Monthly Archives: November 2022

LS32

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.

Day 20 Text with annotationsPlay MP3

Having last month considered the question by the followers of the Buddhas from the 10 directions, we consider Śākyamuni’s response to Maitreya.

Thereupon Śākyamuni Buddha said to Maitreya Bodhisattva:

“Excellent, excellent, Ajita! You asked me a very important question. All of you should concentrate your minds, wear the armor of endeavors, and be resolute. Now I will reveal, I will show, the wisdom of the Buddhas, their supernatural power without hindrance, their dauntless powers like a lion’s, and their great power of bravery.”

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

Exert yourselves and concentrate your minds!
Now I will tell you about this matter.
Do not doubt me!
My wisdom is difficult to understand.

Arouse your power of faith,
And do good patiently!
You will be able to hear the Dharma
That you have never heard before.

Now I will relieve you.
Do not doubt me! Do not be afraid!
I do not tell a lie.
My wisdom is immeasurable.
The highest Dharma that I attained
Is profound and difficult to understand.
Now I will expound it.
Listen to me with all your hearts!

The Daily Dharma from Nov. 15, 2022, offers this:

Excellent, excellent, Ajita! You asked me a very important question. All of you should concentrate your minds, wear the armor of endeavors, and be resolute. Now I will reveal, I will show, the wisdom of the Buddhas, their supernatural powers without hindrance, their dauntless powers like a lion’s, and their great power of bravery.

The Buddha makes this declaration to Maitreya Bodhisattva, whom he calls Ajita (Invincible) in Chapter Fifteen of the Lotus Sūtra. In the story, innumerable Bodhisattvas spring up from underground and vow to the Buddha to keep the sūtra after his extinction. Maitreya, knowing the minds of many others who have come to hear the Buddha teach, asks about these Bodhisattvas, whom he has never seen before. This question from Maitreya then leads to the Buddha later giving his most difficult teaching in Chapter Sixteen. The Buddha’s declaration in this passage shows how important questioning is to our faith.

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

800years, b4today

800 Years: Devoting Ourselves to Hearing and Receiving the Law

In the [Chapter 4], we were taught that we must not have the servile idea that we have the capacity to understand the Buddha’s teachings only to a certain limited extent. We should abandon such trifling discriminations and devote ourselves to hearing and receiving the Law. The Parable of the Herbs states that every effort of ours will be surely rewarded. That is, though various kinds of plants and trees are produced in the same soil and moistened by the same rain, each develops according to its own nature. In the same way, though the Buddha’s teachings are only one, they are understood differently according to each hearer’s nature, intellect, environment, and so on.

Even if we have only a shallow understanding of the Buddha’s teachings or can practice only a part of them, this is never useless. Every effort will be surely rewarded with the merits of the Law. But we should not be satisfied with this reward. We must always desire and endeavor to deepen our understanding and to elevate ourselves further. Thus, we can use shallow faith and discernment as the first step in advancing ourselves to a higher level of faith and discernment. Ascending step by step, we can unfailingly reach a superior state of mind. We should understand this well when we read the latter part of this chapter. It is stated here that though the Buddha’s teachings are one, there are differences in faith and discernment according to one’s capacity to understand the teachings. But we must not interpret this as stating an absolute condition.

Buddhism for Today, p75
Daily Dharma

Daily Dharma – Nov. 15, 2022

Excellent, excellent, Ajita! You asked me a very important question. All of you should concentrate your minds, wear the armor of endeavors, and be resolute. Now I will reveal, I will show, the wisdom of the Buddhas, their supernatural powers without hindrance, their dauntless powers like a lion’s, and their great power of bravery.

The Buddha makes this declaration to Maitreya Bodhisattva, whom he calls Ajita (Invincible) in Chapter Fifteen of the Lotus Sūtra. In the story, innumerable Bodhisattvas spring up from underground and vow to the Buddha to keep the sūtra after his extinction. Maitreya, knowing the minds of many others who have come to hear the Buddha teach, asks about these Bodhisattvas, whom he has never seen before. This question from Maitreya then leads to the Buddha later giving his most difficult teaching in Chapter Sixteen. The Buddha’s declaration in this passage shows how important questioning is to our faith.

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

LS32

Day 19

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

Day 19 Text with annotationsPlay MP3

Having last month repeated in gāthās the peaceful practices to be performed, we consider the benefits of the peaceful practices.

This is the most honorable sūtra.
It is superior to all the other sūtras.
I kept it [in secret]
And refrained from expounding it.
Now is the time to do so.
Therefore, I expound it to you now.

Anyone who seeks
The enlightenment of the Buddha
And wishes to expound this sūtra
In peaceful ways after my extinction,
Should practice
These four sets of things.

Anyone who reads this sūtra
Will be free from grief,
Sorrow, disease or pain.
His complexion will be fair.
He will not be poor,
Humble or ugly.

All living beings
Will wish to see him
Just as they wish to see sages and saints.
Celestial pages will serve him.

He will not be struck with swords or sticks.
He will not be poisoned.
If anyone speaks ill of him,
The speaker’s mouth will be shut.
He will be able to go anywhere
As fearless as the lion king.
The light of his wisdom will be
As bright as that of the sun.

The Daily Dharma from Sept. 12, 2021, offers this:

Anyone who reads this sūtra
Will be free from grief,
Sorrow, disease or pain.
His complexion will be fair.
He will not be poor,
Humble or ugly.
All living beings
Will wish to see him
Just as they wish to see sages and saints.
Celestial pages will serve him.

The Buddha sings these verses in Chapter Fourteen of the Lotus Sūtra. When we cultivate the mind of the Buddha, and bring his teachings to life, we help other beings find true happiness. This is different from our normal pattern of attempting to manipulate what others think about us through bribery, threats, and other forms of coercion. When we help others find their minds, they realize that they share our true mind of joy and peace.

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

Kern, d9b, Blog

Kern’s Simile of the Herbs Sucks

This is another in a series of weekly blog posts comparing and contrasting the Sanskrit and Chinese Lotus Sutra translations.

In Chapter 5, H. Kern opens the Simile of the Herbs with this:

It is a case, Kāśyapa, similar to that of a great cloud big with rain, coming up in this wide universe over all grasses, shrubs, herbs, trees of various species and kind, families of plants of different names growing on earth, on hills, or in mountain caves, a cloud covering the wide universe to pour down its rain everywhere and at the same time.

A great cloud big with rain covering everything just isn’t going to dampen a mountain cave. What is imagined here? Why set up such an unlikely situation?

But then, in Kern’s telling, the plants aren’t passively watered.

Then, Kāśyapa, the grasses, shrubs, herbs, and wild trees in this universe, such as have young and tender stalks, twigs, leaves, and foliage, and such as have middle-sized stalks, twigs, leaves, and foliage, and such as have the same fully developed, all those grasses, shrubs, herbs, and wild trees, smaller and greater (other) trees will each, according to its faculty and power, suck the humid element from the water emitted by that great cloud, and by that water which, all of one essence, has been abundantly poured down by the cloud, they will each, according to its germ, acquire a regular development, growth, shooting up, and bigness; and so they will produce blossoms and fruits, and will receive, each severally, their names.

Perhaps the humid element from the rain can be sucked into the mountain caves to nourish the plants there. Who knows?

There is a certain clarity in Kumārajīva’s Chinese translation that is lacking in the Nepalese Sanskrit document translated by Kern. Consider this from Murano:

“Kāśyapa, know this! I, the Tathāgata, am like the cloud. I appeared in this world just as the large cloud rose. I expounded the Dharma to gods, men and asuras of the world with a loud voice just as the large cloud covered all the one thousand million Sumeru-worlds. I said to the great multitude, ‘I am 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. I will cause all living beings to cross [the ocean of birth and death] if they have not yet done so. I will cause them to emancipate themselves [from suffering] if they have not yet done so. I will cause them to have peace of mind if they have not yet done so. I will cause them to attain Nirvana if they have not yet done so. I know their present lives as they are, and also their future lives as they will be. I know all. I see all. I know the Way. I have opened the Way. I will expound the Way. Gods, men and asuras! Come and hear the Dharma!’

Compare that with Kern’s version:

In the same manner, Kāśyapa, does the Tathāgata, the Arhat, &c. appear in the world. Like unto a great cloud coming up, the Tathāgata appears and sends forth his call to the whole world, including gods, men, and demons. And even as a great cloud, Kāśyapa, extending over the whole universe, in like manner, Kāśyapa, the Tathāgata, the Arhat, &c., before the face of the world, including gods, men, and demons, lifts his voice and utters these words: I am the Tathāgata, O ye gods and men! the Arhat, the perfectly enlightened one; having reached the shore myself, I carry others to the shore; being free, I make free; being comforted, I comfort; being perfectly at rest, I lead others to rest. By my perfect wisdom I know both this world and the next, such as they really are. I am all-knowing, all-seeing. Come to me, ye gods and men! hear the law. I am he who indicates the path; who shows the path, as knowing the path, being acquainted with the path.

I believe this is just one example of why Kumārajīva’s translation is so highly valued.

And then there are points where the two simply don’t align.

Kern concludes the prose section of Chapter 5 with this declaration:

You are astonished, Kāśyapa, that you cannot fathom the mystery expounded by the Tathāgata. It is, Kāśyapa, because the mystery expounded by the Tathāgatas, the Arhats, &c. is difficult to be understood.

In Kumārajīva’s version (as translated by Murano) this is rendered:

“Kāśyapa, and all of you present here! It is an extraordinarily rare thing to see that you have understood, believed and received the Dharma which I expounded variously according to the capacities of all living beings because it is difficult to understand the Dharma which the Buddhas, the World-Honored Ones, expound according to the capacities of all living beings.”

Here again I’m left to wonder whether this is an example of how Kumārajīva and his team of translators shaped the telling of the Lotus Sutra. There are many more examples of this when comparing the two translations.

Is it possible that Kumārajīva left out the two parables that are included in Kern’s Chapter 5? Is anything lost by not having The Simile of the Clay Pots or The Parable of the Blind Man?

Next: The Plight of the Famished

800years, WONS

800 Years: Never Backing Down

From some time in the remote past till this day, I must have had several occasions to have come into contact with the Lotus Sūtra, and to have become a believer as well. As a consequence of this, I was probably able to withstand one or two instances of persecution; but since these tenacious obstacles have occurred in close succession, my faith may have been broken and weathered away. This time, regardless of what kind of difficulty I am to face, I proclaim that I am determined not to back down. Thus, I spoke up and have experienced this kind of persecution from time to time, just as is predicted by the sūtra.

Misawa-shō, A Letter to Lord Misawa of Suruga, Writings of Nichiren Shōnin, Doctrine 2, Page 241

Daily Dharma

Daily Dharma – Nov. 14, 2022

His wonderful voice [comes from] his perceiving the voice of the world.
It is like the voice of Brahman, like the sound of a tidal wave.
It excels all the other voices of the world.
Therefore, think of him constantly!

The Buddha gives this description of World-Voice-Perceiver Bodhisattva (Kannon, Kanzeon, Kuan Yin, Avalokitesvara) to Endless-Intent Bodhisattva in Chapter Twenty-Five of the Lotus Sūtra. This Bodhisattva is the embodiment of compassion. When we allow ourselves to hear and be present for all of the suffering that happens in the world, then we are hearing compassion. When we have the courage not to run away from misery but to face it and live through it, we bring this Bodhisattva to life in our world and inspire compassion in all beings.

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

LS32

Day 18

Day 18 concludes Chapter 13, Encouragement for Keeping this Sutra, and begins Chapter 14, Peaceful Practices.

Day 18 Text with annotationsPlay MP3

Having last month concluded today’s portion of Chapter 13, Encouragement for Keeping this Sutra, we begin Chapter 14, Peaceful Practices, and consider Mañjuśrī’s question.

Thereupon Mañjuśrī Bodhisattva-mahāsattva, the Son of the King of the Dharma, said to the Buddha:

“World-Honored One! These Bodhisattvas are extraordinarily rare. They made a great vow to protect, keep, read, recite and expound this Sūtra of the Lotus Flower of the Wonderful Dharma in the evil world after your extinction because they are following you respectfully. World-Honored One! How should an [ordinary] Bodhisattva-mahāsattvas expound this sūtra in the evil world after [your extinction]?”

The Buddha said to him:

“A Bodhisattva-mahāsattvas who wishes to expound this sūtra in the evil world after [my extinction] should practice four sets of things.”

See 800 Years: Peaceful Practices

800years, d31b, Blog

800 Years: Students and Teachers

In considering the lessons of Chapter 27, King Wonderful-Adornment as the Previous Life of a Bodhisattva, I’m always struck by the fact that the two sons weren’t trying overtly to convert their father from his wrong views but to inspire him by showing what they had accomplished.

“The mother said to them, ‘Show some wonders to your father out of your compassion towards him! If he sees the wonders, he will have his mind purified and allow us to go to that Buddha.’

“Thereupon the two sons went up to the sky seven times as high as the tala-tree, and displayed various wonders because they were thinking of their father. They walked, stood, sat, and reclined in the sky. Then they issued water from the upper parts of their bodies, and fire from the lower parts. Then they issued water from the lower parts of their bodies, and fire from the upper parts. Then they became giants large enough to fill the sky, became dwarfs, and became giant again. Then they disappeared from the sky and suddenly appeared on the earth. Then they dived into the earth just as into water, and stepped on the surface of water just as on the earth. [Then they went up to the sky and stayed there.]”

The transformation of his children – not the fantastical aerial feats but real-life changes in their lives – inspired the transformation of the father.

“By displaying these various wonders, they purified the mind of their father, that is, of the king, and caused him to understand the Dharma by faith.”

The father was now able to aspire for Enlightenment. His sons had been the spark that ignited his faith.

“After he renounced the world, the king acted according to the Sūtra of the Lotus Flower of the Wonderful Dharma constantly and strenuously for eighty-four thousand years. Then he practiced the samādhi for the adornment of all pure merits. Then he went up to the sky seven times as high as the tala-tree, and said to that Buddha, ‘World-Honored One! These two sons of mine did the work of the Buddha. They converted me from wrong views by displaying wonders. They caused me to dwell peacefully in your teachings. They caused me to see you. These two sons of mine are my teachers. They appeared in my family in order to benefit me. They inspired the roots of good which I had planted in my previous existence.’

“Thereupon Cloud-Thunderpeal-Star-King-Flower-Wisdom Buddha said to King Wonderful-Adornment, ‘So it is, so it is. It is just as you say. The good men or women who plant the roots of good will obtain teachers in their successive lives. The teachers will do the work of the Buddha, show the Way to them, teach them, benefit them, cause them to rejoice, and cause them to enter into the Way to Anuttara-samyak-saṃbodhi.”

In the Lotus Sutra, we are directed to be teachers of the Dharma and at the same time to watch for and to appreciate those who are acting as our teachers.

Table of Contents Next Essay
Daily Dharma

Daily Dharma – Nov. 13, 2022

Great-Eloquence! Now I will collect the Buddhas of my replicas who are now expounding the Dharma in the worlds of the ten quarters.

The Buddha makes this declaration to Great-Eloquence Bodhisattva in Chapter Eleven of the Lotus Sūtra. In the story, a large tower has sprung up from underground. From inside, the voice of Many-Treasures Buddha proclaims the truth of the Lotus Sutra that Śākyamuni Buddha is teaching. Before the Buddha can open the door to this tower and allow the congregation to see this Buddha, Śākyamuni must summon all the other Buddhas in the other worlds throughout the universe. We often say of others, “They live in their own world.” We are surrounded by as many worlds as there are people in our lives. When we summon their Buddha-Nature using our Buddha-Nature, we open doors to treasures we can barely imagine.

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