Two Buddhas, p126-127Commentators have often interpreted the jewel in the garment as the “buddha nature.” The Lotus Sūtra does not contain the precise term “buddha nature” (Ch. foxing; J. busshō), perhaps because it had not yet come into use in Indian Buddhism. However, the Lotus clearly recognizes the buddha potential in all beings, and Chinese exegetes argued that the concept is there, if not the term itself. The expression “buddha nature” was well known in medieval Japan, and Nichiren uses it occasionally, but he appears to have preferred “buddha realm” (among the ten realms) or “seed of buddhahood” (J. busshu). His use of the latter term is quite different from the Hossō idea of untainted seeds in the storehouse consciousness. … “Buddha nature” and “seed of buddhahood” are similar in that both indicate the potential for buddhahood, supreme enlightenment, but where “nature” is constant and unchanging, “seeds” can lie dormant, even rot, or germinate and grow in response to conditions; as the Lotus Sūtra says, “The buddha-seeds germinate through dependent origination.” Thus, Nichiren may have used the term “seed of buddhahood” because he wished to portray buddhahood, not as an abstract potential, but as manifested through specific causes and conditions, that is, by embracing a specific form of practice. In that regard, he sometimes borrows Zhiyi’s concept of the “buddha nature as three causes”: (1) the innate potential for buddhahood; (2) the wisdom that illuminates it; and (3) the practice that manifests that wisdom. For Nichiren, that practice was chanting Namu Myōhō-renge-kyō, the act that manifests the jewel of the buddha realm hidden within the nine realms of ordinary people. Sometimes he refers to the daimoku itself as the “seed of buddhahood.”
Monthly Archives: December 2019
Chih-i and Nāgārjuna
[W]hat Chih-i and Nāgārjuna share in common should not be underestimated. Both unqualifiedly affirm that there is no distinction between the realm of ultimate truth and the realm of dependent origination. As Nāgārjuna states in the Mūlamadhyamakakārikās, “There is nothing whatever which differentiates the existence-in-flux (samsara) from nirvāṇa; / And there is nothing whatever which differentiates nirvāṇa from existence-in-flux.” Chih-i also maintains that the “Middle Path” or ultimate truth is not a transcendent reality but simply the realm of dependent origination, realized as empty and dependently existent. In The Great Calming and Contemplation he states this unequivocally: “The dharma-nature and totality of dharmas are not two, not separate. … The dharmas of the ordinary are themselves the dharma of ultimate reality.”
For Chih-i as for Nāgārjuna there is no reality or truth to be realized beyond the play of the ephemeral, conditioned elements of the realm of dependent origination; the ultimate, middle truth is nothing other than the realization of the true aspect of the phenomenal realm, that is, its empty, conditioned existence. This identity of ultimate truth and phenomena is for Chih-i the central and unequivocal teaching of the Lotus Sutra, the message embodied in the image of the Buddha pervading all realms of existence.
A Buddhist Kaleidoscope; Susan Mattis, Chih-i and the Subtle Dharma of the Lotus Sutra: Emptiness or Buddha-nature?, Page 252-253
Upholders of Lotus Sūtra Are Envied by the King of Devils
Deer are killed by men because the meat is tasty, and tortoises lose their lives because of their good fat. Attractive women are envied by many others. Those who govern a country must worry about defending it against foreign forces, while property owners are susceptible to the dangers of life. Likewise, upholders of the Lotus Sūtra with the assurance of achieving Buddhahood are envied by the king of devils in the Sixth Heaven, who is the lord of the triple world of the unenlightened. It is preached in scriptures that this king of devils will haunt kings, parents, wives and children and envy the practicer of the Lotus Sūtra in the same way as how people fall victims to epidemics without seeing the disease or how old sake can make people dead drunk without them realizing it. This is exactly what is happening in the world today. I have done nothing wrong, but simply because I chant Namu Myōhō Renge Kyō, I have been hated by people as well as the rulers of Japan for more than twenty years, and chased out of residences and exiled twice until, finally, I retreated to this mountain.
Shuju Onfurumai Gosho, Reminiscences: from Tatsunokuchi to Minobu, Writings of Nichiren Shōnin, Biography and Disciples, Volume 5, Pages 45
Daily Dharma – Dec. 20, 2019
Annotations on the Great Concentration and Insight states: “The passage cited about the earlier teachings correctly distinguishes between the provisional and the true. This is because it explains the truer the teaching the lower the stage (of those enlightened by it); whereas the more provisional the teaching the higher the state must be (of those enlightened by it).”
Nichiren wrote this passage in his Treatise on The Four Depths of Faith and Five Stages of Practice (Shishin Gohon-Shō). The passage from T’ien-t’ai he quotes reminds us that we do not need to rely on our own talents or intelligence to become enlightened. The highest teaching of the Lotus Sūtra is meant for all beings, wise or simple, clever or stupid. The Buddha’s provisional teachings were intended to match the minds of those who heard them. But the Wonderful Dharma is the Buddha’s own mind, harmonizing with the seed of enlightenment within us all.
The Daily Dharma is produced by the Lexington Nichiren Buddhist Community. To subscribe to the daily emails, visit zenzaizenzai.com
Day 12
Day 12 concludes Chapter 7, The Parable of the Magic City, and completes the Third Volume of the Sutra of the Lotus Flower of the Wonderful Dharma.
Having last month considered Śākyamuni’s explanation of the Parable of the Magic City, we repeat in gāthās the story of
Great-Universal-Wisdom-Excellence Buddha.
Thereupon the World-Honored One, wishing to repeat what he had said, sang in gāthās;
Great-Universal-Wisdom-Excellence Buddha sat
At the place of enlightenment for ten [small] kalpas.
He could not attain the enlightenment of the Buddha
Because the Dharma of the Buddhas had not yet come into his mind.The gods, dragon-kings,
And asuras rained down
Heavenly flowers,
And offered them to him.The gods beat heavenly drums,
And made many kinds of music.
Withered flowers were swept away by fragrant winds;
And fresh and beautiful flowers were rained down.After the ten small kalpas elapsed,
He attained the enlightenment of the Buddha.
The gods and men of the world
Felt like dancing with joy.Surrounded by their followers,
Thousands of billions in number,
The sixteen sons of that Buddha
Came to him.Worshipping the feet of the Buddha with their heads,
They begged him to turn the wheel of the Dharma, saying:
“Lion-like Saint! Send the rain of the Dharma
On us and on all others also!”It is difficult to meet a World-Honored One.
He appears only once in a very long time.
When he appears, he causes all the worlds to quake
In order to awaken all living beings.The palaces of the Brahmans
Of five hundred billion worlds in the east
Were illumined
More brightly than ever.Traveling to find [the place from where the light had come],
The Brahmans of those worlds came to that Buddha.
They strewed flowers and offered them to him.
They also offered their palaces.They praised him with gāthās,
And begged him to turn the wheel of the Dharma.
The Buddha sat in silence although he was begged
Because he knew that the time was not yet ripe for that.The Brahmans came also from the three other quarters,
From the four intermediate quarters, zenith, and nadir.
They strewed flowers, offered their palaces,
And begged the Buddha to turn the wheel of the Dharma, saying:“It is difficult to meet you.
Open the gate of the teachings as sweet as nectar
Out of your great compassion towards us,
And turn the wheel of the unsurpassed Dharma!”Assenting to their appeal,
The World-Honored One of Immeasurable Wisdom
Expounded the various teachings, that is,
The four truths and the twelve causes, saying:
“All the causes, from ignorance to aging-and-death,
Rise one after another.
You should know
All these illusions.”When he expounded these teachings,
Sixty quadrillions of living beings
Eliminated sufferings,
And became Arhats.At his second expounding of these teachings also,
Tens of millions of living beings, that is,
As many living beings as there are sands in the River Ganges,
Became Arhats because they gave up wrong views.Those who attained the enlightenment [of Arhats] afterwards
Were also innumerable.
No one would be able to count them
Even if he tried to do so for a billion kalpas.
An Ideal This-Worldly Buddha Land
Two Buddhas, p103-104[Given Nichiren’s travails, did he understand] the sūtra’s promise of “peace in the present world” only as expressing an inner mental composure? By no means. Its promise was also that of an actual peace to be realized in the outer world through the spread of the Lotus Sūtra. Another letter he wrote from Sado reads: “Question: Those who practice the Lotus Sūtra as it teaches should be ‘at peace in this world.’ Why then are you beset by the three powerful enemies [who oppose the Lotus Sūtra’s practitioners]?” In this instance, Nichiren responds that teachers of the Lotus Sūtra in the past, such as Daosheng, Zhiyi, Saichō — even Śākyamuni Buddha himself — surely practiced in accordance with the Lotus Sūtra and yet they endured great trials to communicate its message; meeting hardships does not in and of itself imply flaws in one’s practice. Rather, troubles are to be expected in an evil age when the dharma has been obscured and everyone from the ruler down to the common people has turned against the Lotus Sūtra. That is why it is all the more important to persevere. He concludes: “When all people of the realm, including the various Buddhist schools, convert to the one vehicle and chant Namu Myōhō-renge-kyō as one, the wind will not thrash the branches nor the rain fall hard enough to erode the soil. The world will be as it was in the ages [of the ancient sage kings] Fuxi and Shennong. In this life, inauspicious disasters will be banished, and people will obtain the art of longevity. You will behold a time when the principle becomes manifest that persons and dharmas neither age nor die.”
This is one of the few passages in Nichiren’s extant writings that sets forth his vision of an ideal, this-worldly buddha land to be established in the future. It seems to entail a state of harmony with nature, just government, long life, and freedom from catastrophe. Included in the ichinen sanzen principle is the idea that sentient beings and their insentient environments are nondual; human actions, whether wise and compassionate or selfish and deluded, shape the world that they inhabit. Thus, for Nichiren, the awakening of the Lotus Sūtra was not simply to be experienced subjectively by individual practitioners, but would also find expression as concord, creativity, and fulfillment in the outer world. This conviction gives his teaching a distinctively social dimension. On this basis, he took “peace in this world” to mean not only the unwavering inner wisdom and security established by faith, but also an ideal to be concretely and visibly realized in everyday life.
The Doctrine of Universal Buddhahood
In Chih-i’s view there can be no doubt that the ultimate truth revealed in the Lotus Sutra is the inherent Buddha-nature. Chih-i felt that the Lotus Sutra surpasses all others in its articulation, demonstration, and explanation of the promise that all sentient beings can become Buddhas. The doctrine of universal Buddhahood is proclaimed in the second chapter, where Śākyamuni explains that instead of three “vehicles,” or ultimate goals for three different kinds of beings, the śrāvakas, pratyekabuddhas, and bodhisattvas, there is only one goal, Buddhahood, for all. The sutra also demonstrates the universality of Buddhahood by depicting the dragon king’s daughter (possessing the disadvantages of being both female and a reptile) instantaneously attaining enlightenment, and by predicting the future enlightenment of the Buddha’s cousin, Devadatta, who had committed the most heinous evils — attempting to kill the Buddha and to disrupt the Buddhist Saṃgha. Chih-i believed that only a doctrine of universal Buddha-nature could justify the sutra’s unqualified promise that all sentient beings can become Buddhas. The sutra’s visionary representation of the identity of the Buddha Śākyamuni with all reality may therefore be taken as a revelation of the Buddha-nature inherent in all things.
A Buddhist Kaleidoscope; Susan Mattis, Chih-i and the Subtle Dharma of the Lotus Sutra: Emptiness or Buddha-nature?, Page 246-247
Imagine the Wonders that Occur with the Daimoku
QUESTION: You cannot burn anything by simply uttering the word, “fire,” repeatedly. Indeed, you have to use your hand in order to burn something. You cannot quench your thirst by just saying “water.” You need to use your mouth for drinking water. The same is true with the daimoku. I doubt it is possible to escape from the evil realms through the mere chanting of the daimoku, Namu Myōhō Renge Kyō. Isn’t it necessary to understand what the daimoku means and what it entails?
ANSWER: When the sinew of a lion is used as a string for a koto, the sound is so powerful that all the strings made from other threads will snap. And when hearing of the sourness of a pickled plum, saliva fills the mouth without eating it. Such mysterious things happen even in worldly affairs. How then can it be denied that something wonderful happens with the Lotus Sūtra? Even a parrot is said to have been reborn in the realm of heavenly beings just by repeating the name of the Four Noble Truths of the Hinayāna teaching. Moreover, a man who dedicated himself to the Three Treasures – the Buddha, Dharma, and Saṃgha – was able to escape the attack of a monster fish in the ocean. Imagine the wonders that would occur with the daimoku of the Lotus Sūtra, the essence of all the 80,000 teachings, and the eye of all the Buddhas. Do you still hold the belief that you cannot escape the four kinds of evil realms by just chanting the daimoku of the Lotus Sūtra?
Hokke Daimoku Shō, Treatise on the Daimoku of the Lotus Sūtra, Writings of Nichiren Shōnin, Faith and Practice, Volume 4, Page 36
Daily Dharma – Dec. 19, 2019
Needless to say, anyone who not only keeps this sūtra but also gives alms, observes the precepts, practices patience, makes endeavors, concentrates his mind, and seeks wisdom, will be able to obtain the most excellent and innumerable merits. His merits will be as limitless as the sky is in the east, west, south, north, the four intermediate quarters, the zenith, and the nadir. These innumerable merits of his will help him obtain the knowledge of the equality and differences of all things.
The Buddha makes this declaration to Maitreya Bodhisattva in Chapter Seventeen of the Lotus Sūtra. We often think of merits as bonus points we get for good deeds. Good karma we create to offset the bad karma that came from our less skillful actions. Another way of looking at merits is as a measure of clarity. The more merit we gain, the more we see things for what they are. When we offer our merits for the benefit of all beings, we resolve to use this clarity to enhance the lives of others.
The Daily Dharma is produced by the Lexington Nichiren Buddhist Community. To subscribe to the daily emails, visit zenzaizenzai.com
Day 11
Day 11 continues Chapter 7, The Parable of the Magic City
Having last month concluded today’s portion of Chapter 7, The Parable of the Magic City, we return to the top and witness what happened when Great-Universal-Wisdom-Excellence Buddha attained Anuttara-samyak-saṃbodhi.
The Buddha said to the bhikṣus:
“When Great-Universal-Wisdom-Excellence Buddha attained Anuttara-samyak-saṃbodhi, five hundred billion Buddha-worlds in each of the ten quarters quaked in the six ways, and all those worlds, including those intercepted from the brilliant rays of light of the sun and the moon by the neighboring worlds, were illumined [by great rays of light], and the living beings of those worlds were able to see each other for the first time. They said to each other, ‘How did you appear so suddenly?’ The palaces of the gods of those worlds, including the palace of Brahmans, also quaked in the six ways. The great rays of light which illumined all those worlds were brighter than the rays of light emitted by those gods.“The palaces of the Brahman-heavenly[-kings] of the five hundred billion worlds in the east were illumined twice as brightly as ever. The Brahman-heavenly-kings [of those worlds] each thought, ‘My palace has never been illumined so brightly before. Why is that?’ They visited each other and discussed the reason. There was a great Brahman-heavenly-king called All-Saving among them. He said to the other Brahmans in gāthās:
Why are our palaces illumined
More brightly than ever?
Let us find [the place]
[From where this light has come].
Did a god of great virtue or a Buddha
Appear somewhere in the universe?
This great light illumines
The worlds of the ten quarters.“Thereupon the Brahman-heavenly-kings of the five hundred billion worlds went to the west, carrying flower-plates filled with heavenly flowers, in order to find [the place from where the light had come]. Their palaces also moved as they went. They [reached the Well-Composed World and] saw that GreatUniversal-Wisdom-Excellence Tathāgata was sitting on the lionlike seat under the Bodhi-tree at the place of enlightenment, surrounded respectfully by gods, dragon-kings, gandharvas, kiṃnaras, mahoragas, men and nonhuman beings. They also saw that the sixteen princes were begging the Buddha to turn the wheel of the Dharma. Thereupon the Brahman-heavenlykings worshipped the Buddha with their heads, walked around him a hundred thousand times, and strewed heavenly flowers to him. The strewn flowers were heaped up to the height of Mt. Sumeru. The Brahman-heavenly-kings offered flowers also to the ten-yojana-tall Bodhi-tree of the Buddha. Having offered flowers, they offered their palaces to the Buddha, saying, ‘We offer these palaces to you. Receive them and benefit us out of your compassion towards us!’ In the presence of the Buddha, they simultaneously praised him in gāthās with all their hearts:
You, the World-Honored One, are exceptional.
It is difficult to meet you.
You have innumerable merits.
You are saving all living beings.As the great teacher of gods and men,
You are benefiting all living beings
Of the worlds of the ten quarters
Out of your compassion towards them.We have come here from five hundred billion worlds.
We gave up the pleasure
Of deep dhyāna-concentration
Because we wished to make offerings to you.
Our palaces are beautifully adorned
Because we accumulated merits in our previous existence.
We offer [these palaces] to you.
Receive them out of your compassion towards us!“Thereupon the Brahman-heavenly-kings, having praised the Buddha with these gāthās, said, ‘World-Honored One! Turn the wheel of the Dharma and save all living beings! Open the Way to Nirvāṇa!’ They simultaneously said in a gāthā with all their hearts:
Hero of the World,
Most Honorable Biped!
Expound the Dharma!
Save the suffering beings
By the power of your great compassion!“Thereupon Great-Universal-Wisdom-Excellence Tathāgata gave his tacit consent to their appeal