Two Buddhas Seated Side by Side authors Donald Lopez, Jr. and Jacqueline Stone sit down with Tricycle Editor and Publisher James Shaheen.
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Two Stars for Two Buddhas Seated Side by Side
It didn’t take long for me to realize Two Buddhas Seated Side by Side wasn’t what I had expected. I wrote a Two Star review on Amazon:
Jacqueline I. Stone gets 5 stars for her contribution to this book. Donald S. Lopez Jr. gets a negative three. Stone is famous for her scholarly work on the Lotus Sutra and the 13th century monk Nichiren. Lopez has no appreciation for this sutra and consistently demonstrates his disdain for all Mahayana Buddhism. Stone’s contribution to this book, which seeks to marry her insight into how the Lotus Sutra was interpreted in medieval Japan with a chapter by chapter analysis of the sutra, just can’t survive Lopez’s poison.
Over the last several days I’ve been inputting the quotes from Stone’s portion of the book that I will use as part of my 32 Days of the Lotus Sutra practice. I should have enough material to fill three, maybe four, rotations, although as I progress fewer and fewer of the quotes will address that day’s reading.
Having finished the book, I’ve amended my Amazon review. It’s still two stars:
At the conclusion of the book, the authors say:
Our first aim in this volume was to introduce readers to the rich content of the Lotus Sūtra, one of the most influential and yet enigmatic of Buddhist texts, and to provide a basic chapter-by-chapter guide to its often-bewildering narrative. Our secondary aims were related to hermeneutics. Through the example of the Lotus Sūtra, and its reading by Nichiren, one of its most influential devotees, we have sought to illuminate the dynamics by which Buddhists, at significant historical moments, have reinterpreted their tradition. Thus, this study has taken a very different perspective from that of commentaries intended primarily to elucidate the Lotus Sūtra as an expression of the Buddhist truth or as a guide to Buddhist practice. Our intent is not to deny the sūtra’s claim to be the Buddha’s constantly abiding dharma; rather, we have been guided by the conviction that the full genius of the Lotus as a literary and philosophical text comes to light only when the sūtra is examined in terms of what can be known or even surmised about the circumstances of its compilation. Adopting that perspective suggests how the compilers may have grappled with questions new to their received tradition and how they refigured that tradition in attempting to answer them. (Page 263)
This first aim is reasonably accomplished but it is the secondary aim that is well wide of the target. Lopez is responsible for this and his claim that “Our intent is not to deny the sūtra’s claim to be the Buddha’s constantly abiding dharma” is undermined by denigration of all Mahayana teachings throughout the book, the most glaring example being his description of the Lotus Sutra on Page 56:
The Lotus Sūtra, like all Mahāyāna sūtras, is an apocryphal text, composed long after the Buddha’s death and yet retrospectively attributed to him.
Yes, I would have been happier if Lopez and Stone had chosen instead to write a book “intended primarily to elucidate the Lotus Sūtra as an expression of the Buddhist truth or as a guide to Buddhist practice.” But describing all Mahayana Buddhism as somehow outside Mainstream Buddhism does not illuminate how Buddhists over the years have dynamically reinterpreted their tradition.
Pointers for Beginners
I’ve created a page with links to resources appropriate to those who are new to Nichiren Shu Buddhism. I will be adding material to this page over time. The Top Menu and Sidebar Menu both contain links to the page, WHERE TO BEGIN.
Bodhisattvas from Other Worlds
The book Two Buddhas Seated Side By Side presents a chapter by chapter look at the Lotus Sutra, with Donald S. Lopez Jr. offering a description and anti-Mahayana commentary on each chapter and Jacqueline I. Stone following with an explanation of how Nichiren used the chapter in Medieval Japan.
I’ve found Stone’s contribution excellent and Lopez’s effort so disappointing that I hesitate to suggest anyone purchase the book. See this blog post.
That’s not to say that Lopez has contributed nothing worthwhile. It’s just that I have bags of salt handy when taking in his contribution.
The latest example is his opening paragraph for Chapter 15, Bodhisattvas Emerging from the Earth:
The dramatic tension that has been building since the “Jeweled Stūpa” chapter continues to build here. At the end of that chapter, the Buddha calls for those who are willing to step forward and, in the presence of the assembled buddhas, vow to spread the Lotus Sūtra after his parinirvāṇa. In the “Perseverance” chapter [Encouragement for Keeping this Sutra], billions of great bodhisattvas who have arrived from other worlds vow to spread the Lotus Sūtra throughout the ten directions. The theme of volunteers vowing to preserve the Lotus Sūtra after the Buddha is gone continues in this chapter, which opens with the bodhisattvas who have arrived from other lands to witness the opening of the stūpa now offering to preserve, recite, copy, and pay homage to the Lotus Sūtra in this Sahā world after the Buddha has passed into final nirvāṇa. However, the Buddha replies that there are sufficient bodhisattvas in his own world, the Sahā world, a statement that would be imbued with great meaning by Nichiren. The Buddha’s polite refusal of the offer of assistance from the foreign bodhisattvas, that is, the bodhisattvas who have arrived from other worlds, sets the scene for yet another dramatic event.
Two Buddhas, p161
What jumped out at me here was the characterization of Medicine-King Bodhisattva-mahāsattva and Great-Eloquence Bodhisattva-mahāsattva, together with their twenty-thousand attendants who were also Bodhisattvas, as bodhisattvas “who have arrived from other worlds.” These are the great Bodhisattvas who are listed in Chapter 1, Introductory, as being present at the start. And in Chapter 23, The Previous Life of Medicine-King Bodhisattva, Star-King-Flower Bodhisattva asks the Buddha: “World-Honored One! Why does Medicine-King Bodhisattva walk about this Sahā-World?” Where in the Lotus Sutra does it suggest all of the Bodhisattvas have all arrived from other worlds?
And yet, judging from Stone’s description of Nichiren’s writings, the other-worldly nature of these Bodhisattvas was well known.
Based on his understanding of the Buddha’s teaching process, Nichiren argued that [the bodhisattvas from beneath the earth] could only appear in the Final Dharma age. During the two thousand years following the Buddha’s passing, that is, the True Dharma and Semblance Dharma ages, persons who had received the seed of buddhahood from Sakyamuni Buddha were led to the stages of maturation and harvesting through provisional teachings. Had the bodhisattvas from beneath the earth appeared and spread the daimoku during that time, many of those people would have reviled it, thereby destroying the merit gained through the maturing of the seeds that they had already received. During those two thousand years, Nichiren said, some of the bodhisattvas from other worlds remained to teach the Lotus Sūtra in this world. Specifically, Zhiyi and his teacher Huisi, long revered as manifestations of the bodhisattvas Bhaiṣajyarāja [Medicine-King] and Avalokiteśvara [World-Voice-Perceiver], respectively, had taught the three thousand realms in a single thought-moment from the abstract perspective of the trace teaching.
Two Buddhas, p175-176
Understanding that Medicine-King Bodhisattva and Great-Eloquence Bodhisattva and World-Voice-Perceiver are from other worlds does offer an explanation why the Buddha keeps silence when “[E]ighty billion nayuta Bodhisattva-mahāsattvas … rose from their seats, came to the Buddha, joined their hands together [towards him] with all their hearts, and thought, ‘If the World-Honored One commands us to keep and expound this sūtra, we will expound the Dharma just as the Buddha teaches.’ ”
How to Receive a Gohonzon
On Oct. 8, 2019, I received a contact email from Richard, who lives in Sydney, Australia. Richard asked how he might receive a Gohonzon. He said he has been practicing on his own, chanting and reciting the Lotus Sutra. I replied to his contact email, but the email address he provided doesn’t work. So, I’ll post the email here in hopes of reaching Richard in Sydney.
Nichiren writes in “Treastise on Chanting the Daimoku of the Lotus Sūtra”:
QUESTION: What should a believer of the Lotus Sūtra regard as the Honzon (the Most Venerable One)? How should one perform the Buddhist rites and practice daily training?
ANSWER: First of all, the Honzon could be eight fascicles, one fascicle, one chapter or the title alone of the Lotus Sūtra. This is preached in the “Teacher of the Dharma” and “Divine Powers of the Buddhas” chapters. Those who can afford to may have the portraits or wooden statues of Śākyamuni Buddha and the Buddha of Many Treasures made and placed on both sides of the Lotus Sutra. Those who can further afford to may make the portraits or wooden statues of various Buddhas all over the universe or Universal Sage Bodhisattva. As for the manner of performing the rites, standing or sitting practices must be observed in front of the Honzon. Outside the hall of practice, however, one is free to choose any of the four modes of acts: walking, standing, sitting and lying down. Next, regarding the daily practices, the daimoku of the Lotus Sūtra should be chanted, “Namu Myōhō Renge Kyō.” If possible, a verse or phrase of the Lotus Sūtra should respectfully be read. As an auxiliary practice one may say a prayer to Śākyamuni Buddha, the Buddha of Many Treasures, the numerous Buddhas throughout the universe, various bodhisattvas, Two Vehicles, Heavenly Kings, dragon gods, the eight kinds of gods and demi-gods who protect Buddhism as one wishes. Since we have many ignorant people today, the “3,000 existences contained in one thought” doctrine may be difficult to contemplate from the beginning. Nevertheless, those who wish to study it are encouraged to do so from the start.
Shō Hokke Daimoku-shō, Treastise on Chanting the Daimoku of the Lotus Sūtra, Writings of Nichiren Shōnin, Faith and Practice, Volume 4, Page 19
Nichiren also writes in “Reply to Lord Nanjō”:
Those who offer a stem of flower or a pinch of incense to the Lotus Sūtra, as precious as this, are as meritorious as those who offered donations to “ten thousand billion” Buddhas in the past.
Nanjō-dono Gohenji, Reply to Lord Nanjō, Writings of Nichiren Shōnin, Volume 7, Followers II, Page 15-16
If you are going to get a Gohonzon mandala that has been eye-opened by a priest, then you need to establish a relationship with a priest. Being as there are no Nichiren Shu priests in Australia (as far as I know), that leaves you with a number of long-distance relationships.
These priests have an online presence:
- Shoda Douglas Kanai of the Nichiren Buddhist Kannon Temple of Nevada. [email protected] See The Value of Online Services
- Myokei Caine-Barrett at [email protected]
- Ryuoh Faulconer at [email protected]
- Kanjin Cederman who you contact through enkyojibuddhistnetwork.org/contact/
- Nichiren Shu Sangha of the San Francisco Bay Area
I posted this on Facebook’s Nichiren Shu page and received this comment from Guy Chouinard Jr:
Don’t worry about Gohonzon. You actually don’t need it (read ch. 21). Try going outside to chant. Chant to nature and universe. Chant with nature and universe. Chant in nature and universe. Chant odaimoku as the sun rises, just like St. Nichiren did the first time he ever chanted Odaimoku. Don’t limit yourself to “stuff.” This way you can open your mind to the reality of all things.
My opinion: Your personal practice imbues your personal altar with the benefits of your practice. At the very least, light a candle and offer flowers and incense to your copy of the Lotus Sutra. As you chant, it will be as “meritorious as those who offered donations to ‘ten thousand billion’ Buddhas.”
Apocryphal Text
Two Buddhas, p56-57The Lotus Sūtra, like all Mahāyāna sūtras, is an apocryphal text, composed long after the Buddha’s death and yet retrospectively attributed to him. To establish its authenticity, the Lotus Sūtra must produce its own community of faith, but it must also respond to its enemies, those who declare, with some historical justification, that the Lotus Sūtra is a fraud, a work that only pretends to be the word of the Buddha. This seems, in fact, to have been a frequent charge leveled by mainstream monastics against the Mahāyāna sūtras. When prominent monks and nuns of the Buddhist community in India, where the Lotus Sūtra first appeared, declared it to be spurious, noting, correctly, that it was not to be found anywhere in the various collections that had been compiled in the centuries since the Buddha’s death, the proponents of the Lotus Sūtra had to respond. They could not claim that the sūtra appeared in the existing collections, because it did not. How could the Lotus Sūtra have been spoken by the Buddha without others knowing about it? One implicit explanation is that before the Buddha could teach the sūtra, five thousand members of the audience stood up and walked out. They did not know about the Lotus Sūtra because they were not there to hear it. If these arrogant monks and nuns had only stayed, they would have heard the Buddha preach the Lotus Sūtra. (Although we are now partway through the second chapter, the Lotus Sūtra has apparently not yet begun.) One could also see this mass exit as a criticism of those mainstream monastics who rejected the Lotus Sūtra. “The roots of error among this group had been deeply planted, and they were arrogant,” we are told, and the Buddha himself is made to dismiss them as “useless twigs and leaves.”
Although we are now [ONLY] partway through the second chapter, to use Donald S. Lopez Jr.’s words, I have run out of patience. When I wrote Two Authors Seated Side By Side earlier this week, I said I was “wary of Lopez’s influence on Two Buddhas Seated Side by Side, but I’m excited about the opportunity to use this book in my daily practice.” Now I’m just annoyed. Jacqueline I. Stone’s descriptions of Nichiren, his times and his thinking, are excellent. She maintains academic detachment without resorting to the sort of disparagement that Lopez inserts at each opportunity – “the Lotus Sūtra has apparently not yet begun.”
Picking someone who demonstrably has such little respect for the Lotus Sutra to be its auditor is a waste. Imagine if Stone had had the opportunity to partner with the late Gene Reeves to write this book. That would be worth buying. Were it not for Stone’s part in this book, I would put it down now and never pick it up again.
I’m going to keep using quotes from the book where they offer insight into the sutra, especially Stone’s insight.
Two Authors Seated Side by Side
I have not read past the Author’s Introduction for Two Buddhas Seated Side by Side. I’m looking forward to reading this chapter-by-chapter introduction to the Lotus Sutra and Nichiren’s interpretation as part of my 32 Days of the Lotus Sutra.
Two Buddhas is written by Jacqueline I. Stone, Emeriti Faculty in the Department of Religion at Princeton University, and Donald S. Lopez Jr., the Arthur E. Link Distinguished University Professor of Buddhist and Tibetan Studies in the University of Michigan’s Department of Asian Languages and Cultures.
I have long admired Stone, whose Original Enlightenment and the Transformation of Medieval Japanese Buddhism, is a marvelous introduction to Nichiren Buddhism. She has edited or contributed to several anthologies of papers discussing the Lotus Sutra. Her fame was such that when the 100th Anniversary Celebration of the Nichiren Order in North America (NONA) was held in Los Angeles in June 2014, Stone was invited to lecture.
Lopez, however, is more of a mystery to me. His academic focus is Tibetan Buddhism, and his University of Michigan biography does not mention the Lotus Sutra. Lopez’s lack of specialization in the Lotus Sutra is underscored by his book The Lotus Sutra A Biography, which I read back in February.
Maybe when I finish Two Buddhas I will better appreciate why Lopez gets top billing here. For now, I want to revisit his Biography of the Lotus Sutra and address two points that cause me to be wary of his influence in Two Buddhas.
First, his opening introduction to Biography:
It must have been the spring of 1972. I was in my sophomore year at the University of Virginia. A friend told me that his roommate had invited a Buddhist teacher to come over from Richmond to give a talk at their apartment in town. I decided to go along. I knew nothing about Buddhism. I was taking a course on Hinduism at the time and understood that Buddhism was somehow like Hinduism. In those days, people still used phrases such as “Oriental philosophy” and “Eastern mysticism” to subsume the various religious traditions of Asia in a single category. When I arrived at my friend’s apartment that night, I was surprised to find that the Buddhist teacher was a white guy, a distinctively unhip white guy. He looked like Matt Foley, the motivational speaker played by Chris Farley on Saturday Night Live. He was dressed in a plaid sport coat, with a white shirt and narrow tie. He wore glasses, and he had short, thinning hair, greased back. He was relatively tall, heavyset, probably in his early fifties. A short Japanese woman was with him, apparently his wife. He gave a brief talk, which I cannot remember. I noticed that in the corner of the room, there was a wooden cabinet sitting on a coffee table. It was about two feet tall. He opened two little doors, and there was a small statue of the Buddha inside. To my amazement, the man got down on his knees, joined his palms together, and started chanting something. We were all supposed to chant along with him. I did not know what it meant or even what language it was.
Later, tea and cookies were served. A guy walked up to me; he was probably in his mid-twenties, someone who had come over from Richmond. He was dressed in the standard uniform of the day, a blue work shirt and bell-bottom jeans. He started telling me about the wonders of chanting. He said, “I was walking down the street the other day, chanting to myself. I happened to look down at the sidewalk, and—I don’t know whether you’re into this, man—I found an ounce of hash.” (Only years later did I learn that Chapter Five of the Lotus Sūtra is called “Medicinal Herbs.”)
The white guy in the sport coat was the first Buddhist I ever met. I guess I was expecting something more exotic, perhaps a shaved head and long robes. I didn’t know that a Buddhist could look like Willy Loman, carrying in his cases a cabinet with a Buddha inside. I now know that the incomprehensible words that he was chanting were Namu Myōhō Renge Kyō, Japanese for “Homage to the Lotus Sūtra.” Millions of Americans would hear Tina Turner chant the phrase on Larry King Live on February 21, 1997.
Lopez is about six months younger than me, according to his university biography. In the Spring of 1972, I was floating in the Gulf of Tonkin aboard the USS Midway, working 7 at night to 7 in the morning in maintenance administration for an F-4 fighter squadron. We both had to decide what to do about the Vietnam War draft. I admit that’s more a curiosity and not germane, but for me it’s a filter that colors my view of what he says.
Anyway, Lopez makes clear he believes he was at a meeting of Nichiren followers, most likely an early Nichiren Shoshu of America propagation effort long before the days of an independent Soka Gakkai International. I make this assumption because, as far as I know, no one else was propagating the teachings of Nichiren in such a way at that time in America.
But if this was a Nichiren Shoshu – or any other Nichiren sect – meeting, that wooden cabinet on a coffee table would not have contained a “small statue of the Buddha inside.” Nichiren Shoshu does not allow any statues, even ones of Nichiren, on altars and certainly not in home shrines. For Nichiren Shu, a solitary Buddha is not an object of worship because it is important to ensure that people understand that this treasure is the eternal Śākyamuni as revealed in the 16th Chapter of the Lotus Sutra. Two Buddhas seated side by side with the Daimoku between is one example of how Śākyamuni can be represented in temples and home shrines. Is this “small Buddha” a case of Lopez’s Tibetan studies bleeding into the dim recollection of a meeting during his sophomore year at the University of Virginia?
Beyond that, Lopez’s use of the tale of the guy who found some hash on the sidewalk and took it as a reward for his practice of chanting Namu Myōhō Renge Kyō underscores everything wrong with the Nichiren Shoshu/Soka Gakkai focus on using the Daimoku as a wish-granting gem. Lopez’s reference to Chapter 5 of the Lotus Sutra, “Medicinal Herbs,” in this context is an unwanted effort at humor.
My other complaint with Lopez’s Biography of the Lotus Sutra was his use of a tale he said came from the Dainihonkoku hokekyōkenki. He retells this story:
In one story, a monk memorizes the first twenty-five chapters of the Lotus but, despite repeated efforts, is unable to memorize the final three. He eventually learns in a dream that in a previous life he had been a grasshopper who perched in a temple room where a monk was reciting the sūtra. After reciting the first seven scrolls of the sūtra (which contain the first twenty-five chapters), the monk rested before beginning the final roll. He leaned against the wall and inadvertently killed the grasshopper. The grasshopper was reborn as a human as a result of the merit he received from hearing the first twenty-five chapters of the Lotus. When he became a monk, however, he was unable to memorize the final three chapters because he, as the grasshopper, had died before he heard them. (Page 79-80)
I want to thank Lopez for mentioning this book. I purchased the English translation of the Miraculous Tales of the Lotus Sutra from Ancient Japan and used its tales of the Lotus Sutra in my 32 Days of the Lotus Sutra practice. I was so impressed with the tale of the monk who in a past life was a grasshopper that I purchased a framed photo of a grasshopper on a lotus flower.
But there is no story of a monk who was a grasshopper in a past life anywhere in the Dainihonkoku hokekyōkenki translation. I purchased Nihon ryōiki, which contains a collection of stories gathered by a monk named Kyōkai, thinking perhaps the earlier stories included the grasshopper monk. Still no story.
So where did this tale come from? There are plenty of stories about monks who in past lives were animals. See Priest Renson A Hokekyo Reciter of Twenty-Seven Chapters. Was this another attempt at humor?
In the end, I’m wary of Lopez’s influence on Two Buddhas Seated Side by Side, but I’m excited about the opportunity to use this book in my daily practice.
See the conclusion of Apocryphal Text.
Rissho Peace Movement
Today I completed my recent project of adding old brochures found in the Sacramento Nichiren Buddhist Church classroom to the church website’s collection of brochures. This final brochure is entitled Save the Earth. The roughly 4-inch by 6-inch pamphlet unfolds into a seven panel brochure with comic-book-like illustrations on one side and a text-only article on the other.
Japanese postwar pacifism is one of the things I find very foreign, especially as it relates to Nichiren Buddhism. After all, my father fought in Europe in World War II, earning a bronze star for valor for holding his position during the Battle of the Bulge. My wife’s father served in counterintelligence in Tokyo during Gen. McCathur’s post-war occupation of Japan. That’s where he met my wife’s mother, a translator who had been a teenager in Tokyo during the war. I served in the US Navy in the Vietnam War, although that was mostly because I was going to be drafted into the Army. Being a self-proclaimed anti-war Christian at the time, I toyed with flight to Canada or principled jail time, but ended up joining the Navy. While I thought that would keep me out of the war, I ended up spending 11 months in and out of the Gulf of Tonkin on the aircraft carrier USS Midway. I worked in squadron maintenance administration, shuffling papers related to the maintenance of F4 Phantom jets.
Anyway, the thought of teaching children that war is bad, especially in our current age of endless war in Afghanistan, seems both inspiring and naive.
The Save the Earth brochure concludes:
To realize peace we must abandon greed and make the “principle of thankfulness” the basis of civilization. Buddhism teaches that “all phenomena are produced by causation.” This means that nothing—be it living or non-living things, natural or artificial phenomena—can exist by itself. The existence of anything is dependent on the existence of others. When we become thankful for others, we learn to be contented. Here arises dialogue, mutual understanding, the spirit of tolerance and friendship.
In his writings Nichiren repeatedly stresses the importance of peace. He says,
“You must be awakened promptly to the true teaching of Buddha Sakyamuni. Then the world will become the land of the Buddha. How can the Land of Buddha decline or be destroyed? If the nation does not decline and the land is not destroyed, we can be safe and calm:”
Uphold Righteousness and Bring Peace to the CountryWe are promoting the “Rissho Peace Movement” in accordance with Nichiren’s teachings. Peace will never be realized while we are standing idly by. Let’s join hands and speak out worldwide for the realization of peace.
My Google search for background on “Rissho Peace Movement” failed to turn up any references to Nichiren Shu activities. However, it did point me to Millennialism, Persecution, and Violence: Historial Cases, a collection of essays published by Syracuse University Press in January 2000. In this book, Jacqueline Stone writes in an article entitled Japanese Lotus Millennialism: From Militant Nationalism to Contemporary Peace Movements:
During Japan’s modern imperial period, intense nationalism, militarism, and war were assimilated to new millennial visions of a world harmoniously united under Japanese rule. Certain elements in the teachings of the medieval Buddhist teacher Nichiren were appropriated to these visions. His discourse about Japan as the place where a new Dharma would arise to illuminate the world was given an imperialist reading; his advocacy of assertive proselytizing or shakubuku—which for Nichiren had meant preaching and debate—was adopted as a metaphor for armed force; and his emphasis on giving one’s life for the Lotus became a celebration of violent death in the imperial cause. Such millennialist appropriations inspired not only extremists committed to political assassination or coups but also broadly legitimated the violence that pitted Japan as a whole against other Asian countries and the West.
A World Without War
It is little exaggeration to say that ultranationalistic Lotus millennialism died in August 1945 in the flames of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. But even before these ruined cities had been rebuilt, a new Lotus millennialism had risen to take its place. Postwar Lotus millennialism envisions a time when, by awakening to the universal Buddha nature, people everywhere will live in harmony and with mutual respect. Different Nichiren-and Lotus-related religious groups offer variations on this basic theme, but on one point they all agree: in that future time, there will be no war. Nuclear weapons, in particular, will be abolished.
I suppose the use of Nichiren’s writings to take both sides of the question of war shows the universality of his message. Or, perhaps more to the point, it shows how the one True Dharma is subverted by innumerable meanings.
Retirement News from Myoshoji
Attended the online service with Rev. Ryusho Jeffus and three other members of the Myoshoji sangha today. I haven’t been attending as often as I once did. And now, apparently, I will soon have even fewer chances to attend.
Today, Rev. Ryusho Jeffus announced that he will be retiring on Oct. 13, 2019. He plans a formal announcement later, so I’ll leave the details of his plans for that time.
I became a Nichiren Shu follower at the start of 2015 and, as you can tell from the story about why I started this blog – see the About page – Ryusho has been an important influence.
Ryusho plans to continue services after his retirement but other activities he plans to pursue will make those services less frequent. That will be a real loss.
This is the first photo I posted of an online service – Sept. 6, 2015. At the time, Myoshoji was in Charlotte, North Carolina.
The Buddha’s Pure and Immaculate Voice
Yesterday I wrote about Senchu Murano’s penchant for inserting his twist on tales from the Lotus Sutra (“Questions and Fantasy Answers“). I also posted that article on the Nichiren Shu Group on Facebook and asked if anyone could offer a defense for the use of “fantasy” stories in place of actual Lotus Sutra verses in teaching Nichiren Buddhism.
Judging from the comments I received, my original post failed to make clear my point. Let me try again.
In Nichiren’s Treatise on Opening the Eyes of Buddhist Images, Wooden Statues or Portraits (Writings of Nichiren Shōnin, Faith and Practice, Volume 4, Page 91), he writes:
The written words of the Lotus Sutra express in a visible and tangible form the Brahma’s voice of the Buddha, which is invisible and intangible, so that we can see and read them with our eyes. The Buddha’s pure and immaculate voice, which had disappeared, is resuscitated in the form of written characters for the benefit of humankind.
Shinkyo Warner, in his Daily Dharma post on this quote, says:
Living in this world, 2500 years after the Buddha Śākyamuni walked the Earth, it is difficult to hear his voice leading us to enlightenment and encouraging us to let go of our attachments. In the Lotus S̄ūtra we have an instrument for creating the Buddha’s voice in our own time. This is his highest teaching. It brings all beings to liberation, whether they are clever or dull, stupid or wise, focused or distracted. It reminds us of our true nature as Bodhisattvas who chose this life out of our determination to benefit all beings. It shows us how to transform the poison of suffering into the medicine of compassion, and the poison of ignorance into the medicine of wisdom.
When Senchu Murano inserts his words and ideas into his “fantasy” about the Lotus Sutra, what do we hear?
In Murano’s 1997 booklet, The Gohonzon, he tells this tale about the Buddha Many Treasures (Prabhutaratna, Taho):
The fantastic narration of the Lotus Sutra begins with the story of Prabhutaratna (Many-Treasures, Taho) Buddha, as follows:
There lived a Buddha called Taho many kalpas ago in a world called Treasure-Pure, which was located far to the east of the Saha World. Taho Buddha knew the Wonderful Dharma, but did not expound it by himself because he thought that the Wonderful Dharma should be expounded by a Buddha who would emanate from himself as many Replica-Buddhas as there are worlds in the universe, dispatch them to those worlds, and then expound the Wonderful Dharma in a sutra called the Lotus Sutra. Taho Buddha decided to wait for the advent of such a Buddha, and to approve the truthfulness of the Lotus Sutra expounded by that Buddha.
In Murano’s 1998 booklet, Questions and Answers on Nichiren Buddhism, he suggests this is how Chapter 11 starts:
Sakyamuni Buddha did what he had never done before at the beginning of Chapter XI of the Lotus Sutra. He produced innumerable Replica Buddhas of his own from himself, told them to expound what he was going to expound from that moment, and dispatched them to the worlds of the ten quarters: the four quarters, the four intermediate quarters, zenith, and nadir. After he saw them having reached their assigned worlds, Sakyamuni Buddha expounded the teaching of the One Vehicle, that is the Lotus Flower of the Wonderful Dharma. Obedient to their Original Buddha, his Replica-Buddhas expounded the same teaching throughout the universe and as a result the universal validity of the Wonderful Dharma was revealed.
The stupa of the seven treasures sprang up from underground and hung in the sky before the Buddha at the opening of Chapter 11. There is no discussion of emanations of Śākyamuni until the congregation asks Śākyamuni to open the stupa. As for whether other Buddhas can create emanations, that is clearly the case in The Sutra of Contemplation of the Dharma Practice of Universal Sage Bodhisattva, which is the concluding portion of the Threefold Lotus Sutra. (See this post.)
If the tale of the Stupa of Treasures, as Murano says, is where “the fantastic narration of the Lotus Sutra begins,” then what of the earlier 10 chapters?
In Chapter 11, Śākyamuni explains to the congregation what has happened:
“The perfect body of a Tathāgata is in this stūpa of treasures. A long time ago there was a world called Treasure-Purity at the distance of many thousands of billions of asaṃkhyas of worlds to the east [of this world]. In that world lived a Buddha called Many-Treasures. When he was yet practicing the Way of Bodhisattvas, he made a great vow: ‘If anyone expounds a sūtra called the Lotus Flower of the Wonderful Dharma in any of the worlds of the ten quarters after I become a Buddha and pass away, I will cause my stūpa-mausoleum to spring up before him so that I may be able to prove the truthfulness of the sūtra and say ‘excellent’ in praise of him because I wish to hear that sūtra [directly from him].”
“He attained enlightenment[, and became a Buddha]. When he was about to pass away, he said to the bhikṣus in the presence of the great multitude of gods and men, ‘If you wish to make offerings to my perfect body after my extinction, erect a great stūpa!’
“If anyone expounds the Sūtra of the Lotus Flower of the Wonderful Dharma in any of the worlds of the ten quarters, that Buddha, by his supernatural powers and by the power of his vow, will cause the stūpa of treasures enshrining his perfect body to spring up before the expounder of the sūtra. Then he will praise [the expounder of the sūtra], saying, ‘Excellent, excellent!’
“Great-Eloquence! Now Many-Treasures Tathāgata caused his stūpa to spring up from underground in order to hear the Sūtra of the Lotus Flower of the Wonderful Dharma [directly from me]. Now he praised me, saying, ‘Excellent, excellent!’ ”
Senchu Murano’s words are pure fabrication, a whole cloth that muffles the Buddha’s pure and immaculate voice.
How does one defend such an act, especially when the book was written in English for an audience that knew little if any of the teachings of the Lotus Sutra?