With today’s post I’ll begin weaving in quotes from Nikkyō Niwano’s Buddhism for Today.

[The Sutra Of Meditation On The Bodhisattva Universal Virtue*] teaches the practice of the Bodhisattva Universal Virtue. It consists of the sermon that Sakyamuni preached at the Great Forest Monastery of Vaiśāli in central India after he had taught the Lotus Sutra, and establishes the way of repentance as the practice of the spirit of the Lotus Sutra.

We are greatly encouraged when we read the Lotus Sutra, grasp the true meaning of the sermons that Sakyamuni preached during his lifetime, and realize that we can attain the same state of mind as the Buddha through practicing his teachings. However, the fact is that in our daily lives we are continually troubled with suffering and distress, and we are continually seized by desires of one kind or another. For this reason, we are apt to become disheartened and forget the valuable lessons of the sutra.

Although we understand theoretically that we can become buddhas, we do not know how to rid ourselves of our illusions; our minds are liable to be covered with a dark cloud of illusion. Repentance means the sweeping away of such dark clouds, and the Sutra of Meditation on the Bodhisattva Universal Virtue teaches the way to do this. Therefore this sutra also has a close relationship to the Lotus Sutra, and, as the epilogue of the Lotus Sutra, is called the “closing sutra” (kekkyō) of the Lotus Sutra. Because of its content, it is also called the “Sutra of Repentance.”

* Universal Virtue is called Universal Sage in Murano’s translation.