The Stories of the Lotus Sutra, p231-232At the end of the [prose section of the Divine Powers chapter] is a very interesting passage, a part of which is often used in Buddhist liturgical services. Let’s look at the entire paragraph:
After the extinction of the Tathagata, you should all wholeheartedly embrace, read and recite, explain and copy, and practice [this sutra] as you have been taught. In any land, wherever anyone accepts and embraces, reads and recites, explains and copies, and practices it as taught, or wherever a volume of the sutra is kept, whether in a garden, or a woods, or under a tree, or in a monk’s cell, or a layman’s house, or in a palace, or in a mountain valley or an open field, in all these places you should put up a Stupa and make offerings. Why? You should understand that all such places are places of the Way. They are where the buddhas attain supreme awakening; they are where the buddhas turn the Dharma wheel; they are where the buddhas reach complete nirvana.
Here, putting up a Stupa is a dramatic way of indicating that all places where the Dharma is embodied in actual life are sacred places, as holy as any stupa. In a sense, it is a rejection of the idea that only temples and stupas and such are holy places. For the Lotus Sutra, any place at all can be a holy place, a place of awakening, a place of the Way, simply by being a place in which the Dharma is embodied by being put into practice. And it is precisely in such places, wherever you are, that “the buddhas attain supreme awakening, … the buddhas turn the Dharma-wheel, … the buddhas reach complete nirvana.” This is a fantastically powerful affirmation of the reality and importance of the holy ground on which we all stand. In a sense, wherever Buddha Dharma is successfully shared or taught a Stupa has already emerged.
If you take refuge in the Buddha, the Buddha has refuge in you – your practice is what enables the Buddha to be alive in this world. Not yours alone, of course, but your practice of the bodhisattva way, along with the practice of others, is what can dispel the darkness and the gloom of living beings.
Category Archives: d26b
The Dispeller of Gloom in the Darkness
The Stories of the Lotus Sutra, p113-115Buddhist sutras begin with the words, “This is what I heard.” We are to understand that this is Ananda who is speaking and that the sutra that follows is what he heard, and what he recited from memory at the First Buddhist Council shortly after the death of the Buddha. If this is true, or even close to being true, it is a truly remarkable accomplishment, as the Buddha taught for some forty-five years, during which he preached a great many sermons. Apparently there was no writing in India at that time, and it was not until some centuries after the Buddha’s death that Buddhist texts could be recorded in written form. Thus it may be that the vast bulk of Buddhist sutras were memorized by Ananda.
A cousin of Shakyamuni and a brother of the infamous Devadatta, Ananda joined the Sangha when he was about twenty, along with six other high-caste young men. At first, the request by Ananda and his brother to be allowed to join the Buddha’s following was refused. So they became disciples of another religious teacher. But later, when they approached Shakyamuni a second time, permission was granted for them to join the group and become Buddhist monks. Some twenty years later, Ananda was surprised by his selection to be Shakyamuni’s personal attendant – a position he kept for about twenty-five years.
According to legend, Ananda was not able to achieve nirvana, the awakening of an arhat, during the Buddha’s lifetime. Right up to the night before the Council at which he would recite the Buddha’s teachings, he was unable to reach that highly sought stage. But late that night, before the dawn, as he was in the process of lying down to sleep, he suddenly experienced nirvana, thus becoming eligible to participate in the Council along with all of the other arhats.
Like Shakyamuni, Ananda was a Shakya noble. There are many stories about his kindness, especially toward women, and about his attractiveness to women. It was he, more than any other, who persuaded Shakyamuni to admit women into the Sangha, in particular Shakyamuni’s aunt and stepmother Mahaprajapati, thus creating the first Buddhist community for nuns.
There are a great many stories of people going to Ananda for advice or counsel, often on matters of doctrine, not only monks and nuns but also a variety of brahmans and householders. In addition to accounts of Ananda preaching both to monks and to lay men and women, there are also stories of Ananda being appointed to speak for the Buddha, either in place of the Buddha or to complete a sermon the Buddha had started.
Though highly suspect, it is written that Ananda lived to be a hundred and twenty years old. At the beginning of the fifth century, the Chinese monk Fa-hsien traveled to India, reporting extensively on what he saw and heard. At Vaishali, where it is said that the Buddha gave his last sermon, Fa-hsien found two stupas on opposite sides of the river, each containing half of the remains of Ananda. This was said to be a consequence of Ananda’s body being cremated on a raft in the middle of the Ganges River. Nuns worshiped at the stupas of Ananda, since it was through his help that the community of nuns had been established.
One Pali text says that Ananda was “a dispeller of gloom in the darkness.” This could easily remind us an important verse from the end of Chapter 21 of the Lotus Sutra. About anyone who can teach the truth, it says:
Just as the light of the sun and the moon
Can dispel darkness,
Such a person, working in the world,
Can dispel the gloom of living beings.
Issaishujōkiken’s Offerings
It is said in the “Medicine King Bodhisattva” chapter that a bodhisattva called Issaishujōkiken (Gladly Seen by All) learned the Lotus Sūtra from the Buddha Sun Moon Brilliance. With deep admiration for his master’s favor and the value of the Lotus Sūtra, he made offerings of thousands of invaluable treasures. Issaishujōkiken felt that this was not enough, however, and proceeded to anoint his own body with oil, set it aflame, and continued to burn it like a lamp wick to venerate the Buddha for twelve hundred years. Thereafter, he burned a light on his elbow for seventy-two thousand years to venerate the Lotus Sūtra. Thus, if a woman venerates the Lotus Sūtra in the fifth 500-year period after the demise of the Buddha, during the Latter Age of Degeneration, the Buddha will bestow upon her all merits of the Lotus Sūtra just as a rich man gives all his wealth to his son.
Nichinyo Gozen Gohenji, Response to My Lady Nichinyo, Writings of Nichiren Shōnin, Faith and Practice, Volume 4, Page 132-133
The Deeper Meaning Beneath the Burning Question
The Stories of the Lotus Sutra, p246Despite the fact that this chapter is taken by some as praising the actual sacrifice of one’s body or body parts by burning, I believe that the Lotus Sutra does not teach that we should burn ourselves or parts of our bodies. The idea that keeping even a single verse of the Lotus Sutra is more rewarding than burning one’s finger or toe suggests this. And further, suicide would go against the teachings of the Sutra as a whole as well as the Buddha’s precept against killing. The language here, as in so much of the Lotus Sutra, is symbolic, carrying a deeper meaning than what appears on the surface.
Like an Affectionate Mother Stroking the Head of Her Child
The meaning of the chapter on “Transmission” in the Lotus Sūtra is that as Śākyamuni Buddha stepped out of the Stupa of Many Treasures and stood in the air, the original disciples of the Buddha such as Bodhisattva Superior Practice, disciples of the Buddhas in manifestation such as Bodhisattva Great Mañjuśrī, Great King of the Brahma Heaven, Indra, the sun, the moon, the Four Heavenly Kings, the Dragon King, the ten female rākṣasa demons, and others gathered in the vast world of four-trillion nayuta, as numerous as the pampas grass in the Musashino Field or trees on Mt. Fuji. They waited knelt side by side with their heads bowed to the ground, their hands together in gasshō, beads of perspiration forming from all the body-heat. Like an affectionate mother stroking the head of her child, Śākyamuni Buddha placed His hand upon their heads three times and entrusted them with the Lotus Sūtra. Then accepting the request of Śākyamuni Buddha, Bodhisattva Superior Practice, the sun and moon, and others vowed to spread the Lotus Sūtra in the Latter Age of Degeneration.
Nichinyo Gozen Gohenji, Response to My Lady Nichinyo, Writings of Nichiren Shōnin, Faith and Practice, Volume 4, Page 132-133
What the Buddha had in Mind
After entrusting the essential dharma of five characters to the bodhisattvas who appeared from underground, the Buddha ascended from the Stupa of Treasures. Standing in the sky, the Buddha tapped the heads of Mañjuśrī, Avalokiteśvara, the King of the Brahma Heaven, Indra, the sun and moon, the Four Heavenly Kings and others three times, and entrusted them with the expanded and concise teachings of the Lotus Sūtra (though without the essential dharma) as well as all the sūtras preached before and after the Lotus Sūtra. This was for the sake of saving the people in the 2,000-year period of the Ages of the True Dharma and the Semblance Dharma. Thereafter, when the Buddha preached the Nirvana Sūtra, He again expounded the Lotus as well as pre-Lotus sūtras, entrusting them to such great bodhisattvas as Mañjuśrī. This was the preaching regarding the benefit of gleaning after the harvest of the Lotus Sūtra.
Thus what the Buddha transmitted was not the same, so the task of propagation after the death of the Buddha was limited according to the content of transmission. Accordingly Kāśyapa, Ānanda and others spread only the Hinayāna sūtras without expounding the Mahāyāna sūtras. Nāgārjuna, Asaṅga and others spread the provisional Mahāyāna sūtras without preaching the One Vehicle true teaching of the Lotus Sūtra. Even though they preached the Lotus Sūtra, they merely suggested its teaching, or they preached merely a part of the theoretical section without discussing the beginning and ending of the Buddha’s guidance.
Appearing in this world as the avatars of Avalokiteśvara and Medicine King Bodhisattva, Grand Masters Nan-yüeh and T’ien-t’ai expounded both the Hinayāna and Mahāyāna sūtras, provisional and true teachings, the theoretical and essential sections of the Lotus Sūtra, as well as such doctrines as the beginning and ending of the Buddha’s guidance and the eternal relationship between the Buddha and His disciples. Moreover, they advocated the theory of “sūtras which had been preached, are being preached, and will be preached,” claiming that the Lotus Sūtra was supreme among all the holy teachings preached in the lifetime of the Buddha. Their critical classification of teachings is superior to those of commentators in India and many masters in China. Tripiṭaka masters of both old and new translations do not equal to Nan-yüeh and T’ien-t’ai at all. Founders of both exoteric and esoteric Buddhist schools cannot compete with them. The two grand masters, however, were still basing themselves on the whole or parts of the Lotus Sūtra without expounding its essence, the five characters. Although they themselves knew it, they did not convey this to others. It was solely because they correctly remembered what was entrusted to them and respected what the Buddha had in mind.
Soya Nyūdō-dono-gari Gosho, A Letter to Lay Priest Lord Soya, Writings of Nichiren Shōnin, Doctrine 3, Pages 162.
The Life of a Dharma Flower
The Stories of the Lotus Sutra, p255Why does Medicine King Bodhisattva travel around in this world of suffering? This is the question with which the chapter begins. He does so because he wants to help all those in need, and over many lifetimes has prepared himself to do so. We too, the story of Seen with Joy by All the Living suggests, can bring comfort and satisfaction to those in need by embodying the Dharma Flower Sutra in our own lives, that is, by being Dharma flowers.
Sacrificing Our Bodies Through Dedicated Work
The Stories of the Lotus Sutra, p243-244Chapter 23 of the Lotus Sutra tells a story about previous lives of Medicine King Bodhisattva, when he was a bodhisattva called Seen with Joy by All the Living, a bodhisattva who burned his whole body as a sacrifice to a buddha and later burned just his arms as a sacrifice to a buddha. It then praises the Dharma Flower Sutra and those who follow it.
Like the Sutra as a whole, this chapter has had enormous impact on East Asian Buddhism. Many will remember the sight of Vietnamese monks burning themselves to death in the 1960s during the Vietnam War, beginning with the monk Thich Quang Duc in 1963. It has been said that these monks and nuns used their bodies as torches to illuminate the suffering of the Vietnamese people so that the world might see what was happening in Vietnam. Theirs was an extremely powerful message. And it is a fact that the story and pictures of Thich Quang Duc burning himself were soon seen all over the world. And within a few months the regime of President Diem was overthrown and his anti-Buddhist policies ended.
A great many Chinese monks right down to the middle of the twentieth century followed the practice of burning off one or more of their fingers as a sign of dedication and devotion. Until very recently, virtually all Chinese monks and nuns, and I believe those in Vietnam as well, when receiving final ordination, used moxa, a kind of herb used in traditional Chinese medicine, to burn small places on their scalps, where the scars usually remained for life. This ritual burning was taken to be a sign of complete devotion to the three treasures – the Buddha, the Dharma, and the Sangha.
While deeply sympathetic with those who show such great devotion by sacrificing their bodies by fire, it is not a practice I can recommend to anyone. It is much better, I believe, to sacrifice our bodies through dedicated work, in a sense burning our bodies much more slowly. Since Chapter 23 is naturally read as advocating self-immolation, it has been my least favorite chapter in the Lotus Sutra, one that I some times wish had not been included. And yet the last part of the chapter contains some of the most beautiful aphoristic poetry in the Dharma Flower Sutra.
The Contemplation of Revelation of All Forms
Buddhism for Today, p353The contemplation of revelation of all forms is the contemplation by which a bodhisattva freely appears in a suitable body or form and gives suitable instruction to lead people to the teaching. If they are people who can be led gently, the bodhisattva assumes a gentle expression and uses soft words. If they are people who need to be instructed strictly, he adopts a threatening expression like Fudō Myō-ō and utters harsh words. The bodhisattva can make such changes with perfect freedom and without fail. A person who has not yet attained the mental state of this contemplation is prone to misjudge others’ capacity to understand the teaching and therefore to fail in leading them to it. This is a very important warning to us believers in the Lotus Sutra who practice it in the age of degeneration.
Ecumenical Buddhism
While I struggle with Gene Reeves and Risshō Kōsei Kai’s doctrine of Interfaith Truth, I have no real problem with the idea that the ocean of the Lotus Sutra contains all of the rivers of Buddhist thought.
As Reeves states in his discussion of Chapter 22, Transmission, in his Stories of the Lotus Sutra:
The Stories of the Lotus Sutra, p235-236As the Dharma Flower Sutra often praises itself and asserts its own excellence or superiority, it is very important to notice that in [Chapter 22, Transmission], which entrusts the teaching to bodhisattvas, the Buddha says that if in the future there are people who cannot have faith in or accept the Dharma Flower Sutra, other profound teachings of the Buddha should be used in order to teach the Dharma Flower Sutra. In other words, the teachings of the Lotus Sutra are not only in the text called the Sutra of the Lotus Flower of the Wonderful Dharma, they are also to be found in all of the profound teachings of the Buddha found in numerous sutras. By clinging too strongly to the text and words that we call the Dharma Flower Sutra, we may limit our ability to spread the teachings of the Sutra, the teachings that comprise the “real” Dharma Flower Sutra.
Later in the same chapter he expands on the need for a “generous attitude” when expounding the Lotus Sutra.
The Stories of the Lotus Sutra, p237-239It is common for people who are enthusiastic about something to want to protect it by preserving it just as it is and by taking pleasure in making it difficult for it to be understood or appreciated by the uninitiated. Being inflexible about how a text is to be translated and expressed, insisting, for example, on using unfamiliar Sanskrit terms or quaint English expressions, may make it very difficult for others to enter a particular circle of understanding and appropriation. In such ways we may be establishing an in-group/out-group situation in which we are on the inside, in some way perhaps protected from what is outside. Traditionally, secret religious doctrines or ceremonies often functioned in this way.
Perhaps this kind of group bonding through special, esoteric language is necessary to some degree. Certainly it is very common among religious groups. But when it means that the Dharma Flower Sutra, which entrusts us to spread it everywhere, is not taught generously to others, we fail to fulfill the commission of the Buddha.
I believe that teaching generously should mean that we share the Sutra in whatever ways are most appropriate to the intended audience, always, of course, within the real limits of our abilities. While it might be nice if everyone learned enough Chinese to be able to read Kumarajiva’s Chinese version of the Lotus Sutra, this is neither necessary nor necessarily desirable. It is good, I believe, that we have versions of the Dharma Flower Sutra that make it more intelligible to Japanese people, and it is good that there are English versions that make it more available to English-speaking people. This is not merely a matter of translation into other languages; it is important that the Sutra be rendered in ways that make it as understandable as possible.
This kind of generosity, a generosity in which one tries to understand and appreciate the linguistic and cultural situation of others, a generosity in which we do not insist that our own way of expressing something in the Sutra is the only good way, this kind of generosity is what the Sutra expects of those who are its genuine followers.
If we do not approach teaching the Sutra with such a generous attitude we will, I fear, fall into one more version of “merely formal Dharma.” In other words, we will be going through the motions of teaching and practicing, but very few will be deeply moved by such teaching. This kind of failure to be generous is largely unconscious, making it difficult, but not impossible, to detect and overcome. But another problem often stands in the way of our being generous in teaching: Often we are all too conscious of it, making it difficult to overcome. This is manifest in reticence or shyness in speaking and teaching.
For me this is all underscored in Chapter 14, Peaceful Practices:
A Bodhisattva-mahāsattvas who wishes to expound this sūtra in the age of the decline of the teachings after my extinction should perform the following peaceful practices. When he expounds or reads this sūtra, he should not point out the faults of other persons or sūtras. He should not despise other teachers of the Dharma. He should not speak of the good points or bad points or the merits or demerits of others. He should not mention Śrāvakas by name when he blames them. Nor should he do so when he praises them. He should not have hostile feelings against them or dislike them. He should have this peace of mind so that he may not act against the wishes of the hearers. When he is asked questions, he should not answer by the teachings of the Lesser Vehicle, but expound the Dharma only by the teachings of the Great Vehicle so that the questioners may be able to obtain the knowledge of the equality and differences of all things.”
And again later:
“Again, Mañjuśrī! A Bodhisattva-mahāsattvas who wishes to keep, read and recite this sūtra in the latter days after [my extinction] when the teachings are about to be destroyed, should not nurse jealousy against others, or flatter or deceive them. He should not despise those who study the Way to Buddhahood in any way. He should not speak ill of them or try to point out their faults. Some bhikṣus, bhikṣunīs, upāsakās or upāsikās will seek Śrāvakahood or Pratyekabuddhahood or the Way of Bodhisattvas. He should not disturb or perplex them by saying to them, ‘You are far from enlightenment. You cannot obtain the knowledge of the equality and differences of all things because you are licentious and lazy in seeking enlightenment.’ He should not have fruitless disputes or quarrels about the teachings with others. He should have great compassion towards all living beings. He should look upon all the Tathāgatas as his loving fathers, and upon all the Bodhisattvas as his great teachers. He should bow to all the great Bodhisattvas of the worlds of the ten quarters respectfully and from the bottom of his heart. He should expound the Dharma to all living beings without partiality. He should be obedient to the Dharma. He should not add anything to the Dharma or take away anything from the Dharma. He should not expound more teachings to those who love the Dharma more [than others do].
Yes, Nichiren didn’t appear to be so understanding or tolerant, but this is not 13th century Japan. This is a much different world. As Ryuei McCormick explained in his earlier reply to my inter-faith question, “Nichiren makes it clear that there are countries that are just ignorant and evil and then there are countries that slander. I believe the distinction he is making is between non-Buddhist cultures that need to be persuaded to give ear to the Dharma and learn more about it until they are able to take up the Wonderful Dharma of the Lotus Sutra.”