Monthly Archives: December 2019

Kaleidoscope

The Importance of Bodhisattva Practice Today

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While the Lotus Sutra provides plenty of reason to be grateful to the past and thus was perhaps all too compatible with East Asian ancestor veneration, it is more adamant about the importance of bodhisattva practice as our contribution to the future.

The sutra is full of stories in which someone, usually a stand-in for the Buddha, tries to make things better for others in some way — a guide conjures up a rest facility so that his travelers will be able to continue their journey, a father-physician tricks his sons into taking an antidote for poison, another father entices his children out of their burning house by offering them rewards, still another father devises a way to gradually develop a sense of responsibility in his son.

In every case, appropriate action is a matter of being genuinely helpful toward others by somehow enabling them to be more responsible for their own lives and subsequently for the lives of others. Though Buddhist practice in East Asia has been concerned largely with the dead, the bodhisattva-way is primarily about the future and about future possibilities in the present.
A Buddhist Kaleidoscope; Gene Reeves, The Lotus Sutra as Radically World-affirming, Page 195

Basics

To Achieve Personal Happiness

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The way to achieve personal happiness while helping society move in the right direction is to forget oneself and consider the good of the entire social body, always recognizing the rights of one’s fellows and maintaining a lofty, objective general outlook. Although this ideal stance is not easy to adopt or uphold, bearing it constantly in mind and moving steadily forward are of the greatest importance. This is the way of true democracy, a system that finds its optimum expression and its foundation in the law of dependent origination and the limitless interrelation of all beings everywhere.
Basic Buddhist Concepts

WONS

Written Pledges of the Gods

It is stated in a sūtra that Śākyamuni Buddha called such heavenly beings as the King of the Brahma Heaven, Indra, the sun, the moon, the Four Heavenly Kings, and dragons of this Sahā World as well as other worlds together and had them make written pledges in front of Himself, the Buddha of Many Treasures, and various Buddhas from other worlds throughout the universe, stating:

“In the Ages of the True, Semblance, and Latter Dharmas after the passing of Śākyamuni Buddha, evil spirits such as the king of devils in the Sixth Heaven and devils will enter the bodies of the king and his subjects, causing trouble to disciples of the Buddha regardless of whether or not they observe precepts or break them. If those heavenly beings who made written pledges to Buddhas see or hear about the troubled Buddha’s disciples but do nothing to punish the king and his subjects, the King of the Brahma Heaven and Indra will inevitably send a messenger to the Four Heavenly Kings ordering punishment for them. In case the community deities do not punish the king and his subjects who trouble Buddha’s disciples, such deities will be dealt with by the King of the Brahma Heaven, Indra and the Four Heavenly Kings. The same will be true with the King of the Brahma Heaven and Indra. The King of the Brahma Heaven, Indra and the Four Heavenly Kings in other worlds will never fail to punish their counterparts in this world, who do not carry out their promised duty. If they don’t, they will be unable to see Buddhas in the past, present and future lives, lose the ranks of the King of the Brahma Heaven and Indra forever, and fall into the Hell of Incessant Suffering.”

Kangyō Hachiman-shō, Remonstration with Bodhisattva Hachiman, Writings of Nichiren Shōnin, Doctrine 1, Page 261-262

Daily Dharma

Daily Dharma – Dec. 5, 2019

In this profound sūtra
The teachings for the Śrāvakas are criticized.
Those who hear
That this sūtra is the king of all the sūtras,
And think over this sūtra clearly after hearing it,
Know this, will approach the wisdom of the Buddha.

The Buddha sings these verses to Medicine-King Bodhisattva in Chapter Ten of the Lotus Sūtra. He has already declared that the sūtra he is teaching is the closest to his own wisdom, that it is different from anything he has taught before, and that it is the teaching for Bodhisattvas. The expedient teachings he gave to Śrāvakas before this sūtra were limited because they did not show the way to enlightenment for all beings. As we keep this sūtra in our minds, and learn to recognize it in our daily lives, we not only approach our own enlightenment, we lead all beings to enjoy the Buddha’s wisdom.

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

LS32

Day 31

Day 31 covers Chapter 27, King Wonderful-Adornment as the Previous Life of a Bodhisattva.

Day 31 Text with annotationsPlay MP3

Having last month heard Cloud-Thunderpeal-Star-King-Flower-Wisdom Buddha’s prediction for King Wonderful-Adornment, we consider the king’s reaction and the role of the two sons.

“Thereupon the king abdicated from the throne in favor of his younger brother, renounced the world, and with his wife, two sons, and attendants, practiced the Way under that Buddha. After he renounced the world, the king acted according to the Sūtra of the Lotus Flower of the Wonderful Dharma constantly and strenuously for eighty-four thousand years. Then he practiced the samādhi for the adornment of all pure merits. Then he went up to the sky seven times as high as the tala-tree, and said to that Buddha, ‘World-Honored One! These two sons of mine did the work of the Buddha. They converted me from wrong views by displaying wonders. They caused me to dwell peacefully in your teachings. They caused me to see you. These two sons of mine are my teachers. They appeared in my family in order to benefit me. They inspired the roots of good which I had planted in my previous existence.’

“Thereupon Cloud-Thunderpeal-Star-King-Flower-Wisdom Buddha said to King Wonderful-Adornment, ‘So it is, so it is. It is just as you say. The good men or women who plant the roots of good will obtain teachers in their successive lives. The teachers will do the work of the Buddha, show the Way [to them], teach them, benefit them, cause them to rejoice, and cause them to enter into the Way to Anuttara-samyak-saṃbodhi. Great King, know this! A teacher is a great cause [of your enlightenment] because he leads you, and causes you to see a Buddha and aspire for Anuttara-samyak-saṃbodhi. Great King! Do you see these two sons of yours, or not? They made offerings to six trillion and five hundred thousand billion Buddhas, that is, as many Buddhas as there are sands in the River Ganges, in their previous existence. They attended on those Buddhas respectfully. They kept the Sūtra of the Lotus Flower of the Wonderful Dharma under those Buddhas, and caused the people of wrong views to have right views out of their compassion towards them.

See The Importance of Family Relations in Promoting Faith

LS32, d31b, 2buddhas

The Importance of Family Relations in Promoting Faith

Nichiren regarded King Śubhavyūha [King Wonderful-Adornment] as an example of an “evil man” attaining buddhahood through the power of the Lotus Sūtra. He often referenced this chapter in letters to his followers to stress the importance of family relations in promoting faith and to assuage the anxieties they sometimes felt about the postmortem fate of their deceased parents or children. One example occurs in a letter to his follower Jōren-bō, whose father had been a follower of Hōnen’s Pure Land teaching. Jōren-bō was presumably anxious about what karmic retribution his father would incur in his next life. Indeed, Nichiren says, those who support teachers who slander the dharma, such as Hōnen and other Pure Land teachers, must fall into the Avici hell. In this case, however, the father will surely be saved by the son’s devotion. He writes: “A ruler’s mind is broadened by his minister, and parents’ pain is eased by their children. Maudgalyāyana saved his mother from the sufferings of the realm of hungry ghosts, and the sons Vimalagarbha and Vimalanetra persuaded their father to rectify his false views. … The merit that you have acquired by embracing the Lotus Sūtra will become your father’s strength.”

Two Buddhas, p251
Kaleidoscope

In the Lotus Sutra Everything Matters

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Use of the notion of emptiness (śūnya or śūnyāta) is not much in the Lotus Sutra. Of course, all things are empty. But undue emphasis on emptiness can too easily become a kind of nihilism in which nothing matters. In the Lotus Sutra everything matters.

The Buddha works to save all beings. Even poor Bodhisattva Never Disrespectful, who goes around telling everyone that they are to become buddhas, though initially not very successful eventually “converted a multitude of a thousand, ten thousand, millions, enabling them to live in the state of supreme enlightenment.” And he later became the Buddha Śākyamuni!
A Buddhist Kaleidoscope; Gene Reeves, The Lotus Sutra as Radically World-affirming, Page 195

WONS

Call Yourself a Disciple of Nichiren

If you pass away before I, call yourself a disciple of Nichiren, the foremost practicer of the Lotus Sūtra in Japan, in front of the King of the Brahman Heaven, Indra, the Four Great Heavenly Kings, King Yama, and so forth. They will not treat you carelessly.

Nanjō Hyōe Shichirō-dono Gosho, A Letter to Lord Nanjō Hyōe Shichirō, Writings of Nichiren Shōnin, Doctrine 3, Pages 146.

WONS

Two Different Kinds of Hell

Two different kinds of hell exist beneath the earth. The first is a hell of flame; the fire of this hell is like molten iron, which ignites charcoal, burns fields, and consumes all things. To burn sinners in such a fire is simple, exactly like throwing paper or wood chips into a bonfire. Those who commit arson-robbery, who attack their enemies with fire, or women whose hearts burn with jealousy fall into this flaming hell and must suffer the intense heat.

The second kind of hell is a hell of ice. There are eight hells of ice as explained by the Nirvana Sutra: “Eight hells of ice and cold exist. They are the Ahaha Hell, the Atata Hell, the Arara Hell, the Ababa Hell, the Ubara Hell, the Hazuma Hell, the Kumozu Hell, and the Fundari Hell.” The names of the eight hells of ice and cold arise from sinners’ different screams of pain and their different skin colors caused by the cold. The bitter cold of these hells is like the north wind of Lake Suwa in Shinano Province (Nagano Prefecture) or on Mount Tateyama in Etchū Province (Toyama Prefecture). Imagine the intense cold which causes the birds atop Mount Hakusan of Kaga Province (Ishikawa Prefecture) to huddle with their wings folded. Imagine the lonely cold of the widow’s feet. Imagine the desperate cold of the pheasant, forced down and surrounded by snow. Having to endure the cold, the sinners shiver with their chins chattering, and they say, “ahaha, atata, arara.” The cold causes the sinners’ skins to turn red, a condition called “red lotus” or “great red lotus.”

Those who fall into this hell are those who steal clothes, or who warm themselves while their parents or teachers suffer from the cold in this life.

Otā-dono Nyōbō Go-henji, A Response to the Wife of Lord, Nyonin Gosho, Letters Addressed to Female Followers, Page 144-146

Daily Dharma

Daily Dharma – Dec. 4, 2019

Thereupon Cloud-Thunderpeal-Star-King-Flower-Wisdom Buddha said to King Wonderful-Adornment, ‘So it is, so it is. It is just as you say. The good men or women who plant the roots of good will obtain teachers in their successive lives. The teachers will do the work of the Buddha, show the Way [to them], teach them, benefit them, cause them to rejoice, and cause them to enter into the Way to Anuttara-samyak-saṃbodhi (Perfect Enlightenment). Great King, know this! A teacher is a great cause [of your enlightenment] because he leads you, and causes you to see a Buddha and aspire for Anuttara-samyak-saṃbodhi.

These lines are part of a story told by the Buddha in Chapter Twenty-Seven of the Lotus Sūtra. The Buddha uses this story to remind us of how much benefit we get from our teachers. When we see the world with the eyes of the Buddha, and know that he is always thinking of how to lead us, we can find innumerable teachers, and know to show our gratitude to them.

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