The COVID-19 precautions are keeping me home and canceling the Sacramento Nichiren Buddhist Church services but that doesn’t impede my virtual sangha. Today I joined Rev. Ryusho Jeffus’ Myoshoji service. Ryusho Shonin is in Syracuse, New York, and the other two attendees joined from different parts of North Carolina, where Ryusho once had a physical temple. The Myoshoji services often include Nichiren Shu practitioners from several European countries.
I had a fun epiphany this morning while doing Gonyo. No, not the manifestation of Christ to the Gentiles as represented by the Magi, but a sudden, intuitive perception of or insight into the reality or essential meaning of something, usually initiated by some simple, homely, or commonplace occurrence or experience. Is there a Buddhist term for epiphany?
Anyway, this revelation involved the Seven Happy Gods on my altar. I discussed the addition of these gods to my practice back in July during my 21-Day Staycation Retreat Encouraged by Universal Sage. Read about it here. What is important to this story is the encouragement Rev. Kenjo Igarashi gave me before he performed an eye-opening for the gods.
“He cautioned, I would need to make them part of my practice. He said the figurines had been eye-opened before but the effect had withered. Basically they had starved to death.”
So, ever since I’ve added the Seven Happy Gods to my daily practice. Each morning and evening I devote a portion of my Daimoku to each god, reciting the god’s name and which virtue the god represents and chanting three Daimoku.
When I first placed the gods on my altar I had them in this order:
I chose this order because that was how they appeared on the cover of their box.
I bring this up because the order plays an important part in all of this.
This order changed in November of last year. I saw water cups with symbols for Daikoku and Kishimojin available at Gasshodo.com. I figured adding these would be another way of involving the gods in my practice.
When I got the cups it necessitated rearranging things.
I moved Kishimojin to the left and Daikoku to the right since that is how they appear on the altar of the Sacramento Nichiren Buddhist Church. I chose Bishamon to be the first god because he appears in the upper-left corner of the Gohonzon. It was only after I had finished arranging that I realized this must have been the order they were designed to follow. The central god, Jurōjin, is the only one in yellow attire. The two gods with orange hats are on the ends. Next are gods with green clothing and on either side of Jurōjin are gods in matching color clothing. (Is this coral or pink?)
Now, finally, we can get to the epiphany. Thanks for hanging in there.
With seven gods I’ve given each one a day of the week and in the morning I recite some details about that day’s god before offering my morning prayer to the Sanjubanshin, the 30 Guardians of the Lotus Sutra.
But seven is also the number of characters in the Daimoku. And when I considered each character and each god’s attribute, I discovered I had the essential arrangement.
Namu Myō Hō Ren Ge Kyō
Dignity, Honesty, Joy, Wisdom, Longevity, Happiness and Fortune
On Sunday, March 3, I got up early, did my regular morning service and then drove to the Sacramento Amtrak station downtown to catch the 9 am Capitol Corridor train to Oakland.
Normally, I attend services at the Sacramento Nichiren Buddhist Church on the second Sunday of the month, but with no service scheduled this month I decided to attend the Nichiren Buddhist Sangha of the San Francisco Bay Area service at the home of Mark Ryugan Herrick in Piedmont.
It is a little more than 3 miles from the Oakland Jack London Square Amtrak station to Greenbank Avenue in Piedmont. From the Second Street station, I walk to Jackson Street and then to Lake Merritt. I walk around Lake Merritt to Grand Avenue and then continue up the hill to Greenbank Avenue. The only physical difficulty is my bladder. At 68 I’m prone to extra trips to the potty, especially after drinking tea on the two-hour train trip. Anyway, thank you, Safeway, for providing public toilets.
The train trip and the walk get me to Herrick’s house some time after noon. Services are scheduled to begin at 12:30 pm, with a lecture by Michael Ryuei McCormick Shonin following. In addition to Ryuei and Ryugan and me, there were two other men who attended. I was told fear of the Corona Virus was keeping a couple of regulars away. The quarters are tight and vigorous chanting could fill the air with pathogens. This will be the last service at Herrick’s house until the virus scare has passed.
Ryuei Shonin’s lectures are part of his Buddhist Study Program. You can read more about that here. Today’s topic was Chapter 5 of The Vimalakirti Sutra.
The Burton Watson translation opens Chapter 5:
INQUIRING ABOUT THE ILLNESS
At that time the Buddha said to Manjushri, “You must go visit Vimalakirti and inquire about his illness.”
Manjushri replied to the Buddha, “World-Honored One, that eminent man is very difficult to confront. He is profoundly enlightened in the true nature of reality and skilled at preaching the essentials of the Law. His eloquence never falters, his wisdom is free of impediments. He understands all the rules of bodhisattva conduct, and nothing in the secret storehouse of the Buddhas is beyond his grasp. He has overcome the host of devils and disports himself with transcendental powers. In wisdom and expedient means he has mastered all there is to know. Nevertheless, in obedience to the Buddha’s august command, I will go visit him and inquire about his illness.” (Page 34)
Of particular interest for me was Vimalakirti’s explanation of his own illness in response to Manjushri:
“Layman, this illness of yours—can you endure it? Is the treatment perhaps not making it worse rather than better? The World-Honored One countless times has made solicitous inquiries concerning you. Layman, what is the cause of this illness? Has it been with you long? And how can it be cured?”
Vimalakirti replied, “This illness of mine is born of ignorance and feelings of attachment. Because all living beings are sick, therefore I am sick. If all living beings are relieved of sickness, then my sickness will be mended. Why? Because the bodhisattva for the sake of living beings enters the realm of birth and death, and because he is in the realm of birth and death he suffers illness. If living beings can gain release from illness, then the bodhisattva will no longer be ill.
“It is like the case of a rich man who has only one child. If the child falls ill, then the father and mother too will be ill, but if the child’s illness is cured, the father and mother too will be cured. The bodhisattva is like this, for he loves living beings as though they were his children. If living beings are sick, the bodhisattva will be sick, but if living beings are cured, the bodhisattva too will be cured. You ask what cause this illness arises from – the illness of the bodhisattva arises from his great compassion.” (Page 35-36)
Which brings us to the topic of this blog post: This photo.
The service concluded at 2:30 pm and I caught a Lyft ride back to the Jack London Square station in time to get a seat on the 3 pm Capitol Corridor train for Sacramento. The ride was relaxing and uneventful until congestion in the Sacramento station caused our train to come to a halt across the Sacramento River in West Sacramento.
Looking out the window I saw a man climb our of his tarp shelter and proceed to inject something into his left arm. I took a photo and posted it on Instagram on my @jomariworks account.
When I eventually arrived home I did my regular evening service and my daily 32 Days of the Lotus Sutra posts. I then did a quick post of the photo and the first Bodhisattva Vow.
And so here I am today attempting to put that photo into the context of the Bodhisattva compassion shown in Vimalakirti’s illness.
If nothing else, this offers graphic illustration of the difficulty of the Bodhisattva path.
Sentient beings are innumerable:
I vow to save them all.
Today I traveled to Hayward and the Nichiren Buddhist International Center for a Tokudo Jukai-shiki cermony, the Attaining the Way and Bestowing the Precept Ceremony for inducting a novice priest.
The new novice is Mark Herrick, whom I’ve met several times while attending services in Oakland with Rev. Ryuei McCormick.
Ryuei’s Hōkoku-bun
Here is a good man, who is undertaking the ceremony of crossing over and receiving the precepts before the Buddha, the founder, and the Three Treasures. His name is Mark Herrick. Since he was born in this world, spring and fall have passed 63 times. His previous good roots have now met with opportune conditions so that he has finally made the determination to leave home and accept the precept of the Lotus Sutra and wear the black-dyed robe.
We humbly reflect that since our founder Nichiren Daishōnin left home and crossed over at the age of 16 he put the Great Dharma of the Great Sage, Śākyamuni, the World Honored One, into the Odaimoku and spread it everywhere under heaven. He dedicated his life to saving all sentient beings. Now, this good man, Mark Herrick, takes his position as the newest disciple in this lineage. He is taking up Śākyamuni Buddha and Nichiren Daishōnin’s saving vow and activities as his own, thereby inheriting the seed of the Buddha to spread throughout the ages so that he can requite one ten thousandth of the favor of the Buddha.
May the Eternal Śākyamuni Buddha who attained awakening in the remote past, our founder Nichiren Daishonin, the past ministers who have contributed so much to our school, all place their hands upon his head and certify this crossing over and reception of the precepts with joy.
May the great vow of happiness in this world and the next be accomplished.
Namu Myōhō Renge Kyō
On this, the 16th Day, and 2nd Month of the year 2020
Preceptor, Ryuei McCormick, (Kaō)
Each time through The Immeasurable Meanings Sutra (Watson translation this time), I’m confronted with the question of how to describe the Buddha’s appearance. In particular, the sign that appears on his chest.
It was during my 21-day stay-cation retreat last year that I first read The Sutra of Innumerable Meanings (Reeves translation that time) and found this:
His chest, marked with a swastika,
Is like the chest of a lion.
I have known about the use of the swastika as a Buddhist marking for some time. I wrote about the decoration atop the Hanamatsuri shrine at the Sacramento Nichiren Buddhist Church. That post has a lot of nice background information that I won’t bother to duplicate here.
The point today is the decision of translators – other than Reeves – to avoid confusing the mark with the Nazi symbol.
The BDK English Tripitaka translation by Kubo and Logan offers:
Your chest is like that of a lion, and it is marked with the sign of virtue. (Page 13)
While the Kosei publishing 1975 translation by Tamura, Schiffer and Del Campana used the “swastika mark,” the “Modern Translation for Contemporary Readers” (Kosei 2019) translated by Shinozaki, Ziporyn and Earhart follows the BDK English Tripitaka example and offers:
His chest, bearing the mark of virtue, is like a lion’s chest.
Which brings us the reason I’m rehashing all this today.
Burton Watson’s translation of The Immeasurable Meanings Sutra chooses to keep the literal character while eschewing the word swastika.
… breast displaying a fylfot pattern; lion chested; …
While I admire Watson’s effort to remain true to the literal text (see A Note About Translations at the bottom of yesterday’s post for another example), why can’t translators use the proper spelling of the word swastika, which is svastika? That eliminates the Nazi baggage and restores the idea that this image on the Buddha’s chest “is a statement of affirmation, ‘It is!’ ‘Life is good!’ ‘There is value’ ‘There is meaning!’ Svastika is a term that affirms the positive values of life.” (Also see this discussion of the Japanese meaning of the symbol Manji.)
And getting back to the topic of The Immeasurable Meanings Sutra …
This post is for those who subscribe to this website and receive emails whenever something is posted and also for my Facebook followers.
All of those “Search Background and Commentary for Day XX” posts are the initial steps I’m taking to organize my posts to make searching more efficient. I’ve already tagged all of the Daily Dharma for last year and when I’m done creating the 32 search pages, I’ll then add all of the quotes related to particular sections of the Lotus Sutra.
To be honest, this is mostly for my benefit. When I do my daily 32 Days of the Lotus Sutra post I need to access background for that day. Right now I’m using quotes from Buddhism for Today, but by the end of February I expect to return to quoting from the Daily Dharma and other appropriate quotes.
I apologize for the annoyance of the 32 search page posts.
Finally completed Rev. Ryuei McCormick’s Open Your Eyes: A Nichiren Buddhist View of Awakening. This is a compilation of a series of blog posts McCormick originally posted on his Fraught With Peril website.
I heartily endorse Mark Herrick’s assessment of this work:
Open Your Eyes, p6This book is a thoroughly researched and well sourced reference combining a historical look at the spread of Buddhism and illuminating Nichiren’s thinking within its context of medieval Japanese culture. It carefully explains why Nichiren expressed criticism of other Buddhist schools and his overarching motivation to ease the suffering of people in this world by returning emphasis to Śākyamuni Buddha’s message that everyone regardless of gender, status, or circumstance can become a buddha in this very lifetime.
The physical book is huge. Literally. It measures 7 inches by 10 inches and 600 pages. (By comparison, Murano’s Lotus Sutra is 5 7/8 by 8 1/4 and 427 pages.) But it is not difficult to read. The text is broken up into 46 chapters, with an average length of 12 or so pages per chapter. I recommend a chapter-a-night regimen.
At the conclusion of the book, McCormick offers an excellent explanation of why you should bother reading his book. Given the length of the book, moving this message up front may encourage more people to pick it up and consider what it has to say:
Open Your Eyes, p586-587Many people today, I think, are very casual about being either nominally religious, or vaguely spiritual, or openly disdainful of religious teachings and spiritual practice. Those who do investigate and take up Buddhism and Buddhist practice all too often are satisfied with the small rewards of worldly benefits like peace of mind gained through silent sitting practices, or perhaps good fortune in their relationships or careers because they believe Buddhism can give them some kind of metaphysical control over their lives through ritual practices. I would not deny that sitting meditation or chanting can bring about peace of mind or help people gain the insight to refrain from bad and instead make good causes to help them make the most of life in a worldly sense. Even Śākyamuni Buddha gave discourses to lay followers to help them live wisely and thereby enjoy relatively happy lives in a worldly sense. However, what Nichiren is inviting us to do in Kaimoku-shō is to reflect more deeply about religious teachings including Buddhism and what they mean in terms of how we view life and our own role. Are we content to simply accept that this is the only life and that after death there is nothing at all? Or do we believe there may be some heavenly realm to hope for and that a virtuous life can lead us to it? Or do we wish to seek buddhahood — a life of selfless compassion that transcends small-minded concerns about personal happiness in this or some other lifetime? If we are really willing to engage the deepest teachings of Buddhism and try to realize and actualize them, what are we willing to put on the line? How much of ourselves are we willing to give? Are we only looking for protection and benefits? Or do we have the compassion and courage to give more and more of ourselves for the sake of all beings according to whatever the situation may demand? I cannot imagine that everyone will come to the same conclusions as Nichiren did, but I do think that if the Kaimoku-shō can inspire us to at least reflect on these questions, then it will have been well worth taking the time to read and ponder its message.
I’m also publishing the Introduction and I will be setting aside additional quotes in the future.
Earlier I published a lengthy excerpt in a blog post Understanding the 12-Linked Chain of Causation.
In 1993 I had been practicing what I considered to be Nichiren Buddhism for four years. I had started with Nichiren Shoshu of America before the split with Soka Gakkai and continued with Soka Gakkai after the divorce was finalized. I don’t recall ever being encouraged to read the Lotus Sutra. I was certainly never encouraged to do more sutra recitation than the shindoku [the Japanese pronunciation of the Chinese translation using Romanized text] and nothing beyond the Hoben Pon portion of Chapter 2, and Ji Ga Ge of Chapter 16. It was in this setting that I learned that Columbia University Press had published Burton Watson’s translation of the Lotus Sutra. Soka Gakkai held the copyright for the book and the local SGI community center bookstore had the book for sale. I purchased a copy. I read it once. I recall realizing that a single reading would not be sufficient to gain any appreciation of the sutra, but I never picked up that copy again.
It would be another 22 years before I again read the Lotus Sutra.
Today I’m beginning my 49th cycle through my 32 Days of the Lotus Sutra practice. For 40 cycles I used Senchu Murano’s translation. Then I tried Leon Hurvitz’s Scripture of the Lotus Blossom of the Fine Dharma for a couple of cycles and followed that with the 1975 edition of The Threefold Lotus Sutra, which I dropped after just one cycle. I did one cycle with the BDK English Tripitaka translation and then shifted to Gene Reeves’ translation for two cycles. For the previous two cycles I’ve been using the 2019 edition of the Threefold Lotus Sutra.
I’ve now come full circle, back to Burton Watson’s translation. I’m curious what it will be like to read it again after 27 years.
In Watson’s Preface I still have the page corner turned down marking this quote:
Watson, pxx-xxiThe Lotus Sutra tells us at times that the Lotus Sutra is about to be preached, at other times it says that the Lotus Sutra has already been preached with such-and-such results, and at still other times it gives instructions on just how the Lotus Sutra is to be preached or enumerates in detail the merits that accrue to one who pays due honor to the text. But the reader may be forgiven if he comes away from the work wondering just which of the chapters that make it up was meant to be the Lotus Sutra itself. One writer has in fact been led to describe the sutra as a text “about a discourse that is never delivered, a lengthy preface without a book.*” This is no doubt because Mahayana Buddhism has always insisted that its highest truth can never in the end be expressed in words, since words immediately create the kind of distinctions that violate the unity of Emptiness. All the sutra can do, therefore, is to talk around it, leaving a hole in the middle where truth can reside.
* George J. Tanabe, Jr, and Wilma Jane Tanabe, eds., The Lotus Sutra in Japanese Culture (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1989), p. 2 in the introductory chapter by Professor George Tanabe.
When I first read this I could not have possibly fathomed the meaning of that hole in the middle, that central emptiness. As Watson points out in the Preface:
Watson, pxviThis is the first point to keep in mind in reading the Lotus Sutra. Its setting, its vast assembly of listeners, its dramatic occurrences in the end belong to a realm that totally transcends our ordinary concepts of time, space, and possibility. Again and again we are told of events that took place countless, indescribable numbers of kalpas or eons in the past, or of beings or worlds that are as numerous as the sands of millions and billions of Ganges rivers. Such “numbers” are in fact no more than pseudonumbers or non-numbers, intended to impress on us the impossibility of measuring the immeasurable. They are not meant to convey any statistical data but simply to boggle the mind and jar it loose from its conventional concepts of time and space. For in the realm of Emptiness, time and space as we conceive them are meaningless; anywhere is the same as everywhere, and now, then, never, forever are all one.
How to comprehend this?
Watson, pxx-xxiVery early in the sutra the Buddha warns us that the wisdom of the Buddhas is extremely profound and difficult to comprehend, and this warning is repeated frequently in later chapters. …
But of course in the view of religion there are other approaches to truth than merely through words and intellectual discourse. The sutra therefore exhorts the individual to approach the wisdom of the Buddhas through the avenue of faith and religious practice. The profound influence which the Lotus Sutra has exerted upon the cultural and religious life of the countries of eastern Asia is due as much to its function as a guide to devotional practice as to the actual ideas that it expounds. It calls upon us to act out the sutra with our bodies and minds rather than merely reading it, and in that way to enter into its meaning.
This is the Essential emptiness. Chih-i equated the Ultimate Truth with the empty space inside a house (The Ulimate Empty Space). The teachings of the Buddha provide the roof beams and pillars, and Lotus Sutra gathers the whole into a house with empty rooms in which to practice. The Emptiness is essential to the function of the house, to the teaching of the Lotus Sutra.
I’ve completed my 48th cycle through the 32 Days of the Lotus Sutra and before I set aside The Threefold Lotus Sutra: A Modern Translations for Contemporary Readers, I want to publish some quotes from the Preface discussing the importance of sutra recitation.
The Threefold Lotus Sutra (2019), pxvii-xixIn chapter 17, “Specification of Merits,” the Buddha teaches another formula for how, after he has passed into nirvana, his followers can be true practitioners of the Lotus Sutra. This method consists of five elements: (1) rejoicing in the sutra, (2) reading and reciting it, (3) expounding it, (4) concurrently practicing the Six Paramitas, and (5) intensely practicing the Six Paramitas. Here the meaning of “reading and reciting” is deeper than in the aforementioned five practices of Dharma teachers: as our faith deepens, we do not simply read the sutra aloud but also come to appreciate it in our hearts and minds and study it in great depth.
In short, we are diligent in the practice of reading and reciting the sutra so that we can firmly receive and embrace it, that is, so that we can deepen our faith and devotion to it and make progress toward the attainment of buddhahood (the perfection of oneself). This is the first function of the practice of sutra recitation.
The second function of reading and reciting the sutra is to serve as an “offering,” or kuyo in Japanese, to the Three Treasures – the Buddha, his teachings, and the community of those who practice them – and it is also a bodhisattva practice undertaken for the sake of others. …
The third function of sutra recitation is to go beyond a merely intellectual understanding of the sutra’s contents. There are two ways of comprehending the Lotus Sutra: understanding it intellectually and understanding it bodily, that is, by reciting it orally. The act of reading the sutra aloud helps readers totally concentrate their consciousness on recitation without engaging their intellect to grasp the meaning of the words and phrases of the sutra. While the strength of modern intellectual comprehension is coherent logic founded on rational understanding, rhythmic recitation is capable of adding something more to our rational understanding of the literal meanings of the sutra.
According to the Japanese traditional belief called kotodama, spiritual power dwells within words, and therefore, when the mouth gives voice to words, it releases their inherent power, which is capable of stirring heaven and earth and all the living beings therein. Words work phonetically to produce rhythm and resonance, which are in turn the agents that guide the body and mind of the reciter to the realm of the sutra, that is, to the Buddha’s world of great harmony. Sutra recitation, in particular its rhythm and resonance, can liberate us from the disadvantage of the modern age — the habit of limiting our horizon of understanding to the intellectual comprehension of the sutra.
The experience of reciting the sutra aloud is quite different from reading it silently because sutra recitation provides more than just an intellectual understanding of the sutra. When we recite the sutra, we enjoy the pleasure of the rhythm of its sentences as well as the repetition of its set phrases and idioms, just as if we were reciting a poem or singing a song. We may even feel surrounded by the Buddha’s light and embraced by his compassion. This is a form of meditation.
This March will mark the completion of five years of daily Lotus Sutra recitation. It is a practice unlike anything I attempted during more than 25 years with Soka Gakkai. It is a practice that has brought profound benefit in my life and encouraged my Bodhisattva vow to help others attain the path. It is a practice I heartily recommend.