Category Archives: Blog

Tamura-Intro, Blog, Books

Yoshiro Tamura’s Introduction to the Lotus Sutra

tamura-introduction-bookcover
Available at Amazon

Yoshiro Tamura’s Introduction to the Lotus Sutra was originally published in 1969 in Japan. Michio Shinozali and Gene Reeves translated the book into English, which was published in 2014. Rissho Kossei-kai holds the copyright.

Reeves offers this about Tamura in his Introduction:

Tamura was not a popular writer. When we met (in 1983) he was a professor at Rissho University, Nichiren-shu’s university in Tokyo. This followed his retirement from the University of Tokyo in 1982, where he held the chair in Japanese Buddhism. He was an academic and a historian. Yet he also had a kind of layman’s love of the Lotus Sutra, which is reflected in his Preface to this book. He knew as well as anyone that the Lotus Sutra was not merely something fit for academic scrutiny, but a religious text very much alive in the contemporary world.

His small book, first published in Japan in 1969, was intended for a popular audience. It introduces the teachings of the Lotus Sutra, some of the scholarly work on its composition, and the role it has had in East Asian, especially Japanese, history. Part of a popular but sophisticated series, the book was intended to inform educated, nonspecialist Japanese readers about the Lotus Sutra and its uses and evaluations in history. Since the Lotus Sutra is the primary Buddhist text for several traditional Japanese Buddhist denominations of the Nichiren and Tendai traditions, as well as for several new Buddhist organizations that emerged in the twentieth century, particularly for the Reiyūkai, Rissho Kosei-kai, and Soka Gakkai, the number of potential readers in contemporary Japan would have been very substantial. Well over twenty million Japanese recite regularly from the Lotus Sutra.

So the audience Tamura intended for his book was not made up of his fellow academics—at least not primarily—but of serious lay Buddhists who already had some familiarity with the Lotus Sutra.

Underscore Reeves description of Tamura as an academic and a historian. Yet he also had a kind of layman’s love of the Lotus Sutra….

Tamura’s Preface offers an academic overview of the Lotus Sutra and its development, but what I want to focus on is this:

Soon after entering university in December of 1943, I was sent to the front as a student soldier. I wondered if I were allowed to bring but a single book on the trip, possibly to my death, which would I want to bring? Many of my fellow student soldiers were thinking the same thing. We all worked at part-time jobs in order to be able to buy books, and we often lent them to each other. Yet we were perplexed by the idea of selecting only one. One fellow insisted on bringing Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason. Some Christian students, not surprisingly, chose the Bible, as was natural for Christians.

Since in those days my own interest was shifting from Western philosophy to Buddhist thought, I decided to select one appropriate book from among the many related to Buddhism. It was the Lotus Sutra. …

Leaving ten soldiers behind, my military unit was moved to the Philippines and suffered a crushing defeat just before landing there. I was one of the ten who remained behind. As he was leaving, the commander of my company asked me to teach him a few passages from a sutra that would be suitable for mourning the dead. I gave him some famous verses taken from chapter 16 of the Lotus Sutra, “The Lifetime of the Tathagata.” I imagine that that company commander died with his soldiers before he had time to mourn them. Later, I was ordered to transfer several times, and I sometimes had to face death. But I was never without the Lotus Sutra. When I was discharged, my copy of the sutra was more worn out than I was.

I am filled with deep emotion as I set out to explain the Lotus Sutra, the book that has been the most important in my own life.

End of June 1969
Yoshiro Tamura

Tamura’s book has a great deal of background on the development of the Lotus Sutra. I’ll be posting quotes which I want to keep available. After that, I’ll be posting his chapter-by-chapter comments on the Lotus Sutra, which I’ll also incorporate into my annotated Lotus Sutra.

Before that, I want to address two topics:

 
Book List

LS32, Blog

A Century of the Lotus Sutra in a Decade


I began using the Nichiren Buddhist Sangha of Greater New England’s Myoho Renge Kyo Romanized as my morning service in March of 2015. Each morning I would recite that day’s portion of the Lotus Sutra in Shindoku. After 32 days, the cycle starts again.

On Sept. 14, 2015, I added to my evening practice reading aloud in English the same portion of the Lotus Sutra that I had recited in Shindoku in the morning. I would then post a short comment on the day’s reading. That was day-1-1. The next day was day-2-1 and then day-3-1 until reaching day-32-1. When the cycle restarted on Oct. 16, 2015, that was day-1-2.

Today I have reached day-1-100.

This is my 10th year of practicing Nichiren Shu Buddhism in this manner. I believe I have received a great benefit from having read the Lotus Sutra daily, but the familiarity has bred a laziness. I find my mind wandering as I recite the words. I can go minutes and suddenly realize I don’t recall what I just read.

I am planning on changing my practice next year. I’ll have more details on my plans as the New Year approaches.

Blog

QuizWithIt

I’ve been exploring the website QuizWithIt, which allows you to create quizzes from various sources. You can even have the resident AI create the questions and answers from the material you supply.

Here is the AI-produced quiz generated after digesting the Lotus Sutra. Please take this four question quiz. My discussion follows below.

Did you get question No. 4 correct? I must admit that I was taken aback by the “correct” answer, but there’s a case to be made that “the primary speaker in the Lotus Sutra” is the Eternal Śākyamuni revealed in Chapter 16. In the Sutra of Contemplation of Universal Sage, we learn:

“Śākyamuni Buddha is Vairocana – the One Who Is Present in All Places. Where this buddha abides is called Perpetual Tranquil Light, where perpetuity is perfectly achieved, where the perfect truth of self is constituted, where perfect purity casts off the aspects of existence, where perfect happiness is no longer a characteristic that occupies body and mind, where phenomena are no longer perceived as having or not having aspects, where likewise there is serene liberation as well as perfect wisdom.

Since there’s no way to quiz the AI about its choices, we’ll never know why it said the primary speaker is Vairocana.

Interestingly, I got two-out-of-four odd answers when I offered the AI the annotated version of the Lotus Sutra to digest. One AI generated question:

Who is the author of the Annotated Lotus Sutra?

Answer: Kumarajiva

Another questionable answer was offered to the AI-generated question:

Which chapter of the Lotus Sutra emphasizes the concept of skillful means?

The AI offered choices of Chapter 1 through 4 and marked Chapters 3 and 4 the correct answers. Answering Chapter 2, Expedients, would be considered wrong.

If you are interested in creating web-based quizzes that can be embedded in websites, check out QuizWithIt.

QuizWithIt describes itself as “a team of scientists, developers, and media specialists who are passionate about bringing knowledge to the world. This website and app is a spin-off of ‘Science without the gobbledygook,’ a widely popular YouTube channel produced by Sabine Hossenfelder, who also oversees this project.”

Blog

The Output Really Depends on the Input

The old computer proverb “Garbage In; Garbage Out” is why I worry about the output of AI research assistants. One way to get around GIGO is to limit the AI to sources you trust. This is the big selling point of Google’s NotebookLM. The other day I wrote about my early experiments with NotebookLM. (Here). Today I experienced the magic.

For a source on Nichiren and Nichiren Buddhism, I took Jacqueline Stone’s article on Nichiren written for the Oxford Research Encyclopedia, Religion. A PDF copy can be download here.

I created a “new” Notebook at NotebookLM and uploaded the article to be the source material for the AI.

Here’s some of the magic generated.

Nichiren’s Understanding of the Daimoku

For Nichiren, the Daimoku is far more than a simple title; it represents the core of his teachings and the sole path to enlightenment, especially in the Final Dharma Age (mappō).

Here’s a breakdown of Nichiren’s concept of the Daimoku:

  • “Namu Myōhō-renge-kyō,” the Daimoku: This phrase, chanted in Japanese, combines “Namu” (expressing devotion and taking refuge) with “Myōhō-renge-kyō” – the Japanese pronunciation of the title of the Lotus Sūtra, a scripture revered by Nichiren as the Buddha’s highest teaching.
  • More than a title: Nichiren viewed the Daimoku as encompassing the entire essence of the Lotus Sūtra and the Wonderful Dharma itself. He believed its five characters encapsulate the complete enlightenment of the Buddha and provide a direct link to that enlightened state. This understanding drew upon a tradition of interpreting Buddhist texts through their titles, where the title encapsulates the text’s complete meaning.
  • Embodiment of Ichinen Sanzen: Nichiren connected the Daimoku with the principle of “ichinen sanzen” or “three thousand realms in a single moment of thought”. This concept emphasizes the interconnectedness of all things, with each phenomenon containing the potential for buddhahood. By chanting the Daimoku, practitioners tap into this interconnected reality and reveal the inherent enlightenment within themselves and the world around them.
  • Accessibility of Buddhahood: Nichiren taught that chanting the Daimoku grants immediate access to the merits accumulated by the primordial Buddha over countless lifetimes. By aligning oneself with the Buddha’s enlightenment through the Daimoku, one achieves “realization of buddhahood with this very body”.
  • Benefits of Chanting: While the ultimate aim is enlightenment, Nichiren also emphasized the tangible benefits of Daimoku chanting. He taught that it brings protection, healing, and positive consequences in this life and the afterlife. More importantly, it cultivates an inner peace and stability that transcends external circumstances.

Or this…

Nichiren Buddhism: Study Guide

Short-Answer Questions

  1. Explain Nichiren’s central criticism of other Buddhist schools prevalent in Japan during his time.
  2. What are the five characters of the daimoku, and what is their significance in Nichiren Buddhism?
  3. How does Nichiren’s concept of “slander of the Dharma” differ from a simple misunderstanding or misinterpretation of Buddhist teachings?
  4. Describe the relationship between the concepts of “mutual inclusion of the ten realms” (jikkai gogu) and “three thousand realms in a single moment of thought” (ichinen sanzen).
  5. How does Nichiren Buddhism understand the concept of “buddhahood with this very body” (sokushin jōbutsu)?
  6. What role does the gohonzon, or “revered object of worship,” play in Nichiren Buddhist practice?
  7. What is the significance of Nichiren’s two exiles in the context of his understanding of the Lotus Sutra?
  8. How does Nichiren’s concept of the “pure land of Eagle Peak” (Ryōzen jōdō) differ from the Pure Land Buddhism’s
    understanding of Pure Lands?
  9. Why did Nichiren advocate for the confrontational approach of shakubuku over the more gradual approach of shōju in propagating his teachings?
  10. What does it mean to say that Nichiren saw the practice of the Lotus Sutra as a means to transform not only individual lives but also the outer world?

Short-Answer Key

  1. Nichiren believed that while other Buddhist schools and practices, like nenbutsu or Zen, held validity in previous eras, they were inadequate for achieving salvation in the degenerate age of mappō, the Final Dharma Age. Only the Lotus Sutra, in his view, held the profound power needed to liberate people during this time.
  2. The five characters of the daimoku are “Myōhō-renge-kyō,” the Japanese pronunciation of the Lotus Sutra’s title. Chanting the daimoku is central to Nichiren Buddhism, seen as encapsulating the entire truth of the Lotus Sutra and thus capable of directly transferring the Buddha’s enlightenment to the practitioner.
  3. For Nichiren, “slander of the Dharma” goes beyond intellectual disagreement. It refers to the active rejection or dismissal of the Lotus Sutra as the ultimate Buddhist teaching, particularly in favor of provisional teachings deemed insufficient for the Final Dharma Age.
  4. “Mutual inclusion of the ten realms” means that all ten realms of existence—from hell to buddhahood—coexist interdependently within each individual being. This concept expands into the principle of “three thousand realms in a single moment of thought,” suggesting the vastness and interconnectedness of all phenomena within each thought moment.
  5. “Buddhahood with this very body” is the core belief that enlightenment is not a distant goal but an inherent potential within each person, achievable in this lifetime through dedicated practice of the Lotus Sutra, primarily through chanting the daimoku.
  6. The gohonzon serves as a visual representation of the enlightened state, embodying the interconnectedness of all beings and the ultimate reality revealed in the Lotus Sutra. It acts as a focal point for chanting the daimoku and contemplating the principles of Nichiren Buddhism.
  7. Nichiren’s exiles were interpreted by him and his followers as a fulfillment of the Lotus Sutra’s prophecies, which predicted that those who propagated its teachings would face persecution. This “bodily reading” of the sutra reinforced their faith and Nichiren’s self-identification as a true votary of the Lotus Sutra.
  8. Unlike Pure Land Buddhism, which envisions a separate realm of bliss after death, Nichiren’s “pure land of Eagle Peak” is not spatially or temporally distinct. It represents the enlightened state itself, accessible in this lifetime through faith in the Lotus Sutra and manifest wherever it is practiced.
  9. Nichiren believed that the urgency of the Final Dharma Age called for a forceful approach. He saw shakubuku as a compassionate act, as it aimed to awaken people to the truth of the Lotus Sutra even if it meant challenging their existing beliefs and potentially facing resistance.
  10. Nichiren’s teaching emphasizes the non-duality of the individual and their environment. By transforming one’s own life condition through faith in the Lotus Sutra, individuals could positively influence their surroundings and contribute to the creation of a peaceful and enlightened society.

Essay Questions

  • Analyze the role of the Lotus Sutra in Nichiren’s teachings. How does his interpretation of this sutra differ from those of other Buddhist schools in Japan during his time?
  • Discuss the significance of the concept of mappō, the Final Dharma Age, in Nichiren Buddhism. How does this concept inform Nichiren’s understanding of the urgency and importance of spreading the Lotus Sutra?
  • Explore the relationship between faith, practice, and the achievement of buddhahood in Nichiren’s thought. How do the concepts of “mutual inclusion of the ten realms” and “three thousand realms in a single moment of thought” contribute to this understanding?
  • Compare and contrast the concepts of shōju (gradual propagation) and shakubuku (confrontational propagation) in the context of Nichiren Buddhism. Why did Nichiren advocate for the use of shakubuku, and what implications did this have for his interactions with other Buddhist schools and authorities?
  • Nichiren believed that the widespread practice of the Lotus Sutra could lead to the realization of an ideal society. Discuss Nichiren’s vision of this ideal society and the role of individual practice in achieving it. What implications does this have for the social and political engagement of Nichiren Buddhists?

Glossary of Key Terms

Term
Definition
Daimoku
The Japanese pronunciation of the title of the Lotus Sutra, “Myōhō-renge-kyō,” chanted as a central practice in Nichiren Buddhism. It is believed to embody the essence of the Lotus Sutra and lead to enlightenment.
Gohonzon
The revered object of worship in Nichiren Buddhism, often a calligraphic mandala inscribed by Nichiren or his successors. It represents the assembly of the Lotus Sutra and serves as a focal point for chanting the daimoku.
Honzon
A general term for an object of worship in Buddhism, including statues, paintings, mandalas, etc. In Nichiren Buddhism, the gohonzon is considered the primary honzon.
Ichinen Sanzen
“Three thousand realms in a single moment of thought,” a core Tiantai/Tendai principle adopted by Nichiren, expressing the interconnectedness and interpenetration of all phenomena within each thought moment.
Jikkai Gogu
“Mutual inclusion of the ten realms,” a Tiantai/Tendai doctrine embraced by Nichiren, explaining that all ten realms of existence—from hell to buddhahood—are interconnected and contained within each other and every being.
Kaidan
The ordination platform in Buddhism, traditionally a place for receiving precepts and becoming a monk or nun. In Nichiren Buddhism, the meaning and realization of the kaidan have been subject to debate.
Kanjin
“Mind contemplation,” a term used by Nichiren to describe the practice of chanting the daimoku as a means of aligning one’s mind with the Buddha’s enlightenment.
Lotus Sutra
A highly revered Mahayana Buddhist scripture believed by Nichiren to be the ultimate teaching of the Buddha, capable of leading all beings to enlightenment.
Mappō
The “Final Dharma Age,” a period of Buddhist decline when traditional practices are believed to be less effective. Nichiren saw the Lotus Sutra as the only true path to salvation during this time.
Namu Myōhō-renge-kyō
The full phrase chanted in Nichiren Buddhism. “Namu” signifies devotion and taking refuge, while “Myōhō-renge-kyō” is the title of the Lotus Sutra.
Shakubuku
A confrontational approach to propagating Buddhist teachings, often involving direct refutation of other views. Nichiren advocated for this approach as necessary for the Final Dharma Age.
Shōju
A more gradual and accommodating approach to Dharma teaching, emphasizing respect for diverse viewpoints.
Slander of the Dharma (Hōbō)
The act of rejecting or dismissing the Lotus Sutra, particularly in favor of teachings considered provisional by Nichiren.
Sokushin Jōbutsu
“Buddhahood with this very body,” the belief that enlightenment can be achieved in this lifetime and with this physical body through the practice of the Lotus Sutra.

The problem, of course, is that you can’t get a PDF copy of every piece of source material that might be useful. The use of URLs as source material at NotebookLM is problematic, as I explained the other day, because only the content of a single page is used – related pages, links to other material, all of that is ignored.

Still, this is really promising. Maybe I can get a PDF copy of the Writings of Nichiren as published by Nichiren Shu. That would be fun.

Blog

An Artificial Discussion of the Innumerable Meanings Sutra

Listen to this podcast at notebooklm.google.com

 

I’ve been having fun applying AI tools to my Buddhist exploration. There’s been “A Little AI Magic” and last year’s “Compare and Contrast Tendai Teachings and Nichiren Doctrine” and even back in 2020, AI and Buddhism.

Today I ran across the ZD Net article Google’s hidden AI tool turns your text into stunningly lifelike podcasts – for free. Listen for yourself

Google’s NotebookLM allows you unload a document and have the NotebookLM work it’s magic on that material. But it also allows you to specify the website you want to use for the source material. This, unfortunately, is not as thorough as I’d like. For example, if I give NotebookLM my root URL – 500yojanas.org – NotebookLM only looks at the content displayed on that page, it does not follow the links to subsequent pages or include the content found under each of the menus. To get around that limitation, you need to focus on content that is self-contained. That’s why I chose the URL 500yojanas.org/lotus-sutra/full-text/sutra-of-innumerable-meanings/ for my Podcast example above.

As for the podcast product produced, I am quite impressed with the presentation and general quality of the discussion. We are a long way away from the days when computer generated talking was easily identifiable.

However, this is not a perfect system. As an example of the limitations listen to this NotebookLM podcast discussing “Daimoku.” For source material I gave the URL 500yojanas.org/blog/?s=Daimoku This brings up the 10 most recent blog posts in which I’ve discussed Daimoku.

(Listen on NotebookLM)

The failure to pronounce “ren ge” – Lotus Flower – is a killer for me. But much of the remainder of the discussion is equally off. It just feels fake. That’s probably a product of NotebookLM failing to use the full articles and instead summarizing the 10 summaries.

I plan to experiment more, but obviously this is a very new world we live in today.

See The Output Really Depends on the Input

Blog

The Wonder of Childhood

Kito Blessing
Couldn’t resist posting this photo of my grandson looking up at Rev. Igarashi as he performs a Kito Blessing for me at the Sacramento Nichiren Buddhist Church on Sept. 15. My son took the photo.
Śrimālā, Feminine Ideal, Blog, Books

The Sutra of Queen Śrimālā of the Lion’s Roar

queen_srimala_bookcover
Download PDF copy

The Sutra of Queen Śrimālā of the Lion’s Roar (Śrimālādevisimhanāda-sūtra) is one of three texts brought to Japan in 552 CE from Paikche, a kingdom in Korea. As explained in The Essentials of Buddhist Philosophy:

In 594 the Prince Regent, Shōtoku Taishi (574-622) declared Buddhism the state religion.

Buddhism at this time was quite devoid of the distinction of sects or schools, although the difference of Mahayana and Hinayana was clearly recognized. The Prince himself strictly adhered to Mahayana and wrote commentaries upon three Mahayana texts. The fame of these excellent annotations spread abroad, and one of them was chosen as a subject of commentaries by a Chinese savant.

The particular type of Mahayana that was adopted by the Prince may be seen from a consideration of the texts which were chosen. The first is the Lotus of the Good Law, a text devoted to the Ekayāna (One Vehicle) doctrine, indicating the idea of the good law. The second is the Discourse on the Ultimate Truth by Vimalakirti, a lay Bodhisattva of Vaisali, while the third is the Book of the Earnest Resolve by Srimala, a lady Bodhisattva, the Queen of Ayodhya. The central idea of this non-sectarian period was the doctrine of the Great Vehicle (Mahayana) as expressed in these three texts. This idea has remained the dominating feature of Buddhism throughout its history in Japan.

The Essentials of Buddhist Philosophy, p17

The Sutra of Queen Śrimālā of the Lion’s Roar was translated into English for the BDK English Tripiṭaka by Diana Mary Paul. In her Translator’s Introduction, she writes:

The story of Queen Śrimālā has a simple and beautiful theme, full of lush imagery and metaphors. The bodhisattva is the essential agent through whom living beings are instructed in the profound teaching of the tathāgatagarbha (“womb of the Buddha”). A future Buddha who is still embracing the teachings and instructing others, Queen Śrimālā becomes a bodhisattva who explains the doctrine of the tathāgatagarbha in the presence of the Buddha, after her parents send her a letter requesting that she study the teaching (Dharma). Awakening to the thought of enlightenment (bodhicitta), meditating upon the Buddha, she visualizes him and expresses the wish to follow the bodhisattva path. Receiving the prediction of her future Buddhahood from the Buddha, she enters the path of the True Dharma and thus begins her bodhisattva practice.

Queen Śrimālā, who had the “lion’s roar “—or eloquence—of a Buddha, first converts the women of her kingdom, then her husband, a non-Buddhist, and finally the men. Śrimālā is praised for her intelligence and compassion, not for her beauty or wealth, which are implicit. She is proficient in explaining the Dharma and is charismatic, as are all the bodhisattvas throughout Buddhist literature. Queen Śrimālā describes the True Dharma using four metaphors: 1) the great cloud, which is the source of all good merits pouring forth on living beings; 2) the great waters, which are the source for creating all good meritorious acts; 3) the great earth, which carries all things just as the True Dharma supports all living things; and 4) the four jewel storehouses, which are the four types of instructions that living beings accept and embrace.

The text raises the question of the possibility of female Buddhas. This question had continually vexed Buddhist scholars and commentators, who attempted to come to terms with the possibility of a relationship between the notion of the ultimate spiritual perfection or Buddhahood and the feminine. Such a relationship was viewed with ambivalence. This question was raised only by Mahayana Buddhists, particularly those who proclaimed the one path to universal Buddhahood. For these Buddhists, all men and women equally had the nature of the Buddha. If women were truly capable of having Buddha-nature in this lifetime without denying their female gender, this would implicitly indicate that women were not biologically determined as religiously, psychologically, and physically inferior to men.

One popular theme in Mahayana Buddhist texts had been the teaching of transformation from female to male, providing a means, both literary and spiritual, for women to become bodhisattvas and Buddhas. Other texts and commentaries suggest that there is no need to undergo a gender change through either vowing to despise the female nature or through rebirth as a male after death as a female.

The controversy that arose among scholars concerning Queen Śrimālā’s level of spiritual attainment may reflect continual controversy among Buddhists with regard to the bodhisattva ideal and the image of Buddhahood as female.

The entire tone of the text, in which the bodhisattva is the supporter, acceptor, and compassionate Dharma mother, suggests female imagery. The question of whether or not women were ever recognized as potential or imminent Buddhas remains unanswered.

The Sutra of Queen Śrimālā of the Lion’s Roar, p5-7

The_Buddhist_Feminine_Ideal-bookcoverIn 1974, Diana Mary Paul published her PhD dissertation at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. This in turn was reprinted as Number 30 in the American Academy of Religion Dissertation Series edited by H. Ganse Little Jr. and published in 1980 under the title, The Buddhist Feminine Ideal.

In reading this sūtra and Diana Mary Paul’s thesis, I was impressed by the sutra’s important lessons emphasizing that Bodhisattvas are Bodhisattvas not just for themselves but for everyone.

Over the next several days I will be publishing quotes from the sūtra and the thesis that illustrate this point. For Fall Higan, I will be using Queen Śrimālā to illustrate the Six Perfections.

Blog

A Little AI Magic

Not all AI are equal.

Google’s Gemini AI, even the Advanced option, leaves a lot to be desired when compared to Microsoft’s Copilot.

Here’s the prompt I tried on both:

generate image in style of emoji that represents Nichiren Buddhism

Gemini’s first try generated these images:

Gemini’s second try generated this error message:

I’m a language model and don’t have the capacity to help with that.

Gemini’s third try generated these images:

I then fired up Microsoft’s Copilot, which utilizes DALL-E 3 to generate images.

The first time I entered the prompt “generate image in style of emoji that represents Nichiren Buddhism” in Copilot I got these images:

The second time I entered the prompt “generate image in style of emoji that represents Nichiren Buddhism” in Copilot I got these images:

The Designer app inside Copilot even lets you tweak the image with different styles:

This:
copilot dalle3

Becomes these:

That’s enough of this. I was originally going to discuss how Gemini and Copilot allow you to narrow the sources used to answer prompts. For example you take “what is the meaning of the Daimoku in Nichiren Buddhism” and modify it by adding “Using website 500yojanas.org as principal source, what is the meaning of the Daimoku in Nichiren Buddhism.” Again Gemini and Copilot offer vastly different answers. Maybe I’ll get around to writing about that eventually.

words, Dogen, Blog, Books

The Karma of Words

In “Visions of Awakening Space and Time,” Taigen Dan Leighton quotes from William R. LaFleur’s “The Karma of Words: Buddhism and the Literary Arts in Medieval Japan.” For example:

In The Karma of Words, William LaFleur discusses the sophisticated nature of the Lotus Sutra as literature and its impact on medieval Japanese poetics: “The surprising feature of [the parables] in the Lotus is that they are simultaneously the vehicle and the tenor of that vehicle. In a very important sense, the parables of the Lotus are about the role and status of parabolic speech itself. They are what I would call self-reflexive allegory; that is, their trajectory of discourse behaves like a boomerang. Much like the Dharma described in a crucial section of the hōben chapter, they are characterized by ‘the absolute identity [or equality] of their beginning and end.’ ”

Dōgen and the Lotus Sutra, p27

And, as is my want, after reading this I sent away for a copy of LaFleur’s book, which was published by University of California Press in 1986.

This book is not about the Lotus Sutra but, instead, about Medieval Japan, the period in which Nichiren lived.

LaFleur explains in his Preface to the book:

karma-of-words-bookcover

The origin of this study lies in the simultaneous frustration and fascination I felt nearly two decades ago when for the first time I saw a performance of nō drama in Japan. I was greatly moved by what I saw, but I was also greatly perplexed by the presence in this form of drama of energies, assumptions, and aesthetic values that seemed very different from those present in the classical theaters of ancient Greece and Renaissance Europe. Here was a form of drama that had evidently been shaped by a set of religious and philosophical assumptions—but these were neither those of Aristotle nor those of European Christianity. My curiosity about this led me to search for relevant books and to question people who I thought might provide information.

I soon discovered a certain consensus; it was that, although the components in nō are many and complex, it is probably Japanese Buddhism which did most to shape the world of nō. Beyond this, however, my frustration continued, since the available materials in Western languages provided information about Buddhist elements in this form of drama but stopped short of a real reconstruction of the way the Japanese in the medieval period of their history saw their world and envisioned their destinies in and through Buddhist terms and concepts. Footnotes gave definitions of things like arhats, asuras, and Amida, but these things collectively never added up to a satisfying account of the intellectual and religious assumptions of the Buddhist poets, dramatists, and writers of prose in medieval Japan.

This book is first an attempt to provide what I could not find then and was subsequently forced to pursue in the original texts and in modern scholarly studies in Japanese.

Of course, I’m less interested in nō, which I’ve never seen performed, than I am in understanding how Buddhism shaped Japan’s world view.

As a self-styled “modern Buddhist,” I was particularly taken by this observation by LaFleur:

Buddhism gained ascendency in medieval Japan largely because it successfully put forward a coherent explanation of the world and of human experience; it was the single most satisfying and comprehensive explanation available to the Japanese people at the time. This is to deny neither that Buddhism was espoused by persons who had great social and political power nor that it provided justifications for their power and prestige. Moreover, this is not to disembody it or overlook the impressive technological and artistic side of the Buddhism that came to Japan from China and Korea—its magnificent architecture, paintings, icons, vestments, illuminated scrolls, and choreographed ritual. It is merely to call attention to the cognitive dimension and to observe that Buddhism provided not only salvation but also explanation. That is, as a religion in a medieval context, it was considerably more comprehensive, than religion in modern settings. In many ways, Buddhism performed in medieval Japan much of the role now customarily assigned to science. It did so by giving to the epoch a basic map of reality, one that provided cognitive satisfaction not only to learned monks in monasteries but also to unlettered peasants in the countryside.

The Karma of Words, p26-27

Perhaps it is time for Buddhists to take back the role taken by modern science and reassert Buddhism’s “basic map of reality” – the law of cause and effect and all of its ramifications.

Over the next four days I’ll publish quotes from “The Karma of Words.”

Stone Last Age, Dogen, Blog

About Time

Back in January 2024 I discussed Dōgen, referencing Jacqueline Stone’s article, “Seeking Enlightenment in the Last Age.” In fact, her explanation of Dōgen’s interpretation of time was one reason I sought out Leighton’s book on Dōgen.

Stone writes:

Because this “now” is absolute, and because “there is no time that has not arrived,” Buddhahood is not a potential that will unfold in the future, but can be realized only in the present moment. In other words, attaining Buddhahood is not, in Dōgen’s view, a gradual evolving from potential to realization associated with a linear view of time.

Leighton’s book offers this explanation of the source of Dōgen’s view of time:

Returning to consideration of other Mahāyāna approaches to temporality, the Avataṃsaka Sūtra, or Flower Ornament Sutra, in the chapter on “Detachment from the World” speaks of ten times through which great bodhisattvas explain past, present, and future. These ten times are the past, present, and future of the past; the past, present, and future of the future; the past, present, and future of this present; and finally, the interfusion of those previous nine times as the tenth, “being the one instant of the present.”

Dōgen and the Lotus Sutra, p107

This all fits very nicely within the concept of 3,000 Worlds in a Single Thought Moment

While I’m on the topic of time, I want to set aside these definitions of a kalpa:

Basic Indian cosmology offers a very wide view of time that was adopted by Buddhism. There is a recurring cycle in every universe of four kalpas: the formation or becoming, continuity or the abiding, the decaying, and the “nonmanifest” or empty. A kalpa is an incalculably long period of time, with one colorful traditional description of its duration as “the image of a bird that flies once every hundred years over the peak of Mount Everest with a piece of silk in her talons; the length of time it would take the silk to wear down the mountain completely is said to be one kalpa.” Another calculation is that a short kalpa “is the time required to empty a hundred square mile city enclosure filled with poppy seeds if one seed were to be removed every three years.”

Dōgen and the Lotus Sutra, p110-111