Nichiren states that any of the teachings of the Buddha’s fifty years of teaching are a great vehicle of salvation compared to the non-Buddhist teachings. This is because the other teachings either do not teach about karma and rebirth in the six worlds or they do not show how to thoroughly extinguish the greed, hatred, delusion and other defilements that perpetuate the cycle of rebirth. At the same time, there are differences in degrees of profundity even among the Buddha’s teachings between Mahāyāna and Hinayāna, exoteric and esoteric, accommodating and confrontational rhetoric, and between provisional and final statements of truth. Nichiren asserts that the highest truth can only be found in the Lotus Sūtra, and he cites the testimony of Śākyamuni Buddha, Many Treasures Buddha, and the buddhas of the ten direction in the Lotus Sūtra itself as confirmation of this.
Open Your Eyes, p139Monthly Archives: April 2020
Preaching the True Intent of the Buddha
QUESTION: When we look at our own faces reflected in the mirror or faces of other people, we can see that our six sense-organs: eyes, ears, nose, tongue, body, and mind exist. However, we cannot see the existence of the ten realms in our own mind and others. How can we believe in it?
ANSWER: Certainly, it is not easy to believe in this existence. It is said in the tenth chapter, “The Teacher of the Dharma,” of the Lotus Sūtra that the sūtra is most difficult to put faith in and most difficult to comprehend. The eleventh chapter, “Appearance of the Stupa of Treasures,” preaches the “six difficult and nine easy acts,” maintaining that keeping faith in the Lotus Sūtra after the death of Śākyamuni Buddha is harder than trying to grasp Mt. Sumeru and hurling it over countless Buddha lands.
According to Grand Master T’ien-tai, the Lotus Sūtra is hard to have faith in and hard to understand because what is preached in both the essential and theoretical sections of the sūtra are altogether different from what is preached in those sūtras expounded before the Lotus Sūtra. Grand Master Chang-an states: “The doctrine of ‘mutual possession of ten realms’ (jikkai gogu) is the very reason why the Buddha appeared in the world. How can we ordinary people be expected to put faith in the Lotus Sūtra and comprehend it easily?” Grand Master Dengyō maintains: “This Lotus Sūtra is most difficult to believe in and comprehend, because the sūtra preaches the true intent of the Buddha.”
Kanjin Honzon-shō, A Treatise Revealing the Spiritual Contemplation and the Most Verable One, Writings of Nichiren Shōnin, Doctrine 2, Page 133-134
Daily Dharma – April 28, 2020
Let us go even to the end of one thousand billion worlds,
And find the place from where this light has come.
A Buddha may have appeared somewhere in the universe
In order to save the suffering beings.
These verses are sung by the Brahma King Great Compassion in Chapter Seven of the Lotus Sūtra. He invites his fellow Brahma Kings, creators of entire worlds, to leave the luxury of their palaces to find a Buddha who is leading all beings to enlightenment. They value the Buddha’s words more than anything that they have created for themselves, and know how rare it is to encounter an enlightened being. These kings give us an example of how we can learn to treasure the Buddha Dharma.
The Daily Dharma is produced by the Lexington Nichiren Buddhist Community. To subscribe to the daily emails, visit zenzaizenzai.com
Day 6
Day 6 continues Chapter 3, A Parable
Having last month considered the expedient used to convince the children to escape the burning house, we consider the rich man’s decision to give large carts of treasures to his children.
Seeing them come out
Of the burning house
To the safe crossroad,
He sat on the lion-like seat,
And said to others with joy:
“I am happy.
These children are difficult to bring up.
They are young and ignorant.
They entered the dangerous house.
In that house were
Many poisonous vermin
And many dangerous mountain spirits.
Raging flames of big fires rose
From the four sides of the house
At the same time.
But my children were
Engrossed in playing.
Now I saved them
From the dangers.
Therefore, I am happy.”The children saw their father
Sitting in peace.
They came to him,
And said:
“Give us
The three kinds of jeweled carts
That you promised us!
You said:
“Come out, and I will give you
The three kinds of carts as you like.”
Now is the time for that.
Give them to us now!”He was a very rich man.
He had many storehouses.
He made many large carts
Adorned with treasures,
Such as gold, silver,
Lapis lazuli, shell and agate.[The carts] were beautifully adorned.
Railings were put around them.
Bells were hanging on the four sides
With ropes of gold.[The carts] were roofed
With nets of pearls.
Garlands of golden flowers
Were hanging on all sides.Other ornaments of fabrics
Of divers colors
Encircled the bodies of the carts.
Bedding was made of soft cloth.
[The bedding] was covered
With the most wonderful woolen fabrics.
They were bright, white, pure and clean,
Worth hundreds of thousands of millions.Large white bullocks,
Fat, stout, powerful,
And beautiful in their build,
Were yoked to the jeweled carts.
The carts were also guarded
By many attendants.[The rich man] gave to each of his children
One of these wonderful carts.
The children
Danced with joy.They drove these jeweled carts
In all directions.
They were happy and delighted.
Nothing could stop their joy.
The Unity of All Buddhism is one perspective on this:
Great Master Chih-i extolled the teaching of the One Vehicle as the unifying principle of Buddhism, presenting it as the doctrine which “opens the Three to reveal the One (Vehicle)” or “encompasses the three with the One.” Since the Three Vehicles symbolize all the sects of Buddhism united through this principle, the One Vehicle could also mean the unity of all the religions of the world, non-Buddhist as well as Buddhist.
Introduction to the Lotus Sutra
Five Periods of Buddha’s 50 Years of Teaching
The Tiantai school divided the Buddha’s fifty years of teaching into five periods of varying degrees of profundity. The first period occurred during the first few weeks that Śākyamuni Buddha sat beneath the Bodhi Tree. During that time, he taught the Flower Garland Sūtra, although Nichiren points out later in Kaimoku-shō that it would be more accurate to say that it was the bodhisattvas who were present that actually did the teaching. Starting with the discourse on the Four Noble Truths taught at the Deer Park to the five ascetics, Śākyamuni Buddha spent twelve years teaching the pre-Mahāyāna (aka Hinayāna) teachings found in the Āgama sūtras. After that he spent eight years teaching the preliminary Mahāyāna teachings of the Vaipulya or Expanded sūtras. He taught the Perfection of Wisdom sūtras during the twenty-two years that followed that. For the last eight years of his life, the Buddha taught the Lotus Sūtra. On the very last day and night of his life the Buddha taught the Mahāyāna Mahāparinirvāṇa Sūtra. It should be noted that even Nichiren points out in other writings that these time spans are uncertain. In any case, modern textual scholarship would dismiss all of this as arbitrary, especially since the Mahāyāna sūtras are now seen as compositions arising after the Buddha’s lifetime. Nevertheless, Mahāyāna Buddhism accepts these sūtras as embodying the word of the Buddha in the sense that they convey the full depths of the Buddha’s insight and compassion. The Tiantai system of classifying the sūtras into five periods of teaching can still be seen as a useful way of approaching the sūtras in terms of how they build upon one another and lead those who put them into practice into deeper and subtler insights.
Open Your Eyes, p138-139Complete Agreement with the Lotus Sūtra
[I]n the Lotus Sūtra we find many things mysterious and difficult to believe. Yet when we think of doubting the Lotus Sūtra, the Buddha of Many Treasures testified it to be true, Lord Preacher Śākyamuni Buddha Himself declared it to be His direct and true words, and the Buddhas in manifestation throughout the universe extolled it by extending their wide and long tongues to the Brahma Heaven. This is like a father’s letter of conveyance attached by a mother’s signed deed and approved by a wise king. When they are in complete agreement, how can anyone doubt this?
Matsuno-dono Goshōsoku, Letter to Lord Matsuno, Writings of Nichiren Shōnin, Volume 7, Followers II, Page 66
Daily Dharma – April 27, 2020
Evil people in the future will doubt the One Vehicle
When they hear it from a Buddha.
They will not believe or receive it.
They will violate the Dharma, and fall into the evil regions.
The Buddha declares these verses in Chapter Two of the Lotus Sūtra. Nichiren wrote that while some people think hell is below the earth, it is really contained in our own bodies and minds. If we cannot believe or accept the Dharma the Buddha teaches us, then we are not seeing the world for what it is. We are creating worlds of our own separate from the Buddha’s world. We create worlds of greed, anger and ignorance, in which it is even more difficult to hear the Dharma. But even in these difficult worlds, the Buddha exists and works to benefit us. If we remember to look for him, he will show us the way out.
The Daily Dharma is produced by the Lexington Nichiren Buddhist Community. To subscribe to the daily emails, visit zenzaizenzai.com
Day 5
Day 5 begins Chapter 3, A Parable
Having last month considered the Buddha’s past efforts to lead Śāriputra to unsurpassed enlightenment, we hear the prediction for Śāriputra’s future buddhahood.“Śāriputra! After a countless, inconceivable number of kalpas from now, you will be able to make offerings to many thousands of billions of Buddhas, to keep their right teachings, to practice the Way which Bodhisattvas should practice, and to become a Buddha called Flower-Light, the Tathāgata, the Deserver of Offerings, the Perfectly Enlightened One, the Man of Wisdom and Practice, the Well-Gone, the Knower of the World, the Unsurpassed Man, the Controller of Men, the Teacher of Gods and Men, the Buddha, the World-Honored One. The world of that Buddha will be called Free-From-Taint. That world will be even, pure, adorned, peaceful, and fertile, where gods and men will prosper. The ground of that world will be made of lapis lazuli; the roads will fan out from the center to the eight directions. Those roads will be marked off by ropes of gold, and the trees of the seven treasures on the roadsides will always bear flowers and fruit. Flower-Light Tathāgata will also lead the living beings [of his world] by the teaching of the Three Vehicles.
“Śāriputra! Although the world in which he appears will not be an evil one, that Buddha will expound the teaching of the Three Vehicles according to his original vow. The kalpa in which he appears will be called Great-Treasure-Adornment. Why will it be called Great-Treasure-Adornment? It is because in that world Bodhisattvas will be regarded as great treasures. The number of the Bodhisattvas [in that world] will be countless, inconceivable, beyond any mathematical calculation, beyond inference by any parable or simile. No one will know the number except the Buddha who has the power of wisdom. When those Bodhisattvas wish to go somewhere, jeweled flowers will receive their feet and carry them. Those Bodhisattvas will not have just begun to aspire for enlightenment. A long time before that they will have already planted the roots of virtue, performed the brahma practices under many hundreds of thousands of billions of Buddhas, received the praises of the Buddhas, studied the wisdom of the Buddhas, obtained great supernatural powers, and understood all the teachings of the Buddhas. They will be upright, honest, and resolute in mind. The world of that Buddha will be filled with such Bodhisattvas.
“Śāriputra! The duration of the life of Flower-Light Buddha will be twelve small kalpas excluding the period in which he was a prince and had not yet attained Buddhahood. The duration of the life of the people of his world will be eight small kalpas. At the end of his life of twelve small kalpas, Flower-Light Tathāgata will assure Resolution-Fulfillment Bodhisattva of his future attainment of Anuttara-samyak-saṃbodhi, saying to the bhikṣus, ‘This Resolution-Fulfillment Bodhisattva will become a Buddha immediately after me. He will be called Flower-Foot-Easy-Walking, the Tathāgata, the Arhat, the Samyak-sambuddha. His world will be like mine.’
“Śāriputra! After the extinction of Flower-Light Buddha, his right teachings will be preserved for thirty-two small kalpas. After that the counterfeit of his right teachings will be preserved also for thirty-two small kalpas.”
The significance of this prediction for Nichiren is outlined in Two Buddhas Seated Side by Side:
In the Lotus Sūtra’s narrative, Śāriputra is the first śrāvaka to receive the Buddha’s prediction of his future buddhahood. “When Śāriputra heard this,” Nichiren wrote, “he not only cut off the illusions arising from primal ignorance and reached the stage of the true cause [for liberation] but was acclaimed as the [future] tathāgata Padmaprabha [Lotus Light]. … This was the beginning of the attainment of buddhahood by all beings of the ten realms.”
For Nichiren, … the Lotus Sūtra’s message that persons of the two lesser vehicles could attain buddhahood was not about extending this possibility to a group of previously excluded individuals but, rather, established the mutual inclusion of the ten realms as the ground that, for the first time, opened buddhahood as a real possibility to anyone.
Two Buddhas, p82Zoom Day
Don’t know exactly what prompted this extravagance but I decided to attend three Nichiren Shu services today.
I got up at 6am to do my own personal service so that I would have time to join Rev. Ryusho Jeffus’ Myoshoji service at 7 am. And I was immediately happy I did so because today was the Jukai, Taking of Vows, for two long-time members of Ryusho’s virtual sangha, Davie Byden-Oaks, from London, and Neal Oldham, from North Carolina.
Joining Ryusho in Syracuse, NY, were Myoshoji regulars from Portugal, Czech Republic, France, England and the United States.
Following that I had time for a quick nap before joining Rev. Shoda Kanai of the Las Vegas Kannon Temple for a Shodaigyo service at 10:30am.
This was my first time visiting Las Vegas. I tried to join last week, but I had difficulty getting the password for the Zoom session right. This time everything went as expected and I enjoyed the change of pace with the Shodaigyo service.
The day’s final service was at 12:30pm with the Nichiren Buddhist Sangha of the San Francisco Bay Area.
Rev. Ryuei McCormick and Shami Mark Herrick held the annual Nichiren Shu Founding Day Ceremony, marking the date on April 28, 1253, when Nichiren, from atop Mount Kiyosumi, greeted the rising sun with 10 Daimoku.
As with all services involving Ryuei, guests from as far away as Georgia and Oregon were treated to an excellent discussion of the Vimalakirti Sutra, a part of his ongoing Buddhist Study Program lectures.
The Buddha’s Greatest Desire
The Buddha calls upon us to not seek this enlightenment outside of our lives but to realize that we already are equal to the Buddha the difference being that the Buddha has awakened to this truth and we have not yet done so. The Buddha, in teaching the Lotus Sutra, seeks to remove the imaginary barrier that we think exists between our lives and Buddhahood. The Buddha is telling us that his greatest desire is that we manifest a life equal to that of all Buddhas.
Lecture on the Lotus Sutra