Six Perfections: Buddhism & the Cultivation of Character, p 214The ideal of this fifth perfection is to live in a meditative frame of mind regardless of whether we happen to be meditating. The goal, therefore, is not always to be meditating, always to be practicing a preparatory activity, but rather to live in the spirit of composure and insight that the practice has produced.
Monthly Archives: March 2021
Serving a Teacher Without Fail
Truly, in order to attain Buddhahood we must serve a teacher without fail. In fascicle four of the Annotations on the Great Concentration and Insight, Grand Master Miao-lê points out: “If there is a disciple who finds fault with his teachers, whether it is true or not, his mind will be ruined and he will lose the merit of the Dharma.”
Minobu-san Gosho, Mt. Minobu Letter, Writings of Nichiren Shōnin, Volume 5, Page 126-127
Daily Dharma – Mar. 29, 2021
For example, in building a huge tower, a scaffold is assembled from many small pieces of wood set up ten or twenty feet high. Then, using this scaffold, the huge tower is built with lumber. Once the tower is completed, the scaffold is dismantled. The scaffold here represents all Buddhist scriptures other than the Lotus Sutra, and the Great Tower is the Lotus Sutra. This is what is meant by “discarding the expedient.” A pagoda is built by using a scaffold, but no one worships a scaffold without a pagoda.
Nichiren wrote this passage in his Response to My Lady the Nun, Mother of Lord Ueno (Ueno-dono Haha-ama Gozen Gohenji). In this simile, Nichiren compares the Buddha’s expedient teachings to the Wonderful Dharma he provides in the Lotus Sūtra.
The Daily Dharma is produced by the Lexington Nichiren Buddhist Community. To subscribe to the daily emails, visit zenzaizenzai.com
Day 1
Day 1 covers the first half of Chapter 1, Introductory
Mañjuśrī!
Some Bodhisattvas make offerings
To the śarīras of a Buddha
After his extinction.I also see some sons of the Buddha
Adorning the world of the Buddha
With as many stupa-mausoleums
As there are sands in the River Ganges.Those stupas of treasures are
Lofty and wonderful.
They are five thousand yojanas high,
And two thousand yojanas wide and deep.Each of the stupa-mausoleums has
One thousand pairs of banners and streamers.
It also has curtains adorned with gems.
It also has jeweled bells ringing.Gods, dragons, men, and nonhuman beings
Constantly offer incense, flowers, and music
[To the stupa-mausoleums].Mañjuśrī!
Those sons of the Buddha
Adorn the stupa-mausoleums
And offer the adornments
To the śarīras [of the Buddha].The worlds [of the Buddha] naturally become
As wonderful and as beautiful
As the [flowers] of the kingly tree
In full bloom on the top of Mt. Sumeru.
The multitude of this congregation and I
Can see the various wonderful things
Of those worlds
By the ray of light of the Buddha [of this world].
Spring: The Time to Sow the Seed of Buddhahood
Note: This is an edited transcription of a recording from Ven. Kenjo Igarashi’s sermon following the Ohigan ceremony March 28, 2021. For some reason I can’t explain I didn’t publish this then and now I can’t see any reason not to post it late. While I’m posting this April 3, 2021, it will appear in my timeline March 28, 2021.
Spring Paramita service
Time to sew the seed of Buddhahood in our minds. All the time we need practicing during Higan week.
Everyone wonders why we are born into this world, this suffering world. This world is not a happy world, not paradise. If you ask someone why, they will most likely say they do not know. But Nichiren Shonin said the answer is to become a Buddha. That’s why we are born into this world.
Everybody’s life is different because of their previous life. Maybe we’ve come back from hell, hungry spirits or animals or asura. Now we are living in this world. Maybe sometime someone comes back from heaven. That’s why everyone’s life is different. Everybody’s cause and condition is different.
We are born into this world because we need practicing. Then we become a Buddha and help other people. We are not born into this world to become rich people or famous people. We are just born into this world to become a Buddha.
While we are practicing the six paramitas during paramita week we also have to think about our ancestors, our deceased parents. This is a matter of filial piety.
American’s think filial piety is satisfied if we just buy something for our parents on their birthday or some anniversary. In Buddhism we teach three kinds of filial piety. Just giving presents to parents is the lowest grade of filial piety. Intermediate filial piety is to obey your parents’ wishes. The higher grade filial piety is our memorial prayers. When parents pass away we cannot perform the lessor forms of filial piety. That’s why Nichiren Shonin said, If parents pass away we have to consider the question: Where did they go? If they are in the suffering world we try to save their spirit to a more good realm. That’s why we practice for ourselves and our parents.
I’ve been thinking, Was I dutiful to my parents. When I was 20 years old I became a minister and left home. After studying and practicing I moved to the United States when I was 27 years old. I didn’t call my parents when I arrived in the United States. It was too expensive. Was I a dutiful to my parents? Now my parents have passed away and I pray for them every day, seeking to send them to a better realm. That is my filial piety.
Everybody should pray for their parents. That’s why we have Higan and Obon to pray for deceased parents. They are waiting for your chanting and accept it and go to better realm and become a Buddha and never come back to the suffering world.
This is the teaching of Buddhism and Nichiren Shonin. That’s why we are born into this world — to become a Buddha.
Missing from the Spring Higan service was the banner that always flies for special services. Rev. Igarashi said he did not fly the banner for Spring Higan for fear that the Chinese calligraphy might provoke anti-Asian problems. “I don’t want anybody to fool around with the banner so that is why he did not put up the banner this time,” he said.
Energy: Powered by Desire
Six Perfections: Buddhism & the Cultivation of Character, p 156-157Desire is the basis of motivation. It is the source of our energy. Without wanting something enough to motivate our will and energize our action, we are unlikely to pursue or get it. Imagine what it would be to eliminate all desire while still living a human life. Without desires we would be inactive and impotent. Lacking ambition, we would be without purposes and plans. Existing in so dispassionate a way that we desire nothing, we would be indifferent to any outcome; we would not care—about anything. Apathetic, that is, lacking pathos and passion, we would be devoid of feelings of any kind as well as the activities and spiritedness that follow from them. Although it is no doubt true that there have been a few aspirants who have understood the Buddha’s enlightenment to be a state of complete desirelessness, this is not the image of the compassionate and energized bodhisattva that we are likely to imagine and admire. A richer and more complete conception of Buddhist enlightenment encompasses and elevates desire rather than rejecting it. …
Those skilled in practices of mindfulness and in the discipline of character know how to assess desires. They consciously evaluate and rank desires, and when some of them are out of accord with chosen purposes—a “thought of enlightenment”—they also know how to extinguish them. Keeping these points in mind, we can still say, in the spirit of traditional forms of Buddhism, that the bodhisattva’s wisdom arises from having eliminated desires, as long as what we mean by that is that enlightenment is incompatible with many of our immature, uncultivated desires. Immature desires—based on a narrow self-understanding—are eliminated in the process of enlarging the sense we have of ourselves to encompass aspects of the world or ourselves previously beyond incorporation. Our very best desires, however—those honed by compassionate elevation of vision—need to be cultivated and maintained. Desire of this kind fuels our energy; it propels our most capacious vision.
The Manifestation of the Lotus Sūtra
QUESTION: In the second chapter of the Lotus Sūtra, fascicle 1, “Expedients, it is preached, “All phenomena as ultimate reality” means the principle into which all existing things: their appearances, natures, entities, powers, activities, primary causes, environmental causes, effects, rewards and retributions all from the beginning to end are united in one.” What does this mean?
ANSWER: It means that the whole world is divided into ten realms from the bottom of hell to the top of Buddhas and everything in the ten realms without exception is the manifestation of the Lotus Sūtra.
Shohō Jisso-shō, Treatise on All Phenomena as Ultimate Reality, Writings of Nichiren Shōnin, Faith and Practice, Volume 4, Page 74-75
Daily Dharma – Mar. 28, 2021
All living beings are suffering.
Being blind, they have no leader.
They do not know how to stop suffering,
Or that they should seek emancipation.
In the long night fewer people go to heaven,
And more people go to the evil regions.
They go from darkness to darkness, and do not hear
Of the names of the Buddhas.
The children of Great-Universal-Wisdom-Excellence Buddha proclaim this to their father in a story told by Śākyamuni Buddha in Chapter Seven of the Lotus Sūtra. They understand that when beings are so preoccupied with their own happiness, and so convinced that this happiness comes from what they can acquire, that they need an enlightened being to lead them to see the world as it is. With the Lotus Sūtra as the embodiment of the Buddha’s highest teaching, we have the same wisdom present to us as those children’s father was to them.
The Daily Dharma is produced by the Lexington Nichiren Buddhist Community. To subscribe to the daily emails, visit zenzaizenzai.com
Another Innumerable Day Before Day 1
Having last month considered the fifth of the 10 Beneficial Effects of the Sutra of Innumerable Meaning, we consider the sixth beneficial effect:
“Sixth, this sutra’s unimaginable power for beneficial effect is this: Whether during or after the lifetime of a buddha, if men and women of good intent accept, keep faith with, and internalize and recite this sutra, although they themselves may have delusive worldly passions they nevertheless will expound the teachings for living beings, enabling them to overcome delusive worldly passions and the cycle of births and deaths and put an end to all suffering. Living beings that practice after hearing them will grasp the Dharma, attain its fruits, and realize the Way no differently than if they were with the buddha tathāgatas. Suppose there is a youthful and inexperienced prince. When the king, while traveling or due to ill health, entrusts this prince to manage the affairs of state, the prince, following the great king’s instructions, then leads the government officials and the various ministries, governing justly and properly according to the laws of the land. And all of the country’s citizens are at ease, following along in a manner no different than if it were the rule of the king. So it is also with the women and men of good intent who keep faith with this sutra, whether during or after the lifetime of a buddha. Even though unable to initially become steadfast in the stage of equanimity, these men and women of good intent, following the discourses given by the Buddha, expound the teachings and spread them far and wide. Living beings that practice wholeheartedly after hearing them will cast delusive worldly passions away, grasp the Dharma, attain its fruits, and realize the Way. O you of good intent! This is known as the inconceivable power of the sixth beneficial effect of this sutra.
Underscore although they themselves may have delusive worldly passions they nevertheless will expound the teachings for living beings.
Receiving the Same Merit Gained by Practicing the Six Pāramitā
During the month of March, I am publishing articles related to Higan, which occurs on the Spring and Fall Equinox and extends three days before and three days after to involve the six pāramitās.
The character Myō in the Myōhō Renge Kyō (Sūtra of the Lotus Flower of the Wonderful Dharma) was verified by the tongues of the two Buddhas (Śākyamuni and Many Treasures). The tongues of these two Buddhas are an eightfold double-blooming lotus flower. A wish-fulfilling gem, on top of this double-blooming lotus flower, is the character Myō. This wish-fulfilling gem, the character Myō, contains all the merits of Śākyamuni Buddha’s Six Paramita (the six kinds of practice by which He attained Buddhahood). In a previous life, Śākyamuni offered His own body to a hungry tiger and sacrificed His life to a hawk to save a dove (charity). When He was King Śrutasoma, he did not violate the Buddhist precepts even at the cost of his life (precepts). When he was Hermit Forbearance, he willingly endured the tortures of King Kālika cutting off his four limbs (forbearance). When he was Prince Dāna, he devoted his life to finding a wishfulfilling gem to save people (effort). When he was the Hermit Shōjari, he did not move until the eggs that a heron placed on his head hatched (meditation). And so on. Therefore, we in the Latter Age of Degeneration who simply believe in the Lotus Sūtra are able to receive the same merit gained by practicing the Six Pāramitā in full even if we haven’t performed any good deeds.
Nichimyō Shōnin Gosho, A Letter to Nichimyō Shōnin, Writings of Nichiren Shōnin, Followers II, Volume 7, Page 138-139