The Four Great Vows and the Four Great Bodhisattvas

[T]he four groups, also through the divine power of the Buddha, saw the bodhisattvas, who filled the space of innumerable domains. Among this host of bodhisattvas there were four leading teachers: Eminent Conduct (Jōgyō), Boundless Conduct (Muhengyō), Pure Conduct (Jōgyō), and Steadfast Conduct (Anryūgyō).

As explained in the discussion of the vow (gan) in chapter 9, the general vow (sōgan) that should be made by all who practice the Buddha-way consists of the following four great vows of the bodhisattva (shi gu-seigan), each of which is identified with one of the four great bodhisattvas mentioned above :

  1. Shūjō muhen seigan-do. However innumerable living beings are, I vow to save them. (Steadfast Conduct)
  2. Bonnō mushū seigan-dan. However inexhaustible the passions are, I vow to extinguish them. (Pure Conduct)
  3. Hōmon mujin seigan-gaku. However limitless the Buddha’s teachings are, I vow to study them. (Boundless Conduct)
  4. Butsudō mujō seigan-jō. However infinite the Buddha-truth is, I vow to attain it. (Eminent Conduct)

These four great fundamental vows are thus represented by the above four bodhisattvas. Conversely, the four bodhisattvas can be said to be the symbols of the fundamental vows of all Buddhists.

Buddhism for Today, p179-180

Embracing the Daimoku with the ‘Same Mind’ as Nichiren

The claim that those who chant the daimoku are Śākyamuni Buddha’s disciples from the remotest past might initially seem at odds with Nichiren’s idea that people in the Final Dharma age have never before received the seed of buddhahood. The apparent contradiction resolves, however, when we recall that for Nichiren and other Buddhist thinkers of the time, the term “remotest past” (kuon) signified not merely an immensely long time ago in linear, historical terms, but also carried the meaning of timelessness, and thus, of the Buddha’s constant presence. The practice and propagation of the Lotus Sūtra in the mappō era is the juncture where the linear time of ordinary experience and the timeless realm of the Buddha intersect. In embracing the daimoku with the “same mind” as Nichiren, one immediately becomes a disciple of the ever-present primordial Śākyamuni Buddha and is encompassed in his enlightened realm.

Two Buddhas, p177

Abandoning Mistaken Practices

Buddhist sources say that in Shakyamuni’s day there were sixty-two “mistaken philosophies” in India. That precise number is, of course, the contribution of later Buddhist scholars, but Shakyamuni himself denounced several widely held theories contemporary with his own philosophy. In his sermons, he made it clear that to lead people to Buddhism it is first necessary to show them the fallacies of other religions and philosophies and motivate them to abandon the mistaken practices encouraged by such systems.
Basic Buddhist Concepts

Offering a Stem of Flower or Pinch of Incense to Lotus Sūtra

Regarding the practicer of the Lotus Sūtra, it is preached in the “Universal Sage Bodhisattva” chapter of the Lotus Sūtra, fascicle 8, “His wishes will all be fulfilled and he will be rewarded happily in this life” or “He will certainly be rewarded with a good fortune before his very eyes.” Grand Master T’ien-T’ai states in his Words and Phrases of the Lotus Sūtra, “Words uttered by the son of Heaven do not contain a lie” and “The Buddha does not tell a lie.” Thus he who is reputed to be a wise ruler does not lie even if his life is at stake. How much more so with Śākyamuni Buddha! In a previous life when Śākyamuni Buddha was practicing Buddhism as King Universal Brightness, He was captured by King Kalmāshapāda and destined to be killed. However, he was allowed to return home to finish the incomplete practice of charity (fuse). Upon finishing it, King Universal Brightness surrendered to his captor to keep the precept of not telling a lie. When Śākyamuni Buddha was King Kālika in a previous life, He is said to have declared, “Those who only speak a few words of truth will fall into hell for not observing the precept against telling a lie.”

How much more so with the Lotus Sūtra, in which Śākyamuni Buddha Himself declared that He certainly was to expound the True Dharma! Moreover, the Buddha of Many Treasures proved it to be true and it was confirmed in a gorgeous assembly where various Buddhas from all the worlds in the universe gathered together as if the sun and the moon and the galaxy sat side by side. Therefore, if there is a lie in the Lotus Sūtra, we cannot believe anything in the world. Those who offer a stem of flower or a pinch of incense to the Lotus Sūtra, as precious as this, are as meritorious as those who offered donations to “ten thousand billion” Buddhas in the past.

Nanjō-dono Gohenji, Reply to Lord Nanjō, Writings of Nichiren Shōnin, Volume 7, Followers II, Page 15-16

Daily Dharma – March 4, 2020

Star-King-Flower! This sūtra saves all living beings. This sūtra saves them from all sufferings, and gives them great benefits. All living beings will be able to fulfill their wishes by this sūtra just as a man who reaches a pond of fresh water when he is thirsty, just as a man who gets fire when he suffers from cold.

The Buddha gives this description of the merits of the Lotus Sūtra to Star-King-Flower Bodhisattva in Chapter Twenty-Three of the Lotus Sūtra. The comparison of our bodily desires to our desire for enlightenment shows the kind of joy we can expect when we realize what this teaching can accomplish. Anyone whose thirst is quenched is sure to become thirsty again, now matter how pleasant it is to drink. The Buddha Dharma fulfills a thirst of which we may not even be aware. We are certain that things in this world of conflict will bring us joy. When we realize they can only bring us pleasure, and know the difference between joy and pleasure, we become aware of our true wishes and what this sūtra does for us.

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Day 19

Day 19 concludes Chapter 14, Peaceful Practices, and begins Chapter 15, The Appearance of Bodhisattvas from Underground.


Having last month considered the question poised by the Bodhisattva-mahāsattvas, more than eight times the number of the sands of the River Ganges, who had come from the other worlds, we witness the arrival of the Bodhisattvas from underground.

When he had said this, the ground of the Sahā-World, which was composed of one thousand million Sumeru-worlds, quaked and cracked, and many thousands of billions of Bodhisattva-mahāsattvas sprang up from underground simultaneously. Their bodies were golden-colored, and adorned with the thirty-two marks and with innumerable rays of light. They had lived in the sky below this Sahā-World. They came up here because they heard these words of Śākyamuni Buddha. Each of them was the leader of a great multitude. The Bodhisattvas included those who were each accompanied by attendants as many as sixty thousand times the number of the sands of the River Ganges. Needless to say, [they included those who were each accompanied by less attendants, for instance,] fifty thousand times, forty thousand times, thirty thousand times, twenty thousand times or ten thousand times the number of the sands of the River Ganges, or by attendants just as many of the sands of the River Ganges, or by attendants as many as a half, or a quarter of the number of the sands of the River Ganges, or by attendants as many as the sands of the River Ganges divided by a thousand billion nayuta, a billion, ten million, a million, ten thousand, a thousand, a hundred, ten, five, four, three or two attendants, or only by one attendant. [The Bodhisattvas] who preferred a solitary life came alone. The total number of the Bodhisattvas was innumerable, limitless, beyond calculation, inexplicable by any parable or simile.

Those Bodhisattvas who appeared from underground, came to Many-Treasures Tathāgata and Śākyamuni Buddha both of whom were in the wonderful stūpa of the seven treasures hanging in the sky. They [joined their hands together] towards the two World-Honored Ones, and worshipped their feet with their heads. Then they [descended onto the ground and] came to the Buddhas sitting on the lion-like seats under the jeweled trees, bowed to them, walked around them from left to right three times, joined their hands together respectfully, and praised them by the various ways by which Bodhisattvas should praise Buddhas. Then they [returned to the sky,] stood to one side, and looked up at the two World-Honored ones with joy. A period of fifty small kalpas elapsed from the Bodhisattva-mahāsattvas’ springing up from underground till the finishing of the praising of the Buddhas by the various ways by which Bodhisattvas should praise Buddhas. All this while Śākyamuni Buddha sat in silence. The four kinds of devotees also kept silence for the fifty small kalpas. By his supernatural powers, however, the Buddha caused the great multitude to think that they kept silence for only half a day. Also by the supernatural powers of the Buddha, the four kinds of devotees were able to see that the skies of many hundreds of thousands of billions of worlds were filled with those Bodhisattvas.

See A Teaching That Sprang Up From The Earth

A Teaching That Sprang Up From The Earth

Buddhism differs distinctively from other religions. Though all have fine teachings, there is no clear evidence of another case in which the founder of a religion attained his own supreme enlightenment and established his own religion. Some religions proclaim that their founders were sent by God. Others declare that God gave a revelation to the founder or that God descended from heaven to this world.

Unlike these religions, the teaching of Buddhism is the truth that Lord Sakyamuni, who was born as a human being like all of us and experienced human suffering and worry, aspired to enlightenment, practiced ascetic disciplines, and attained enlightenment after six years of spiritual effort. The process through which he attained his enlightenment can be clearly seen. Therefore, we can feel confident that we are sure to reach supreme enlightenment eventually if only we follow the Buddha’s teachings and traverse the same path. It is also sure that because this teaching is one that sprang up out of the earth (actual life), we who actually live in this world can follow it. Chapter 15 makes this point emphatically.

Buddhism for Today, p177-178

The Bodhisattvas Who Emerged from the Earth

Nichiren maintained that those who shared his practice and commitment were also to be counted among the bodhisattvas who emerged from the earth: “If you are of the same mind as me, then are you not a bodhisattva of the earth? And if you are a bodhisattva of the earth, then without doubt you have been a disciple of Śākyamuni Buddha since the remotest past. … There should be no discrimination as to men or women among those who spread the five characters Myōhō-renge-kyō in the Final Dharma age, for unless they were bodhisattvas of the earth, they could not chant the daimoku. At first, I alone chanted Namu Myōhō-renge-kyō, but then gradually two, three, and a hundred began to chant and transmit it. This will happen in the future as well. Isn’t this what it means to ’emerge from the earth’?”

Two Buddhas, p176-177

The Bodhisattva August Moon

[B]odhisattvas refer to such practicers of Buddhism as Mañjuśrī and Maitreya. These great bodhisattvas are incomparably superior to such Buddhist sages called Pratyekabuddha. A Buddha is a wonderfully enlightened one who completely eliminated all the 42 stages of spiritual darkness, and he is like the harvest moon on the night of the 15th day of the eighth month. Compared to a Buddha, a bodhisattva is the one who eliminated the 41 stages of spiritual darkness reaching a rank nearly equal to the Buddha. One might say a bodhisattva is the moon on the 14th night of the eighth month.

Hōren-shō, Letter to Hōren, Writings of Nichiren Shōnin, Volume 6, Followers I, Page 47

Gods or Deities Never Protect Those Who Are Short Tempered

Whenever you get angry, it is clearly written on your face. Please remember that at no time do gods or deities protect those who are short tempered. It is true that you are destined to become a Buddha, but isn’t it regrettable for you to get hurt, pleasing your enemy and causing us grief?

Sushun Tennō Gosho, The ‘Emperor Sushun’ Letter, Writings of Nichiren Shōnin, Faith and Practice, Volume 4, Page 120