Monthly Archives: July 2020

WONS

Great Events and Great Omens

Because it is lamentable to see the possibility of our land and ourselves destroyed, I have determined to point this out even at the cost of my life. If the ruler of the land wishes to maintain peace, he should have begun to wonder and investigate what I have said. Believing in only the words of slanderers, on the contrary, he is persecuting me, Nichiren. The King of the Brahma Heaven, Indra, the sun, the moon, the Four Heavenly Kings, and the terrestrial gods, whose duty it is to protect the Lotus Sūtra, regarded slanderers of the True Dharma as outrageous in the past. However, when nobody pointed out such slanderers, these deities sometimes ignored them just as parents overlook the mischief of their sole child, although at other times they punished him with as little as a warning. Today, however, the ruler not only appoints slanderers of the True Dharma to official positions but also persecutes the man who happened to remonstrate him, not just for one or two days, one or two months, and one or two years, but for many years. Nichiren has been persecuted more severely than Never-Despising Bodhisattva, who was beaten with sticks and pieces of wood, and Monk Virtue Consciousness, who was about to be murdered, upholding the True Dharma in the past. Therefore, the King of the Brahma Heaven, Indra, the sun, the moon, the Four Heavenly Kings, the stars, and the terrestrial gods all are angry with the ruler and warn him often by sending strange phenomena in the sky and natural calamities on earth. Since he does not perceive their warnings and only intensifies the persecution of the man who remonstrates, they order the sagacious ruler of a neighboring land to chastise the ruler of Japan and send demons into his land to deceive the people and cause internal disruption.

Great events, regardless if they are good or bad, are foreshadowed by great omens. We saw the largest comet we have ever seen in 2,230 years or so since the death of the Buddha and experienced the severest earthquake we have ever had in history. They foretell the destruction of Japan, at the same time they are omens of the appearance of the true practicer of the Lotus Sūtra in Japan. There have been many sages endowed with wisdom and talent in China and Japan, but none has ever believed in the Lotus Sūtra as firmly as I, Nichiren, nor has anyone had as many strong enemies in the land as I do. From these facts, you should recognize Nichiren to be the prime practicer of the Lotus Sūtra in the world.

Senji-shō, Selecting the Right time: A Tract by Nichiren, the Buddha’s Disciple, Writings of Nichiren Shōnin, Doctrine 1, Page 236-237

Daily Dharma

Daily Dharma – July 22, 2020

Flower-Virtue! This Wonderful-Voice Bodhisattva protects all living beings in this Sahā-World. He transforms himself into one or another of these various living beings in this Sahā-World and expounds this sūtra to all living beings without reducing his supernatural powers, [his power of] transformation, and his wisdom.

The Buddha gives this explanation to Flower-Virtue Bodhisattva in Chapter Twenty-Four of the Lotus Sūtra. Like many of the Bodhisattvas, Wonderful-Voice takes on the form of countless beings to reach those whom he has vowed to lead to enlightenment. For those who can be reached by a teacher, he becomes a teacher. For those who can be reached by a child, he becomes a child. For those who can be reached by a stranger, he becomes a stranger. Understanding the innumerable forms the Bodhisattvas take on to help us, we can ask: Who in this world of conflict and suffering is not a Bodhisattva? From whom can we not learn how to see things for what they are?

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

LS32

Day 23

Day 23 covers all of Chapter 18, The Merits of a Person Who Rejoices at Hearing This Sutra, and opens Chapter 19, The Merits of the Teacher of the Dharma.

Day 23 Text with annotationsPlay MP3
Having last month repeated in gāthās the merits of the fiftieth person who rejoices at hearing the Lotus sūtra, we consider the benefits of anyone who persuades even a single person to hear the Sūtra of the Lotus Flower and conclude Chapter 18, The Merits of a Person Who Rejoices at Hearing This Sutra.

Anyone who persuades even a single person
To hear the Sūtra of the Lotus Flower
Of the Wonderful Dharma, saying:
“This sūtra is profound and wonderful.
It is difficult to meet it
Even during ten million kalpas,”
And causes him to go and hear it even for a moment,
Will be able to obtain the following merits:

In his future lives, he will have no disease of the mouth.
His teeth will not be few, yellow or black.
His lips will not be thick, shrunk or broken.
There will be nothing loathsome [on his lips].
His tongue will not be dry, black or short.
His nose will be high, long and straight.
His forehead will be broad and even.
His face will be handsome.
All people will wish to see him.
His breath will not be foul.
The fragrance of the utpala-flowers
Will always be emitted from his mouth.

Anyone who visits a monastery to hear
The Sūtra of the Lotus Flower of the Wonderful Dharma
And rejoices at hearing it even for a moment,
Will be able to obtain the following merits:

He will be reborn among gods and men.
He will be able to go up to the palace of heaven,
Riding in a wonderful elephant-cart or horse-cart,
Or in a palanquin of wonderful treasures.

Anyone who persuades others to sit and hear this sūtra
In the place where the Dharma is expounded,
Will be able to obtain the seat of Sakra or of Brahman
Or of a wheel-turning-holy-king by his merits.
Needless to say, boundless will be the merits
Of the person who hears this sūtra with all his heart,
And expounds its meanings,
And acts according to its teachings.

See Invitation to Creative Wisdom

stories, LS32, d6b, d7b, d8b, d21b

Invitation to Creative Wisdom

What is the purpose of all this enchantment and magic? Entertainment? In one sense, yes! It is to bring joy to the world. Stories are for enjoyment. But not only for enjoyment. Not in all of them, but in a great many of the stories in the Lotus Sutra, especially in those that are used to demonstrate practice of skillful means, it is important to recognize that what is being demanded of the reader is not obedience to any formula or code or book, not even to the Lotus Sutra, but imaginative and creative approaches to concrete problems. A father gets his children out of a burning house, another helps his long-lost adult son gain self-respect and confidence through skillful use of psychology, still another father pretends to be dead as a way of shocking his children into taking a good medicine he had prepared for them, and a rich man tries to relieve his friend’s poverty. These stories all involve finding creative solutions to quite ordinary problems.

Creativity requires imagination, the ability to see possibilities where others see only what is. It is, in a sense, an ability to see beyond the facts, to see beyond the way things are, to envision something new. Of course, it is not only imagination that is required to overcome problems. Wisdom, or intelligence, and compassion are also needed. But it is very interesting that the problems encountered by the buddha figures in the parables of the Lotus Sutra are never solved by the book. They do not pull out a sutra to find a solution to the problem confronting them. In every case, something new, something creative, is attempted; something from the creative imagination.

The Stories of the Lotus Sutra, p23
Eyes

The Precept Platform for the Latter Age

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Nichiren Buddhism teaches that the Hinayāna precept platform and the Mahāyāna precept platform are now obsolete: the time has arrived for the precept platform of the Diamond Chalice Precept that subsumes all other precepts. From this point of view, the practice of Namu Myōhō Renge Kyō ensures that morality and ethics are not unthinking, rigid adherence to any specific code of conduct. Rather, the moral and ethical life is based directly upon the wisdom and compassion of buddhahood. There is no need to go to a specially sanctioned place in order to receive the Diamond Chalice Precept. Wherever Namu Myōhō Renge Kyō is recited becomes the precept platform where all can dedicate their lives to the Wonderful Dharma and attain enlightenment. It is the place where all people of the world, lay or ordained, can receive the Wonderful Dharma of the Lotus Flower Teaching directly from the Eternal Śākyamuni Buddha, just as the bodhisattvas from beneath the earth received it during the Assembly in Space.

Open Your Eyes, p472
WONS

The Five Periods of Śākyamuni Buddha’s Preaching

Śākyamuni Buddha’s lifetime preaching can be divided into five periods. The first is called the Flower Garland period, when the Buddha expounded the Flower Garland Sūtra for two or three weeks on the Diamond-seat under the Bodhi Tree for bodhisattvas in the Dharma Body during the eight meetings at seven places. The Flower Garland Sūtra is a provisional Mahāyāna teaching compared to the Lotus Sūtra, however, it is the distinct teaching (teaching for bodhisattvas) as well as the perfect teaching. The conclusion of this sūtra is in the Brahma-net Sūtra, which expounds the Mahāyāna precepts for bodhisattvas. …

The second of the five periods is the Āgama (or Deer Park) period, when for 12 years Śākyamuni Buddha preached the Hinayāna Āgama sūtras in the Deer Park in Bārāpasī and various other places in 16 great states. The Āgama sūtras roughly consists of four groups: Long Āgama Sūtras; Middle Length Āgama Sūtras; Increasing-by-One Āgama Sūtras; and Miscellaneous Āgama Sūtras. These sūtras preach such doctrines as the “four noble truths” (the truth of suffering, the truth regarding the cause of sufferings, the truth regarding the extinction of suffering, and the truth regarding the path to Nirvana) and the “eightfold holy path” (right views, thoughts, speech, acts, living, effort, mindfulness, and meditation), which preach for men of the Two Vehicles (śrāvaka and pratyekabuddha) that all things and phenomena are transient and void. The concluding sūtra is the Sūtra of Legacy Teachings preached just before Śākyamuni Buddha’s death as His final instruction to His disciples. This is known as the Hinayāna precepts. …

The third of the five periods is the Hōdō period, when Śākyamuni Buddha preached a variety of Mahāyāna sutras. This period of preaching is said to have lasted eight years, sixteen years, or an indeterminate amount of years. The sūtras preached in this period include the Revealing the Profound and Secret Sūtra, the Necklace Sūtra, the Entering Laṅkā Sūtra, the Great Sun Buddha Sūtra, the Diamond Peak Sūtra, the Sūtra on the Act of Perfection, the Sūtra of the Buddha of Infinite Life, the Sūtra of Meditation on the Buddha of Infinite Life, and the Amitābha Sūtra. …

The fourth of the five periods is the Hannya (Wisdom) period, when Śākyamuni Buddha preached the doctrine of void for 14 or 22 years. The Hannya sūtras include such as the Kōsan hannya, Kongō hannya, Tennōmon hannya, Maka hannya, Daibon hannya, Ninnō hannya, etc. The last mentioned is considered the conclusion of the Hannya sūtras. …

The last of the five periods is the Lotus-Nirvana period, when the two sūtras of Lotus and Nirvana were preached. Of the two, the Lotus Sūtra is the principal text while the Nirvana Sūtra is like a gleaning after the harvest in autumn. Established on the basis of the Lotus Sūtra is the Tendai (T’ien-t’ai) School, which is also known by various designations such as the Lotus School, School Established by the Buddha, School Depended-on by Various Other Schools, Secret School, and Exoteric School of Illumination.

The Sūtra of Meditation on the Buddha of Universal Sage Bodhisattva, the conclusion of the Lotus Sūtra, provided the spiritual foundation for the establishment of the Mahāyāna Perfect and Sudden Precept Dais on Mt. Hiei.

Ichidai Goji Keizu, Genealogical Chart of the Buddha’s Lifetime Teachings in Five Periods, Writings of Nichiren Shōnin, Doctrine 3, Page 238-243

Daily Dharma

Daily Dharma – July 21, 2020

The Bodhisattva-mahāsattva also should know the following truth. All things are insubstantial. They are as they are. Things are not perverted. They do not move. They do not go. They do not turn. They have nothing substantial just as the sky has not. They are inexplicable. They are not born. They do not appear. They do not rise. They are nameless. They are formless. They have no property. They are immeasurable and limitless. They have no obstacle or hindrance. He should see all this. Things can exist only by dependent origination. Only perverted people say, ‘Things are permanent and pleasant.’ This truth is the second thing he should approach.

The Buddha gives this explanation to Mañjuśrī in Chapter Fourteen of the Lotus Sūtra in which he describes the peaceful practices of a Bodhisattva. The Buddha does not see the world as we do. This section explains how changing our view changes the world. When we no longer see beings with power to overwhelm us, and see beings in whom delusions have been created, we see our abilities to cut the root of those delusions and benefit them. These passages are what make the Lotus Sutra difficult to believe and understand, since they go against our habits of manipulating the world to become happy. As we learn to work with our minds, then we truly change the world.

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

LS32

Day 22

Day 22 covers all of Chapter 17, The Variety of Merits.

Day 22 Text with annotationsPlay MP3
Having last month considered consider the benefits of those keep or copy or cause others to copy the Lotus Sutra after the Buddha’s extinction, we repeat in gāthās the benefits of keeping this sūtra.

Thereupon the World-Honored One, wishing to repeat what he had said, sang in gāthās:

Anyone who keeps this sūtra
After my extinction
Will be able to obtain
Innumerable merits a previously stated.

He should be considered
To have already made various offerings.
He should be considered
To have already built a stupa
With a yasti soaring up to the Heaven of Brahman,
The upper part of it being the smaller,
A stupa which was adorned with the seven treasures,
And with thousands of billions of jeweled bells
Sounding wonderful when fanned by the wind.
He should be considered to have already enshrined
My śarīras in this stupa,
And offered flowers, incense, necklaces, heavenly garments,
And various kinds of music to it,
And lit lamps of perfumed oil around it for innumerable kalpas.

Anyone who keeps this sūtra in the evil world
In the age of the decline of my teachings
Should be considered
To have already made these offerings.

Anyone who keeps this sūtra should be considered
To have already built a monastery
Made of the cow-head candana,
installed with thirty-two beautiful hall ,
Eight times as tall as the tala-tree,
Provided with delicious food and drink,
With wonderful garments and bedding,
With accommodations for one hundred thousand people,
With gardens, forests, and pools for bathing,
And with promenades and caves for the practice of dhyāna.
He should be considered lo have already offered
That monastery to me in my presence.

Anyone who not only understands
This sūtra by faith
But also keeps, reads and recites it,
And copies it, or causes others to copy it,
And strews flowers, incense,
And incense powder to a copy of it,
And lights lamps of the perfumed oil
Of sumanas, campaka, and atimuktaka
Around the copy of this sūtra
And offers the light thus produced to it,
Will be able to obtain innumerable merits.
His merits will be as limitless as the sky.

Needless to say, so will be the merits of the person
Who keeps this sūtra, gives alms, observes the precepts,
Practices patience, prefers dhyāna-concentrations,
And does not get angry or speak ill of others.

See The Merits of Religious Practice

LS32, d21b, d22b, d23b, d24b, b4today

The Merits of Religious Practice

In considering the merits of religious practice, we must place great importance on being upright in character and gentle in mind, as taught in chapter 16. We should focus our gaze on the Buddha alone, not worrying ourselves about divine favors in this world. We should be united with the Buddha and act obediently according to his guidance. If our actual life should consequently change for the better, that is a natural phenomenon produced because our minds and actions have been set in the direction of the truth. We should receive such phenomena gratefully and frankly.

The merits of religious practice are preached in three chapters of the latter half of the Lotus Sutra: chapter 17, “Discrimination of Merits”; chapter 18, “The Merits of Joyful Acceptance”; and chapter 19, “The Merits of the Preacher.” We should read these chapters bearing in mind the basic significance of merits as discussed above.

Buddhism for Today, p260
WONS, Eyes

Five Comparisons Revealing the Highest Teaching

Quote

In Nichiren Buddhism it is understood that in the Kaimoku-shō Nichiren made five comparisons between various religious teachings in order to reveal the highest teaching. Nichiren himself does not ever use the term “five comparisons” and the fifth comparison is not as clear in Kaimoku-shō as it is in other writings. Nevertheless, Kaimoku-shō is regarded as the source of the five comparisons. …

1. Buddhism is Superior to Non-Buddhism
Of all the non-Buddhist teachers Nichiren says, “Although they are called sages, they are as ignorant as infants in that they do not know causality.” This is essentially the same critique the Buddha makes of the sixty-two false views in the Supreme Net Discourse. None of the sixty-two views takes into account the causal and interdependent nature of life. They tend to assert either a form of eternalism, wherein all or at least some beings enjoy an eternal unchanging existence, or they assert some form of annihilationism, wherein phenomena disappear without a trace, or they try to equivocate in some way. …
2. Mahāyāna is Superior to Hinayāna
Just as Buddhism is superior to non-Buddhism because it takes a greater perspective that goes beyond one lifetime or even many lifetimes to reveal the causal processes underlying even the births and deaths of the gods in the heavenly realms, Mahāyāna is superior to Hinayāna because its perspective is vast enough to see that beyond the limited goal of nirvāṇa as an escape from the cycle of birth and death it is possible for people to raise their aspirations by taking the vows of a bodhisattva and thence embarking on the path to attain buddhahood, even if it takes an incalculably long time to do so.

Another difference in perspective is that whereas the Hinayāna only teaches that there are six worlds of rebirth (realms of hell-dwellers, hungry ghosts, animals, fighting demons, humans, and gods) and nothing more besides the negation of rebirth in the six worlds known as nirvāṇa, Mahāyāna teaches that in fact there are many pure lands throughout the universe. The pure lands are realms where all the conditions are perfect for attaining buddhahood and each is presided over by its own buddha who is assisted by many bodhisattvas. With the help of the buddhas and bodhisattvas, sentient beings can be reborn in these pure lands in order to attain buddhahood. Nichiren says that the Mahāyāna:

… were expounded for criticizing adherents of the two vehicles who relied on the Hinayāna sūtras. In these Mahāyāna sūtras, the Pure Lands of the Buddhas were established in the worlds of the ten quarters in order to encourage ordinary men and bodhisattvas to be born there. This troubled adherents of the two vehicles.…

3. True Mahāyāna of the Lotus Sūtra is Superior to Provisional Mahāyāna
In the Lotus Sūtra … the Buddha reveals that the three vehicles he taught to the śrāvakas, pratyekabuddhas, and bodhisattvas are actually just partial aspects of the One Vehicle that leads all alike to buddhahood. The Buddha even makes a series of predictions that in future ages his major disciples and all the other members of the assembly will attain buddhahood. If it were not for the Lotus Sūtra then the major disciples who had become arhats would have no hope of attaining buddhahood. “But if the earlier sutras are more attractive [and more valuable], Śāriputra and other adherents of the two vehicles would have lost a chance to become Buddhas forever.” The other sūtras are considered provisional because they do not reveal this larger perspective that grants buddhahood even to śrāvakas and pratyekabuddhas and so they are not fully inclusive of all beings. The Lotus Sūtra alone should be considered the true Mahāyāna because it makes it clear that all beings can attain buddhahood without exception. This is the reason why the Lotus Sūtra is superior to the other Mahāyāna sūtras. …
4. The Original Gate is superior to the Trace Gate
The Trace Gate consists of the first fourteen chapters of the Lotus Sūtra in which the Buddha is still seen as the historical Śākyamuni Buddha who attained awakening two thousand five hundred years ago. It is called the Trace Gate because it covers the teaching of the One Vehicle by the historical Buddha as described above, and these teachings are the traces or imprints of the teaching of the Eternal Śākyamuni Buddha. The historical life of the Buddha and his teachings is like a print made in soft wax by a seal, or like traces left in the sand by a person walking on the beach. The Trace Gate is also referred to as the theoretical section of the Lotus Sūtra because it is in this part of the sūtra that the Buddha teaches that in theory all people are capable of attaining buddhahood.

The Original Gate consists of the latter fourteen chapters of the Lotus Sūtra in which the Buddha is the timeless ultimate truth and an ever-present reality leading all people to their own buddhahood. The Original Gate is also referred to as the essential section of the Lotus Sūtra because it is in this part of the sūtra that the Buddha reveals the transcendent nature of buddhahood and that it is an active and present part of our lives already, we only need the faith to realize it. From this point on, buddhahood is no longer a theory, but the essential truth informing all the other teachings.

The Original Gate, therefore, surpasses the more limited view of the Trace Gate that Śākyamuni Buddha attained awakening for the first time at the age of thirty (or thirty-five according to other sources) under the Bodhi Tree forty years before the time when he taught the Lotus Sūtra. From the perspective taken in the Original Gate, Śākyamuni Buddha’s awakening occurred in a past time so remote that it is often just glossed as “eternal.” Nichiren says,

“In the Original Gate of the Lotus Sūtra, it was revealed that the Buddha had attained perfect enlightenment in the remote past, making it untenable to assert that he had attained Buddhahood for the first time in this world. “

This is important because it means that even when the Buddha was demonstrating bodhisattva conduct in previous lives he was actually not trying to attain buddhahood but was demonstrating it in a progressively more complete way until he revealed the fullness of buddhahood as Śākyamuni Buddha in India 2,500 years ago. This means that buddhahood was always present and even after the passing away of the historical Buddha, Śākyamuni Buddha as the Eternal Buddha will remain present. …

5. Buddhism of Sowing Superior to Harvest — Introspection over Doctrine
There is one final comparison that Nichiren makes in his teachings, though it is not set forth as clearly in Kaimoku-shō as it is in other writings. This is the comparison between the essential teaching of the Lotus Sūtra as a discourse given by Śākyamuni Buddha 2,500 years ago in India and the essential teaching of the Lotus Sūtra as spiritual contemplation for those in the present.

Nichiren identifies the spiritual contemplation of the essential teaching of the Lotus Sūtra with the Tiantai teaching of the “three thousand realms in a single thought-moment” … . According to Nichiren, ‘The ‘three thousand realms in a single thought-moment’ doctrine is hidden between the lines of the sixteenth chapter on The Life Span of the Tathāgata’ in the Original Gate of the Lotus Sūtra.” Nichiren identifies the three thousand realms in a single thought-moment doctrine as the seed of buddhahood. “Based on the concept of the seed of buddhahood preached in the Lotus Sūtra, Bodhisattva Vasubandhu insisted on the ‘supremacy of the seed’ in his Discourse on the Lotus Sūtra. This later became the ‘three thousand realms in a single thought-moment’ doctrine of Grand Master Tiantai.”…

The conclusion of the five comparisons is that Lotus Sūtra is the teaching that truly encompasses all time, from the remotest past, to the farthest future. In this perspective all beings are able to attain buddhahood in the fullness of time. More importantly, the perspective of the Lotus Sūtra provides assurance that buddhahood is a present actuality for all beings. Nichiren makes this point clear in A Letter to the People of Seichōji Temple (Seichōji Daishū-chū), a letter he wrote to Seichōji Temple in 1276:

The Lotus Sūtra preaches that Śākyamuni Buddha had attained buddhahood already 500 (million) dust particle kalpa in the past and that even those of the two vehicles such as Śāriputra, who are considered incapable of becoming buddhas, will inevitably attain buddhahood in the future. … It is the Lotus Sūtra that explains the past and future with precision, and upholding this sutra is the way to attain buddhahood.

Open Your Eyes, p23-30