Beginning today I’m using a new translation of the Lotus Sūtra for my daily practice.

The Wonderful Dharma Lotus Sūtra was published in 2020 by the Buddhist Text Translation Society. The sūtra itself is volume 15 of a commentary on the Lotus Sūtra given by Hsuan Hua in San Francisco in a series of almost daily lectures between November 1968 and November 1970.

This elegant softcover edition, which was printed in Taiwan, has a gatefold cover. The front gatefold offers:

The Wonderful Dharma Lotus Sūtra (Sanskrit: Saddharma-puṇḍarīka Sūtra) presents the One Buddha Vehicle as Śākyamuni Buddha’s ultimate teaching and a unifying path that embraces and reconciles the variety of Buddhist doctrines as well as the provisional teachings of the Three Vehicles. Provisional and ultimate are shown to be nondual, and their nonduality epitomizes “the essence of things as they really are.” The sūtra also emphasizes that the potential for awakening is ever-present in sentient beings and declares that all of them will one day realize Buddhahood. Famous for its parables, the Lotus Sūtra demonstrates the countless skillful means (upāya) that Buddhas use to lead living beings to liberation.

The Buddhist Text Translation Society, the Dharma Realm Buddhist University and the Dharma Realm Buddhist Association hold the copyright for this translation.

The back cover gatefold offers this on the Dharma Realm Buddhist Association:

The Dharma Realm Buddhist Association (formerly the Sino-American Buddhist Association) was founded in 1959 by the Venerable Master Hsuan Hua in the hopes of making the Buddha’s genuine teachings available throughout the world. To this end, it is committed to the translation and propagation of the Buddhist canon, the promotion of ethical and moral education, and the benefit of all living beings. For more information, please visit www.drba.org.

The back cover gatefold also offers this brief biography for Hsuan Hua:

Even as a child, the Venerable Master Hsuan Hua was a diligent cultivator, bowing to the Buddhas, his parents, and many other beings first thing in the morning and last thing at night. When his mother died, he sat by her grave for three years as an observance of filial respect. After that he left the home life under Venerable Master Changzhi and later received the transmission of the Weiyang Chan lineage from Venerable Master Hsu Yun (Xuyun), becoming its ninth patriarch. He went to Hong Kong in 1949 to propagate the Dharma there, and in 1962 brought the Buddha’s teaching to America, where he established the Dharma Realm Buddhist Association, the Buddhist Text Translation Society, the International Translation Institute, the City of Ten Thousand Buddhas and many branch monasteries, and various educational institutes including Dharma Realm Buddhist University, Developing Virtue Secondary School, and Instilling Goodness Elementary School.

It is worth noting that while Hsuan Hua was a patriarch of the Weiyang Chan lineage, he did not limit himself strictly to chan teachings.

In Buddhism: A Brief Introduction, a book “Based on the Compassionate Teachings of the Venerable Tripitaka master Hsuan Huan,” Chan is described as having four distinguishing characteristics:

1. It is not established by words,
2. It is a special transmission outside the teachings,
3. It directly points to the human mind,
4. Through it, one sees one’s own nature and becomes a Buddha.

Chan is transmitted directly from one mind to another mind. Its teaching simply directs the individual to see one’s own inherent, true mind, referred to as “seeing the nature and returning to the source.” That is, the enlightened teacher, profoundly aware of the mind of his student, certifies that the student’s mind is indeed truly “awakened”. This is a direct certification, mind to mind, that can only be done by a Sage.

Buddhism: A Brief Introduction, p89-90

However, the Buddhism that Hsuan Hua brought to America was much more. His Buddhism incorporates the Vinaya School of the Theravada tradition, the “Secret School” – esoteric teaching of mantras – and what is described as “The Teaching (Scholastic) School.”

As explained in Buddhism: A Brief Introduction:

The Chan School exclusively investigates Chan (Dhyana or Zen) meditation. The Teaching School emphasizes scholastic inquiry, exegesis, lecturing sūtras and interpreting and expounding Dharma. The Vinaya School focuses on questions of ethics and cultivating moral self-discipline. Vinaya students strive to be “awesome, majestic, and pure in Vinaya, great models for the three realms of existence”. Then there is the Secret School. “Secret” means “no mutual knowing”. And finally, the Pure Land School teaches the exclusive mindfulness and recitation of “Na Mo A Mi To Fo” (‘Homage to Amitabha Buddha’) the “Vast Six Character Name”.

Some people say that Chan School is the highest of the five. Others claim that the Teaching School, or the Vinaya School, is highest. Cultivators of the Secret School say “The Secret School is supreme.” Practitioners of the Pure Land Dharma-door say, “The Pure Land Dharma door is first, it is superior.” Actually, all Dharmas are equal; there is no high or low. “Highest” is everyone’s own personal opinion; whatever school you like, you claim to be the highest.

Buddhism: A Brief Introduction, p117-118

For my purposes as a follower of Nichiren and his view of the primacy of the Lotus Sūtra and the efficacy of chanting the Daimoku, my favorite is, of course, the Teaching School. It is this aspect of Hsuan Hua’s Buddhism that has brought about this new translation of the sūtra and fourteen volumes of commentary of the The Wonderful Dharma Lotus Sūtra.