Those who spread the five characters of Myō, Hō, Ren, Ge, and Kyō in the Latter Age of Degeneration should not make a distinction between males and females, for it would be difficult to chant the daimoku unless they were all bodhisattvas of the earth.
Shohō Jisso-shō, Treatise on All Phenomena as Ultimate Reality, Writings of Nichiren Shōnin, Faith and Practice, Volume 4, Page 78
QUESTION: For whom was the Lotus Sūtra expounded?
ANSWER: There are two views about the eight chapters from chapter 2 on the “Expedients” to chapter 9 on the “Assurance of Future Buddhahood” of the Lotus Sūtra. If we read these chapters in the order of chapters from the beginning, we can see that the sūtra was preached first of all for Bodhisattvas, secondly for the men of Two Vehicles such as śrāvaka and pratyekabuddha, and thirdly for ordinary people. However, when we read the chapters in reverse order beginning with the 14th on the “Peaceful Practices” (at the end of the theoretical section), followed by the 13th on the “Encouragement for Upholding This Sūtra,” the 12th on the “Devadatta,” the 11th on the “Appearance of the Stupa of Treasures,” and the 10th on the “Teacher of the Dharma,” we can see that these eight chapters were expounded for encouraging people after the Buddha’s extinction. People during the lifetime of the Buddha are secondary. Of those after the Buddha’s extinction, people in one thousand years of the Age of the True Dharma and one thousand years of the Age of the Semblance Dharma are secondary. The sūtra was expounded mainly for the people in the Latter Age of Degeneration. Of those in the Latter Age of Degeneration, I, Nichiren, am the very person for whom it was expounded.
Hokke Shuyō Shō, Treatise on the Essence of the Lotus Sūtra, Writings of Nichiren Shōnin, Doctrine 2, Page 209-210
The Stories of the Lotus Sutra, p214We can, of course, understand the three phases [of the Dharma] not as an inevitable sequence of periods of time, but as existential phases of our own lives. There will be times when the Dharma can be said to be truly alive in us, times when our practice is more like putting on a show and has little depth, and times when the life of the Dharma in us is in serious decline. But there is no inevitable sequence here. There is no reason, for example, why a period of true Dharma cannot follow a period of merely formal Dharma. And there is no reason to assume that a period has to be completed once it has been entered. We might lapse into a period of decline, but with the proper influences and circumstances we could emerge from it into a more vital phase of true Dharma. A coming evil age is mentioned several times in the Dharma Flower Sutra, but while living in an evil age, or an evil period of our own lives, makes teaching the Dharma difficult, even extremely difficult, nowhere does the Dharma Flower Sutra suggest that it is impossible to teach or practice true Dharma.
The Stories of the Lotus Sutra, p193In this story [of the bodhisattvas from the earth] there is also an affirmation of human life, reflecting a humanistic, positive regard for human life in this world. In greeting the Buddha, the bodhisattvas from below ask the Buddha whether he is in good health and peaceful, whether the living beings here are ready to receive the Dharma, and whether they are exhausting him. His reply is that he is in good health, that the living beings of this world are ready to receive the Dharma, and that they do not wear him out because they have already learned some important things in previous lives, where they have planted roots of goodness. Thus, a positive regard for human beings is affirmed: just as in the story of the gem in the hair, the treasure, the Dharma Flower Sutra, is given because there are many of great merit; here too there is a positive regard for human beings in general.
Nikkyo Niwano, founder of Rissho Kosei-kai, connects this story and its message of world-affirmation with the idea that Shakyamuni Buddha became awakened not as someone sent to earth by a god or as one who received a divine revelation from a transcendent realm, but through his own efforts as a human being. In this respect, Buddhism, he said, is quite different from most, perhaps all, other religions.
It is appropriate, therefore, that Master Hsing Yun, founder of Fo Guang Shan – a great monastery in Taiwan, with branches all over the world, which is strongly oriented to serving people in this world and in this time – calls his teaching “Humanistic Buddhism.”
Peaceful Action, Open Heart, p110-111This part of the Lotus Sutra is concerned with “appearance.” In order to be able to reach the minds of human beings, who are still attached to their perception of the historical dimension of reality, the world of birth and death, coming and going, existence and nonexistence, the Buddha appeared as a historical person called Shakyamuni. He appeared to be born, to realize the path, teach the Dharma for forty years, and then to “disappear” into nirvana. But this manifestation of the Buddha was only a kind of skillful pretense in order to enter the world of human beings and help them to liberation.
One day while practicing walking meditation in the Upper Hamlet, I looked down and saw that I was about to step on a golden yellow leaf. It was in the autumn, when the golden leaves are very beautiful. When I saw that beautiful golden leaf, I did not want to step on it and so I hesitated briefly. But then I smiled and thought, “This leaf is only pretending to be gold, pretending to fall from the tree.” In terms of the historical dimension, that leaf was born on a branch as a new green bud in the spring, had clung to that branch for many months, changed color in autumn, and one day when a cold wind blew, it fell to the ground. But looking deeply into its ultimate dimension, we can see that the leaf is only pretending to be born, to exist for a while, and to grow old and die. The teachings of interdependence and no-self reveal to us the true unborn and undying nature of all phenomena. One day that leaf will pretend to be born again on the branch of another tree, but she is really just playing a game of hide and seek with us.
We are also playing a game of hide and seek with one another. It is not only the Buddha who pretends to be born and to enter nirvana, we also pretend to be born, to live for a while, and to pass away. You may think that your mother has passed away and is no longer here with you. But her passing away was just a pretense, and one day, when the causes and conditions are sufficient, she will reappear in one form or another. If you have enough insight you will be able to recognize your mother in her other forms. We need to look deeply into all those we love and recognize their true nature. We love our teacher, our father and mother, our children, our brothers and sisters, and when someone we love passes away, we feel great sorrow and believe we have lost that person. But ultimately nothing is lost. The true nature of those we love is unborn and undying. If we can be in touch with the ultimate dimension, we shall smile with the yellow leaf, just as we can smile at all the other changes that take place in our lives.
So with the help of their teacher, the disciples on the The Gridhrakuta Mountain Peak saw into their own true Buddha nature. And just as the life span of a Buddha is limitless, so too the life span of all beings is limitless in the ultimate dimension.
Peaceful Action, Open Heart, p108In Chapter 15 of the Lotus Sutra, “Welling Up Out of the Earth,” we begin to see the unborn and undying nature of the Buddha. From the point of view of our conventional understanding, we see reality as limited by the two barriers of time and space. But the Lotus Sutra reveals to us the eternal presence of the Buddha; time and space are not separate.
Peaceful Action, Open Heart, p108In the Upper Hamlet of Plum Village where I live there is an area where wild daffodils manifest in late February. When we first arrived on the land to begin building Plum Village, we were not aware that there were so many beautiful daffodils, hundreds of thousands of them, waiting there to manifest in early spring. We had only a historical perception of the land; we had not yet seen its ultimate dimension. The daffodils don’t bloom any other time of the year, and then suddenly tens of thousands of them spring up, just like the bodhisattvas welling up from the Earth. When these golden flowers manifest, it is very beautiful, and so we have named that place “Treasure of the Dharma Body.” You can’t see the Dharma realm (dharmadhatu), until it manifests to you. If you’re too attached to your perception of the historical dimension of reality, you may not be able to see the ultimate dimension manifest. When you know how to look deeply into the historical dimension, you touch the ultimate dimension.
The Stories of the Lotus Sutra, p194-195It is important to recognize that the bodhisattvas who spring up from the earth are not merely historical beings of the past. They include ourselves. Shakyamuni Buddha was a historical person. He was born, lived, and died on earth. So too were the leading shravakas who appear in the Dharma Flower Sutra – Shariputra, Ananda, Subhuti, Katyayana, Kashyapa, Maudgalyayana, and others. These are the names of historical people. But the famous, and not so famous, bodhisattvas are not historical, at least not in the same sense. Manjushri, Maitreya, Universal Sage (Pǔxián/Fugen/Samantabhadra), Earth Store (Dìzàng/Jizo/Kshitigharba), and Kwan-yin (Kannon/Avalokiteshvara) are the five most prominent bodhisattvas in East Asian religion and art. Though all, especially Manjushri, Maitreya, and Kwan-yin, are believed to have been embodied in a variety of historical figures, none is an actual historical figure. The same is true of other bodhisattvas who have important roles in the Dharma Flower Sutra, bodhisattvas such as Never Disrespectful, Medicine King, and Wonderful Voice, and the four leading bodhisattvas who emerge from the earth in Chapter 15. Although some are believed to have been embodied in one or more historical figures, none is historical in the sense that Shakyamuni, Shariputra, and you and I are historical. Rather, they are models for us, setting examples of bodhisattva practices that we can follow.
But the enormous horde of bodhisattvas who well up from the earth with the four leaders are perhaps a little different. They appear, not in historical time, but in a powerful story. The text says that the four groups, the monks and nuns, laymen and laywomen, could see these bodhisattvas “by the divine powers of the Buddha.” This is another way of referring to the human imagination, to the power that we all have to transcend everyday life, the power to see the buddha in others. The bodhisattvas are nameless, and, except for greeting and showing respect to all the buddhas, in this story and in subsequent chapters of the Sutra they do nothing. We can understand this to mean that in a sense they are not yet. The emergence of bodhisattvas from the earth is not a one-time event in ordinary time, but an ongoing process – bodhisattvas are emerging from the earth still. And not only, of course, in India, but virtually everywhere there are human beings. If we use our own powers of imagination, we can see bodhisattvas emerging from the earth all around us! We ourselves can be among them.
Peaceful Action, Open Heart, p90Chapter 14 of the Lotus Sutra, “Comfortable Conduct,” also a later addition, still bears traces of the deep-seated attitude of discrimination against women and others. For this reason, it is not as outstanding as other chapters in the Sutra. But it offers a teaching on how to carry out the work of a bodhisattva in times when there are fewer opportunities to hear and practice the Dharma and there is a lot of suffering in the world.
The Stories of the Lotus Sutra, p190Some interpreters of the Lotus Sutra may prefer to think that this space below the earth is a symbolic reference to the popular Mahayana Buddhist idea of emptiness. These bodhisattvas, they claim, emerge from emptiness. This could be right. But the Lotus Sutra is not much concerned with the concept of “emptiness,” using it in a positive sense only very few times. So it seems to me to be unlikely that it is what is behind this story. What this story wants to affirm, I believe, is not the reality of emptiness, but the reality and importance of this world, this world of suffering, a world that is, after all, Shakyamuni Buddha’s world and our world.