Monthly Archives: January 2024

LS32

Day 10

Day 10 concludes Chapter 6, Assurance of Future Buddhahood, and opens Chapter 7, The Parable of a Magic City.

Day 10 Text with annotationsPlay MP3

Having last month considered the prediction for Subhūti, we consider the prediction for Great Kātyāyana.

Thereupon the World-Honored One said to the bhikṣus:

“Now I will tell you. This Great Kātyāyana will make many offerings to eight hundred thousand millions of Buddhas, attend on them, respect them, and honor them in his future life. After the extinction of each of those Buddhas, he will erect a stūpa-mausoleum a thousand yojanas high, and five hundred yojanas wide and deep. He will make it of the seven treasures: gold, silver, lapis lazuli, shell, agate, pearl and ruby. He will offer flowers, necklaces, incense to apply to the skin, incense powder, incense to burn, canopies, banners and streamers to this stūpa-mausoleum. After that he will make the same offerings to two billions of Buddhas. Having made offerings to those Buddhas, he will complete the Way of Bodhisattvas, and become a Buddha called Jambunada-Gold-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 ground [of his world] will be even, made of crystal, and adorned with jeweled trees. The roads will be marked off by ropes of gold, and wonderful flowers will cover the ground to purify it. Anyone will rejoice at seeing it. The four evil regions: hell, the region of hungry spirits, that of animals, and that of asuras, will not exist in that world. Many gods and men will live there. Śrāvakas and Bodhisattvas, many billions in number, also will live there to adorn that world. The duration of the life of that Buddha will be twelve small kalpas. His right teachings will be preserved for twenty small kalpas, and the counterfeit of his right teachings also will be preserved for twenty small kalpas.”

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

Bhikṣus!
Listen with one mind!
What I say
Is true, not false.

This Kātyāyana
Will make
Wonderful offerings
To the Buddhas.

After the extinction of each of the Buddhas,
He will erect a stūpa of the seven treasures,
And offer flowers and incense to the śarīras
[Of the Buddha enshrined in the stūpa].

On the final stage of his physical existence,
He will obtain the wisdom of the Buddha
And attain perfect enlightenment.
His world will be pure.
He will save many billions of living beings.
All living beings
In the worlds of the ten quarters
Will make offerings to him.

No light will surpass
The light of that Buddha.
The name of that Buddha will be
Jambu [nada]-Gold-Light.

Innumerable Bodhisattvas and Śrāvakas
Will live in his world, and adorn that world.
They will have already eliminated
The bonds of existence.

See The Power of the Lotus Sutra Teaching

mappō, Stone Last Age

The Last Age: Dengyo’s Role

Hōnen’s views on the subject apparently derived in part from a peculiar work called the Mappō tōmyō ki (A Lamp for the Age of the Final Dharma), generally attributed—in error, it is now thought—to Saichō (Dengyō Daishi, 766-822), founder of the Japanese Tendai sect. The treatise suggests that as the world moves farther and farther away from the time of the historical Buddha, human capacity to observe the monastic precepts inevitably declines, until, by the time of mappō, no one will be capable of keeping the precepts at all. In that age, it says, the “monk without precepts” or the “monk in name only” who merely shaves his head and dons a robe, presenting the appearance of a monk, is the treasure of the world and a true merit-field for the people; he is a lamp for the age of the Final Dharma. By the end of the Heian period, the monastic precepts were often honored more in the breach than the observance, and the Mappō tōmyō ki was widely interpreted to justify the laxity of the Buddhist clergy as no fault of its own, but an unavoidable consequence of the degenerate age.

Stone: Seeking Enlightenment in the Last Age, p39 of Part 1
Daily Dharma

Daily Dharma – Jan.21, 2024

When he keeps this sūtra, He will be able to reach a rare stage. He will be joyfully loved and respected By all living beings.

The Buddha sings these verses in Chapter Nineteen of the Lotus Sūtra. He describes those who put this sūtra in their lives, and dedicate their existence to liberating all beings from ignorance and delusion. When the Buddha became enlightened, he realized all beings can become enlightened. When we work for the benefit of all beings, we find the Buddha’s mind and bring harmony into our lives and the world.

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

LS32

Day 9

Day 9 covers Chapter 5, The Simile of Herbs, and introduces Chapter 6, Assurance of Future Buddhahood.

Day 9 Text with annotationsPlay MP3

Having last month considered the Simile of Herbs, we consider how the Buddha is like the cloud of rain.

“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!’

“Thereupon many thousands of billions of people came to hear the Dharma from me. Having seen them, I knew which were clever, which were dull, which were diligent, and which were lazy. Therefore, I expounded to them an innumerable variety of teachings according to their capacities in order to cause them to rejoice and receive benefits with pleasure. Having heard these teachings, they became peaceful in their present lives. In their future lives, they will have rebirths in good places, enjoy pleasures by practicing the Way, and hear these teachings again. After hearing these teachings again, they will emancipate themselves from all hindrances, practice the teachings according to their capacities, and finally enter the Way, just as the grasses and trees in the thickets and forests, which were watered by the rain from the same large cloud, grew differently according to their species.

See The One Rain Falling from a Single Cloud

mappō, Stone Last Age

The Last Age: Honen’s Vocabulary

The word mappō had been popularized by Genshin (942-1017) in his Ōjōyōshū (Essentials of Rebirth), and by the late Heian period it began to exercise a morbid fascination on the public mind. The mappō doctrine provided a way to account for the horrors multiplying daily, but at the same time instilled a new fear with its implications of an age when the Dharma would be lost. …

The first of the Buddhist leaders of the Kamakura period to formulate a doctrine specifically in terms of mappō thought was Hōnen Genkū-bō (1133-1212), founder of the Japanese Jodo or Pure Land sect. As a young man, Hōnen had studied at the prestigious Tendai institution on Mount Hiei, outwardly still prosperous but inwardly divided by ugly power struggles. The corruption he saw around him and his acute reflection on his own spiritual shortcomings confirmed in him the belief that “already the age is that of mappō, and its people all are evil.”

Stone: Seeking Enlightenment in the Last Age, p34-35 of Part 1

Hōnenk’s teaching set in motion a powerful new force in the realm of Japanese religion. Moreover, being first among the Buddhist leaders of the Kamakura period to propose a religion specifically for the age of the Final Dharma, Hōnen in large measure defined the vocabulary of contemporary mappō thought. Anyone else who took up the theme would be virtually compelled to address the issues he had raised: the nature of the time and the people’s capacity, whether people could attain enlightenment through their own efforts, whether monastic precepts remained valid in the Final Dharma age, difficulty versus ease of practice, and so forth.

Stone: Seeking Enlightenment in the Last Age, p47-48 of Part 1
Daily Dharma, WONS

Daily Dharma – Jan.20, 2024

Of the people who put their faith in the Lotus Sutra today, some have faith like fire while others have it like water. Those who have faith like fire refer to those who become enthusiastic upon listening to the preaching, but their passion cools down as time goes by, and eventually forget the teaching. On the other hand, those whose faith is like water mean those whose faith is like a ceaselessly flowing water, namely those who retain their faith without retreating. You have constantly sent me donations and asked me questions about the way of faith. Your faith is like water, is it not? How precious you are!

Nichiren wrote this passage in his Reply to Lord Ueno (Ueno-dono Gohenji). To those who stayed with Nichiren and this teaching, despite all difficulties, his gratitude was boundless. We too are capable of this gratitude, not just towards the Buddha and Nichiren, but towards all those who practice the Buddha Dharma with us, and, most importantly, towards those still caught up in the mesh of suffering.

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

LS32

Day 8

Day 8 concludes Chapter 4, Understanding by Faith, and closes the second volume of the Sutra of the Lotus Flower of the Wonderful Dharma.

Day 8 Text with annotationsPlay MP3

Having last month considered how the rich man transferred his wealth to his son, we consider how the Buddha is like the rich man.

“World-Honored One! The great rich man is you. We are like [his son, that is,] your sons because you always tell us that we are your sons. World-Honored One! We once had many troubles in the world of birth and death because of the three kinds of sufferings.’ We were so distracted and so ignorant that we clung to the teachings of the Lesser Vehicle. At that time you caused us to think over all things and to clear away the dirt of fruitless discussions about them. We made strenuous efforts according to the teachings [of the Lesser Vehicle] and attained Nirvāṇa as a day’s pay. Having attained it, we had great joy, and felt satisfied [with the attainment of it]. We said, ‘We have obtained much because we made efforts according to the teachings of the Buddha.’ But when you saw that we clung to mean desires and wished to hear only the teachings of the Lesser Vehicle, you left us alone. You did not tell us that we had the treasure-store, that is, the insight of the Tathāgata. You expounded the wisdom of the Buddha[, that is, the Great Vehicle] with expedients, but we did not aspire for that vehicle because, when we had obtained the day’s pay of Nirvāṇa from the Buddha, we thought that we had already obtained enough. We did not wish to have what you had showed and expounded to the Bodhisattvas by your wisdom. You expounded the Dharma to us with expedients according to our capacities because you knew that we wished to hear the teachings of the Lesser Vehicle. We did not know that we were your sons. Now we know that you do not grudge your wisdom to anyone. Although we were your sons then as we are now, we wished to hear only the teachings of the Lesser Vehicle. If we had aspired for the teaching of the Great Vehicle, you would have already expounded it to us. Now you expound only the One Vehicle in this sūtra. You once reproached us Śrāvakas in the presence of the Bodhisattvas because we wished to hear the teachings of the Lesser Vehicle. [At that time we thought that you had taught us only the Lesser Vehicle,] but now we know that you have been teaching us the Great Vehicle from the outset. Therefore, we say that the great treasures of the King of the Dharma have come to us although we did not seek them, and that we have already obtained all that the sons of the Buddha should obtain.”

The Daily Dharma offers this:

Although we were your sons then as we are now, we wished to hear only the teachings of the Lesser Vehicle. If we had aspired for the teaching of the Great Vehicle, you would have already expounded it to us.

Subhūti, Mahā-Kātyāyana, Mahā-Kāśyapa, and Mahā-Maudgalyāyana speak this passage in Chapter Four of the Lotus Sūtra. This is before they tell the story of the Wayward Son. They explain their realization that the Buddha holds nothing back from us. The reason we hear expedient teachings rather than the highest teaching is because of the limits of our own aspiration. When we aspire to become Buddhas, we receive the highest teaching.

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

LS32, d5b, d9b, d10b, d13b, d14b, d17b, Blog

The Power of the Lotus Sutra Teaching

Consider this:

When I recently pondered why the dragon girl was different, I had an Eureka Moment.

Śāriputra and the other disciples whose future Buddhahood are  predicted far in the future had been students of the Buddha’s expedient teachings.

As Śākyamuni explains to Śāriputra, “Under two billion Buddhas in the past, I always taught you in order to cause you to attain unsurpassed enlightenment. You studied under me in the long night. I led you with expedients. Therefore, you have your present life under me.”

The eight-year-old daughter of the Dragon King Sagara was taught by Mañjuśrī.

“Mañjuśrī said, ‘In the sea I expounded only the Sūtra of the Lotus Flower of the Wonderful Dharma.’ ”

That is the power of the Lotus Sutra.

Namu Myōhō Renge Kyō

I was going through my quotes from Nichiren’s writings and discovered this:

Women, who were thus despised in various sūtras, were able to attain Buddhahood as soon as Bodhisattva Mañjuśrī expounded the character “myō.” This was so mysterious that Bodhisattva Accumulated Wisdom, the first disciple of the Buddha of Many Treasures in the Treasure Purity World, and Venerable Śāriputra, the wisest disciple of Śākyamuni Buddha, argued against the daughter of a Dragon King to be made a Buddha in the spirit of the various Hinayāna and Mahāyāna sūtras expounded by the Buddha during the 40 years or so of His preaching. Their efforts were in vain, and the daughter of a Dragon King ultimately became a Buddha.

Hokke Daimoku Shō, Treatise on the Daimoku of the Lotus Sūtra, Writings of Nichiren Shōnin, Faith and Practice, Volume 4, Page 45-46

mappō, Stone Last Age, Books

The Last Age: A Dark Era

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Jacqueline I. Stone wrote the journal article “Seeking Enlightenment in the Last Age: Mappō Thought in Kamakura Buddhism” (PDF) in 1985 while still a UCLA Master’s student who went by Jackie Stone. Her essay declares:

Buddhist tradition maintains that as the world moves farther and farther away from the age of Shakyamuni Buddha, understanding of his teachings grows increasingly distorted and people’s capacity to practice and benefit from those teachings accordingly declines, until eventually Buddhism is lost. Sutras and treatises divide this process of degeneration into three sequential periods beginning from the time of the Buddha’s death: the age of the True Dharma (Skt. saddharma, Jap. shōbō) the age of the Counterfeit Dharma (saddharma-pratirūpaka, zōhō) and the age of the Final Dharma (saddharma-vipralopa, mappō).

Stone: Seeking Enlightenment in the Last Age, p29 of Part 1

Ta-Chi-Ching, the Great Collection Sutra, contains three periods and divides the decline into five consecutive 500-year periods. The fifth 500-year period is the age when “quarrels and disputes will arise among the adherents to my [Shakyamuni’s] teachings, and the Pre Dharma will be obscured and lost.” The “True” and “Counterfeit” ages each last 1,000 years and the “Final Dharma” age was said to last 10,000 years, which also meant an indefinite period.

Stone: Seeking Enlightenment in the Last Age, p33 of Part 1

This was true as far as Buddhism of Kamakura Japan was concerned.

In 1991, however, Jan Nattier, a PhD graduate of Harvard University, published “Once Upon A future Time: Studies in a Buddhist Prophecy of Decline,” which was based on her doctoral thesis delivered in 1988. In her book, Nattier clearly shows that the concept of three ages of decline and especially the last age, mappō, were the product of Chinese commentators and not the product of Indian Buddhism.

But mappō was very real for Buddhists of Japan.

By the latter part of the Heian Period (794-1185), a majority of Japanese believed that the world had entered a dark era known as mappō the age of the Final Dharma. Buddhist tradition held that in this age, owing to human depravity, the teachings of the historical Buddha Shakyamuni would become obscured, and enlightenment all but impossible to attain. By the mid-eleventh century, natural disasters, social instability and widespread corruption among the Buddhist clergy lent seeming credence to scriptural predictions about the evil age of mappō —predictions which in turn gave form to popular anxieties, feeding the growing mood of terror, despair and anomie known as mappō consciousness.

Stone: Seeking Enlightenment in the Last Age, p28 of Part 1

The idea of mappō involves not only the decline of the world—as suggested by the “five defilements”—but the failure of the means of salvation itself. At a time when the bodies of plague victims periodically littered the streets, when fires and earthquakes leveled temples and government offices alike, when warrior clans rose to challenge a tottering nobility in a series of bloody altercations that radically altered the political structure, Japanese on the whole must have come to realize the uncertainty of this world with an immediacy that people but rarely experience under more tranquil conditions. The prediction that in this hour, Buddhism too would decline must have filled them with a horror beyond imagining.

Stone: Seeking Enlightenment in the Last Age, p62 of Part 2

 
Book List

Daily Dharma, WONS

Daily Dharma – Jan.19, 2024

What does the doctrine of spiritual contemplation mean? It means the way of practicing the teaching of the Buddha according to the intent of the Buddha, not necessarily according to what is literally said in the sutra. Suppose there is a man during the time of a famine who offers to the Buddha the only food he has to stay alive for a day. This is the same as offering his life to the Buddha.

Nichiren wrote this passage in his Treatise on Phenomenal and Noumenal Offering (Jiri Kuyō Gosho). The Lotus Sūtra is the highest teaching because it encompasses all beings in all worlds, assuring everyone that they can rid themselves of delusion and reach the Buddha’s enlightenment. The Buddha showed that the universe is constantly changing, even from one moment to the next. When we read the Lotus Sūtra, and allow our minds to become more like the Buddha mind, we learn the meaning behind the words and put that into practice. We do not merely go through the motions mechanically. We understand that calamities are opportunities for us to bring the Buddha’s teaching to life, and that whatever prosperity we gain does not belong to us alone. Whatever we have is for the benefit of all beings.

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