then in the prediction of Flower-Light’s world, we are told, “Although the world in which he appears will not be an evil one, that Buddha will expound the teaching of the Three Vehicles according to his original vow.”
Updated March 22, 2019
I posted this question to the Nichiren Shu page on Facebook and received this reply from Rev. Ryuei McCormick:
My impression is that the first prediction is the most complete and comprehensive. In the other predictions it should be understood that this is probably the case.
The One Vehicle is not another vehicle aside from the three vehicles. I don’t buy those interpretations that say it is a fourth vehicle, and that does not seem how Nichiren or Tiantai understood it either. There are no three vehicles other than as partial aspects of the One Vehicle. There is no One Vehicle aside from its manifestations in terms of the three vehicles.
Also there is a difference between evil and defiled. The people of a given land may all be “good” (i.e. wholesome) but still have the defilement of ignorance that causes them to cling to self and dharmas. The three vehicles are progressively deeper ways of breaking through such defilement.
Another way to look at this may be as follows – the shravaka and pratyekabuddha vehicles are preliminary understandings of the bodhisattva vehicle, the bodhisattva vehicle is a preliminary understanding of the One Vehicle, and the One Vehicle is the most complete understanding of the previous three vehicles. If there were no One Vehicle there would be nothing for the three vehicles to be increasingly adequate explanations of, and if there were no three vehicles there would be nothing for the One Vehicle to be a complete understanding of. They are all in mutually possession of one another just as the ten worlds are – and in fact the three vehicles and buddhahood are four of the ten worlds!
Namu Myoho Renge Kyo,
Ryuei
Updated April 26, 2019, with Clay Creating the One Vehicle
Experiencing What Lotus Sūtra Preaches
The thirteenth chapter, the “Encouragement for Upholding This Sūtra,” of the Lotus Sūtra declares, “Ignorant people will speak ill of us (practicers of the True Dharma) and abuse us.” I, Nichiren, have been as utterly despised as mentioned in the sūtra. Are not those who slander me the “ignorant people” referred to in the sūtra? The same chapter continues, “They (ignorant people) threaten us (practicers of the True Dharma) with swords and sticks.” I, Nichiren, have experienced what the sūtra preaches with my own body. Why don’t you, slanderers and persecutors, understand what the sūtra preaches?
It is also said in the same chapter: “They always try to slander us in the midst of the great multitude…, they speak ill of us to kings, ministers, Brahmans, and house-holders, or “they speak ill of us, frown at us, or drive us often out of our monasteries.” “Often” here means not a few times. I, Nichiren, was driven out of my dwelling several times and exiled twice.
Teradomari Gosho, A Letter from Teradomari, Writings of Nichiren Shōnin, Doctrine 2, Page 13
Daily Dharma – March 21, 2019
Star-King-Flower! Strew blue lotus flowers and a bowlful of powdered incense to the person who keeps this sūtra when you see him! After strewing these things [to him], you should think, ‘Before long he will collect grass [for his seat], sit at the place of enlightenment, and defeat the army of Māra. He will blow the conch-shell horn of the Dharma, beat the drum of the great Dharma, and save all living beings from the ocean of old age, disease and death.’
The Buddha gives this explanation to Star-King-Flower Bodhisattva in Chapter Twenty-Three of the Lotus Sūtra. Māra is the deity who creates confusion and delusion in the world. His army consists of those who reinforce these delusions and reward those who share them. Such rewards do not benefit those who receive them. They only serve to produce fear and attachment, which creates misery in the world. With our practice of this Lotus Sūtra, we learn to recognize delusion for what it is, and reject the superficial benefits that come with it.
The Daily Dharma is produced by the Lexington Nichiren Buddhist Community. To subscribe to the daily emails, visit zenzaizenzai.com