Category Archives: d11b

d11b, WONS

Returning a Drop of Dew to the Ocean

[A]s humans, death remains unavoidable. The pain and sadness experienced by a natural death is no different from that brought on by sickness or war. Hence, since the outcome is unchangeable, it is imperative that we entrust our lives to the Lotus Sūtra.

Think of it as returning a drop of dew to the ocean or burying a speck of dust in the earth. The third fascicle of the Lotus Sūtra (chapter 7, “The Parable of a Magic City”) claims:

“May the merits we have accumulated by this offering
Be distributed among all living beings,
And may we and all other living beings
Attain the enlightenment of the Buddha together.”

With my deepest regards,

Ueno-dono Gohenji, A Reply to Lord Ueno, Writings of Nichiren Shōnin, Faith and Practice, Volume 4, Page 164

Peaceful Action, d11b, d12b

Our Ultimate Goal

The feeling of the shravakayana is that you cannot yourself become a Buddha, you cannot be equal to a Buddha, because the Buddha is too great, he is unique. Along with this belief was the feeling that you don’t need to become a Buddha, so there is no need to cultivate bodhichitta, the aspiration to attain Buddhahood, in order to help others. You have a lot of suffering and you want to stop your suffering, so you concern yourself only with your own safety and liberation. You are satisfied with a small path, a small nirvana.

Out of his compassion and love for us, the Buddha gave the small vehicle teaching of nirvana in the beginning. But after a time, our skillful guide tells us it is time to go farther on the path. Even though many of us may be satisfied to stay and enjoy the peace and bliss of individual nirvana, the Buddha reminds us of our ultimate goal: to arrive at the shore of freedom and well-being and then extend a hand to others so that they may cross over to liberation. From the path of the shravakayana we continue onto the bodhisattva path of the Mahayana and continue our journey to the end.

Peaceful Action, Open Heart, p72
stories, LS32, d11b

Doing Something for the Good of All

At the end of the series of stories of heavenly kings coming to the Buddha, the last group of them says:

May these blessings
Extend to all,
That we with all the living
Together attain the Buddha way.

This is an important expression for Rissho Kosei-kai and for many other Buddhists as well. It is a kind of summary of the heart of Mahayana Buddhist teaching. The expression “with all the living” is a way of reminding ourselves that we are related to all, and that the highest Buddhist practice is doing something for the good of all.

To speak of doing something for the good of all is a way of talking about serving the Buddha. Nothing is good all by itself. Good is always a blessing for somebody. It is relational. Our own personal good is always limited, limited in part by the very limited scope of our experience, our knowledge, and our compassion. The good of our family is larger, less limited, than our individual good, but still very limited. The good of the community is larger than the good of our family. The good of the nation is larger than the good of our community. The good of all people is larger still. But all of these are still limited goods.

The Buddha, who is in all times and places, is not so limited. That is why “serving the Buddha,” “doing the Buddha’s will,” and similar expressions have the meaning of doing something for the good of all, of working for the common good. But doing something for the good of all should not be seen as opposed to doing something for our own good.

The Buddha never asks us to completely give up our own interests, our own good, to be completely selfless, to serve only the good of others. The Buddha does ask us to go beyond our own good, to understand and to feel deeply that we are related to a whole cosmos of living beings, and to know that it is by doing something for the good of all that we ourselves can realize our own highest good – the buddha in us.

The Stories of the Lotus Sutra, p90-91
stories, LS32, d11b

Giving Our Palaces

Though it may have such a result, the Dharma should not be practiced merely for the sake of obtaining a peaceful or comfortable life, a kind of palace. We too should give our palaces to the Buddha, which means that we should have deeply felt compassion toward others and a desire to help others. The great teacher Nichiren said that a hundred years of practice in a pure land was not equal to a day of practice in this impure land. We must do the hard work of a bodhisattva.

The Stories of the Lotus Sutra, p89
stories, LS32, d11b

Heavenly Kings, Bodhisattvas and Buddhas

The kings of the Brahma heavens give up the pleasures of meditation to come down to earth and offer their flowers and palaces to the Buddha. This means that even a king of heaven, a god, cannot become a buddha without working in this world of human beings to benefit others. It does not mean that meditation is to be avoided. In this story it is through meditation that the prince became the Buddha Excellent in Great Penetrating Wisdom. But the story does suggest that meditation alone is not sufficient Buddhist practice.

The Stories of the Lotus Sutra, p88
LS32, d11b, b4today

The Closing Verse of Vows

At the end of the fourteenth verse portion of this chapter occur the following lines:

“May this deed of merit
Extend to all creatures
That we with all the living
May together accomplish the Buddha-way!”

This is called “the closing verse of vows” because not only the practicers of the Lotus Sutra but all believers in Buddhism recite it as a closing verse in their sutra-chanting service. It is said that the spirit of the great vow and practice of Buddhists can be summed up in these few short lines. The words “this deed of merit” mean “this deed of merit of serving the buddhas.” This does not mean that the Brahma heavenly kings desire to receive some merit in compensation for their having presented their palaces to the buddhas. It goes without saying that the buddhas are not anxious to have material things. To serve the Buddha by presenting flowers and offerings is an expression of our worship of and gratitude to him. But the most important thing is to serve the Buddha through our practice, namely, to practice the Buddha-way after abandoning our ego, or “small self.” The sutra reciting service that we perform before Buddhist altars is one of our practices in which we forget the small self, abandoning it and devoting ourselves solely to the pursuit of the Buddha-way. Therefore, our sutra reciting service is also a great way of serving the Buddha.

Serving the Buddha should not be done merely for the sake of mental peace and a comfortable life. It should be our heartfelt desire that the merit of our practice of serving the Buddha extend to all living beings. It should be also our prayer to accomplish the Buddha-way together with all the living. Because the closing verse of vows has this deep significance, we should not merely learn it by heart but recite it earnestly as our great vow as Buddhists.

Buddhism for Today, p100
LS32, d11b, b4today

Heavenly Practice To Save All Living Beings

Though heavenly beings have attained a peaceful state of mind and body, as long as there is a human being who is suffering, if they are concerned to save him from his suffering and if they practice positively to help the buddhas for the sake of the salvation of all living beings, they rise to the world of the buddhas (bukkai), the highest realm of living beings. This is because even heavenly beings make strenuous efforts for the sake of serving others, making them happy, and saving them from their sufferings. In such merciful actions and creative lives they feel a deep joy, and this is the way that leads them to the enlightenment of the buddhas.

As illustrated by the diagram of the ten realms of living beings (jikkai) … , the way to enter the world of the buddhas starts in the world of human beings (ningen-kai). It is concerning this point that Nichiren said, “A hundred years’ practice in the Pure Land is not equal to the merit of a day’s practice in the impure land.” Unless heavenly beings continually come down to the world of human beings and practice to save all living beings from their sufferings, they cannot become buddhas. For this reason, all the Brahma heavenly kings descended from the peaceful heavens, desiring to receive the Buddha’s teachings so much that they gave up their palaces, that is, their peaceful lives.

Buddhism for Today, p99
LS32, d11b, b4today

Creation Is Joy in Human Life

[The Brahma heavenly kings said,] “We have come from many heavens and have left deep meditative joys for the sake of serving the buddha. Our palaces are magnificently adorned as rewards for our former lives. Now we Offer them to the world-honored one and beg him in mercy to accept them.”

The point here is that the heavenly kings have left their deep meditative joys and have descended from heaven to the human world for the sake of hearing the buddhas’ teachings. This important point is at the core of the teaching of the Lotus Sutra. A worthwhile life does not consist in merely spending one’s life in peace and quiet but in creating something good. When one tries to become a better person through his practice, this endeavor is the creation of good. When he does something for the benefit of other people, this is the creation of a still higher standard of good. The various arts are the creation of beauty, and all honest professions are the creation of various kinds of energy that are beneficial to society.

Creation is bound to bring with it pain and hardship. However, one finds life worth living when one makes a strenuous effort for the sake of something good. He endeavors to become a little better a person and to do just a little more for the good of other people. Through such positive endeavor we are enabled to feel deep joy in our human lives.

If we lived for a week in a world where we did not have hardships and the joy of creating something, we would tire of it. If we did not become bored with such a world, it would show that we were basically lazy in nature. Such people are sunk in illusion, and even if they rise to a heavenly world, at any moment they may fall immediately to the world of demons (shura) or to hell (jigoku).

Buddhism for Today, p98-99
LS32, d3b, d4b, d5b, d6b, d7b, d8b, d9b, d10b, d11b, d12b, d13b, d14b, 2buddhas

The Revelation of the Universal Ground

According to Zhiyi’s parsing, Chapters Two through Nine of the Lotus Sūtra comprise the main exposition of the “trace teaching,” or shakumon, the first fourteen chapters of the Lotus Sūtra. These chapters assert that followers of the two “Hinayāna” vehicles can achieve buddhahood. For the sūtra’s compilers, this message subsumed the entire Buddhist mainstream within its own teaching of the one buddha vehicle and extended the promise of buddhahood to a category of persons — śrāvakas and pratyekabuddhas — who had been excluded from that possibility in other Mahāyāna sūtras. In Nichiren’s day, however, the idea of the one vehicle, that buddhahood is in principle open to all, represented the mainstream interpretive position, and his own reading therefore has a somewhat different emphasis. For Nichiren, the sūtra’s assertion that even persons of the two vehicles can become buddhas pointed to the mutual possession of the ten realms and the three thousand realms in a single thought-moment, without which any talk of buddhahood for anyone, even those following the bodhisattva path, can be no more than an abstraction. The revelation of this universal ground, he said, especially in the “Skillful Means” chapter, constitutes the heart of the shakumon portion of the Lotus. Nonetheless, he regarded Chapter Two through Chapter Nine, the main exposition section, as having been preached primarily for the benefit of persons during the Buddha’s lifetime. The remaining chapters, Chapter Ten through Chapter Fourteen, which constituted the remainder of the trace teaching, he saw as explicitly directed toward those who embrace the Lotus after the Buddha’s passing, and therefore, as having great relevance for himself and his followers.

Two Buddhas, p127-128
LS32, d5b, d10b, d11b, d12b, 2buddhas

The Importance of Perseverance in Practice

A third message that Nichiren drew from the story of the buddha Mahābhijfiājfiānābhibhū [Great-Universal-Wisdom-Excellence Tathāgata] and his sixteen sons was the importance of perseverance in practice. In the “Parable” chapter, Śākyamuni tells Śāriputra that he had once followed the bodhisattva path in prior lifetimes but had since forgotten it. What had caused Śāriputra, this wisest of all śrāvakas, to “forget” and abandon the bodhisattva way? The Lotus Sūtra does not tell us, but a story in the Treatise on the Great Perfection of Wisdom (Dazhi du lun) and other sources fills in the gap. It explains that in the past, Śāriputra had already practiced bodhisattva austerities for sixty eons and was cultivating the virtue of giving or generosity, the first of the pāramitās or perfections that a bodhisattva must master on the path to buddhahood. At that point, a certain beggar (in alternate versions, a brahman) asked for one of his eyes. When Śāriputra replied that his eye could not possibly benefit anyone else, the beggar rebuked him, saying that so long as Śāriputra was committed to mastering the practice of generosity, he could not refuse to give what was requested of him. Śāriputra accordingly plucked out an eye and offered it. The beggar sniffed it, flung it to the ground, and stepped on it. Disgusted, Śāriputra concluded that such people were hopeless. At that point, he abandoned the bodhisattva’s commitment to saving others and retreated to the śrāvaka’s pursuit of personal nirvāṇa. In Nichiren’s reading, Śāriputra, deceived by evil influences, had abandoned the Lotus Sūtra for provisional teachings and, as a result, had fallen into the Avici hell, languishing there for vast numbers of eons. Not until he re-encountered Śākyamuni Buddha in the present world was he again able to hear the Lotus Sūtra, regain the bodhisattva path, and receive a prediction of future buddhahood.

In terms of practice, the account of Śākyamuni Buddha’s instruction as unfolding over many lifetimes in the “Apparitional City” chapter assumes a double significance in Nichiren’s thought. On the one hand, this account teaches the need to maintain one’s own practice of the Lotus Sūtra, no matter what hardships or discouragement one might encounter. At the same time, it suggests that teaching the daimoku to others, even if they initially mock or malign it, is always a fruitful effort, establishing for them a karmic connection with the Lotus Sūtra and thus ensuring that they will one day achieve buddhahood.

Two Buddhas, p120-121