For the rest of the year, I will focus my discussion of faith on the lessons found in the Threefold Lotus Sutra. I am starting today with the Sutra of Innumerable Meanings, not just because it is the first of three sutras, but because it sets the stage for what follows in the Lotus Sutra.

In the third chapter of the Sutra of Innumerable Meanings, the Buddha details ten inconceivable powers for beneficial effect that this sutra possesses. All of these include faith as a component, but the first beneficial effect of this sutra truly captures the potential when a person takes the first step of faith:

“The Buddha said: ‘O you of good intent! First, this sutra can enable a bodhisattva—whose mind has not yet produced it—to generate the aspiration for enlightenment; can awaken a mind of compassion in one who lacks kindness and sympathy; can awaken in one who is fond of killing a mind of expansive mercy; can awaken in one in whom envy arises a mind of sympathetic joy; can awaken in one who is in bondage to desires a mind that can rise above them; can awaken in a selfish one a mind of consideration for others; can awaken in the mind of an arrogant one the attitude of proper behavior; can awaken in one who is quick to anger a mind that is given to forbearance; can awaken in one who becomes lazy in discipline a mind of appropriate endeavor; can awaken in one who has unceasing thoughts a mind directed toward tranquility; can awaken an insightful mind in one who is deluded and confused; can awaken in one who is not yet able to ferry others a mind to convey them to freedom; can awaken in one who commits the ten harmful acts a mind of the ten virtues; can inspire in the mind of one drawn to conditioned phenomena the intent to transcend cause and condition; can create in one who tends to withdraw from commitment a mind that is resolute; can awaken in one whose conduct is unrestrained a mind to exert self-control; and can awaken in one who has delusive worldly passions a mind to purge and be rid of them. O you of good intent! This is known as the inconceivable power of the first beneficial effect of this sutra.’ “

Faith comes first. It is the good intent. There is no chicken or the egg conundrum. But faith alone is no more stable than a pogo stick. Instead, we practice and study and by practicing and studying we create a bulwark behind which we can battle the sanshō shima, the three hindrances and four devils, who inevitably attempt to obstruct the ordinary person who seeks to become a Buddha. As Nichiren says, “Although the wise will welcome them, those who are foolish fear them and retreat.” [Hyōesakan-dono Gohenji, Answer to Lord Ikegami Munenaga, Writings of Nichiren Shōnin, Volume 6, Followers I, Page 93]