Today is the second day of Higan week, the three days before the equinox and the three days after. As explained in a Nichiren Shu brochure:

For Buddhists, this period is not just one characterized by days with almost equal portions of light and dark. Rather, it is a period in which we strive to consciously reflect upon ourselves and our deeds.

Today we consider the Perfection of Discipline. For this Spring Higan week I’m using Hsuan Hua‘s commentary on the Lotus Sutra in which he discusses Maitreya’s questions about what he sees in Chapter 1 after the Buddha illuminates 18,000 worlds in the east. (See this explanation.)

Maitreya continued, “Mañjuśrī, Bodhisattva Wonderful Virtue, I also see kings, not just one but many of them, traveling to Buddhalands.” Why did they go there? They wanted to visit the Buddhas for the sake of asking about the unsurpassed Path. Upon their request, the Buddhas taught them that everything in this world is unsatisfactory, empty, impermanent, and without intrinsic essence.

The poem “Moon over West River” says,

Wealth and honor are like a dream before dawn;
Success and fame are like a floating cloud;
Blood relations too are unreal,
For affection can turn into hatred.

Wealth and honor are as insubstantial as a dream at daybreak. Success and fame are like clouds drifting across the sky; they do not last. The current family relationships—the ties that bind father and son, elder and younger brothers, husband and wife—are also transitory. You may love someone and be very close to them, but as time goes by, love can turn into animosity.

Maitreya Bodhisattva continued, “They forsake their lands of pleasure, / Their palaces, ministers, and concubines, / Then shave their beards and hair / And clothe themselves in Dharma robes.” Having heard this teaching from the Buddhas, the kings, without further thought, gave away their lands and belongings, including their palaces made of treasures, their towers and pavilions made of agarwood and sandalwood, and their ministers and concubines. Why did they give them away? They gave them away so that they could become novices. As novices, they put on monastic robes. Their five-piece robes were called Dharma robes. …

Earlier verses talked about giving. The previous section describing kings entering monastic life represents the quest for the precepts. The kings arriving at the Buddhalands and requesting the precepts has to do with the pāramitā of precepts.