Monthly Archives: November 2019

LS32

Day 16

Day 16 concludes Chapter 11, Beholding the Stūpa of Treasures, and completes the Fourth Volume of the Sūtra of the Lotus Flower of the Wonderful Dharma.

Day 16 Text with annotationsPlay MP3

Having last month repeated the story of Many-Treasures Tathāgata in gāthās, we hear the Buddha say to the great multitude: Who will protect and keep this sūtra, and read and recite it after my extinction?

(The Buddha said to the great multitude.)
Who will protect
And keep this sūtra,
And read and recite it
After my extinction?
Make a vow before me to do this!

Many-Treasures Buddha,
Who had passed away a long time ago,
Made a loud voice like the roar of a lion
According to his great vow.

Many-Treasures Tathāgata and I
And the Buddhas of my replicas,
Who have assembled here,
Wish to know who will do [all this].

My sons!
Who will protect the Dharma?
Make a great vow
To preserve the Dharma forever!

Anyone who protects this sūtra
Should be considered
To have already made offerings
To Many-Treasures and to me.

Many-Treasures Buddha vowed to go
About the worlds of the ten quarters,
Riding in the stūpa of treasures,
In order to hear this sūtra [directly from the expounder].

Anyone [who protects this sūtra] also
Should be considered to have already made offerings
To the Buddhas of my replicas, who have come here
And adorned the worlds with their light.

Anyone who expounds this sūtra
Will be able to see me,
To see Many-Treasures Tathāgata,
And to see the Buddhas of my replicas.

See Opportunities to Further Religious Development

and The Integrative Lotus Sutra

LS32, d17b, 2buddhas

Opportunities to Further Religious Development

Nichiren wrote that the gohonzon represents the Lotus assembly “as accurately as the print matches the woodblock.” On it, all ten realms, even the lowest ones, are represented. We find the belligerent asura king; the dragon king, representing the animal realm; the demon Hāriti (J. Kishimojin); even the Buddha’s malicious cousin Devadatta, who tried to kill him on multiple occasions; and Devadatta’s patron, King Ajātaśatru, who murdered his father and supported Devadatta in his evil schemes. As Nichiren wrote, “Illuminated by the five characters of the daimoku, all ten realms assume their inherent enlightened aspect.” We might interpret this as reflecting Nichiren’s message that, through the chanting of the daimoku, even life’s harsh, ugly, and painful parts — the most adverse circumstances, or the darkest character flaws — can be transformed and yield something of value, becoming opportunities to further religious development.

Two Buddhas, p146
Kaleidoscope

The Integrative Lotus Sutra

Quote

The idea in the story of the jeweled Stupa that Śākyamuni Buddha creates a unified world out of many worlds is especially significant. The Lotus Sutra is an integrative sutra. Throughout, it emphasizes unity, oneness, integration, some kind of coming together. As the truth is ultimately one, i.e., without internal contradiction, so too the teachings of the Buddha who discovered the truth must be one. That is, finally there can be only one Buddha-way. But in the Lotus Sutra, the one does not destroy or denigrate the many. Though integrated, though the many become as one, they remain many. The cosmos only exists by virtue of the fact that it has worlds. Similarly, in the Lotus Sutra, the teaching, the Buddha Dharma, only exists by virtue of the many teachings. Neither right views nor right living can be a matter of replacing the many by the one.

That the one who creates a single world out of many worlds is Śākyamuni Buddha is related to his being, as said earlier, both one and distributed throughout the cosmos. In other words, Śākyamuni Buddha can unify Buddhism and the cosmos, and therefore the life of the true hearer precisely because he himself is both one and many.
A Buddhist Kaleidoscope; Gene Reeves, The Lotus Sutra as Radically World-affirming, Page 182

d17b, WONS

Deadly Poison Turning Into Nectar

Besides the Three Pronouncements made in the “Appearance of the Stupa of Treasures” (11th) chapter of the Lotus Sūtra, the Buddha issued two more proclamations in the following twelfth chapter, “Devadatta,” of the same sūtra with the intention of having it spread after His death. Devadatta had been regarded as a man of the icchantika who did not have any possibility of attaining Buddhahood. He, nevertheless, was assured by the Buddha of becoming Tennō (Heavenly King) Buddha in the future. The forty-fascicled Nirvana Sūtra has stated the existence of the Buddha-nature in all, which is realized in this “Devadatta” chapter. Numerous offenders such as Zenshōbiku (Sunakṣatra) and King Ajātaśatru committed the Five Rebellious Sins or slandered the True Dharma. Since the worst of them, Devadatta, was assured of becoming a Buddha in the future, all others would naturally be assured just as people follow the leader and twigs and leaves join a tree. That is to say the example of Devadatta assured of being the future Heavenly King Buddha has made it unmistakable that all offenders of the Five Rebellious Sins or Seven Rebellious Sins, slanderers of the True Dharma, and men of icchantika – all of them will attain Buddhahood someday. This is somewhat like deadly poison turning into “nectar,” the best of all flavors.

Kaimoku-shō, Open Your Eyes to the Lotus Teaching, Writings of Nichiren Shōnin, Doctrine 2, Page 90

Daily Dharma

Daily Dharma – Nov. 19, 2019

Thereupon Pure-Flower-Star-King-Wisdom Buddha said to Wonderful-Voice Bodhisattva: “Do not despise that world! Do not consider it to be inferior [to our world]! Good Man! The Sahā-World is not even. It is full of mud, stones, mountains and impurities. The Buddha [of that world] is short in stature. So are the Bodhisattvas [of that world]. You are forty-two thousand yojanas tall. I am six million and eight hundred thousand yojanas tall. You are the most handsome. You have thousands of millions of marks of merits, and your light is wonderful. Do not despise that world when you go there! Do not consider that the Buddha and Bodhisattvas of that world are inferior [to us]! Do not consider that that world is inferior [to ours]!”

In Chapter Twenty-Four of the Lotus Sūtra, the Buddha sends a light from his forehead to the world in which Wonderful-Voice Bodhisattva lives. When that Bodhisattva saw this light from Śākyamuni Buddha, he asked permission from the Buddha he was attending to visit our world of conflict. The instruction he receives from his Buddha reminds us that no matter what advantages we have gained from our practice of the Buddha Dharma, these do not make us any better or worse than those we are determined to benefit.

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

LS32

Day 15

Day 15 concludes Chapter 10, The Teacher of the Dharma, and opens Chapter 11, Beholding the Stūpa of Treasures.

Day 15 Text with annotationsPlay MP3

Having last month greeted the arrival of the stupa of the seven treasures, we consider the reaction of the four kinds of devotees.

Thereupon the four kinds of devotees [in the congregation], having seen the great stupa of treasures hanging in the sky, and having heard the voice from within the stupa, had delight in the Dharma, but wondered why these unprecedented things had happened. They rose from their seats, joined their hands together [towards the stupa] respectfully, retired, and stood to one side.

Thereupon a Bodhisattva-mahāsattvas called Great-Eloquence, having noticed that the gods, men and asuras of the world had doubts, said to the Buddha, “World-Honored One! Why did this stupa of treasures spring up from underground? Why was that voice heard from within [the stupa]?”

The Buddha said to him:

“The perfect body of a Tathāgata is in this stūpa of treasures. A long time ago there was a world called Treasure-Purity at the distance of many thousands of billions of asaṃkhyas of worlds to the east [of this world]. In that world lived a Buddha called Many-Treasures. When he was yet practicing the Way of Bodhisattvas, he made a great vow: ‘If anyone expounds a sūtra called the Lotus Flower of the Wonderful Dharma in any of the worlds of the ten quarters after I become a Buddha and pass away, I will cause my stūpa-mausoleum to spring up before him so that I may be able to prove the truthfulness of the sūtra and say ‘excellent’ in praise of him because I wish to hear that sūtra [directly from him].”

“He attained enlightenment[, and became a Buddha]. When he was about to pass away, he said to the bhikṣus in the presence of the great multitude of gods and men, ‘If you wish to make offerings to my perfect body after my extinction, erect a great stūpa!’

“If anyone expounds the Sūtra of the Lotus Flower of the Wonderful Dharma in any of the worlds of the ten quarters, that Buddha, by his supernatural powers and by the power of his vow, will cause the stūpa of treasures enshrining his perfect body to spring up before the expounder of the sūtra. Then he will praise [the expounder of the sūtra], saying, ‘Excellent, excellent!’

“Great-Eloquence! Now Many-Treasures Tathāgata caused his stūpa to spring up from underground in order to hear the Sūtra of the Lotus Flower of the Wonderful Dharma [directly from me]. Now he praised me, saying, ‘Excellent, excellent!’ ”

See Entering the Assembly of the Lotus Mandala

LS32, d16b, 2buddhas

Entering the Assembly of the Lotus Mandala

Nichiren also drew on the imagery of the jeweled stūpa and the timeless Lotus assembly for the calligraphic mandala that he devised as an object of worship for his followers. It is known as the great mandala (daimandara) or “revered object of worship” (gohonzon). Where many Buddhist mandalas represent pictorially the realms of buddhas and bodhisattvas, Nichiren’s great mandala is written entirely in Chinese characters, along with two Sanskrit glyphs. “Namu Myōhō-renge-kyō” is inscribed vertically down the center of the mandala, flanked by the characters for the names of the two buddhas, Śākyamuni and Prabhūtaratna, just as they sat together in the jeweled stūpa. They in turn are surrounded by the names of representatives of the innumerable bodhisattvas, gods, humans, demons, and others present at the Lotus assembly. As an ensemble, the mandala represents the realm of the primordial buddha, or the “three thousand realms in a single-thought moment in actuality.” By chanting the title with faith in the Lotus Sūtra, Nichiren said, one is able to enter the assembly of the Lotus mandala and participate in the enlightened reality that it depicts.

Two Buddhas, p145-146
Kaleidoscope

The Importance of This World and of Life in This World

Quote

Śākyamuni Buddha is, of course, the buddha of the sahā world. Thus, by elevating the status of Śākyamuni Buddha to cosmic superiority over all others, the importance of this world is also stressed. Here we can see one of the main themes of the Lotus Sutra, evident in virtually all of its teachings — the importance of this world and of life in this world. In this story it is to the sahā world that the Stupa of Many Treasures Buddha comes and it is the sahā world that is purified to receive all of the buddhas from other lands. The worlds of the other buddhas are described as wonderful in every way, but the buddhas leave those marvelous worlds in order to come to the sahā world and pay respects to its buddha.

In a sense, we may think that, since it is in it that the cosmic significance of Śākyamuni Buddha is revealed, praise for the sutra is always also praise for Śākyamuni Buddha. At the same time, because this is his world, praise for Śākyamuni Buddha is always also praise for this world.

The jeweled Stupa in which the two buddhas sit is a kind of tower and the character has that meaning in Chinese. The image of such a tower, surrounded by the buddhas and bodhisattvas from all over the universe, is clearly an axis mundi image. Such images always, I suppose, give importance and power to the place where the axis is located, in this case to this world and its buddha.
A Buddhist Kaleidoscope; Gene Reeves, The Lotus Sutra as Radically World-affirming, Page 181-182

d15b, d16b, Lecture on Lotus Sutra

The True Time Lords

In the arrival of the Stupa of Treasures, we are introduced to a Buddha, Many Treasures, who is old. But he is not just old, he is ancient. He is even older than ancient. You could say that this Buddha is beyond time altogether. He is not just a Buddha from the past, but he represents the primordial Buddha, the Buddha from the metaphysical beginning of things. And here we have our Buddha, Shakyamuni Buddha taking a seat along side of this Buddha. In that moment the past, present, and, as we shall see in chapter 16, the future are all contained right there.

In fact in that moment all dimensions of eternity coalesce, this is the synthesis of time and eternity. We are beyond time; we are in every moment of every possible time. We are the true Time Lords made famous in the Dr. Who story. When we sit before such a great object as we do in our daily practice we are fusing our lives with the past, the present, and the future and our lives expand beyond the moment we currently perceive ourselves to be in. When we take this kind of view, then how can the troubles and tribulations of this moment not seem insignificant while at the same time our own lives achieve the greatest possible significance.

Lecture on the Lotus Sutra

WONS

Good Medicine

I am deeply worried to hear that your illness has worsened. As we have a sword to kill an enemy and medicine to cure an illness, your illness can be cured through good medicine.

In ancient times King Ajātaśatru of India killed his father, and in doing so became an enemy of the Buddha. As a result, he suffered from rashes all over his body. However, he put faith in the Buddha and upheld the Lotus Sūtra and because of this his rash disappeared and his life span was extended by 40 years. The Lotus Sūtra preaches that it is the good medicine for the people in the Jambudvīpa (whole world). Everyone in the world suffers from illness, and the Lotus Sūtra is for them. Regarding your own illness, the three (Śākyamuni Buddha, the Lotus Sūtra, and Nichiren) will join hands to help you. How then can it not be cured? However, I cannot help if you don’t place your trust in me. Namu Myōhō Renge Kyō! Namu Myōhō Renge Kyō!

Takahashi Nyūdō-dono Gohenji, A Response to Lay Priest Lord Takahashi, Writings of Nichiren Shōnin, Volume 7, Followers II, Pages 80-81