Introduction to the Lotus SutraThe Lotus Sutra contains seven parables, three of which are best known. The first is the “Parable of the Burning House of the Triple World” in Chapter Three. The second is the “Parable of the Rich Man and His Poor Son” in Chapter Four. The “Parable of the Physician and His Children” is presented in Chapter Sixteen. These three parables allegorically show the relationship between the Buddha and living beings by presenting a parental relationship. That is, faith in the Buddha is similar to the faith of a child in his father; and the Buddha’s compassion toward living beings is like a father’s love for his children. In other words, natural feelings drawn from the norms of everyday life eventually lead us toward faith in the Buddha.
Category Archives: 800years
800 Years: Escaping the Negative Feedback Loop
Lecture on the Lotus SutraThe elders of the congregation, as represented [in Chapter 4] by those telling the Parable of the Rich Man and His Poor Son, have come to realize that they had been guilty of thinking that the truth and reality of Anuttara-samyak-sambodhi as a possibility in their lives was not something they could actually realize and so they did not seek it. If in your life, at the very core of your life, deep down in the essence of what makes you you, if you are unable to believe you are fundamentally at that deep level a Buddha, then it is likely you will not actually live a life of possibility. If that belief, or even hope, or even faith is lacking then it will be difficult on your own to make the necessary causes to actually manifest it. It will in a sense become as if a negative feedback loop.
800 Years: The True Nature of Reality
Lotus SeedsIn Mahayana teachings, Nirvana is characterized as “pure” because it is free of the defilements of greed, hatred, delusion, pride, and self-doubt; as “blissful” because it is free of suffering; as “eternal” because it is free of impermanence; and as the “true self” because it is free of the false idea of a self. Essentially, the seal of Nirvana is the seal of nonclinging and freedom from all attachments, limitations, and false, self-serving views. It is not a thing that we can create through our own efforts, receive from others, or have in the way we might possess an object or have an experience. It is the true nature of reality which we awaken to through taking faith in the Buddha’s teachings and upholding them in our lives.
800 Years: Lost in the Six Realms
The reason why those who had received the seed of Buddhahood in the eternal past have been transmigrating the six realms (lower states of existence) ever since for as long as “500 dust-particle kalpa” without attaining Buddhahood, and those who had heard the Lotus Sūtra at the time of the Great Universal Wisdom Buddha have been undergoing transmigration in the six realms ever since for the “3,000 dust-particle kalpa” was because they abandoned the great teaching of the Lotus, seeking refuge instead in expedient and Hinayāna sūtras preached forty years or so before the Lotus Sūtra. Later they gave up faith in those expedient sūtras, too, and thus have continued to transmigrate through the six realms.
Shugo Kokka-ron, Treatise on Protecting the Nation, Writings of Nichiren Shōnin, Doctrine 1, Page 42
800 Years: Our Unconditioned Inheritance
In the Parable of the Rich Man and His Poor Son in Chapter 4 of the Lotus Sutra, Understanding by Faith, a wealthy merchant who has been pining for his missing son ever since he ran away 50 years before, recognizes his son in the crowd outside his manor house and dispatches one of his servants to bring the man to him. When the messenger apprehends the son and demands that he accompany him back to the wealthy merchant’s home, the terrified son faints in fright.
In discussing this parable, it has been suggested that the rich man’s failure to understand how his son would react was a demonstration of the fallibility of the Buddha. The Buddha should have known that his son was “too base and mean to meet a noble man” and gone immediately to the expedient plan to improve the son’s self-image before bringing the son into the rich man’s home.
That suggestion that this parable illustrates the Buddha’s fallibility is as wrong as it would be to say that the Parable of the Burning House in Chapter 3 reveals that the Buddha is a neglectful parent since he fails to maintain his property and allows his children to play unsupervised in knowingly dangerous surroundings.
There is a reason that the rich man immediately dispatches his messenger to bring his son to him. This illustrates that our inheritance is unconditioned. We are the Buddha’s children. Nothing is required of us to inherit the immeasurable wealth of our father. We need only faith. It is only because we lack faith – we can’t believe we could have such great fortune – that the Buddha must bring us along in steps, helping us to gain confidence and preparing us the assume our rightful place.
In Chapter 3, the dire condition of the Triple World – the rich man’s manor house – is the manifestation of our delusions, our misperception. As we will learn in Chapter 16, “I do not see the triple world in the same way as [the living beings of] the triple world do. I see all this clearly and infallibly.” And in gāthās: “[This] pure world of mine is indestructible. / But the [perverted] people think: / “It is full of sorrow, fear, and other sufferings. / It will soon burn away.”
In Chapter 4, the father has been looking for his son ever since he ran away and wishes to welcome him home so that he will have an heir to whom he can give his vast treasures. The poor son, however, is incapable of believing that he has a place in the household of this rich man. He cannot imagine himself wealthy beyond measure. Instead, when he is released by the messenger and told he is free to go, “The poor son had the greatest joy that he had ever had.”
The poor son chooses to live in poverty and deprivation, just as those who reject the Dharma are doomed to a life of spiritual poverty in this world of suffering.
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800 Years: 10 Realms
One of the hidden lessons of the Lotus Sutra is the 10 realms – the six realms of transmigration and the four higher realms of Śrāvaka, Pratyekabuddha, Bodhisattva and Buddha. We are first introduced to these by the light of the Buddha in Chapter 1 and in Chapter 4 we learn of the śrāvaka realm. As Nichiren writes in Kanjin Honzon-shō, A Treatise Revealing the Spiritual Contemplation and the Most Venerable One:
“[I]t is stated in the Lotus Sūtra (chapter four, “Understanding by Faith”) that four great Śrāvakas such as Kāśyapa rejoiced in their understanding of the teaching of the Lotus Sūtra enabling śrāvakas to attain Buddhahood, and reported to the Buddha that they had been given invaluable jewels without asking for them. This represents the attainment of Buddhahood by the śrāvaka realm contained in our minds.
“Not only the śrāvaka but also Śākyamuni Buddha is within us. For, we encounter such a statement like this in the second chapter of the Lotus Sūtra: “It was My (Śākyamuni’s) original vow to let all beings become like Myself. My vow has now been fulfilled. I have helped them all enter the way of the Buddha.” Does this not mean, that Śākyamuni Buddha, who has attained Perfect Enlightenment, is our flesh and blood, and all the merits He has accumulated before and after attaining Buddhahood are our bones?”
Writings of Nichiren Shōnin, Doctrine 2, Page 146
With the revelation of the Buddha’s immeasurable lifespan in Chapter 16, the reader of the Lotus Sutra is brought to the realization that we all possess Buddha nature. As Gene Reeves explains in Stories of the Lotus Sutra:
The Stories of the Lotus Sutra, p104“While the term ‘buddha-nature’ is never used in the Dharma Flower Sutra, this is a good example of the use of the basic idea behind the concept that would be developed after the Dharma Flower Sutra was compiled. One way we can understand the term is as a kind of ‘power’ that makes it possible for any one of us to be a bodhisattva for someone else, a strength that makes it possible for us to share in doing the Buddha’s work of awakening all the living, a strength that makes it possible for us to go far beyond our normal expectations.
“Buddha-nature, the potential to become a buddha, is not something we have to earn; it is something that all of us have received naturally, something that cannot be destroyed or taken away from us. It is, as the parable in Chapter 4 teaches, our inheritance.”
As Reeves points out, “[T]here is no such thing as a ‘hopeless case.’ Everyone, without exception, has within himself or herself an inner strength, a great power, to flourish in some way.”
This is where faith grows. We are assured repeatedly that the hell we experience one day can be transformed into the heavenly realm, that we can gain great merit by being bodhisattvas helping others. With faith that we have no fixed nature, we gain unlimited freedom.
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800 Years: Faith Without Anger
Autumn Writings, p 39Please develop your Faith with no anger, with great patience and with compassion, and continue to practice the way of the Bodhisattva. If your patience is running out, please chant Odaimoku, “Namu Myoho Renge Kyo” in your mind until you become calm. You may chant Odaimoku anytime and anywhere, whether you’re happy or sad, even angry or in pain. Odaimoku is the medicine to resuscitate your life.
800 Years: The Object of Faith
Introduction to the Lotus SutraIn Buddhism, various Buddhas have been established as objects of devotion for different pious believers. Since each Buddha has a good reason for being venerated, Buddhism permits us to worship any or all of them. Nevertheless, the Most-Venerable-One should be One, just as the Truth is One. The second half of the Lotus Sutra (Hommon) emphasizes such a Buddhist position regarding unity of faith. As the object of faith is absolute, it must relate to the realm of eternity. Generally we think of Sakyamuni as a historical figure, bound by the limitations of time and space, and only a provisional manifestation of the infinite, eternal Buddha. According to the Lotus Sutra, however, every Buddha, including the historical Sakyamuni Buddha, is a representation of the eternal original being of Sakyamuni.
800 Years: The Equality and Inclusivity of the Lotus Sutra
Lecture on the Lotus SutraThis story in the Simile of the Herbs of the rain of the Dharma falling equally on all the various plants and herbs equally benefiting all according to their unique capacity also highlights the equality and inclusivity of the Lotus Sutra teaching. The teaching of Buddhism can benefit all beings and it does so without either diminishing the teaching or devaluing or diminishing those who apply it to their lives. There is no loss of the value of practice and faith regardless of our inner capacity or our physical ability. The Dharma looses no value and neither do we.
800 Years: A Guide to What We Are Capable of Doing
Lotus SeedsThe Buddha is not some god-like entity. The inner life of Shakyamuni Buddha is within ourselves. The actual qualities and accomplishments of Shakyamnni Buddha flow naturally from his realization of the ultimate truth. They serve as an inspiration and a guide to what we are capable of doing when we take faith in the Buddha Dharma.