Category Archives: Blog

Blog

Bye Bye, 2020


Traditionally I clean my altar on the last day of the year in preparation for the New Year. Never before have I looked forward to the end of a year as I do 2020.

While I’m here I figure I should clean out my blog to-do list.

Following an online service back on December 6 at the Nichiren Buddhist Kannon Temple of Nevada, Rev. Shoda Kanai gave a sermon playing with kanji character for “Buddha” and the kanji character for “me” or “I” and showing how, in kanji, the Buddha is literally inside you and me.

The Buddha Inside you and ame

Here’s PDF copy of the article in the January 2021 Radiance newsletter that Rev. Shoda Kanai adapted from his sermon.

Back in September, Rev. Ryuei McCormick was interviewed as part of a video series organized by filmmaker Yujiro Seki, who is promoting his movie Carving the Divine.

The stated topic of the interview is the The Four Aims (Siddhantas) of Buddhist Practice. When I first saw that the interview lasts nearly 40 minutes I kept putting off listening to it. As result it was only last week when I finally realized what I had missed. Yes, there is a discussion the question “What are the four siddantas/the four aims?” But that is only a minor portion of the full video.

While I recommend everyone watch the full video, I’ve created links to the various topics for those with a particular interest.

Foundations, LS32, d3b, d4b, Blog

The Whiteness of the Buddha’s Wisdom

This was written in advance of Sunday’s meeting of the Nichiren Buddhist Sangha of the San Francisco Bay Area, which has been discussing Chapter 2 of the Lotus Sutra this month.

Last week I asked, Does the Buddha Only Teach Bodhisattvas? And my short answer was that since the Buddha is seeking to lead everyone to buddhahood, there are no śrāvakas, only bodhisattvas, among his disciples.

Before moving to Chapter 3 and the Buddha’s prediction that Śāriputra will teach the Three Vehicles according to his original vow, I want to discuss the One Vehicle.

From the last part of Chapter 2, Expedients, we are taught:

Any Śrāvaka or Bodhisattva
Who hears even a gāthā
Of this sūtra which I am to expound
Will undoubtedly become a Buddha.

There is only one teaching, that is, the One Vehicle
In the Buddha-worlds of the ten quarters.
There is not a second or a third vehicle
Except when the Buddhas teach expediently.

The Buddhas lead all Living beings
By tentative names [of vehicles]
In order to expound their wisdom.
They appear in the worlds
Only for the One Vehicle.

And shortly after that:

Know this, Śāriputra!
I once vowed that I would cause
All living beings to become
Exactly as I am.

That old vow of mine
Has now been fulfilled.
I lead all living beings
Into the Way to Buddhahood.

One Goal. One Vehicle. Inseparable.

The Tathāgatas save all living beings
With innumerable expedients.
They cause all living beings to enter the Way
To the wisdom-without-āsravas of the Buddha.
Anyone who hears the Dharma
Will not fail to become a Buddha.

Every Buddha vows at the outset:
“I will cause all living beings
To attain the same enlightenment
That I attained.”

The future Buddhas will expound many thousands
Of myriads of millions of teachings
For just one purpose,
That is, for the purpose of revealing the One Vehicle.

In considering this, it occurred to me that here again the light of the Buddha’s wisdom is an apt analogy.

The Buddha’s wisdom shines in perfect brightness. A Buddha and another Buddha – Yui Butsu Yo Butsu – perceive this light as uniformly white, but those who have not eliminated all of their defilements filter this light into innumerable colors, failing to see the full spectrum of the Buddha’s wisdom.

In the Profound Wisdom of the Lotus Sutra, Chih-i writes:

Briefly, there are three differences [in the kind of preaching undertaken by the Buddha] called “in accordance with the feelings” [of the listener] ; “in accordance with the feelings [of the listener] and the wisdom” [of the Buddha] ; and “in accordance with the wisdom” [of the Buddha.]

The preaching in accordance with the feelings [or capacities of sentient beings] refers to [the teaching of the Buddha which takes into account] the fact that the feelings and natures [of sentient beings] are not the same, so the explanation which is taught in accordance with the feelings is different [for each person]. As it is clarified in the Abhidharma-mahāvibhāṣā Śāstra, there are immeasurable varieties of the dharma supreme in the world [laukikāgra-dharmāh].

It is the same for the real ultimate truth. How much more so for the others. It is like a blind man following his feelings when presented with many different [analogies for the whiteness of] milk.

The blind man, hearing various explanations, argues about the color white. Do they not all refer to [the whiteness of] milk? All the masters have failed to understand this meaning. They each are attached to a certain text, and present their own opinions and argue. They each deny each other’s [opinions], believing one and not believing another. What vigorous bickering! They do not know which side is correct.
Foundations of T'ien T'ai Philosophy, p 237

There is only one teaching, One Vehicle.

Foundations, d3b, d4b, Blog

Does the Buddha Only Teach Bodhisattvas?

This was written in advance of Sunday’s meeting of the Nichiren Buddhist Sangha of the San Francisco Bay Area, which is discussing Chapter 2 of the Lotus Sutra this week. Originally, this post was intended for next year, when I will be posting quotes from Paul L. Swanson’s Foundations of T’ien-T’ai Philosophy. In the book Swanson includes a translation of a portion of the first chapter to Chih-i’s Fa hua hsüan i, the Profound Meaning of the Lotus Sutra, along with extensive explanatory footnotes.

Do a search on this site for “only bodhisattvas” and you will find several articles discussing Chapter 2, which says:

“The Buddhas, the Tathāgatas, teach only Bodhisattvas. All they do is for one purpose, that is, to show the insight of the Buddha to all living beings, to cause them to obtain the insight of the Buddha.

And again:

“Śāriputra! These [present] Buddhas teach only Bodhisattvas because they wish to show the insight of the Buddha to all living beings, to cause them to obtain the insight of the Buddha, and to cause them to enter the Way to the insight of the Buddha.

And again:

“Śāriputra! Some disciples of mine, who think that they are Arhats or Pratyekabuddhas, will not be my disciples or Arhats or Pratyekabuddhas if they do not hear or know that the Buddhas, the Tathāgatas, teach only Bodhisattvas.

And finally in the gāthās:

All of you, do not doubt me!
I am the King of the Dharma.
I say to you:
“I will expound the teaching of the One Vehicle
Only to Bodhisattvas.
There is no Śrāvaka among my disciples.”

To say that – at least as far as the Lotus Sutra goes – the Buddha teaches only Bodhisattvas seems beyond question. But it turns out that Paul Swanson in his “Foundations of T’ien-T’ai Philosophy: The Flowering of the Two Truths Theory in Chinese Buddhism” quibbles on this point.

In the Profound Meaning of the Lotus Sutra, Chih-i writes:

“He teaches only bodhisattvas, and has no śrāvaka as disciples.”

Foundations of T'ien T'ai Philosophy, p 210

Swanston adds a footnote here saying:

This abbreviated quote is a bit misleading. Hurvitz, Lotus Sūtra, 46 [page 43 in the revised edition], translates the entire context as follows:

“I, being King of the Dharma
Universally address the great multitudes
Having recourse only to the Path of the One Vehicle
Teaching and converting bodhisattvas
and having no voice-hearing disciples.”

However, the word “only” in the original Lotus Sūtra modifies the “path of the One Vehicle,” and not “only bodhisattvas.” Thus this section more likely means that the Buddha has recourse to the doctrine of ekayāna [one vehicle] to teach bodhisattvas, not to teach śrāvaka, and that he has recourse to other methods of teaching in dealing with śrāvakas. It does not mean that the Buddha has no disciples which are śrāvakas. The context makes clear that the Buddha is preaching the subtle dharma to all beings, śrāvakas and bodhisattvas alike (as the next line says), and that śrāvakas are included in the group of the Buddha’s disciples. I fear that Chih-i was overzealous in his attempt to illustrate the “subtlety” of the Buddha’s attendants.

While I agree with Swanson that “the Buddha is preaching the subtle dharma to all beings, śrāvakas and bodhisattvas alike,” I think Swanson misses an important point: The śrāvakas are bodhisattvas. At least those śrāvakas who advance beyond the Tripiṭaka teaching are promised attainment of the enlightenment of the Buddha by treading the bodhisattva path. Śrāvakas are not found on the path sublime.

One could argue that Swanson does get some support in his interpretation from the BDK translation of Kumārajīva’s Chinese translation of the Lotus Sutra:

I, the King of the Dharma,
Now proclaim to the great assembly:
I lead and inspire the bodhisattvas
Only with the path of the single vehicle;
I am here without disciples.

But my other English translations are clear that śrāvakas are not among the Buddha’s disciples when he is teaching the One Vehicle.

SGI translation by Burton Watson says:

I, being king of the doctrines,
make this announcement to the entire great assembly.
I employ only the single vehicle way
to teach and convert the bodhisattvas,
I have no voice-hearer disciples.

Gene Reeves offers this:

Have no doubt,
Being king of the teachings,
I speak to the whole great assembly.
Using only the one-vehicle way.

I teach and transform bodhisattvas
And have no shravakas as disciples.

The 1975 Risshō Kōsei Kai translation says:

Be you free from doubts;
I am the king of the Law
And declare to all the assembly:
‘I, only by the One-vehicle Way,
Teach the bodhisattvas,
And have no śrāvaka disciples.’

The 2019 Risshō Kōsei Kai translation says:

All of you, cast out doubts,
For I am master of all teachings.
I announce to everyone in the great assembly that
‘All I do is teach and transform bodhisattvas
Using the One Vehicle Way.
So none of my disciples are shravakas.’

All of this sets up the foundation for next month’s discussion of Chapter 3 and Śāriputra’s original vow to teach only the Three Vehicles once he becomes a Buddha in the distant future.

Blog

32 Divisions Equals One Truth


Recently I’ve needed to compare English translation of Kumārajīva’s Chinese translations of the Lotus Sutra. I thought this stack of books, all tabbed to divide the sutra into 32 parts, made an interesting photo. I’m using it to illustrate my 32 Days of the Lotus Sutra practice.

LS32, d2b, Blog

Mistaken Facts

Yesterday I brazenly said Gene Reeves had misstated the facts when he said the Buddha Sun and Moon Light was a prince before he became a buddha. I said, no, he was a king before he became that buddha. My “facts” were taken from the Murano translation of the Lotus Sutra.

I confess that I don’t put a lot of time into my daily 32 Days of the Lotus Sutra posts. Just coming up with something appropriate to say each day, month after month, year after year, is success enough.

So today while doing morning Gonyo it occurred to be that it really – really – was unlikely that Reeves had made such a mistake. So I checked all of my English translations of Kumārajīva’s Chinese translation of the Lotus Sutra.

The BDK translation has “The Last Buddha fathered eight princes before he renounced household life.”

The SGI translation by Burton Watson has “The last Buddha, when he had not yet left family life, had eight princely sons.”

Leon Hurvitz’s Scripture of the Lotus Blossom of the Fine Dharma has “Before that last buddha left his household, he had eight princely sons.”

The 1975 Risshō Kōsei Kai translation has “Before the last of these Buddhas left home, he had eight royal sons: …”

The 2019 Risshō Kōsei Kai translation has “At the time that the last of these buddhas renounced home life, he had eight royal sons: …”

So unlike Murano – “The last Sun-Moon-Light Buddha was once a king. He had eight sons born to him before he renounced the world” – none of the translations specify that the last buddha was a king before leaving household life.

On the other hand, Reeves’ translation – “Before the last of these buddhas had left his home, he had eight royal sons – doesn’t specify that the last buddha was a prince before leaving household life.

I suppose it gets down to the question of whether the father of princes is always a king or whether Śākyamuni’s son, Rāhula, was a prince. Murano says kings father princes; Reeves calls Rāhula a prince.

Whatever answer wins out, my initial suggestion that Reeves had his facts wrong was clearly in error.

See Matters of Interpretation

Blog

Buddhist Statue Appreciation Day

*** We will show our appreciation to our Buddhist statues along with celebrating Sakyamuni’s attainment of Enlightenment. Please have your statues ready on hand and I will bless via your screen. ***

Bodhi day blessing
Rev. Shoda Kanai holds ceremony marking Śākyamuni’s enlightenment under the bodhi tree.
Today I attended the Nichiren Buddhist Kannon Temple of Nevada online service celebrating the enlightenment of Śākyamuni (traditionally marked on Dec. 8) and Rev. Shoda Kanai’s special blessing for Buddhist statues on home altars.

In Sacramento, Rev. Kenjo Igarashi incorporates a mass-blessing of home altars during the service held after midnight on January 1. While I brought my statues in to Rev. Igarashi to be blessed years ago, in Sacramento we don’t bring the statues in again each year and so I jumped at the opportunity to have Rev. Kanai’s blessing.

Nichiren watching ceremony
For the blessing ceremony I set my Nichiren statue on boxes on my laptop so that he could participate in the Zoom session.
20201213-zoom-nichiren-me
This is what we looked like to Rev. Kanai and the others on the Zoom session.
Here are some of the statues others were getting blessed in the service.
d1b, d2b, Blog

Three Truths About 10 Worlds

This was written in advance of Sunday’s meeting of the Nichiren Buddhist Sangha of the San Francisco Bay Area. Having whined at an earlier meeting that discussion of the Lotus Sutra didn’t include enough actual discussion of the Lotus Sutra, it was decided to allow attendees more opportunity to contribute. In the future, Mark Herrick will provide his overview of that month’s chapter on the first Sunday and the third Sunday will be given over to the “favorite” verses of attendees. Today’s service, an unusual fifth Sunday service was a dry run. Here’s a video of today’s discussion.

In Chapter 1, Introductory, the stage is set for the Sūtra of the Lotus Flower of the Wonderful Dharma. While I normally focus on the this stage as a whole, elements of this staging invite closer inspection. Consider the ray of light emitted by Śākyamuni from the white curls between his eyebrows, illuminating all the corners of eighteen thousand worlds in the east. That light reaches down to the Avchi Hell of each world, and up to the Akanistha Heaven of each world.

The congregation can see from this world the living beings of the six regions of those worlds.

Mañjuśrī recalls seeing the same good omen from a Buddha called Sun-Moon-Light. That Tathagata emitted a ray of light from the white curls between his eyebrows, and illumined all the corners of eighteen thousand Buddha-worlds in the east just as Śākyamuni did.

Consider for a moment that we don’t normally see this simultaneous nature of the 10 worlds. We see our provisional existence but not how each world interpenetrates the other. In our provisional existence we imagine nine realms separate from us, nine doors leading to a different place and within each of those nine doors. Interconnected, but not interpenetrating.

With the light of the Buddha’s wisdom, the simultaneous existence of the 10 worlds is revealed in the same way that the light of our Sun passing through a prism reveals the rainbow of colors inside.

These are not two truths — a separate 10 worlds or an interpenetrating existence; a provisional reality or emptiness — but one truth, the Middle Way.

As explained in Lotus Seeds:

The Truth of the Middle Way is the teaching that Emptiness and Provisionality are different ways of pointing out that the reality of anything, including our own lives, transcends the categories of existence and non-existence.
Lotus Seeds

Blog

AI and Buddhism

20201108_Leo-feedlyI’m a great fan of Feedly, an RSS news reader that allows me to monitor hundreds of websites. I was a Google Reader fan before Feedly and I don’t remember what before that. I just can’t imagine life without some form of automation to scrape together the news from each website I monitor.

As an early adopter of Feedly, I’ve been able to acquire “Pro” level features at minimal expense. (The Pro+ features normally cost $12 a month. They are currently discounted to $8.25 a month for the first year.)

One of those Pro+ features is Leo, a personal AI Research Assistant who helps identify items of specific interest.

At the moment I have Leo identifying any article about the Lotus Sutra, Nichiren or T’ien-t’ai or about my former employer McClatchy Newspapers (watching for bankruptcy’s impact on my pension) or Christian Pulisic, the US National Soccer Team player currently with ChelseaFC.

But Leo, being intelligent, is always trying to learn while it reads along with me. Periodically an article in my news feed will include a question from Leo asking whether he was right about the topic of the item.

Today’s quote from the Writings of Nichiren Shonin entitled “The Three Venerables” is a case in point.

Leo looked at this:

In this sūtra it is said: “Now this Sahā World is all My domain, where all the people are My children. However, this world is full of various sufferings, and it is I, Śākyamuni Buddha, alone who can save them.” To those against the Lotus Sūtra, it preaches: “Those who do not listen to the Buddha when He taught and tried to persuade them that they are slanderers of the dharmas will all fall into the Hell of Incessant Suffering without fail.”

and Leo concluded this must be about “Global Health.”  Or at least Leo felt 80 percent certain the topic was Global Health. Leo asked me whether he was correct.

While I can see how the world population falling into the Hell of Incessant Suffering without fail could be considered a Global Health issue, I told Leo, “Sorry, no it’s not.” I can only guess what people searching for “# Global Health” issues thought about this quote.

20201108_Feedly_Leo
Screenshot of Feedly.com listing
Blog

Dhārāṇi Resources

In the past couple of weeks I’ve come upon various recordings of priests chanting dhārāṇis and finally sat down and crafted a page where you can practice reciting the dhārāṇis contained in Chapter 26 and also enjoy some variations, including a return to a jazz interpretation I first noticed in 2017.

Here’s a link to the new page:

Dharani Jinshu

Blog

Divine Intervention

20201105_angels

This morning I posted the above image on my Instagram feed with the caption: Count Every Vote!  (This was prompted by this story.)

After posting on Instagram, I felt a little guilty about poking fun at people who believe they have an army of angels ready to intervene in the machinations of a presidential campaign. After all, I’m the guy who sits in front of an altar twice a day and prays to countless deities.

2020 New Year altar

This election week I even paid special attention to the Seven Happy Gods in hopes of influencing the election.

Monday is Bishamon, the Heavenly King of the North who protects against evil. His specific attribute is Dignity.

On Election Day, Tuesday, is Ebisu the god of fishing, shipping and commerce. His specific attribute is Honesty.

On Wednesday is Benten, the god of arts and knowledge. By this day I’m wondering how this is going to fit since her specific attribute is Joy. I wasn’t feeling much joy.

But today was Jurōjin, the god of wisdom and longevity, whose specific attribute is wisdom and I felt better. Stay calm.

Tomorrow will be Fukurokuju, the god of happiness, wealth and longevity, whose specific attribute is longevity. After President Trump’s Thursday night press conference claiming fraud is costing him the election, I’ll wish for a little less longevity for the counting.

But Saturday I expect to be great. Hotei is the god of happiness and abundance and his specific attribute is happiness. I’m expecting abundant votes for Biden in Arizona, Nevada and Pennsylvania.

And finally by Sunday, Daikoku, the god of wealth and prosperity will reign, and his specific attribute – fortune – will be on the minds of all as we consider the strength of our democracy and power of each vote.