Peaceful Action, Open Heart, p125-126“Merit” here also has the meaning of “realization.” The merit of this teaching effects a great change in the field of our six sense organs (sadayatana) our eyes, ears, nose, tongue, body, and mind. When we are able to receive the truth of the Lotus Sutra our sense perceptions undergo a profound transformation. Automatically our eyes are able to see things that before we were not able to see. We attain the eyes of the Dharma that are able to look deeply and see the true nature and suchness of all dharmas, all phenomena in the world of our perceptions. With Dharma eyes we can look into a wilted and yellow autumn leaf and see its wonderful, fresh green nature. We can see that one leaf, whether old and yellow or green and fresh, contains all the merits, all the wonderful suchness of the universe. The eyes of someone who has received and who maintains the teaching of this Sutra, the truth of the ultimate, are able to see the limitless life span, the unborn and undying nature of everything. This is the first merit, the transformation of our sight perception into the eyes of the Dharma.
With the ears of the Dharma, we are now able to hear very deeply. We hear the music of the birds singing, the sound of the wind in the pine trees, and even the very subtle sound of a flower opening. And while we are listening to these sounds, we experience their wondrous ultimate nature. Bird song expresses the truth of the ultimate dimension of all phenomena. Listening deeply to the sound of the wind in the pine trees, we hear the teachings of the Lotus Sutra. In the same way, all of our senses are transformed. When each of our sense organs comes into contact with an object, we receive the truth of the Lotus Sutra, culminating in the transformation of the mind faculty (manaindrya), our mental perception.
When our mind faculty and our other sense faculties have been transformed and purified as a result of the merit we have received from hearing, understanding, and practicing this wonderful Dharma, then we need hear only one gatha or one line of the Sutra to understand all sutras and teachings. We do not need to study the entire Tripitaka in order to understand the Buddhadharma. One gatha contains all other gathas, one teaching reveals the deep meaning of all other teachings, just as the truth of impermanence contains the truth of no-self and the truth of interbeing.
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The Merit of Practice
Peaceful Action, Open Heart, p121Chapters 17, 18, and 19 of the Lotus Sutra all have to do with the idea of merit. The word “merit” (Sanskrit: punya), when rendered in Chinese is made up of two characters. The first character means “daily practice or daily work,” and the second means “virtuous conduct.” Merit is a kind of spiritual energy that can be accumulated when we maintain a steady practice. This energy protects us and brings us joy and insight. Our practice helps us see, hear, and understand things clearly, and we can be present in a very deep way. When we can maintain our mindfulness and deep presence, we are able to touch the ultimate dimension. And when we get in touch with the ultimate, we know we are already in nirvana. This is the merit of the practice.
The Four Fearlessnesses of a Bodhisattva
Buddhism for Today, p298In considering the four fearlessnesses of a bodhisattva, some people may be daunted at the thought of the difficulty of preaching the Law to others. However, we must not be afraid. These four categories describe the ideal preacher, and if one attains such a stage, then indeed one will have become a great bodhisattva. No great bodhisattva becomes so without effort; he reaches such a stage only after a long practice of severe discipline.
We, who train ourselves in the bodhisattva practice, must always preach the Law by bearing in mind the four ideals of the bodhisattva and by taking these four ideals as our yardstick. When we meet with a difficult problem or are asked questions that we do not know how to answer, we should say so frankly: “As this question is beyond me, I will ask somebody for instruction and then I will answer you.” We must not dream up an answer just to make it through the occasion somehow. To say “I am not sure” does not lower us in the estimation of others as preachers but results in increasing the confidence of our listeners.
An explanation of the four fearlessnesses can be found here.
The Merits of Religious Practice
Buddhism for Today, p260In considering the merits of religious practice, we must place great importance on being upright in character and gentle in mind, as taught in chapter 16. We should focus our gaze on the Buddha alone, not worrying ourselves about divine favors in this world. We should be united with the Buddha and act obediently according to his guidance. If our actual life should consequently change for the better, that is a natural phenomenon produced because our minds and actions have been set in the direction of the truth. We should receive such phenomena gratefully and frankly.
The merits of religious practice are preached in three chapters of the latter half of the Lotus Sutra: chapter 17, “Discrimination of Merits”; chapter 18, “The Merits of Joyful Acceptance”; and chapter 19, “The Merits of the Preacher.” We should read these chapters bearing in mind the basic significance of merits as discussed above.
Service to Your Employer Is Practicing the Lotus Sūtra
Putting aside other matters, I will beseech the Buddha to protect each of you from now on. Continue to serve your lord as you have done till now. It is equivalent to practicing the Lotus Sūtra twenty-four hours a day. How precious this is.
Please remember that the service to your lord itself is practicing the teaching of the Lotus Sūtra. Interpreting the scriptural statement in the Lotus Sūtra (“The Merits of the Teacher of the Dharma” chapter), Grand Master T’ien-t’ai, therefore, states in his Great Concentration and Insight, “All the activities and daily work of the people in the secular world do not contradict the truth preached by the Buddha.” Please contemplate the spirit of this scriptural statement again and again.
Dannotsu Bō Gohenji, Response to a Follower, Writings of Nichiren Shōnin, Faith and Practice, Volume 4, Page 131
Lapsing into Complacency and Conceit
Buddhism for Today, p303[T]he major theme of the Buddha’s preaching in [Chapter 19] includes two points. The first is the Buddha’s encouragement to man to devote himself to his practice because if he practices the Lotus Sutra wholeheartedly he can improve both mentally and physically. The second is the Buddha’s admonition that because a true believer in the Lotus Sutra must fulfill the important duty of spreading the Buddha’s teachings, he should naturally possess the power to discern all things. That a person has not yet attained such a mental state is proof of the inadequacy of his personal practice. Therefore he must constantly examine himself so as not to lapse into complacency and conceit.
The Five Kinds of Practices
Buddhism for Today, p295[Chapter 18] details the merits of a beginner, one who has just entered the teaching. [Chapter 19] expounds the merits of a preacher who has moved to a higher level. “Preacher” does not necessarily mean monk or nun but means any person – including Buddhist monks, nuns, laymen, and laywomen – who receives and keeps the Buddha’s teachings and endeavors to spread them. The practices of a preacher are of five kinds (goshu hosshi): receiving and keeping the sutra (juji), reading it (doku) and reciting it (ju), expounding it (gesetsu), and copying it (shosha). … In each of these five practices, the state of our gradually deepening faith is clearly shown.
If we believe and discern the teaching after hearing it, and if we raise the mind of joyful acceptance of it, we proceed first to keep it firmly, then, reading and reciting the sutra, to inscribe it on our memory. As a personal discipline, this practice is done to establish the foundation of our faith. When our faith reaches this stage, we cannot help transmitting the teaching to others. As a result, we expound the sutra (the teaching) and copy it. We cannot say we have attained true faith until we go through each process of the five kinds of practices of the preacher.
Enough Instruction To Lead To Perfect Enlightenment
Buddhism for Today, p305It is not supposed that all the disciples who listened to the Buddha’s preaching in chapter 19 completely understood the true meaning of his encouragement and the admonition included therein. Some of them may have become discouraged, thinking, “We cannot possibly practice all the teachings of the Lotus Sutra perfectly.” Others may have been complacent, thinking, “We can obtain merit somehow or other if we just do the five kinds of practices of preachers according to form.” Still others may have momentarily felt conceited, flattering themselves: “Unlike the disciples of the two vehicles, śrāvakas and pratyekabuddhas, we bodhisattvas are possessed of this kind of supernatural power. We are quite different from them.”
On all occasions, the Buddha’s sermons were perfect and left nothing to be desired. Whenever he perceived the slightest doubt in the minds of his disciples, he gave them enough instruction to lead them to Perfect Enlightenment. It can easily be imagined that probably he did the same in his preaching of chapter 19.
The Arena of Practice
Two Buddhas, p205In referring … to the passage on the purification of the mind indicated in the “Benefits Obtained” chapter, Nichiren writes that “the true path lies in the realities of this world.” Like Zhiyi, he denied any notion of a two-tiered hierarchy between the realm of deluded beings and the realm of the Buddha’s enlightenment: one entails the experience of suffering, and the other, the experience of inner stability and joy, but the distinction between them lies solely in whether or not one embraces the Lotus Sūtra. Elsewhere, … Nichiren draws on the mutual inclusion of mind and all phenomena to assert that our own actions are what make this world a hell or a buddha land. Here, however, he draws a slightly different inference: there is no buddha-dharma to be achieved apart from one’s everyday reality. One’s ordinary affairs, whatever they maybe, form the arena of practice, and by faith in the Lotus Sūtra, one can bring to bear the wisdom and compassion of the dharma to negotiate all worldly matters.
In Harmony with the True Dharma
Two Buddhas, p202-203Nichiren does not comment extensively on the six forms of sensory purification. But in one letter, he addresses at some length a passage from the “Benefits Obtained” chapter in the section discussing the purification of the mental faculty: “If they [expounders of the Lotus] teach the works on worldly affairs, treatises on political science or enterprise, all these will be in harmony with the true dharma” (271). This means, Nichiren says, that the Lotus takes worldly dharmas, or phenomena, as “immediately comprising the whole of the buddha-dharma,” a feature that he saw as distinguishing it from other sūtras: “The sūtras preached before the Lotus Sūtra hold in essence that all dharmas are produced from the mind. To illustrate, they say that the mind is like the great earth, while the grasses and trees [that grow from it] are like the dharmas. Not so with the Lotus Sūtra. [It teaches that] the mind is itself the great earth, and the great earth is precisely the grasses and trees. The sūtras preached before it say that clarity of mind is like the moon and that purity of mind is like a flower. Not so with the Lotus Sūtra. It teaches that the moon is the mind, the flower is the mind.”