Monthly Archives: December 2019

LS32

Day 28

Day 28 covers all of Chapter 24, Wonderful-Voice Bodhisattva, and concludes the Seventh Volume of the Sutra of the Lotus Flower of the Wonderful Dharma.

Day 28 Text with annotationsPlay MP3

Having last month considered the great supernatural powers and the power of wisdom obtained by Wonderful-Voice Bodhisattva-mahāsattva, we learn Wonderful-Voice Bodhisattva’s samadhi and the benefits of this chapter.

Thereupon Flower-Virtue Bodhisattva said to the Buddha:

“World-Honored One! This Wonderful-Voice Bodhisattva planted deeply the roots of good. World-Honored One! What is the name of the samadhi by which he can transform himself into various living beings and appear in various places to save all living beings?”

The Buddha said to Flower-Virtue Bodhisattva:

“Good man! This is called the ‘samadhi by which one can transform oneself into any other living being.’ Wonderful-Voice Bodhisattva entered into this samadhi and benefited innumerable living beings as previously stated.”

When the Buddha expounded this chapter of Wonderful-Voice Bodhisattva, the eighty-four thousand people, who had come accompanying Wonderful-Voice Bodhisattva, obtained the ability to practice the samadhi by which they could transform themselves into other living beings. Innumerable Bodhisattvas of this Sahā-World also obtained the ability to practice this samadhi. They also obtained dharanis.

See Bodhisattva Followers of the Provisional Teachings

LS32, d28b, 2buddhas

Bodhisattva Followers of the Provisional Teachings

For Nichiren, these two bodhisattvas, Gadgadasvara [Wonderful-Voice Bodhisattva] and Avalokiteśvara [World-Voice-Perceiver Bodhisattva], fell into the category of bodhisattvas who were followers of the provisional teachings and the trace teaching of the Lotus Sūtra and who had been active in the True and Semblance Dharma ages, but whose time had now passed. Neither figures prominently in his writings.

Two Buddhas, p239
Kaleidoscope

Appropriate Means To Be a Bodhisattva

Quote

What, then, does it mean to be a bodhisattva? Basically, in the Lotus Sutra it means using appropriate means to help others. And that, finally, for the Lotus Sutra, is what Buddhism itself is. It is an enormous variety of means developed to help people live more fulfilling lives, which can be understood as lives lived in the light of their interdependence. This is what many of its stories are about: someone – a father-figure/buddha, or friend/buddha, or guide/buddha – helping someone else gain more responsibility for their own lives.

Even if you search in all directions,
There are no other vehicles,
Except the appropriate means preached by the Buddha.

Thus, the notion of appropriate means is at once both a description of what Buddhism is, or what Buddhist practice primarily is, and a prescription for what our lives should become. The Lotus Sutra, accordingly, is a prescription of a medicine or religious method for us — and, therefore, at once both extremely imaginative and extremely practical.

It is in this sense that appropriate means is an ethical teaching, a teaching about how we should behave in order to contribute to the good. It is prescriptive not in the sense of a precept or commandment, but in the sense of urging us, for the sake both of our own salvation and that of others, to be intelligent, imaginative, even clever, in finding ways to be helpful.
A Buddhist Kaleidoscope; Gene Reeves, The Lotus Sutra as Radically World-affirming, Page 194

WONS

Kumārajīva’s Tongue

Tripitaka Master Kumārajīva used to say from his own pulpit:

“All the scriptures of Buddhism in Chinese do not represent the true meaning of the original Sanskrit. Hoping to reveal this, I have made a great vow: “I have made my body impure by getting married, but as far as my tongue is concerned, I will keep it pure and refrain from speaking falsely on Buddhism.” To prove it, cremate my body after my death. If my tongue burns together with my body, you should consider my translations of scripture as false and discard them all.”

Therefore, everybody, from the emperor down to the populace, wished to live long enough to see the death of Tripiṭaka Master Kumārajīva. Later, when he died and was cremated, his impure corpse all became ashes, but his tongue alone remained unburnt on the blue lotus that appeared in the fire. Radiating rays of five colors, it shone so brightly, that the night looked as bright as the day, and even the sun in the day paled in comparison. As a result, estimation of the sūtras translated by all other masters began to decline while those translated by Kumārajīva, especially the Lotus Sūtra, began to spread quickly in China.

Senji-shō, Selecting the Right time: A Tract by Nichiren, the Buddha’s Disciple, Writings of Nichiren Shōnin, Doctrine 1, Page 211

Daily Dharma

Daily Dharma – Dec. 1, 2019

Although he was abused like this for many years, he did not get angry, He always said to them, ‘You will become Buddhas.’

The Buddha tells this story of Never-Despising Bodhisattva in Chapter Twenty of the Lotus Sūtra. This Bodhisattva did not read or recite sutras. His practice was simply to tell all those whom he encountered, “I respect you deeply. I do not despise you.” Despite his pure intentions, the deluded minds of those who heard him caused them to be angry with him, beat him, and chase him away. While he did not stand fast and endure their abuse, he did not lose his respect for them. This is an example for us who aspire to practice the Wonderful Dharma to show us how we can learn to treat all beings.

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