Back on Oct. 8, 2020, I started enumerating the 10 Merits listed in the Sutra of Innumerable Meanings. I confess that I began this sequence to make my monthly posts regarding the opening sutra easier. Now I know the topic of my posts for the next nine months. But the inadequacy of this was underscored for me during the dharma talk on these merits following the Nichiren Buddhist Sangha of San Francisco Bay Area service Oct. 18.
Shami Mark Ryugan Herrick leads the ongoing lectures under the close supervision of Michael Ryuei McCormick. At the point in the lecture where the first merit was discussed, Ryugan mentioned my blog post and asked me to comment.
“This really sounds to me like a definition of what buddhism is supposed to do in your life,” I said, echoing the line I added to my post, “I can think of no better summary of the goals of becoming a Buddhist.”
The superficial nature of my response – of my basic understanding – was quickly underscored by Ryuei’s comment on this first merit.
Those aren’t a bunch of random nice things. The first category are the four Brahmaviharas or divine abodes also called the infinite states of mind — loving kindness, compassion, sympathetic joy and equanimity. Then that’s followed by the six perfections.
As that quote that you wrote earlier where Nichiren says when you take up the sutra your hands become a buddha, I think in other forms of buddhism you practice all of these difficult virtues and ideals so that you can attain buddhahood but with Nichiren Buddhism … we practice the daimoku, we practice the Lotus Sutra, so that all of these qualities become the benefits we receive through the practice. We’re not trying to be perfect so we can become buddhas. We’re trying to become buddhas so that we have all these wonderful qualities as the benefits to that.
The video below starts at the reading of the first merit. The entire lecture is nearly an hour and forty minutes. This is an excellent example of the firehose of information that the thirsty are offered whenever Ryuei McCormick lectures. It is well worth the time.
This is the third in the series of lectures on the Threefold Lotus Sutra. The first lecture can be found here and the second here.
There are additional videos at the Nichiren Bay Area YouTube Channel.