Category Archives: d6b

LS32, d5b, d6b, Blog

Abiding in the One and Employing the Three

This was written in advance of the Jan. 17, 2021, meeting of the Nichiren Buddhist Sangha of the San Francisco Bay Area, which is discussing Chapter 3 of the Lotus Sutra this week. This post extends last month’s discussion of Does the Buddha Only Teach Bodhisattvas?

In Chapter 3, the Buddha explicitly states that Śāriputra will become a Buddha in a distant future.

Śāriputra! Although the world in which he appears will not be an evil one, that Buddha will expound the teaching of the Three Vehicles according to his original vow.

This has always bothered me. Back in March 2019 in my 32 Days of the Lotus Sutra post, I wrote:

This prediction of Śāriputra’s future world is one of the great mysteries to me. After more than 40 times reading the Lotus Sūtra, I simply cannot fathom why Śāriputra, as the Buddha Flower-Light, will teach the Three Vehicles. None of the other predictions of future Buddhahood of the Śrāvakas includes this detail.

Today, nearing completion of my 59th trip through the Lotus Sutra, I have a new appreciation of what I believe is being taught here.

In Chapter 3, Śāriputra explains that he considered himself a śrāvaka and the teaching he had received before as something different from what Bodhisattvas were given. After hearing in Chapter 2 that the Buddha teaches only Bodhisattvas and that the division of the Buddha’s teachings into different vehicles is actually an expedient teaching device, Śāriputra now understood his error.

I always saw you praising the Bodhisattvas.
Therefore, I thought this over day and night.
Now hearing from you,
I understand that you expound the Dharma
According to the capacities of all living beings.
You lead all living beings
To the place of enlightenment
By the Dharma-without-āsravas, difficult to understand.

The misunderstanding – the thought that he was taught a lesser teaching – is Śāriputra’s. Thinking there are three separate vehicles mistakes what Śākyamuni did, what other Buddhas are doing and what Śāriputra will do when he becomes a Buddha.

Śākyamuni’s original vow is discussed toward the end of Chapter 2, Expedients.

I thought:
“If I extol only the Buddha-Vehicle,
The living beings [of the six regions] will not believe it
Because they are too much enmeshed in sufferings to think of it.
If they do not believe but violate the Dharma,
They will fall into the three evil regions.
I would rather enter into Nirvana quickly
Than expound the Dharma to them.”

But, thinking of the past Buddhas who employed expedients,
I changed my mind and thought:
“I will expound the Dharma which I attained
By dividing it into the Three Vehicles.”

So too will Shariputra.

Chih-i offers this explanation in his Profound Meaning of the Lotus Sutra:

Chu-i Yung-san (Abiding in the one and employing the three) is the function related to the Subtlety of Benefits. This is spoken of by Chih-i in terms of the Buddha’s original vow. The Buddha vowed to expound the Three Vehicles in the mundane world. This original vow of the Buddha denotes “abiding in the one,” and expounding the Three Vehicles denotes “employing the three.” (Vol. 2, Page 446)

The Profound Meaning of the Lotus Sutra: Tien-tai Philosophy of Buddhism

Later in the same book we learn:

In terms of the functions that can be summarized by the Worldly Siddhānta, “abiding in the three and revealing the one,” and “abiding in the one and employing the three” are said by Chih-i to correspond with the Worldly Siddhānta. This is because by abiding at the Three Vehicles and by employing the Three Vehicles, the Buddha caters to the intellectual capabilities of living beings. Complying with the needs of beings in teaching various vehicles belongs the Worldly Siddhānta. (Vol. 2, Page 449)

The Profound Meaning of the Lotus Sutra: Tien-tai Philosophy of Buddhism

Śāriputra, like all Buddhas, will abide in the one and employ the three.

stories, d3b, d4b, d6b

Finding the Appropriate Action

An action that can be characterized as “skillful means” is selected or created to fit the situation and abilities of the recipients of the method, just as good teachers must consider the situation and abilities of their students. When this notion is extended, however, to practices that need to be developed by followers of the Buddha, then it is helpful to construe such means as needing or having a double appropriateness – appropriateness for the practitioner as well as for the recipient. That is, what makes something appropriate in our own practice is not only the abilities and situation of the person being guided but also the situation, and especially the abilities, of the one doing the guiding. Just as good teachers must consider their own abilities, we have to seriously ask ourselves not only “What needs to be done?” but “What can I do?” This is only to say that, insofar as possible, the whole situation, including oneself as part of the situation, needs to be taken into account in order for action to be as appropriate as possible.

The Stories of the Lotus Sutra, p52
stories, LS32, d6b, d7b, d21b

The Buddha and This Dangerous World

We should notice that, as in the parable of the burning house of Chapter 3 of the Sutra, the dangers – the fire and many other terrible things in Chapter 3 and the poison in Chapter 16 – are found in the fathers’ houses. Some have raised questions as to why the Buddha would be so careless as to have such a fire-hazard of a house or why he would leave poison lying around in a house full of children. This kind of question probably presupposes that the Buddha is somehow all-powerful and creates and controls the world. But that is not a Buddhist premise. In the Dharma Flower Sutra the point of having the danger occur in the Buddha’s home is to indicate a very close relationship between the Buddha and this world. The world that is dangerous for children is the world in which the Buddha – like all of us – also lives. …

The parables in the Dharma Flower Sutra do not say that the fathers created the burning house or the poison found in the home of the physician. Shakyamuni Buddha has inherited this world, or perhaps even chose to live in this world, in order to help the living. The dangers in this world are simply part of the reality of this world. Indeed, it is because of them that good medicine and good physicians are needed here.

The Stories of the Lotus Sutra, p203-204
stories, LS32, d5b, d6b, d8b, d21b

Problem Children

In many stories in the Dharma Flower Sutra we find that characters who represent the Buddha have problems leading their children. In the early parable of the burning house, for example, the children in the burning house initially refuse to pay any attention to their father. Similarly, the children of the physician in Chapter 16 … also refuse to obey their father’s exhortation to take the good medicine he has prepared for them. The poor son in Chapter 4 is a runaway. In addition, we also often find sympathy being expressed for Shakyamuni Buddha because he is responsible for this world of suffering.

Collectively, both of these elements, disobedient children and sympathy from others, and many other things as well, point to the similarity of the Buddha to ordinary human beings. Some might think of the Buddha as being extremely distant and different from ourselves – along the lines of how the famous Christian theologian Karl Barth describes God: “totally other.” But in the Dharma Flower Sutra it is the opposite: the Buddha is very close to us, concerned about us, affected by us – thus similar to us. That is why the Buddha’s work, so to speak, is difficult. It is only because he cares about this world that his job is difficult.

We will often have the most difficulty leading those who are closest to us, our own children, or parents, or wives, or husbands. Often this can be a sign that things are as they can be. If life is difficult for the Buddha because he is close to the world, we should expect to have difficulties with those who are closest to us. Those difficulties should be taken as a sign that we should strive to improve our relationships with those closest to us, even though we can expect this to be difficult at times.

The Stories of the Lotus Sutra, p117
Peaceful Action, d5b, d6b

Burning Craving

When we hear this story [of the burning house], we may think it’s just a children’s story and that it doesn’t really have anything to do with our lives. But if we look more deeply into our minds and the state of mind of those around us, we see that this parable expresses the truth about our situation. We’re full of craving, always running after things. We want to become the director or president of a company, we want to buy a beautiful car or a nice house, or go on an exotic vacation. We don’t see that the world we’re living in, driven by craving and delusion, is like a burning house.

Peaceful Action, Open Heart, p49
Peaceful Action, d5b, d6b

Like a Burning House – Full of Traps and Dangers

A phrase that appears often in Buddhist texts is, “The three realms are in disturbance, just like a house on fire.” According to classical Buddhist thought, the three realms are three levels of existence in the world of samsara: the realm of desire (kamadhatu), the ordinary world we inhabit, where beings are subject to the three poisons of greed, anger, and delusion; the realm of form (rupadhatu), a higher realm of existence in which beings have severed some attachments; and the realm of formlessness (arupadhatu), the highest realm of samsaric existence in which beings are free of attachment to form. Even though the higher two of the three realms may offer some respite from the afflictions, all three are still samsara. None of the three realms can provide real peace or security. They are like a burning house, full of traps and dangers.

Imagine a group of chickens in a cage. They fight each other to get the corn, and they fight over whether the corn or the rice tastes better. And while they are competing with each other over a few kernels of corn or grains of rice, they are unaware that in a few hours they will be taken to the slaughterhouse. We too live in a world full of insecurity, but we don’t see it because we’re so caught up in our craving and delusions.

Peaceful Action, Open Heart, p47-48
stories, LS32, d5b, d6b, d7b, d8b

A Loving Father

In many of the parables in the Dharma Flower Sutra, it is a father figure who represents the Buddha. It is possible that the use of such stories influenced the teachings of the Dharma Flower Sutra, leading it, probably more than any other Buddhist text, to emphasize the father-like nature of the Buddha, personalizing him as it were. Over and over, the Lotus Sutra uses personal language to speak of an ultimately important reality. Far from being “absolute,” or even “omniscient,” as the Buddhist tradition has sometimes claimed, the Buddha of the Dharma Flower Sutra is someone who is very concerned for his children. This means, in effect, that the happiness of the Buddha, the fulfillment of the Buddha’s purpose, depends – again – on us.

The Stories of the Lotus Sutra, p55
stories, LS32, d5b, d6b, d7b, d8b

Shariputra and Maudgalyayana

One of the ten great disciples of Shakyamuni Buddha, Shariputra was usually regarded as first in wisdom, sometimes regarded as first among the disciples, and sometimes even mistaken by Jains as the leader of the Buddhist movement. Shariputra was a brahman, a member of the highest caste in India, who left a wealthy family to follow one of the six great non-Buddhist teachers. This teacher taught skepticism about knowledge of things we cannot see – such things as other worlds, causation, and so forth.

It is said that Shariputra and Maudgalyayana (called “Maha Maudgalyayana,” Great Maudgalyayana, in his only appearance in the Lotus Sutra) were close friends before they became monks. One day when they were in a crowd of people watching dancing girls and enjoying a festival, Shariputra suddenly realized that all of those people now having so much fun, and he himself, would soon be dead. He resolved to seek liberation from a condition in which the conclusion to everything is death. After listening to several other teachers, he decided, with Maudgalyayana, to become a disciple of the skeptic Sanjaya. Later, after meeting a monk who told him only that the Buddha’s main teaching was that all things are produced through causation, together with Maudgalyayana and all of the other disciples of Sanjaya, he joined the Buddha’s following. This was about a year after Shakyamuni’s awakening.

Legend also has it that when he was about to die, Shariputra requested permission from the Buddha to do so before the Buddha himself, as he would not be able to stand the grief of witnessing the Buddha’s death. With the Buddha’s permission he returned to his home with one disciple. Saying “I have been with all of you for forty years. If I have offended anyone, please forgive me,” he lay down on his bed, and quietly passed away.

The Stories of the Lotus Sutra, p57-58
stories, LS32, d3b, d6b

The Many Skillful Means Within the One Buddha Way

It is extremely important, I believe, to understand that the many skillful means are always within the One Buddha Way, not alternatives to it. The many skillful means are “skillful” only because they skillfully lead to the One Way, and the One Way exists only by being embodied in many skillful means. Understanding the One Way and the many skillful means as separate, alternative ways has been a great mistake, a mistake that has sometimes led to disrespect, intolerance, and disdain for others.

The Stories of the Lotus Sutra, p50
stories, LS32, d5b, d6b

Appropriate Means and Ends

Even the very fancy carriage that the father gives to the children is, after all, only a carriage, a vehicle. All of our teachings and practices should be understood as devices, as possible ways of helping people. They should never be taken as final truths.

Appropriate means are means, not ends. In this sense they have only instrumental and provisional importance. While it is true that the notion of skillful means is sometimes used to describe something provisional, it is important to recognize that being instrumental and provisional does not mean that such methods are in any sense unimportant. At one point at least, the Dharma Flower Sutra even suggests that it is itself an appropriate means. The context is one in which the Sutra is praising itself and proclaiming its superiority over others (“those who do not hear or believe this sutra suffer a great loss”), but then has those who embrace the Sutra in a future age say:

When I attain the Buddha way,
I will teach this Dharma to them
By skillful means,
That they may dwell within it. (LS 273)

The Stories of the Lotus Sutra, p53-54