The Stories of the Lotus Sutra, p131Since one of the sixteen practices is making offerings to the Sutra, a kind of worship, it may be useful to discuss the difference between worshiping an idol (or statue) and worshiping with the help of an image, or worshiping through or before an image. Among many Protestant Christians, as in the Bible, idolatry is vigorously condemned. It is understood to be worship of a false god, something that is not God. Virtually all Buddhists, on the other hand, make a great deal of use of physical objects in both personal and public worship. Most prominent among these, of course, are buddha statues and, in Mahayana Buddhism, statues of famous bodhisattvas, especially Kwan-yin/Kannon, Maitreya, Manjushri, and Samantabhadra – all of whom are prominent in the Lotus Sutra – and Kshitigarbha/Ti-tsang/Jizo (who does not appear in the Lotus Sutra). But it is not only such statues and paintings that are used in worship – the Lotus Sutra itself, in physical form, has often been treated as an object of worship in East Asia.
To worship an idol itself is to confuse one’s ultimate object of worship or devotion with some physical thing. One morning my wife and I went to the Great Sacred Hall of Rissho Kosei-kai in Tokyo. As Rissho Kosei-kai’s main object of worship and devotion, a wonderful statue of the universal or eternal Shakyamuni Buddha dominates the main hall. Inside of this statue is a copy of the Threefold Lotus Sutra in calligraphy inscribed by Founder Niwano. But we did not worship either the statue or its contents. Before, through, and with the help of the statue that was in front of us, we paid our respects to the Buddha who is everywhere. This does not make the statue any less important, indeed it makes it truly more important, for it can lead us to the truth – something that worshiping the statue itself could never do.
Category Archives: d15b
The Efforts of the Demon King of the Sixth Heaven
When Queen Māyā became pregnant with her child, the future Śākyamuni Buddha, the Demon King of the Sixth Heaven saw through her womb and said: “The queen is pregnant with a sharp sword called the Lotus Sūtra, which is our sworn enemy. How can we eliminate it before it is born?” Pretending to be a great doctor, the Demon entered the palace of King Śuddhodana and talked the queen into drinking poison, saying it was medicine effective for easy childbirth. At the very moment when the Buddha was born, the Demon King caused a rain of stones to fall and mixed the baby’s milk with poison. When Prince Siddhārtha left the palace to become a monk, the Demon King, this time, pretended to be a black poisonous snake blocking the prince’s way. Furthermore, the Demon King entered the bodies of Devadatta, Kokālika, King Virūḍhaka, and King Ajātaśatru, making them throw huge rocks at the Buddha to draw blood or to kill members of the Śākya people and Buddha’s disciples. These almost fatal obstacles to the Buddha were the work of the Demon King of the Sixth Heaven to stop the Buddha from preaching the Lotus Sūtra. They are what is referred to when the Lotus Sūtra, chapter 10 on “The Teacher of the Dharma,” mentions, “Many people hate it with jealousy even in My lifetime.” These were the difficulties the Buddha experienced quite early in His lifetime, and many terrible difficulties awaited Him later. Since Śāriputra, Maudgalyāyana, and the other great bodhisattvas could not believe in the Lotus Sūtra, they, in spite of living close to the Buddha, were the worst enemies in the forty or so years before the Lotus Sūtra was preached.
These things happened in the Buddha’s lifetime, and in the future, more horrible difficulties will probably occur as predicted in the chapter which says: “It will be worse after I die.” How can ordinary people bear those difficulties while even the Buddha could hardly bear them? How much more so, as the difficulties we are to face are said to be more tremendous than those that the Buddha had encountered! No difficulties seem more horrible than Devadatta’s attempted murder of the Buddha with a huge rock thirty feet long and sixteen feet wide or King Ajatasatru’s attempt to hurt the Buddha by releasing a drunken elephant. Nevertheless, according to the sūtra, we shall encounter difficulties greater than those. One who often encounters such difficulties, through no fault of his own, must be a practicer of the Lotus Sūtra after the Buddha’s death.
Hōon-jō, Essay on Gratitude, Writings of Nichiren Shōnin, Doctrine 3, Pages 8.
The Lotus Sūtra Is Supreme
Now, ignoring false ideas of later commentators in India and mainstream interpreters and annotators in China and Japan, I devotedly open the fundamental sūtras and commentaries, and see that of all sūtras expounded by the Buddha in fifty years, the most important teaching is expounded in the “Teacher of the Dharma” chapter of the Lotus Sūtra, declaring that of all sūtras preached in the past, being preached at present, and will be preached in the future, the Lotus Sūtra is supreme.
Hokke Shuyō Shō, Treatise on the Essence of the Lotus Sūtra, Writings of Nichiren Shōnin, Doctrine 2, Page 206
Digging In A Tableland
Buddhism for Today, p145[T]he Buddha teaches us through the Parable of Digging in a Tableland that one who practices the Lotus Sutra must earnestly seek after the Law with hope and unremitting zeal. A man who is extremely thirsty searches for water by digging in a tableland. So long as he sees dry earth, he knows that water is still far off. Continuing his labor unceasingly, in time he sees moist earth and then gradually reaches mud. Then he knows that water is near at hand. So he digs still more earnestly, without being discouraged or doubting. Bodhisattvas are like this. If they have not heard, nor understood, nor been able to observe this Law-Flower Sutra, they are still far from Perfect Enlightenment. But if they hear, understand, ponder, and observe it, they are near Perfect Enlightenment.
Once we have known the Lotus Sutra, we never have to be at a loss as to what to do. If we give up the sutra after only a little practice of it, as though starting to dig somewhere else because water does not appear immediately, we cannot realize the sutra, just as we cannot quench our thirst by digging only a little. The Buddha teaches here that if we endeavor patiently to attain Perfect Enlightenment, just as when we continue to dig unceasingly, we can assuredly reach enlightenment, just as we can reach the mud. This is the sixth essential point of this chapter.
Sixteen Practices of the Lotus Sutra
The Stories of the Lotus Sutra, p130[I]n Chapter 10 there are several variations of the formula for five practices and many more throughout the Sutra, usually with five or six different practices being listed. By my count, at least sixteen such practices are cited in the Sutra, though never all in one place. Not all of them are entirely different perhaps, but they are different enough to be represented by different Chinese characters in Kumarajiva’s translation and therefore in my English translation.
Here are the sixteen practices with regard to the Sutra: to hear, receive, embrace or uphold, read, recite, study, memorize or learn by heart, remember it correctly, understand its meaning, explain it, teach it for the sake of others, copy it, honor it, make offerings to it, put it into practice, and practice the Sutra as taught or preached. What I want to portray with this list is that the Dharma Flower Sutra is richer and much more complex than standard formulas sometimes suggest. The reduction of the sixteen to a standard five is a useful device for aiding our learning – nothing more. By using a variety of such lists, even in the same chapter, we are being taught, I believe, to be flexible and open-minded when reading or studying the Dharma Flower Sutra.
Whether the list of such practices be five or seven or sixteen, these are practices that can be done by anyone, including you and me, and they can be done just about anywhere. They certainly are not the end of Buddhist practice, but they can be used as skillful means, as useful and important steps in the direction of the life of a true Dharma teacher or bodhisattva.
Witness to the Truth
Even before the Lotus Sutra the Buddha intended his disciples to actively engage in teaching and transmitting the teachings. The difference in the Lotus Sutra is that now there is nothing being held back. The Buddha has broken down all the barriers and finally agreed to reveal the fundamental truth of all Buddhas. It is to this that Many Treasures Buddha responds based upon his vow. When we teach others about the Lotus Sutra we call Many Treasures Buddha to be witness to the truth we are sharing. You could say the magnet to attract Many Treasures Buddha is to teach others about the Lotus Sutra.
Lecture on the Lotus SutraThe Comparative Superiority of the Lotus Sūtra
The comparative superiority of all the sūtras preached during fifty years or so by Śākyamuni Buddha is declared in chapter 10 of the Lotus Sūtra, “The Teacher of the Dharma”: “I have expounded numerous 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, ten thousands and millions of them. This Sūtra of the Lotus Flower of the Wonderful Dharma is the most difficult to believe and the most difficult to understand.”
Even if this statement of the Lotus Sūtra were uttered by Śākyamuni Buddha alone, anybody from the highest ranking bodhisattvas down should respect and believe in it. The Buddha of Many Treasures, coming from the Eastern Hōjō World, attested to its truth. Besides, various Buddhas in manifestation from all the worlds in the universe gathered to verify its truth “with their long and wide tongues extended to the Brahma Heaven” just as Śākyamuni Buddha did, and returned to their respective lands.
The three phrases of “already preached, being now preached, and going to be preached” (i, kon, tō) include all the sūtras preached not only by Śākyamuni Buddha during fifty years or so of His preaching but also by all the Buddhas from all the worlds in the universe through the past, present, and future. These numerous sūtras are all compared with the Lotus Sūtra. Suppose that these Buddhas, from all the worlds in the universe, who presented themselves at the assembly of the Lotus Sūtra and added their seals of approval, should return to their respective homelands and say to their disciples that there is a sūtra superior to the Lotus Sūtra, would their disciples trust them at all?
Hōon-jō, Essay on Gratitude, Writings of Nichiren Shōnin, Doctrine 3, Pages 5.
Our Emanation Bodies
Peaceful Action, Open Heart, p134-136We should not think that it is only the Buddha who has so many manifestation bodies. If we look deeply we will also see that we have many emanation bodies as well. In the 1960s, I wrote a book called The Miracle of Mindfulness to help people learn the practice of mindfulness. In writing the book I drew upon the Satipatthana Sutta. But it is a simple book, very practical and easy to understand. I wrote it in the form of a letter to the workers of the School of Youth for Social Service, a community of young people we had established in Vietnam to help rebuild communities that were destroyed by the war. The book was intended to help our students practice mindfulness as they went about the difficult and sometimes dangerous work of relieving the suffering of the Vietnamese people. I saw that the practice of mindfulness would be very useful in this kind of situation. If our students were able to maintain mindfulness, to breathe and smile and keep a fresh outlook when bringing relief to others, their practice of mindfulness would at the same time nourish their hearts of loving kindness and compassion so that they could continue to do such difficult work. If they worked under too much stress and difficulty all the time and were not able to maintain mindfulness, if they became angry or resentful or began to feel sorry for themselves, they would not be able to achieve anything in their work. So I wrote The Miracle of Mindfulness to help these students.
At the time I wrote that small book, I could not have imagined the effect it would have in the world. It has been translated into twenty-five languages, reprinted many times, distributed in countries throughout the world, and I still receive letters from people who have experienced tremendous transformations in their lives and work from reading this simple book and learning the practice of mindfulness. This shows that we are not able to measure or anticipate the full effect over time of the work we do. Our works, our actions, our very way of being are our emanation bodies that travel through the world widely and continue to have an effect on others for a long time.
Every one of us has many emanation bodies in all parts of the world, but the result of these emanation bodies is not something we can easily measure. If we, like Buddha Shakyamuni, were to realize the miracle of gathering together all our manifestation bodies in an instant in one place, we would feel such great happiness, joy of a kind that we rarely experience. So we need to remember that our studies and practice are not only for our individual benefit but also benefit our family, community, nation, and the entire Earth. Our mistakes cause others to suffer, and our success in the practice can benefit many others. This is why it is so important to practice the art of mindfulness, so that our emanation bodies offer only love and compassion and bring benefit, not harm, to others.
The Buddha shows great faith in us by entrusting the wonderful Dharma to us. We can repay this trust and faith by becoming the arms and hands of the Buddha and continuing the Tathagata’s great work of leading all beings to the shore of liberation.
Indestructible Dharma Body
Peaceful Action, Open Heart, p105-106The Buddha says:
For the sake of the Buddha Path,
I, in incalculable lands,
From the beginning until now,
Have broadly preached the scriptures,
But among them,
This scripture is first.
If there is anyone who can hold it,
Then he holds the Buddha body.The Buddha body is the Dharma body, the dharmakaya, ultimate reality. We cannot confine the true nature of the Buddha into the space of eighty years, into the framework of a country with a population of 500 million, into the small space and small time of the historical dimension. The Buddha is always present throughout the trichiliocosm in an infinite, incalculable number of transformation bodies. And just as the Buddha manifests in various forms in the historical dimension but his true body, the dharmakaya, abides in the ultimate, we too exist in the historical dimension but at the same time we have a Dharma body in the ultimate dimension. Our historical body has a beginning and an end, and we experience the cycle of birth, old age, sickness, and death. But our Dharma body is indestructible. So while in living in our historical body we practice being in touch with our Dharma body, because when we can touch the nature of our Dharma body – the ultimate dimension – we are no longer afraid of birth and death.
The Buddha and the Dharma
Peaceful Action, Open Heart, p94-95[In Chapter 10] the Lotus Sutra opens the door of the ultimate dimension to us. The Buddha is none other than the Dharma. The true body of the Buddha is the Dharma body (dharmakaya). Through the Dharma, we can touch the Buddha right in the present moment. Whenever we show respect and make offerings to the Dharma, when we hear, practice, and teach it to others, we are at the same time showing respect to the Buddha. The Buddha is always with us, right here in the present moment. We need only receive this wonderful Dharma and put it into practice.