The Stories of the Lotus Sutra, p202This medicine is like the rain of the Dharma in Chapter 5, the same rain that goes everywhere to nourish all kinds of plants, but is received differently because people are different in their abilities, in what they like and dislike, and in their backgrounds. In other words, Buddha-medicine needs to be different for different people. What is important is to discern what medicine will actually work for someone. The medicine prepared for and given to the children is not really medicine at all for them until they actually take it. A medicine that is not taken, no matter how well prepared and no matter how good the intentions of the physician, is not effective, not skillful, not yet really medicine.
The same is true of the Buddha Dharma. It has to be taken or embraced by somebody, has to become real spiritual nourishment for someone, in order to be effective. Again, this is why in the Dharma Flower Sutra teaching is always a two-way relationship. Dharma is not the Dharma until it is received and embraced by someone. And, of course, people are different – so the Dharma has to be taught in a great variety of ways, using different stories, different teachings, poetry as well as prose, and so on.
The same is true of religious practices. For some Buddhists, meditation is effective; for others, recitation; for others, careful observance of precepts; for still others, sutra study; and so on. It is through an ample variety of teachings and practices that the Dharma has been effective and can be effective still. If we insist that there is only one proper way to practice Buddhism, it would be as if the physician in this story decided to let the children die because they did not immediately take the medicine he had offered.
Monthly Archives: October 2020
The Wide Embrace of the Lotus Sutra
Peaceful Action, Open Heart, p10-11One reason the Lotus Sutra is called the king of sutras is because it has the capacity to bring together and accept all the schools of Buddhism. Buddhism is a living reality, and living things are always growing. A tree continually grows more branches, leaves, and flowers. In order for Buddhism to stay alive we have to allow it to develop. If not, it will die.
When Bodhisattva Superior Practice Emerged
QUESTION: How did the great earthquake of the Shōka Era and the great comet of the Bun’ei Era happen?
ANSWER: T’ien-t’ai has said, “Men of knowledge know the causes of phenomena, and only snakes know the way of snakes.”
QUESTION: What does that mean?
ANSWER: It means that when Bodhisattva Superior Practice emerged from the earth as described in the fifteenth chapter of the Lotus Sūtra, even such bodhisattvas as Maitreya, Mañjuśrī, Avalokiteśvara, and Medicine King, who had reached only one step below Buddhahood by conquering the forty-one steps of darkness of mind, did not know that he had been called upon to spread “Namu Myōhō Renge Kyō,” the essence of the “Life Span of the Buddha” (16th) chapter of the Lotus Sūtra, in the Latter Age of Degeneration. It was because they had not yet conquered the fundamental darkness of mind and therefore were still considered ignorant.
Senji-shō, Selecting the Right time: A Tract by Nichiren, the Buddha’s Disciple, Writings of Nichiren Shōnin, Doctrine 1, Page 238
Daily Dharma – Oct. 29, 2020
When they expound the Dharma to the great multitude with their tongues, they will be able to raise deep and wonderful voices, to cause their voices to reach the hearts of the great multitude so that the great multitude may be joyful and cheerful. Hearing their speeches given in good order by their deep and wonderful voices, Śakra, Brahman, and the other gods and goddesses will come and listen to them.
The Buddha declares these lines to Constant-Endeavor Bodhisattva in Chapter Nineteen of the Lotus Sūtra, describing those who keep the Lotus Sūtra. When we share the Buddha Dharma with others, it is as if the Buddha’s mind is finding voice in our words. It should then come as no surprise to us that beings of all dispositions will want to hear more of what the Buddha has taught us. When we “practice the sūtra with our bodies,” as Nichiren described, when we make this teaching a part of our lives, then we find the words we need to reach all beings and lead them to the Buddha’s enlightenment.
The Daily Dharma is produced by the Lexington Nichiren Buddhist Community. To subscribe to the daily emails, visit zenzaizenzai.com
Day 20
Day 20 completes Chapter 15, The Appearance of Bodhisattvas from Underground, and concludes the Fifth Volume of the Sutra of the Lotus Flower of the Wonderful Dharma.
Having last month considered how the Buddha prepares Maitreya to listen to the answer to his question, we consider the Buddha’s explanation of this great multitude.
Thereupon the World-Honored One, having sung these gāthās, said to Maitreya Bodhisattva:
Now I will tell all of you in this great multitude, Ajita! [I know that] you have never seen these great, innumerable, asaṃkhya Bodhisattva-mahāsattvas who sprang up from underground. After I attained Anuttara-samyak-saṃbodhi in this Sahā-World, I taught these Bodhisattvas, led them, trained them, and caused them to aspire for enlightenment. They lived in the sky below this Sahā-World. When they were there, they read many sūtras, recited them, understood them, thought them over, evaluated them, and remembered them correctly. Ajita! These good men did not wish to talk much with others [about things other than the Dharma] but to live in a quiet place. They practiced the way strenuously without a rest. They did not live among gods and men. They had no hindrance in seeking profound wisdom. They always sought the teaching of the Buddha. They sought unsurpassed wisdom strenuously with all their hearts.”
Being a Bodhisattva of the Earth
The Stories of the Lotus Sutra, p195-196Much of the time the bodhisattva in us is hidden, but from time to time it emerges out of the ground of everyday life of both suffering and joy. One way to understand the Lotus Sutra, the Dharma Flower Sutra, is to see it encouraging the emergence of bodhisattvas from the earth, like lotus flowers.
These children of the Buddha,
Have learned the bodhisattva way well,
And are untainted by worldly things,
Just as the lotus flower in the water
Emerges from the earth. (LS 289)They are of the earth. They have their roots in the mud, but they also rise above the mud to blossom, bringing beauty to the world. The Dharma Flower Sutra teaches us to believe that each and every one of us can be such a bodhisattva, a gift of beauty to the world.
The Lotus Sutra’s Two Dimensions
Peaceful Action, Open Heart, p8The twenty-eight chapters of the Lotus Sutra have usually been divided into two parts. The first part focuses on the historical dimension, what happened in Shakyamuni’s lifetime. This is the historical Buddha seen through our ordinary way of perception. In this dimension, Siddhartha Gautama was born, grew up, left home to seek spiritual truth, practiced and attained great realization, and became the Buddha. He shared his realization and taught the Dharma for the rest of his eighty years of earthly life and then passed into nirvana. Vulture Peak is a real place in India, and you can still go and visit the site where Shakyamuni delivered many of his greatest teachings.
The second part of the Sutra deals with the ultimate dimension. The ultimate dimension shows us the existence of the Buddha on a plane that goes beyond our ordinary perception of space and time. This is the Buddha as a living reality, the Buddha as the body of the Dharma (dharmakaya). In the ultimate dimension, birth and death, coming and going, subject and object, don’t exist. The ultimate dimension is true reality, nirvana, the Dharma realm (dharmadhatu), which is beyond all such dualisms.
Why does the Lotus Sutra have these two dimensions? It is because this Sutra has such a profound message that it cannot be delivered any other way. That message is that everyone has the capacity for Buddhahood. If we only recognize the historical Buddha Shakyamuni, we may feel that since we were not fortunate to live in the time of Shakyamuni, there is no one to testify to our potential Buddhahood here and now. But we do not have to go back 2,600 years in order to hear the message that we too can become a Buddha. We need only to listen very carefully to the message of the Sutra and recognize the Buddha of the ultimate dimension who affirms our capacity for Buddhahood.
Leading People to the One Buddha Vehicle
The Lotus Sūtra, chapter 2, “Expedients,” states: “In preaching the dharma the World Honored One expounds the expedient teachings first and reveals the true teaching last;” “honestly casting away (‘cast away’ means ‘abandon’) the expedient teachings (the pre-Lotus sūtras, i.e. first three of the four doctrinal teachings or the four doctrinal teachings except the pure perfect teaching, first four of the five tastes: all sūtras except the Lotus Sūtra, or the tripiṭaka, common and distinct teachings taken into the perfect teaching), the Buddha solely preaches the One Vehicle true teaching of the Lotus Sūtra.” Moreover, “The Buddha preaches various teachings (the four periods and seven teachings refer to the pre-Lotus sūtras, and five periods and eight teachings refer to the entire teaching of the Buddha) for the purpose of leading the people into the One Buddha Vehicle.”
Ichidai Goji Keizu, Genealogical Chart of the Buddha’s Lifetime Teachings in Five Periods, Writings of Nichiren Shōnin, Doctrine 3, Page 242-243
Daily Dharma – Oct. 28, 2020
Rivers come together to form an ocean. Particles of dust accumulate to become Mt. Sumeru. When I, Nichiren, began having faith in the Lotus Sutra, it was like a drop of water or a particle of dust in Japan. However, when the sutra is chanted and transmitted to two, three, ten, a million and a billion people, it will grow to be a Mt. Sumeru of perfect enlightenment or the great ocean of Nirvāṇa. There is no way other than this to reach Buddhahood.
Nichiren wrote this passage in his essay on Selecting the Right Time (Senji-shō). In our quest for enlightenment, we may become discouraged by the enormity of our task. When we sweep away one delusion, another appears. When we benefit one being, the needs of millions more become clear. Nichiren reminds us persevering though these difficulties and strengthening our faith in the Buddha’s wisdom are more important than any outcome we seek.
The Daily Dharma is produced by the Lexington Nichiren Buddhist Community. To subscribe to the daily emails, visit zenzaizenzai.com
Day 19
Day 19 concludes Chapter 14, Peaceful Practices, and begins Chapter 15, The Appearance of Bodhisattvas from Underground.
Having last month concluded today’s portion of Chapter 14, Peaceful Practices, we open Chapter 15, The Appearance of Bodhisattvas from Underground, and consider the request of the Bodhisattvas more than eight times the number of the sands of the River Ganges.Thereupon the Bodhisattva-mahāsattvas, more than eight times the number of the sands of the River Ganges, who had come from the other worlds, rose from among the great multitude, joined their hands together towards the Buddha, bowed to him, and said:
“World-Honored One! If you permit us to protect, keep, read, recite and copy this sūtra, and make offerings to it strenuously in this Sahā-World after your-extinction, we will [do so, and] expound it in this world.”
Thereupon the Buddha said to those Bodhisattva-mahāsattvas:
“No, good men! I do not want you to protect or keep this sūtra because there are Bodhisattva-mahāsattvas sixty thousand times as many as the sands of the River Ganges in this Sahā-World. They are each accompanied by attendants also numbering sixty thousand times as many as the sands of the River Ganges. They will protect, keep, read, recite and expound this sūtra after my extinction.”