Of the Four Higher Worlds – voice hearers, privately awakened ones, bodhisattvas, and buddhas – voice hearers is the world as viewed from the perspective of the Four Noble Truths: suffering, the cause of suffering, freedom from suffering, and the way to eliminate suffering. Those who live in this state of mind look to the Buddha for insight and guidance, and strive to free themselves from the Six Lower Worlds.
Lotus SeedsMonthly Archives: November 2019
Collectively Crying Out Namu Myōhō Renge Kyō
QUESTION: Your disciples lack even a basic understanding and yet they collectively cry out Namu Myōhō Renge Kyō. What stage is this equal to?
ANSWER: These people are not surpassed by those at the highest stage of the four flavors and three teachings; also they are stronger than those who practice the perfect teachings prior to the Lotus Sūtra; moreover, they excel beyond the patriarchs of the Shingon and other schools including Śubhākarasiṃha, Chihyen, Tz’ŭ-ên, Chi-tsang, Tao-hsüan, Bodhidharma, Shan-tao and others by a hundred, thousand, ten thousand, hundred thousand-fold! Therefore, I entreat all those who live in this country: please do not show disrespect to my disciples.
If you look into their past you will find that they are great bodhisattvas who have made offerings for 80 trillion kalpa (aeons) to Buddhas as numerous as the sands of the Hiraṇyavati or Ganges Rivers. Or if we speak of the future, they will surpass those who have made offerings for 80 years and will be able to achieve the merits of the 50th person (in succession who hears the Wonderful Dharma, who is spoken of in chapter 18 of the Lotus Sūtra). They are like a baby emperor bound up in swaddling clothes, or a great dragon that has just been born. Do not disdain them! Do not despise them!
Shishin Gohon-shō, The Four Depths of Faith and Five Stages of Practice, Writings of Nichiren Shōnin, Faith and Practice, Volume 4, Page 107
Daily Dharma – Nov. 7, 2019
Medicine-King Bodhisattva and Medicine-Superior Bodhisattva have already obtained those great merits. Because they planted the roots of virtue under many hundreds of thousands of billions of Buddhas [in their previous existence], they obtained those inconceivable merits. All gods and men in the world should bow to those who know the names of these two Bodhisattvas.
The Buddha gives this explanation to the great multitude gathered to hear him in Chapter Twenty-Seven of the Lotus Sūtra. These two Bodhisattvas had been brothers under a great King in their previous life. They used wonders to lead their parents to a Buddha who was teaching the Wonderful Dharma in that world. By knowing the story of these two Bodhisattvas, we also know about the Wonderful Dharma and the Ever-Present Buddha who leads us through all our lives to his enlightenment. When we realize that through our practice we are worthy of respect from all beings, including ourselves, there is no need to demand respect from anyone. We are secure in our assurance of enlightenment.
The Daily Dharma is produced by the Lexington Nichiren Buddhist Community. To subscribe to the daily emails, visit zenzaizenzai.com
Day 3
Day 3 covers the first half of Chapter 2, Expedients.
Having last month heard Śāriputra’s plea three times, we consider what happens when the Buddha begins to teach.
Thereupon the World-Honored One said to him:
“You asked me three times with enthusiasm. How can I leave the Dharma unexpounded? Listen to me attentively, and think over my words! Now I will expound [the Dharma] to you.”
When he had said this, five thousand people among the bhikṣus, bhikṣunīs, upāsakās, and upāsikās of this congregation rose from their seats, bowed to the Buddha, and retired because they were so sinful and arrogant that they thought that they had already obtained what they had not yet, and that they had already understood what they had not yet. Because of these faults, they did not stay. The World-Honored One kept silence and did not check them.
Thereupon the World-Honored One said to Śāriputra:
“Now this congregation has been cleared of twigs and leaves, only sincere people being left. Śāriputra! Those arrogant people may go. Now listen to me attentively! I will expound [the Dharma] to you.”
Śāriputra said, “Certainly, World-Honored One! I wish to hear you.”
Opening Buddhahood as a Reality for All Beings
Two Buddhas, p65-66In its original context, the message of the “one buddha vehicle” first articulated in Chapter Two was directed from the marginal Mahāyāna movement toward the Buddhist mainstream, that is, the majority of monks and nuns who counted themselves as śrāvakas and aspired to the arhat’s nirvāṇa. But a thousand years later, in medieval Japan, the Mahāyāna was the mainstream; that is, Japanese Buddhism was entirely Mahāyāna, and there were no śrāvakas, except those mentioned in texts. Largely through the influence of the Lotus-based Tendai Buddhist tradition, the idea that buddhahood is at least in theory open to all had gained wide currency. In Nichiren’s reading, the thrust of the Lotus Sūtra’s one-vehicle argument therefore shifts in significant ways. No longer is it about opening buddhahood to specific categories of persons previously excluded, that is, to people of the two lesser vehicles. Rather, it is about opening buddhahood as a reality for all beings, in contrast to what Nichiren deemed purely abstract or notional assurances of buddhahood in other, provisional Mahāyāna teachings. Recall that, in the Tendai tradition in which Nichiren had been trained, the Lotus Sūtra is “true” and all others are “provisional,” meaning that the Lotus Sūtra is complete and all-encompassing, while other teachings are accommodated to their listeners’ understanding and therefore partial and incomplete. For Nichiren, now in the age of the Final Dharma, only the Lotus Sūtra embodied the principles by which Buddhist practitioners could truly realize enlightenment.
Transforming Society
Nichiren, Risshō Kōsei-kai, Sōka Gakkai, Reiyūkai, and others inspired by the Lotus Sutra have been important examples of how Lotus Sutra Buddhists are to be actively engaged in transforming society. Lotus Sutra Buddhists are not passive hearers of a finalized message, but their capacities and needs and goals help to shape the flowering of the Dharma here and now. Thus, they are both receivers and cocreators of the message and participate in the process of manifesting the Dharma. Accordingly, part of the task of our lives is to help creatively to realize the Dharma in each situation, and to bring it into being in our lives and in the lives of those who are in need and for a world in need.
A Buddhist Kaleidoscope; David W. Chappell, Organic Truth: Personal Reflections on the Lotus Sutra Page 65-66
Sūtra Magnet
[I]f you practice the Lotus Sūtra, even a word or phrase of it, you can be sure to attain Buddhahood because it is the teaching that has a close relation with the people of Japan. It is like a magnet pulling pieces of metal, or water seeping everywhere. Japan has no relation with other teachings such the nembutsu which is like a fake magnet that can’t pull any metal, or a substance that looks like water but is not and does not seep everywhere.
Nanjō Hyōe Shichirō-dono Gosho, A Letter to Lord Nanjō Hyōe Shichirō, Writings of Nichiren Shōnin, Doctrine 3, Pages 143.
Daily Dharma – Nov. 6, 2019
I do not deceive
Those who believe me and rely on me.
I am not greedy or jealous
Because I have eliminated all evils.
Therefore, in the worlds of the ten quarters,
I am fearless.
The Buddha proclaims these verses to his disciple Śāriputra in Chapter Two of the Lotus Sutra. In this world of conflict, people believe that they must constantly strive to show that they are better than everyone else. Acquiring more material goods or a higher rank or position supposedly proves superiority. And if there is an encounter with someone who is better, that person must be brought down. What people do not realize that the source of greed and jealousy is fear. Like the Buddha, we too can eliminate our fears when we are satisfied with what we have and regard superior beings as a source of benefit.
The Daily Dharma is produced by the Lexington Nichiren Buddhist Community. To subscribe to the daily emails, visit zenzaizenzai.com
Day 2
Chapter 1, Introductory (Conclusion).
Having last month considered what Wonderful-Light Bodhisattva did after the final nirvana of Sun-Moon-Light Buddha, we learn who the “lazy” monk was and conclude Chapter 1, Introductory.
There was a lazy man
Among the disciples
Of Wonderful-Light, the Teacher of the Dharma.
[The lazy man] was attached to fame and gain.Always seeking fame and gain,
He often visited noble families.
He did not understand what he had recited,
Gave it up, and forgot it.
Because of this,
He was called Fame-Seeking.But he [later] did many good karmas,
And became able to see innumerable Buddhas.
He made offerings to them,
Followed them, practiced the Great Way,
And performed the six paramitas.
Now he sees the Lion-Like One of the Sakyas.He will become a Buddha
In his future life.
He will be called Maitreya.
He will save innumerable living beings.The lazy man who lived after the extinction
Of [Sun-Moon-] Light Buddha was
No one but you.
Wonderful-Light, the Teacher of the Dharma, was I.The ray of light of [Sun-Moon-] Light Buddha,
That is, the good omen, was the same as what I see now.
Judging from this, the present Buddha also will expound
The Sūtra of the Lotus Flower of the Wonderful Dharma.The good omen I see now is like that of old.
This is an expedient employed by the Buddhas.
The present Buddha is also emitting a ray of light
In order to reveal the truth of the reality [of all things].[Mañjuśrī said to the multitude:]
All of you, know this, join your hands together,
And wait with one mind!
The Buddha will send the rain of the Dharma
And satisfy those who seek enlightenment.The Buddha will remove
Any doubt of those who seek
The teaching of the Three Vehicles.
No question will be left unresolved.
The Inversion of Authority
Two Buddhas, p44-45The bodhisattva Varaprabha [Wonderful-Light Bodhisattva], the teacher of Dipamkara [Burning-Light Buddha], was Mañjuśrī in a previous life, meaning that a bodhisattva in the audience of the present buddha was, at least at one time, superior to this previous buddha. And the bodhisattva who is honored by the mainstream tradition as the future buddha, Maitreya, turns out to have been his least worthy disciple. The inversion of authority with which the Lotus Sūtra proclaims its priority here not only makes the best of bodhisattvas the least of bodhisattvas, but also explains what happened in the distant past to make it so. In Mañjuśrī’s response we also encounter the first instance of a device that occurs in many Mahāyāna sūtras but which is employed most famously, and most head-spinningly*, in the Lotus: self-reference. In this, the first chapter of the Lotus Sūtra, Mañjuśrī explains that in the distant past, the buddha Candrasūryapradipa [Sun-Moon-Light] taught the Lotus Sūtra.
*This is one of many, many reasons why this book gets only a Two-Star rating from me.