Introduction to the Lotus SutraSakyamuni begins [Chapter 16, The Duration of the Life of the Tathāgata,] by appealing three times for his listeners to “understand my sincere and infallible words by faith.” To this appeal, all the Bodhisattvas headed by Maitreya responded each time, “World-Honored One, tell us! We will receive your words by faith.” Then Sakyamuni replied, “Listen to me attentively! I will reveal to you my hidden core and supernatural powers” (p. 241).
Here “hidden core” means his deepest innermost self, and “supernatural powers” are actions outflowing from that hidden core.
Category Archives: d21b
800 Years: Seeing the Real Figure of the Buddha
Introduction to the Lotus Sutra[W]e can see the real figure of the Buddha when we devote ourselves to him in faith. We can attain this faithful state when we devote both our body and our soul to the Buddha and become unselfish. In other words, we reach a state in which our hearts are completely honest and gentle, and we leave all our cares in the hands of the Buddha. A simple fervent feeling of entrusting one’s life to the Buddha is the essence of faith. In the words of [Chapter 16, The Duration of the Life of the Tathāgata], we “wish to see (him) with all our hearts, and at the cost of our lives.”
800 Years: Realizing Buddhahood Through Faith
Lotus SeedsNichiren Shonin recognized that the eternal life of the Buddha was of crucial importance. Therefore, he taught that we do not need to be born into a pure land after death so that we can come into the presence of the Buddha and thereby awaken to the truth. According to Nichiren Shonin, the essential teaching of the Lotus Sutra reveals that we are already in the pure land. We are already in the presence of the Buddha. We are able to directly realize Buddhahood through our faith, because it is already a part of our lives.
Fostering Our Tie in This Life with the Lotus Sūtra.
History and Teachings of Nichiren Buddhism, p 94According to the Lotus Sūtra, Śākyamuni Buddha has continued since the infinite past to help us and lead us to salvation. Nonetheless, we are reborn as humans, still unable to achieve buddhahood. This means that we are deluded beings who in a past life turned our backs on the Buddha, deviated from the teachings of the Lotus Sūtra, and therefore have been unable to continue on the path to buddhahood. If we are to be messengers of the Tathāgata, we must not look away from our delusions. Rather, aware of our delusions, we must carefully foster our tie in this life with the Lotus Sūtra.
Guaranteeing Śākyamuni Buddha’s Eternity
History and Teachings of Nichiren Buddhism, p 93-94From the standpoint of teachers of the Dharma and messengers of the Tathāgata, Śākyamuni Buddha must always be present, an eternal existence, so that they can maintain their practices unwaveringly. Śākyamuni Buddha’s constant and eternal presence supports them and encourages their activities, at times urging them on their way even strictly. With this realization they know that if they stop their activities, Śākyamuni Buddha’s activities are also stopped. Therefore, if the teachers of the Dharma and messengers of the Tathāgata do not act, Śākyamuni Buddha has no relation to us who live in the present age, becoming merely a buddha of a past age.
Therefore, you must become a teacher of the Dharma and a messenger of the Tathāgata! This is the greatest message of the Lotus Sūtra: to keep teachers of the Dharma and messengers of the Tathāgata present and active. This guarantees Śākyamuni Buddha’s eternity. The three orders in “Beholding the Stūpa of Treasures,” Chapter 11 of the Lotus Sūtra, are orders to become teachers of the Dharma and messengers of the Tathāgata, and to spread the message of the Lotus Sūtra into the future.
Six Occasions of Showing the Deeds and Figures of Buddhas
History and Teachings of Nichiren Buddhism, p 91-92Śākyamuni Buddha does not abandon us perverted people.
“I am always thinking:
‘How shall I cause all living beings
To enter into the unsurpassed Way
And quickly become Buddhas?”‘With this vow, Śākyamuni Buddha, as the Eternal Buddha, is constantly lending a helping hand to us perverted people.
How do the activities of the Buddha toward the salvation of others over eternity develop? In “The Duration of the Life of the Tathāgata,” these activities are revealed in the form of the six occasions of showing the deeds and figures of buddhas.
I told the stories of my previous lives in some sūtras, and the stories of previous lives of other Buddhas in other sutras. I showed my replicas in some sūtras, and my transformations in other sūtras. I described my deeds in some sūtras, and the deeds of others in other sūtras.
Śākyamuni Buddha is always leading us into salvation, showing himself in many guises and using many different methods. Right before the Assembly in Space begins, many buddhas were invited. These were actually manifestations of the Eternal Buddha. This reveals why they are called manifestations. Many buddhas besides Śākyamuni Buddha appear in Buddhism, for example, Amitābha Buddha and Medicine Master Buddha. Each of these buddhas is viewed as a part of the Eternal Buddha. Even the historical Śākyamuni Buddha, whose lifespan was limited, is viewed as one aspect of the Eternal Buddha. In this way, all the buddhas working toward the salvation of living beings are merely different manifestations of the eternal Buddha, who uses the six occasions of revealing the deeds and figures of buddhas to show himself appropriately in each situation.
It may seem that so long as we remember that the Eternal Buddha is at the base of the individual Buddhas, we can put our faith in any Buddha. Nichiren Shōnin severely criticized such a theory, saying that it makes light of the base and emphasizes trivial details.
Revealing the True Nature of This Sahā World
History and Teachings of Nichiren Buddhism, p 90-91“The Duration of the Life of the Tathāgata” reveals the true nature of this Sahā world. Śākyamuni Buddha became a buddha in our Sahā world. Since he is the Eternal Buddha, the Sahā world is the world in which he resides. This describes our world as an eternal pure land.
“In reality this world of mine is peaceful.
It is filled with gods and men.
The gardens, forests, and stately buildings
Are adorned with various treasures;
The jeweled trees have many flowers and fruits;
The living beings are enjoying themselves.”If this is the reality of the Sahā world, then we are all residents of the eternal pure land. Why don’t we experience the Sahā world as an eternal pure land? According to the text, we are perverted people. This means that we cannot see straight but look at things from the wrong side. Thus it is revealed:
“This pure world of mine is indestructible.
But the perverted people think:
‘It is full of sorrow, fear and other sufferings.
It will soon burn away.”‘Although in the eyes of the Buddha the Sahā world is unmistakably a pure land, we perverted people experience is a world filled with sorrow, fear and sadness. We “sinful people” cannot escape our “evil karmas.”
Achieving Buddhahood Without a Beginning
History and Teachings of Nichiren Buddhism, p 90At the beginning of Chapter 16, “The Duration of the Life of the Tathāgata,” Śākyamuni Buddha asks his listeners three times to pledge their faithful reliance on what he is about to teach. Maitreya and the others assembled pronounce their firm conviction in response. Having completed this cautious procedure, the Buddha tells them:
Listen to me attentively! I will tell you about my hidden core and supernatural powers. The gods, men and asuras in the world think that I, Śākyamuni Buddha, left the palace of the Śākyas, sat at the place of enlightenment not far from the City of Gayā, and attained Anuttara-samyak-saṃbodhi forty and odd years ago. To tell the truth, good men, it is many hundreds of thousands of billions of nayutas of kalpas since I became the Buddha.
This means: “You all think that Śākyamuni left the Śākya palace, practiced hard, and achieved buddhahood forty-odd years ago near Gayā. But you’re wrong. An infinite amount of time has passed since I became a Buddha.” Thus Śākyamuni Buddha revealed that he had not achieved buddhahood recently, but is the Eternal Buddha who achieved buddhahood in the infinite past. This is referred to as “opening the near to reveal the far,” in Japanese kaigon-kennon, or “opening the traces to reveal the origin,” in Japanese kaishaku-kenpon. This means opening a temporary figure of the Buddha achieving buddhahood recently, and manifesting a original figure of the Buddha achieving buddhahood in the infinite past. In the Japanese characters, kai, is opening, ken, is manifesting.
The Eternally Unchanging Dharma-Kāya
Source elements of the Lotus Sutra, p 281-282The eternally enlightened Original Buddha, as taught in the sixteenth chapter of the Lotus Sutra, is the eternally unchanging dharma-kāya; Śākyamuni, who was enlightened at Gayā, was none other than the Buddha revealing himself as the nirmāṇa-kāya. Unenlightened understanding (“skillful means”) contrasts with the “truth” of the Buddha. These contrary modes of understanding do not, however, mean that there are two opposing existences (the One vehicle and the three vehicles; the Original Buddha and the manifested form) or two times (without beginning or end, having beginning and end); rather they are different ways of looking at the same existence, the same time. Ultimately, the Buddha’s absolute truth is one. The verse section of the same chapter can be considered the expression of the culmination of religious uniāty:
“[When] all creatures have believed and obeyed,
In [character] upright, in mind gentle,
Wholeheartedly wishing to see the Buddha,
Not caring for their own lives,
Then I with all the Saṃgha
Appear together on the Divine Vulture Peak.“When all the living see, at the kalpa’s end,
The conflagration when it is burning,
Tranquil is this realm of mine,
Ever filled with heavenly beings, Parks, and many palaces
With every kind of gem adorned,
Precious trees full of blossoms and fruits,
Where all creatures take their pleasure;
All the gods strike the heavenly drums
And evermore make music,
Showering mandārava flowers
On the Buddha and his great assembly.My Pure Land will never be destroyed,
Yet all view it as being burned up,
And grief and horror and distress
Fill them all like this.”
Continuity In, And Development Of, Lotus Thought
Source elements of the Lotus Sutra, p 210-211Because the Mahayana sutras all possess to some extent the underlying conviction that their task was to win others over to their belief, it is very difficult to distinguish, among the intermingling of intellectual influences, exactly which ideas were borrowed and which were lent. Further, unlike the treatises of the Abhidharma, the authors of the Mahayana sutras did not lend their names to their works, but put them in the mouth of Ānanda; it is therefore all the harder to clarify the actual circumstances of transmission.
The first half of the Lotus Sutra (the theoretical teachings, called the “secondary gate”; Jpn., shakumon) is concerned with giving concrete expression to the idea of “explaining the three and revealing the one” in the “Tactfulness” chapter, giving predictions of future buddhahood to the arhats and pratyekabuddhas and including all three vehicles in the one. This reflects a powerful new viewpoint. From the time of early Mahayana and the Perfection of Wisdom sutras, the bodhisattva vehicle had been praised as superior to the others, and the possibility of arhats and pratyekabuddhas gaining buddhahood was not acknowledged. The possibility of buddhahood for women and for Devadatta, who had fallen into hell for slandering the Dharma, remained unadmitted. When a movement grew up within Mahayana demanding the potential of enlightenment for all beings through the enlarged compassion of the Buddha, the formation of the “Devadatta” chapter became a necessity. This trend reached its culmination in the Mahāparinirvāṇa Sūtra, which taught that all beings without exception possess the buddha-nature and buddhahood is possible even for icchantikas (incorrigibles), even though they have no aspiration for enlightenment (bodhicitta). This is clearly in the line of Lotus thought.
The latter half of the Lotus Sutra (the essential teachings, called the “primary gate”; Jpn., honmon), deals with the true and expedient teachings of the Eternal Original Buddha, set forth in the chapter “Revelation of the [Eternal] Life of the Tathāgata.” This development may be traced as stemming from the monotheistic tendencies of the early Mahayana sutras coupled with the growth in Hinduism of faith in a supreme deity. The idea of an eternal, original Buddha exerted an influence on the concept of Amitābha/Amitāyus (characterized by eternal light and eternal life) in the Pure Land sutras, and on Vairocana Buddha (the Dharma Body of Wisdom) of the Avataṃsaka Sūtra.
These, then, are two aspects that portray the continuity and development of Lotus thought in Mahayana sutras.