Yesterday, I described the gate to the Buddha’s wisdom and faith’s role in entering that gate. With this in mind, it is important to appreciate that there are many gates entering the Buddha’s house.
Nikkyō Niwano explains this in Buddhism for Today:
The One-vehicle means: All people can become buddhas. The enlightenment obtained by Śrāvakas, Pratyekabuddhas, and Bodhisattvas alike is one by which they become buddhas, and it is the same in origin. Some can obtain the enlightenment of a Śrāvaka and others can obtain that of Pratyekabuddhahood. Both aspects of enlightenment are gates to the Buddha knowledge.
This is allegorically explained as follows: A person who has entered this gate cannot enter the inner room of the Buddha-knowledge until he has first passed through the porch of the bodhisattva practice. At the same time, it cannot be said that the gate and the porch are not both included within the residence of the Buddha. However, if a person stays at the gate, he will be drenched when it rains and chilled when it snows. “All of you, come into the inner room of the Buddha’s residence. The eastern gate, the western gate, and the porch, all are entrances that lead to the inner room of the Buddha-knowledge.” This is the meaning of the Buddha’s words, “Besides the One Buddha-vehicle, there is neither a second vehicle nor a third. I have shown the existence of these two vehicles by my tactful power. There is only one true goal for all.”
The gāthās at the end of Chapter 2 illustrates the many varied gateways of the Lotus Sutra, all of which we are told lead to the Buddha’s wisdom. As Nikkyō Niwano says:
Buddhism for Today, p50-51All living beings can enter the Buddha-way from any point: from worshiping the buddhas’ relics, from building stupas and memorials, from building temples and shrines to the buddhas in the wilderness, or even from heaping sand in play to form a buddha’s stupa. All living beings can enter the Buddha-way by doing anything good. As they increasingly strive after virtue and develop the great mind of benevolence, they finally become buddhas.
It is faith in the Lotus Sutra that allows us to find and enter these doors. As Nichiren Writes in his Treatise on the Daimoku of the Lotus Sūtra:
Many bodhisattvas with two eyes, the Two Vehicles with slanted eyesight and ordinary people and men of icchantika with poor eyesight all could not see anything clearly in the various pre-Lotus sūtras, much less the colors and shapes of those sūtras. Thanks to the Lotus Sūtra, the two eyes of bodhisattvas were first opened with the help of the moonlight of the theoretical section of the Lotus Sūtra. These were followed by the eyes of the Two Vehicles, ordinary people, and icchantika, which were gradually opened to gain the seed for future Buddhahood. These were due entirely to the merit of the single Chinese character myō.
[Writings of Nichiren Shōnin, Faith and Practice, Volume 4,
Page 41-42]
Faith is truly wonderful.
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