Suddenly today I realized the difference between walking for an hour simply to exercise and walking for an hour meditating on Namu Myo Ho Ren Ge Kyo. They are not the same.
Namu
The left foot steps.
Myo
The right foot.
Ho
The left foot.
Ren
The right foot.
Ge
The left foot.
Kyo
The right foot.
Homage to the Dharma Flower
The left foot.
Wonderful Lotus Sutra
The right foot.
Homage to the Wonderful Dharma Lotus Flower Sutra, again and again and again.
And all the while the mind is quiet, allowing the senses to heighten.
The sounds.
Each step rhythmic, here a crunch of gravel, there the scrap of a leaf, step, step, step. Birds chirp and sing on the left, now the right, nearby, faraway. Cars pass close, the sound rushing closer and then racing away. Distant sounds fade in and out. Aircraft fly overhead.
The smells.
Suburban lawns freshly watered. Rose bushes and honeysuckle. The unscented cool morning air.
The sights.
Dawn’s light peaking over homes and between tree branches. In a yard up ahead, a flower is bathed in a single ray of sunlight while all around is still in shade. The flowers glow as if radiating the light themselves. As I approach I consider pulling out my phone and taking a photo. I don’t. I realize a snapshot of this moment would not be real. The causes and conditions that placed this plant here and the sun there with the trees so arranged just as I walked up mindful of Namu Myo Ho Ren Ge Kyo – what would a photo show?
That moment was perfect and then it was another moment.
I completed two cycles through Leon Hurvitz’s translation “Scripture of the Lotus Blossom of the Fine Dharma.” Revered for its academic thoroughness, I found the text less useful for my purpose. Leon Hurvitz’s translation is pretty and ornate, but Senchu Murano’s English translation of the Lotus Sutra is much better suited for the task of propagation.
For example, here’s Hurvitz’s final gāthā from Day 14 and the opening prose from Day 15:
Medicine King, I now proclaim to you
The scriptures that I preach;
And among these scriptures
The Dharma Blossom is foremost.
At that time, the Buddha again declared to Medicine King, the bodhisattva-mahāsattva: “The scriptural canons I preach are in the incalculable thousands of myriads of millions, whether already preached, now being preached, or still to be preached. Yet among them this Scripture of the Dharma Blossom is the hardest to believe, the hardest to understand.
Senchu Murano’s translation of the same final gāthā from Day 14 and the opening prose from Day 15:
Medicine-King! I will tell you.
The Sūtra of the Lotus Flower of the Wonderful Dharma
Is the most excellent sūtra
That I have ever expounded.
Thereupon the Buddha said again to Medicine-King Bodhisattva mahāsattvas:
“I have expounded many sūtras. I am now expounding this sūtra. I also will expound many sūtras in the future. The total number of the sūtras will amount to many thousands of billions. This Sūtra of the Lotus Flower of the Wonderful Dharma is the most difficult to believe and the most difficult to understand.
One of my many items on my To-Do List is to collect quotes such as these for use in encouraging new practitioners. A envision a Daily Encouragement, incorporating easily digested morsels that taken over time provide a healthy Dharma meal.
Tabbed for my 32-days of of the Lotus Sutra practice, The Threefold Lotus Sutra will be the text I use for the English translation for the next two months.
I have read The Sutra of Innumerable Meanings only once or twice and never read the entire Sutra of Meditation on Bodhisattva Universal Virtue. I have three weeks coming up when the wife will be away and I’ll have no distractions. I hope to replicate the The Encouragement of Universal-Sage Bodhisattva, who says in Chapter 28 of the Lotus Sutra:
“World-Honored One! The bhikṣus, bhikṣunīs, upāsakās or upāsikās who seek, keep, read, recite and copy this Sūtra of the Lotus Flower of the Wonderful Dharma in the defiled world in the later five hundred years after [your extinction], if they wish to study and practice this sūtra, should concentrate their minds [on study and practice] strenuously for three weeks. When they complete [the study and practice of] three weeks, I will mount a white elephant with six tusks, and appear before them with my body which all living beings wish to see, together with innumerable Bodhisattvas surrounding me. I will expound the Dharma to them, show them the Way, teach them, benefit them, and cause them to rejoice.
Tea following the Sunday service at Ro-Ō Zan Enkyoji Nichiren Buddhist TempleLike a good Mahayana Buddhist, I took the Middle Path to Lewiston.
I’ve been in Churchville, NY, for a week helping to prepare my wife’s parents’ house to be sold. Today, I took the opportunity to visit Kanjo Grohman’s Ro-Ō Zan Enkyoji Nichiren Buddhist Temple and attend the 9am service.
After the service we were discussing tea and the dharma and it occurred to be that understanding the properties of tea – this one will calm, this will energize, this will help digestion – is much like studying the dharma.
As Nichiren Buddhists we know that chanting Namu Myōhō Renge Kyō is the essential practice. Nothing else is required. As I like to envision it, the daimoku is a magnifying glass that focuses the sunlight of the Buddha’s teaching into a single spot so hot that it can burn away our delusions.
But as our practice’s focus shifts from inward to outward, from easing our own troubles to saving all sentient beings, we benefit from studying. The example that came up in the meeting was the use of chamomile tea. Weakly brewed chamomile is soothing and helps relax and promote sleep. Strongly brewed chamomile is bitter and perfect for digestive distress.
In Ichidai Shōgyō Tai-i, Outline of All the Holy Teachings of the Buddha, Writings of Nichiren Shōnin, Doctrine 3, Pages 81, Nichiren underscores the importance of study. He writes:
For one cannot correctly understand the teaching of the Lotus Sūtra without learning the pre-Lotus Sūtras, although one may study the pre-Lotus Sūtras without learning about other Sūtras.
In support of this, Grand Master T’ien-t’ai stated in his Profound Meaning of the Lotus Sūtra, “When attempting to spread various sūtras other than the Lotus Sūtra, the essential part of the teaching will not be lost even if a doctrinal analysis of all the teachings of the Buddha is not rendered. When attempting to spread the Lotus Sūtra, however, the essence of the teaching may be lost if a doctrinal analysis is not made.” It is preached in the Lotus Sūtra (chapter 2, “Expedients”), “Although the Buddhas expound various teachings, it is for the purpose of leading the people into the world of the One Buddha Vehicle.” “Various teachings” here refer to all the pre-Lotus Sūtras. “For the purpose of leading the people into the world of the One Buddha Vehicle” means to expound all the scriptures of Buddhism to reveal the Lotus Sūtra.
Personally, I hold to the theory that, especially in a country like America where Buddhism is relatively unknown, it helps to know the expedient teachings that paved the way for the Lotus Sūtra.
However, even with such study, we need to keep our primary focus on the daimoku.
In Ueno-dono Gohenji, A Reply to Lord Ueno, Writings of Nichiren Shōnin, Faith and Practice, Volume 4, Page 119, Nichiren writes:
Some of my disciples pretend to know the details of doctrines. They are mistaken. The odaimoku, Namu Myōhō Renge Kyō, is the essence of the Lotus Sūtra. It is like a human being’s spirit. If any other teachings were to be added to the odaimoku, it would be the cause of great trouble. It would be like the Empress marrying two Emperors, or committing adultery. The teachings of the Lotus Sūtra did not spread far enough during the Ages of the True Dharma and the Semblance Dharma. This was because these periods were intended for other sūtras.
We are presently living in the Latter Age of Degeneration. The Lotus Sūtra and other sūtras are no longer efficacious in bringing about enlightenment. Only the odaimoku can accomplish this. This is not my arbitrary opinion. It was so-arranged by the Buddha, the Buddha of Many Treasures, various Buddhas from all over the universe, and numerous great bodhisattvas from beneath the earth such as Superior Practice Bodhisattva.
It is a serious mistake to mix other teachings with the odaimoku. For example, when the sun rises, we no longer need to use lamps. When it rains, the dew is of no use. A baby does not need any nourishment except for milk. We do not need to add supplements to effective medicine.
While I was at church, Richard and his girlfriend, Alexis, celebrated Mother’s Day with their mothers (Richard with Alexis’ mom and Alexis with Richard’s mom) at the McKinley Park Rose Garden.
I’m sitting in the waiting area for Gate A5 at the Seattle-Tacoma Airport waiting for the next leg of my trip from Sacramento. I’ve got another two hours to kill before boarding red-eye flight to Detroit. I have a “Honey-Do” harvest awaiting me in Churchville, NY.
Yesterday I was working at the Sacramento Nichiren Buddhist Church replacing a corrugated metal roof that covers a flat portion of the “chicken shed” where the teriyaki chicken will be cooked at the church bazaar June 8-9. The 30-year roof had rusted through at several points.
Rev. Igarashi was helping me as I nailed down the metal roof sections.
At one point the topic of discussion turned to Mother’s Day, and Rev. Igarashi said it wasn’t celebrated in Japan.
I digress at this point to mention that I chatted at church today, Mother’s Day, with a young woman born and raised in Hiroshima who now lives in Sacramento, and she said she always celebrates Mother’s Day, buying flowers.
So, whatever the case in Japan, Mother’s Day wasn’t something Rev. Igarashi adopted. And after reading the Nihon ryōiki, I’m happy to believe that in a traditional household Mother’s Day isn’t restricted to a single day.
All of which provides me an opportunity to reprint a Nihon ryōiki story:
On an Evil Man Who was Negligent in Filial Piety to His Mother and Gained an Immediate Penalty of Violent Death
In Sou upper district, Yamato province there once lived a wicked man whose identity is lost except for his nickname, Miyasu. In the reign of the emperor residing at the Palace of Naniwa, he became a student of the Confucian classics, but he attained merely book knowledge and did not support his mother.
His mother had borrowed rice from him and could not return it. Miyasu angrily pressed his mother for payment. His friends, who could no longer endure the sight of the mother seated on the ground while the son sat on a mat, asked him, “Good man, why are you not respectful? Some people build pagodas, make Buddha images, copy scriptures, and invite monks to a retreat for their parents’ sake. You are rich and fortunate enough to lend much rice. Why do you neglect your dear mother and contradict what you have studied?” Miyasu ignored them, saying, “That’s none of your business.” Whereupon they paid the debt on her behalf and hurried away.
His mother, for her part, bared her breasts and, in tears, said to her son, “When I reared you, I never rested day or night. I have seen people repaying their parents for their affection, but, when I thought I could rely on my son, I incurred only disgrace. I was wrong in relying upon you. Since you have pressed me for repayment of the rice, I will now demand repayment of my milk. The mother-child tie is from this day broken. Heaven and earth will take cognizance of this. How sad, how pitiful! ”
Without a word Miyasu stood up, went into the back room, and, returning with the bonds, burnt them all in the yard. Then he went into the mountains where he wandered about not knowing what to do, ran wildly this way and that with disheveled hair and a bleeding body, and could not stay in his home. Three days later a fire broke out suddenly, and all of his houses and storehouses in and out of the premises burned. Eventually Miyasu turned his family into the streets, and he himself died of hunger and cold without any shelter.
Now we cannot help believing that a penalty will be imposed, not in the distant future, but in this life. Accordingly, a scripture says, “The unfilial are destined to hell; the filial, to the pure land.” This is what Nyorai preaches, the true teaching of Mahayana tradition. (Page 135-136)
Back in March I asked about Śākyamuni’s prediction that when Śāriputra becomes a Buddha he will preach the Three Vehicles. Why not just the One Vehicle?
Recently I switched my daily reading from the Murano translation of the Lotus Sūtra to Leon Hurvitz’s Lotus Blossom of the Fine Dharma. In Hurvitz’s version is an added section to the The Simile of Herbs (Medicinal Herbs) chapter translated from a Sanskrit manuscript. Included is this exchange between Śākyamuni and Kāśyapa:
“Again, O Kāśyapa, the Thus Gone One, in his guidance of the beings, is equitable, not inequitable. O Kāśyapa, just as the light of the sun and the moon illuminates the whole world, both him who does well and him who does ill, both him who stands high and him who stands low, the good-smelling and the bad-smelling, just as that light falls everywhere equally, not unequally, in just that way, O Kāśyapa, does the light of the thought of the knowledge of the all-knowing, of the Thus Gone Ones, the worthy ones, the properly and fully enlightened ones, the demonstration of the true dharma, function equally among all beings in the five destinies according to their predispositions, be they persons of the great vehicle, persons of the vehicle of the individually enlightened, or persons of the vehicle of the auditors. Nor in the light of the knowledge of the Thus Gone One is there either deficiency or superfluity, for the light conduces to knowledge in accord with merit. O Kāśyapa, there are not three vehicles. There are only beings of severally different modes of conduct, and for that reason three vehicles are designated.”
When this had been said, the long-lived Mahākāśyapa said to the Blessed One: “If, O Blessed One, there are not three vehicles, what is the reason for the present designation of auditors, individually enlightened, and bodhisattvas?”
When this had been said, the Blessed One said to the long-lived Mahākāśyapa: “It is just as the potter. O Kāśyapa, makes pots with the same clay. Among them, some become pots for sugar lumps, some pots for clarified butter, some pots for curds or milk, while some become pots for inferior and filthy things; and just as there is no difference in the clay, but rather a supposed difference in the pots based solely on the things put into them, in just this way, O Kāśyapa, is there this one and only one vehicle, to wit, the buddha vehicle. There exists neither a second nor a third vehicle.” (Page 103)
In March 2015 I began my practice of reciting a portion of the Lotus Sutra in shindoku in the morning and the same portion in English in the evening.
As I work my way through Myoho Renge Kyo Romanized, I mark my place with a colored Post-It marker. At the end of each 32-day cycle, I add the marker to the inside cover and get out a new marker.
Each of row of markers in the photo above represents 16 times through the full Lotus Sutra, or a journey of 512 days.
Today I report from Mile Marker 1536 on my Journey to the Place of Treasures.
Today I began Day 1 with “Scripture of the Lotus Blossom of the Fine Dharma,” the translation of the Lotus Sutra made by Leon Hurvitz from the Chinese of Kumārajīva. This translation is the one commonly cited by those doing scholarly reports on the sutra.
After a few cycles through this version I hope to offer some insights into my experience.
This April is the first anniversary of Mary’s father’s death and the third anniversary of her mother’s death. Today, following the annual celebration of the Buddha’s birth at the Sacramento Nichiren Buddhist Church, Rev. Igarashi said memorial prayers for Richard and Mary Buchin.
In the photo Mary holds the memorial tablet for her parents that normally resides on our family altar. The tablet was placed on the church altar during the memorial service.
The memorial service normally includes recitation in Japanese of the Yokuryoshu, which includes selections from Chapter 2, Expedients; Chapter 3, A Parable; Chapter 10, The Teacher of the Dharma; and Chapter 11, Beholding the Stupa of Treasures. For this service, I requested that we chant the portion of Chapter 16, The Duration of the Life of the Tathāgata, normally chanted during the traditional Sunday service.
I requested the change for several reasons. First, I don’t know the Japanese verses or even the English translation of them. More important, both Mary and my son, Richard, know the Jiga-ge. Finally, on the family altar I have a copy of a quote from Nichiren’s Letter to Hōren that reads:
“As you read and recite the ‘jiga-ge’ verse, you produce 510 golden characters. Each of these characters transforms itself to be the sun, which in turn changes to Śākyamuni Buddha, who emits the rays of bright light shining through the earth, the three evil realms (hell, realm of hungry spirits and that of beasts), the Hell of Incessant Suffering, and to all the directions in the north, south, east, and west. They shine upward to the ‘Heaven of neither Thought nor Non-Thought’ at the top of the realm of non-form looking everywhere for the souls of the departed.”
Hōren-shō, Letter to Hōren, Writings of Nichiren Shōnin, Volume 6, Followers I, Pages 56-57
Rev. Igarashi “decorated” the quote for our altar.
A member of the Sacramento Nichiren Buddhist Church congregation cut these Bird of Paradise and Chrysanthemums flowers from her garden and created this offering for the Nov. 8, 2015, service.
This blog post was originally published Nov. 8, 2015, and is reprinted here as the last quote from the History of Japanese Region book.
For the past several weeks I’ve been publishing quotes from History of Japanese Religion. Today’s quote from the book concerned a battle fought in Miyako in 1536 between followers of Nichiren and soldier-monks of Hiei in alliance with Ikkō fanatics. The Nichiren followers were driven out of town after 21 of their great temples were burnt down.
Shouts of “Namu Myōhō Renge Kyō,” the slogan of the Nichirenites, vied with “Namu Amida Butsu,” the prayer of the Ikkō men; many died on either side, each believing that the fight was fought for the glory of Buddha and that death secured his birth in paradise.
This history of Japanese Buddhism written in 1918 stretches from the passion of warring monks to the then modern view:
For the people at large religion was rather a matter of family heritage and formal observance than a question of personal faith.
Today, I attended the Komatsubara Persecution service at the Sacramento Nichiren Buddhist Church, surrounded by people who have been followers of Nichiren and members of Nichiren Shu for generations. The church in Sacramento was founded in the early 1930s, and many members can tell you the various addresses in downtown Sacramento where the church was located before the current church was built in 1970 in south Sacramento.
During the Dharma talk at the end of the service, Ven. Kenjo Igarashi explained that it is important to remember and celebrate the various trials and tribulations suffered by Nichiren because it was these trials suffered while propagating the Lotus Sutra during the Latter Day of the Law that prove the sutra’s predictions. And they also illustrate Nichiren’s need, and by example our own, to expiate bad karma.
In the late 19th and early 20th Century, there was a revival of Nichiren Buddhism. As History of Japanese Religion described the time:
On the part of many of its enthusiasts, it amounted to a religion of hero-worship, which remains still a force in the religious life of the Japanese. But many of the followers of Nichiren have narrowed down the horizon of Nichiren’s spiritual vision to the limits of chauvinistic patriotism. Thus, the movement has subsided to a great extent, but it is yet to be seen whether Nichiren’s profoundly religious ardour will inspire coming generations.
Attending Nichiren Buddhist services in Sacramento, California, nearly 100 years later, I’d like to think Nichiren’s “profoundly religious ardour” has indeed inspired many generations. And while for some it may be just formal observance and ritual, it remains vital and alive for many others.
Today we had two couples in France, a young man in England as well as attendees in North Carolina, South Carolina, Iowa and Ohio. It was one of the best-attended services I’ve participated in.
In an effort to help out those in France, Rev. Ryusho Jeffus tried out typing his Dharma talk live and having Google Translate display it in French. The French participants said it helped.
Using Google Translate to help attendees in France follow the Dharma talk.
These services are an excellent opportunity to learn about Nichiren Shu and participate in a gathering of like-minded people. The schedule for services are available on the Myoshoji Calendar.
On the fate of the 5,000 arrogant monks who walked out in Chapter 2, Expedients, of the Lotus Sūtra:
For Zhiyi, and for many readers over the centuries, the Lotus Sūtra has two major messages. The first, found in the first half of the sūtra, is that there are not three vehicles; there is one vehicle, which will eventually transport all sentient beings to buddhahood. The second, found in the second half of the sūtra, is that the lifespan of the Buddha is immeasurable. These two doctrines are generally compatible with the Nirvāṇa Sūtra, allowing Zhiyi to continue to uphold the supremacy of the Lotus. But if everything is said in the Lotus, what is the purpose of the Nirvāṇa? Here, those five thousand haughty monks and nuns who walked out in the second chapter of the Lotus Sūtra come to the rescue. The sūtra does not explain what became of them, but Zhiyi explains that they returned to the assembly that surrounded the Buddha’s deathbed. The Buddha thus compassionately reiterated the central message of the Lotus Sūtra to those who had missed it the first time. It was also important, at the moment of his apparent passage into Nirvāṇa, for the Buddha to reiterate what he had declared in the Lotus: that like the wise physician, the Buddha only pretends to die; in fact his lifespan is immeasurable. (Page 56-57)
On the great merit earned by the grasshopper.
Discussing Great Japanese Miraculous Tales of the Lotus Sūtra (Dainihonkoku hokekyōkenki), completed in 1044 by the monk Chingen:
One of several anthologies of miracle tales about the Lotus, this collection includes rather standard Buddhist stories of miracle cures (a blind woman regains her sight by reciting the Lotus), divine retribution (a man who ridicules a reciter of the Lotus loses his voice), and deaths attended by heavenly fragrances, beautiful music, and auspicious dreams. 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)
On how Nichiren judged the six Buddhist schools of Nara.
He seems to have arrived at this conviction [of the supremacy of the Lotus Sūtra] through something of a process of elimination, but only after a serious survey of the Japanese sects of the day. He began with the belief that the word of the Buddha was superior to that of the various Indian Buddhist masters, such that one’s allegiance should be to a sūtra rather than to a treatise (śāstra). This immediately eliminated five of the six “Nara schools” of Buddhism, which were based on various Madhyamaka (Sanron), Yogācāra (Hossō), and Abhidharma treatises (Kusha and Jōjitsu), as well as on (in the case of Ritsu) the monastic code (vinaya). Among the Nara schools, that left only Kegon, based on the Flower Garland Sūtra, which Nichiren rejected. He already had an antipathy for Pure Land, but he was attracted to Shingon, famous for its doctrine that it is possible to “achieve buddhahood in this very body” (sokushin jōbutsu), that is, during the present lifetime. He found what would prove to be for him a more compelling doctrine in the Tendai sect, which, based in part on Zhiyi’s famous doctrine of “the three thousand realms in a single thought,” proclaimed that all beings are endowed with original enlightenment (hongaku). Nichiren eventually decided that the Tendai sect, with its conviction that the Lotus Sūtra was the Buddha’s highest teaching, was the superior form of Buddhism, although he felt that in the centuries since its founding, its purity had been diluted by the admixture of other practices, especially devotion to Amitābha. (Page 82-83)
On the topic of Nichiren Shoshu.
“We recall that in Nichiren Shōshū, the dharma in the three jewels is not the Lotus Sūtra; it is the three great secret doctrines: the honzon, the daimoku, and the kaidan.” (Page 221)
On SGI as a separate Buddhist organization
We find in the charter no mention of slandering the dharma (or the consequences of doing so), no mention of shakubuku, and no mention of the Lotus Sūtra. (Page 211)
Suddenly today I realized the difference between walking for an hour simply to exercise and walking for an hour meditating on Namu Myo Ho Ren Ge Kyo. They are not the same.
