Monthly Archives: June 2019

LS32, WONS

Day 10

Day 10 concludes Chapter 6, Assurance of Future Buddhahood, and opens Chapter 7, The Parable of a Magic City.

Day 10 Text with annotationsPlay MP3

Having last month repeated the opening story of Great-Universal-Wisdom-Excellence Buddha in gāthās, we consider how Great-Universal-Wisdom-Excellence Buddha waited 10 kalpas for the Dharma of the Buddhas to come into his mind.

The Buddha said to the bhikṣus:

“The duration of the life of Great-Universal-Wisdom-Excellence Buddha was five hundred and forty billion nayuta kalpas. [Before he attained Buddhahood,] he sat at the place of enlightenment and defeated the army of Mara. He wished to attain Anuttara-samyak-saṃbodhi, but could not because the Dharma of the Buddhas had not yet come into his mind. He sat cross-legged without moving his mind and body for one to ten small kalpas. During all that time the Dharma of the Buddhas did not come into his mind.

“[Before he sat at the place of enlightenment,] the Trāyastriṃs̒a Gods prepared him a lion-like seat a yojana high under the Bodhi tree so that he might be able to attain Anuttara-samyak-saṃbodhi on that seat. When he sat on that seat, the Brahman-heavenly-kings rained heavenly flowers on the area extending a hundred yojanas in all directions from that seat. From time to time withered flowers were blown away by fragrant winds and new flowers were rained down. [The Brahman-heavenly-kings] continued this offering to him for fully ten small kalpas. [After he attained Buddhahood also,] they continued raining flowers until he passed away.

“[When he sat on that seat,] the four heavenly-kings beat heavenly drums, and the other gods made heavenly music and offered it to him. They continued these offerings also for fully ten small kalpas. [After he attained Buddhahood also,] they continued these offerings until he passed away.

This delay experienced by Great-Universal-Wisdom-Excellence Buddha is used by Nichiren to illustrate the importance of the right time. In his Senji-shō, Selecting the Right time, Nichiren writes:

To study Buddhism, first of all we must know the right time.

In the past, the Great Universal Wisdom Buddha appeared in the world, but he did not preach at all for as long as ten small kalpa. It is said in the Lotus Sūtra, chapter 7 on “The Parable of a Magic City”: “He sat in meditation for ten small kalpa;” and “Though begged to preach, the Buddha sat in silence because He knew the time was not yet ripe.” Our Lord Śākyamuni Buddha, did not expound the Lotus Sūtra for more than forty years. As said in the Sūtra, chapter 2 on “Expedients,” it was because “the time was not ripe.” Lao-tzu is said to have spent as long as eighty years in his mother’s womb before he was born. Bodhisattva Maitreya, future Lord Buddha of this Sahā World, is expected to stay in the inner chamber of the Tuṣita Heaven (Tōsotsu-ten) for as long as 5,670,000,000 years, waiting for the time to attain perfect enlightenment. As nightingales wait for summer to sing and roosters wait for dawn to crow, even beasts know the time. How much more should we choose the right time in practicing Buddhism?

Senji-shō, Selecting the Right time: A Tract by Nichiren, the Buddha’s Disciple, Writings of Nichiren Shōnin, Doctrine 1, Page 188

Lotus Seeds

The Truth of the Present Moment

Quote

“Becoming a Buddha with this body” also means the instant or momentary attainment of Buddhahood. In other words, it explains that each moment is a moment of decision wherein we can give in to the defilements or see and act with the clarity of our Buddha-nature. We should reflect on the fact that we only live from moment to moment. The past is always just a memory. The future is always an unrealized possibility. The present is always just a single passing moment, which is all we ever have. It would be a great mistake, then, to overlook the moment in which we are living because we have been led to believe that nothing significant can happen in such a small amount of time. In truth, all the time that we will ever have is in the present moment. Awakening is not something that we slowly build up over time or earn through countless lifetimes of effort. It is our complete awareness of and engagement with the truth of the present moment in which we are living.

Lotus Seeds

WONS

The Merit of Those Who Listen

Regretting that the Lotus Sūtra may be destined to be ignored in the Latter Age of Degeneration, Grand Master Miao-lê states in his Annotations on the Great Concentration and Insight:

“The Perfect teaching of the Lotus Sūtra that enables people to attain Buddhahood immediately has not been respected because those who study the Mahāyāna teachings during these times confuse the expedient teachings with the true teaching. Furthermore, in the Age of the Semblance Dharma or the Latter Age of Degeneration, the spiritual capacity of the people diminishes, and their faith weakens. Consequently, though there are libraries and chests filled with perfect and immediate teachings, it is disappointing that no one considers or studies them in the least. People are born with no purpose and die in vain without meeting Buddhism. How this is! Someone may say, ‘Just listening, without any type of practice, does not bring any merit.’ This person does not fully understand the everlasting merit that just listening to the Lotus Sūtra can cause one to become a Buddha. In the Zenjūtenshi Sutra, Mañjuśrī Bodhisattva told Venerable Śāriputra, ‘It is better to listen to the Dharma, slander it, and as a result, fall into hell than to make offerings to many Buddhas. For even though one slanders the True Dharma and falls into hell, his sin will become an ‘adverse condition’ causing him to get an opportunity to listen to the True Dharma after he emerges from hell.’ This compares the merit of those who listen to the Dharma to those who make offerings to the Buddha but do so without listening to the Dharma. Listening to the Dharma, even slandering it can be the seed for Buddhahood, though this will take a long time. Needless to say, this does not compare to the merit of those who listen to and contemplate the Dharma and strive to practice it.”

Ichidai Shōgyō Tai-I, Outline of All the Holy Teachings of the Buddha, Writings of Nichiren Shōnin, Doctrine 3, Page 83-84

Daily Dharma

Daily Dharma – June 30, 2019

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

LS32

Day 9

Day 9 covers Chapter 5, The Simile of Herbs, and introduces Chapter 6, Assurance of Future Buddhahood.

Day 9 Text with annotationsPlay MP3

Having last month considered how the Buddha is like the cloud that brings the rain, we consider how he sees the world.

I see all living beings equally.
I have no partiality for them.
There is not ‘this one’ or ‘that one’ to me.
I transcend love and hatred.

I am attached to nothing.
I am hindered by nothing.
I always expound the Dharma
To all living beings equally.
I expound the Dharma to many
In the same way as to one.

I always expound the Dharma.
I do nothing else.
I am not tired of expounding the Dharma
While I go or come or sit or stand.
I expound the Dharma to all living beings
Just as the rain waters all the earth.

I am not tired of giving
The rain of the Dharma to all living beings.
I have no partiality for them,
Whether they are noble or mean,
Whether they observe or violate the precepts,
Whether they live a monastic life or not,
Whether they have right or wrong views,
Whether they are clever or dull.

Those who hear the Dharma from me
Will reach various stages
[Of enlightenment]
According to their capacities

Concluding the tales of the Hoke-kyō (Lotus Sūtra) from Miraculous Stories from the Japanese Buddhist Tradition (Nihon ryōiki), we consider On Receiving a Penalty for Doing Evil because of Ignorance of the Law of Karmic Causation.

Nihon

On Receiving a Penalty for Doing Evil because of Ignorance of the Law of Karmic Causation

Saheki no sukune Itachi of the Junior Fourth Rank, Upper Grade, lived in the reign of the emperors who resided at Nara Palace.

Once a man from the capital went to Chikuzen and died of a sudden illness, arriving at the palace of King Yama. Though he did not see anybody, he heard the voice of a man who was being beaten echoing through the earth. At every lash of the whip, he cried, “What pain! What pain!”

The king asked his clerks, saying, “When he was in the world, what good did he do?” The clerks answered, “He made one copy of the Hoke-kyō.” Then the king said, “Atone for his sins by balancing them against the scrolls of the scripture.” When they matched the scrolls with his sins, the scrolls were outnumbered without any comparison. Then they matched the 69,384 characters of the scripture with his sins, but still the latter outnumbered the former, and he could not be saved. Thereupon, the king clapped his hands in surprise, saying “Although I have seen many people who committed sins and suffered, I have never seen a man who committed so many sins.”

The man from the capital secretly asked a person beside him, “Who is the man being beaten?” The answer was, “This is Saheki no sukune Itachi.” When he returned from the Land of the Dead unexpectedly and was restored to life, he remembered the name very well and sent a report on the Land of the Dead to the local government. The government, however, did not believe it. Therefore, he took an opportunity to go up to the capital by boat and gave a report on how Lord Itachi had labored and suffered in the palace of King Yama. At this news, his family was deeply troubled, saying, “From his death to seven times the seventh day we practiced good and applied the merits to his benevolent spirit. How can we think of him suffering severely, having fallen in an evil state?” Then they made another copy of the Hoke-kyō, revered and dedicated it in order to save his spirit from suffering. This is also an extraordinary event. (Page 274-275)

Miraculous Stories from the Japanese Buddhist Tradition (Nihon ryōiki)


WONS

The Single Path to Enlightenment

In the Lotus Sūtra proper, … the Buddha revealed the single path to Enlightenment, having synthesized three kinds of teaching (kaisan ken’itsu). He declared in the theoretical (shakumon) section of the Lotus Sūtra: “Only Buddhas wholly perceive the reality of all phenomena; truth will be revealed after preaching provisional teachings for more than forty years;” and “He will discard provisional teachings and will concentrate only on the supreme way.” The Buddha of Many Treasures then declared that those words of the Buddha in the eight (from the second to ninth) chapters in the theoretical section (shakumon) of the Lotus Sūtra were all true. What then should have been left unrevealed? Nevertheless, the eternal life of the Buddha was not revealed; instead it is said, “At first, He sat at the place of enlightenment, gazed on the tree, and walked around it meditating.” This is the greatest wonder of all.

Thus it is stated in the fifteenth “Appearance of Bodhisattvas from Underground” chapter of the Lotus Sūtra that Bodhisattva Maitreya wondered why the Buddha claimed to have taught the great bodhisattvas, who had never been seen before in the last forty years or so, and caused them to aspire for enlightenment. So, he asked: “When You, the Buddha, were the crown prince, You left the palace of the Śākya clan, sat in meditation under the bodhi tree not far from the city of Gayā and obtained the perfect enlightenment. It has only been some forty years since then. How could You, World Honored One, have achieved so much in a short period of time?”

It was at this point that Lord Śākyamuni Buddha decided to preach “The Life Span of the Buddha” chapter in order to dispel such doubts. Referring to what has been said in the pre-Lotus sūtras and in the theoretical section of the Lotus Sūtra, He said, “Gods, men and asura demons in all the worlds think that I, Śākyamuni Buddha, left the palace of Śākya clan, sat under the bodhi tree not far from the city of Gayā, and attained perfect enlightenment.” Then He answered the question squarely by declaring, “To tell the truth, however, it has been innumerable and incalculable kalpa since I attained Buddhahood.”

Kaimoku-shō, Open Your Eyes to the Lotus Teaching, Writings of Nichiren Shōnin, Doctrine 2, Page 47

Daily Dharma

Daily Dharma – June 29, 2019

Thereupon Universal-Sage Bodhisattva said to the Buddha:
“World-Honored One! If anyone keeps this sūtra in the defiled world in the later five hundred years after [your extinction], I will protect him so that he may be free from any trouble, that he may be peaceful, and that no one may take advantage [of his weak points].”

Universal-Sage Bodhisattva (Fugen, Samantabhadra) makes this vow to the Buddha in Chapter Twenty-Eight of the Lotus Sutra. In this world of conflict, it can seem like very few people are practicing the Buddha Dharma with us. Nichiren compared those beings alive in this world of conflict to the amount of soil in the whole earth, while those who keep and practice the Lotus Sūtra are like the dirt under a fingernail. The vow of Universal-Sage reminds us that innumerable beings support our practice and that in turn, we support them with our practice.

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

LS32

Day 8

Day 8 concludes Chapter 4, Understanding by Faith, and closes the second volume of the Sutra of the Lotus Flower of the Wonderful Dharma.

Day 8 Text with annotationsPlay MP3

Having last month considered the expedient the rich man thought of to persuade his son to come to him, we consider the expedient the rich man used to get close to son and encourage him.

Seeing him, the father had compassion towards him, and wondered [why he was so base and mean]. Some days later he saw his son in the distance from the window. The son was weak, thin, worn-out, and defiled with dirt and dust. The father took off his necklace, his garment of thin and soft cloth, and other ornaments. He put on tattered and dirty clothing, smeared himself with dust, and carried a dirt-utensil in his right hand. He looked fearful. He [came to the workers and] said, ‘Work hard! Do not be lazy!’

“With this expedient the father came to his son. He said to him, ‘Man! Stay here and work! Do not go anywhere else! I will pay you more. Do not hesitate to take trays, rice, flour, salt and vinegar as much as you need! You can have an old servant if you want to. Make yourself at home! I feel like your father. Do not worry any more! I am old, and you are young. When you work, you do not deceive [the other workers]. You are not lazy. You do not get angry [with the other workers], or reproach them. You are not like the other workers who do these evil things. From now on I will treat you as my son.’

“The rich man gave him a name and called him son. The poor son was glad to be treated kindly, but still thought that he was a humble employee. Therefore, the rich man had him clear dirt for twenty years. After that the father and son trusted each other. Now the son felt no hesitation in entering the house of his father, but still lodged in his old place.

Continuing with tales of the Hoke-kyō (Lotus Sūtra) from Miraculous Stories from the Japanese Buddhist Tradition (Nihon ryōiki), we consider On Being Penalized for Abusing an Official’s Authority and Ruling Unrighteously.

Nihon

On Being Penalized for Abusing an Official’s Authority and Ruling Unrighteously

On Being Penalized for Abusing an Official’s
Authority and Ruling Unrighteously
In the reign of Emperor Shirakabe, a man by the name of Hi no kimi of Matsura district, Hizen province in Tsukushi, died suddenly and reached the land of Yama. When the king checked, it turned out that his death was premature, and he was sent back home.

On his way back he saw a hell which looked like a boiling kettle in the ocean. In it something black like a stump that was sinking and rising as the water boiled called to him, saying, “Wait! I have something to tell you.” It sank as the water boiled, and then it came again to the surface, saying, “Wait! I have something to tell you.”

After this had happened three times, the object spoke a fourth time, saying “I am Mononobe no Komaro from Harihara district in Tōtōmi province. During my life I worked as an official for many years in charge of transporting hulled rice and took other people’s property unrighteously. Because of this sin, I have been suffering here. I pray that you will copy the Hoke-kyō for me so that I may be excused from my sin.”

When Hi no kimi came back from the Land of the Dead, he wrote a precise report of what he had seen and heard and sent it to the local government. Having received this report, the local government in turn forwarded it to the central government. As the central government did not take it seriously, the grand secretary did not bother to report it to the emperor, ignoring it for twenty years.

When Sugano no asomi Mamichi of the Junior Fourth Rank, Upper Grade, was appointed head secretary, he noticed the report, and presented it to Emperor Yamabe. Having heard this, the emperor inquired of Assistant Executive Sekyō, saying, “Are we, living beings in this world, released from suffering after twenty years in hell?” Sekyō answered, “Twenty years on earth is only the beginning of the suffering in hell, because one hundred years in this world corresponds to one day and night in hell. This is why he is not yet released.”

Upon hearing this, the emperor made a sign of repentance and sent his messenger to Tōtōmi province to investigate Komaro’s case. Having asked about Komaro’s deeds, he discovered that the report was true. The emperor grieved over this, believing it, and summoned four scripture copiers to copy the Hoke-kyō for Komaro on the seventh of the third month in the beginning of the fifteenth year of the Enryaku era. He organized a devotees’ association to support this work, inviting the prince regent, ministers, and officials in number equal to the 69,384 characters of the scripture. Also, the emperor held an elaborate service at a private temple in the capital of Nara, to recite that scripture with the Most Venerable Zenshu as lecturer and Assistant Executive Sekyō as reciter, giving merits to Komaro to save his spirit from suffering.

Ah! How deplorable he was who, without knowing the law of karmic causation, ruled unrighteously like a fox who borrows a tiger’s skin and its power and who was eventually punished for his inordinately mean heart! The law of causation never fails to work. (Page 271-273)

Miraculous Stories from the Japanese Buddhist Tradition (Nihon ryōiki)