The Stories of the Lotus Sutra, p205-206The Buddha has come into the world of suffering and suffers with the living beings of this world. Like others, he participates in the creation of the world at every moment. He does so by being a teacher and medicine giver, not by being a kind of external, unilateral power. Above all, the Buddha is a teacher. And it is precisely in reference to his being a teacher that bodhisattvas are so frequently referred to in the Dharma Flower Sutra as children of the Buddha. Those whose lives are shaped by the teachings of the Buddha, by the Buddha Dharma, have been created as much by the Buddha’s words as by their biological parents. But, like normal parents, the Buddha does not have absolute power over his children. Like the father in the parable of the rich father and poor son in Chapter 4, the Buddha longs for his children to be ready to receive their inheritance from him, his great wealth of the Dharma.
The Buddha can be called the loving father of all, not because he has complete power over others, but precisely because he does not. Far from demanding that human beings be obedient to him, the Buddha challenges us to enter into and take up the way of the bodhisattva, a way to which we can be led but cannot be forced to enter. Like the poor son in Chapter 4, we may need encouragement in order to learn gradually to accept responsibility for the responsibilities we have inherited, for the buddhas’ business, or, like the weary travelers in Chapter 7, we may need a resting place, even an illusory one, in order to pursue the valuable treasure in our own lives, but finally it is we ourselves who have to be responsible.
Category Archives: d7b
Enabling the Buddha to Continue to Live
The Stories of the Lotus Sutra, p70-71The focus of [the Parable of the Rich Man and His Poor Son] is the poor son and his attitude toward himself, but it is also, in important ways not always recognized, a story about the Buddha. Here we are told that the Buddha needs his son, yearns for his son, and seeks to find him. Why? Because he wants to give him the great treasure that is his inheritance.
Shakyamuni Buddha was a human being who lived for a time in India, eating and sleeping like other human beings. He left to his descendants, his followers, a great treasure house of profound teachings. He died and his body was cremated, the ashes being distributed and installed in stupas. He is no longer around in the way that he once was. Responsibility for taking care of that great treasure house, for preserving those teachings and developing them by applying them in new situations, and especially for sharing them with others, is given to the Buddha’s children. The Buddha’s work must be done by us, can only be done by us. It is we who can embody the Buddha in the contemporary world, enabling the Buddha to continue to live.
The Meaning of Faith and Discernment
Buddhism for Today, p63Faith (shin) is the working of one’s emotions, and discernment (ge) that of one’s reason. Though people often say that a religion or faith ought to be believed in instead of argued about, it is very dangerous to believe blindly in a religion without having any knowledge of it. If this religion is a worthless or wrong teaching, blind belief will result in not only ruining ourselves but also exerting an extremely harmful influence on our families and on society in general.
Even if a religion is a good teaching, as long as we believe in it blindly our faith is liable to be easily shaken by circumstances. Let us suppose that one believes that he will recover from a disease or that his circumstances will improve if only he has faith in a particular religion, without understanding its teachings. He does recover from his illness, believing that his cure is due to his religion, but he suffers a relapse and then begins to doubt. Suppose that then his son fails his university-entrance examination; the father forsakes the faith to which he has so firmly adhered regardless of others’ opinions. This kind of thing is a common occurrence.
This kind of faith is not a firm faith in the true sense of the term but merely a narrow faith. A true religion can always be understood through reason; this kind of understanding is called discernment.
The Recompense of the Various Sins of Slandering the Law
Buddhism for Today, p62Next the recompense of the various sins of slandering the Law are mentioned. What we must pay special attention to here is that such recompense is not meted out by the Buddha as a punishment. The Buddha does not have this kind of relationship with man. Because he is the truth that gives life to all things in the universe, it is hardly possible that he would perform an action running counter to man’s life, such as letting him fall into hell or letting him become an animal or a deformed person. Who brings such punishment on man? Needless to say, man brings it upon himself. His own illusion brings it upon him. Illusion is like a dark cloud that covers our intrinsic buddha-nature. When the light of our buddha-nature is covered with illusions, darkness arises in our minds and various unpleasant things happen to us. This state is the punishment that we have meted to ourselves. If we blow away the dark clouds of our own illusions, our buddha-nature will immediately begin to shine forth. Therefore we have nothing to fear in the Buddha. We must keep firmly in mind and truly believe that the Buddha is that which enlivens all beings at all times.
Grieving Deeply Over Slandering
Two Buddhas, p85Like his contemporaries, Nichiren embraced the idea that human beings are an integral part of the cosmos, and their actions affect both society and the natural world. He attributed the disasters confronting Japan during his lifetime — famine, epidemics, earthquakes, and the Mongol threat — to this fundamental error of “disparaging the Lotus Sutra.” Rejection of the sutra, in his eyes, would destroy the country in this life; in the future, it would condemn its people to countless rebirths in the Avici hell. The horrific sufferings described in the verse section of [Chapter 3] were for him not mere rhetorical hyperbole but an actual account, coming from the Buddha’s own mouth, of the fate that awaited the great majority of his contemporaries, something that grieved him deeply.
Dharma Slanderers
Two Buddhas, p83What particularly drew Nichiren’s attention in the “Parable” chapter was the long segment of the final verse section detailing the horrific karmic retribution incurred by those who disparage the Lotus Sūtra. The act of “disparaging the dharma” (S. saddharmapratiksepa, J. hōbō, also translated as “slandering” or “maligning” the dharma) was considered so grave a sin that in East Asia it was sometimes appended to the list of the five heinous deeds. The term occurs frequently in the Mahāyāna sūtras, where it often means maligning the Great Vehicle scriptures; in its Indic context, it was probably intended to counter the mainstream Buddhist criticism that the Mahāyāna was not the Buddha’s teaching.
Japanese Buddhists, however, understood theirs to be a “Mahāyāna country.” Unlike the situation faced by the Lotus Sūtra’s compilers, no one questioned the Mahāyāna’s legitimacy. Nichiren therefore took the term “dharma slander” in a different sense, to mean rejecting the Lotus Sūtra in favor of provisional teachings.
Devoting Ourselves to Hearing and Receiving the Law
Buddhism for Today, p75In the [Chapter 4], we were taught that we must not have the servile idea that we have the capacity to understand the Buddha’s teachings only to a certain limited extent. We should abandon such trifling discriminations and devote ourselves to hearing and receiving the Law. The Parable of the Herbs states that every effort of ours will be surely rewarded. That is, though various kinds of plants and trees are produced in the same soil and moistened by the same rain, each develops according to its own nature. In the same way, though the Buddha’s teachings are only one, they are understood differently according to each hearer’s nature, intellect, environment, and so on.
Even if we have only a shallow understanding of the Buddha’s teachings or can practice only a part of them, this is never useless. Every effort will be surely rewarded with the merits of the Law. But we should not be satisfied with this reward. We must always desire and endeavor to deepen our understanding and to elevate ourselves further. Thus, we can use shallow faith and discernment as the first step in advancing ourselves to a higher level of faith and discernment. Ascending step by step, we can unfailingly reach a superior state of mind. We should understand this well when we read the latter part of this chapter. It is stated here that though the Buddha’s teachings are one, there are differences in faith and discernment according to one’s capacity to understand the teachings. But we must not interpret this as stating an absolute condition.
The Hell of Slanderers of the Practicer of the Lotus Sūtra
QUESTION: What kind of hell do slanderers of the practicer of the Lotus Sūtra fall into?
ANSWER: The Lotus Sūtra, fascicle 2 (“A Parable” chapter), preaches, “Those who despise, hate, envy, and bear a grudge against a person who reads, recites, copies and upholds the Lotus Sūtra will fall into Avici Hell upon death. After suffering in this hell for as long as a kalpa, they will again die at the end of the kalpa and fall into the same hell to suffer. They will repeat this countless times and continue to suffer for innumerable kalpa (aeons).”
The palace of King Yama is located 500 yojana below the surface of the earth. Below the palace, between the depths of 500 and 1,500 yojana underground are located 136 hells such as the Eight Great Hells. 128 of the 136 hells are the abodes of minor criminals while the Eight Great Hells are the abodes of felons. Seven of the Eight Great Hells are for the offenders of the Ten Evil Acts while the last of the Eight Great Hells, the Hell of Incessant Suffering, is the abode of those who committed the Five Rebellious Sins, undutiful children, and slanderers of the Lotus Sūtra. To sum up, this passage cited from the “Parable” chapter of the Lotus Sūtra preaches that those who speak ill of or slander the practicer of the Lotus Sūtra in the Latter Age of Degeneration in this world even in jest must fall into the Hell of Incessant Suffering.
Hōren-shō, Letter to Hōren, Writings of Nichiren Shōnin, Volume 6, Followers I, Page 45
The Fourteen Sins of Slandering the Law
Buddhism for Today, p61-62The fourteen sins of slandering the Law are the following:
- haughtiness, or kyōman (to be conceited and to think one has understood what one has not understood);
- neglect, or kedai (to be lazy and to be absorbed in trivial things);
- self-centeredness, or kriga (to act only for selfish ends);
- shallowness, or senshiki (to look only at the surface of things, not trying to grasp their essence);
- sensuality, or jakuyoku (to be deeply attached to the desires of the senses and to material things);
- irrationality, or fuge (to interpret everything according to one’s own limited viewpoint and to not understand important points);
- unbelief, or fushin (not to believe in the sutra and to vilify it because of one’s shallow understanding);
- sullenness, or hinshuku (to frown upon the sutra and to show ill feeling toward it);
- doubting, or giwaku (to harbor doubts of the truth of the sutra and to hesitate to believe in it);
- slander, or hibō (to speak ill of the sutra) ;
- scorning goodness, or kyōzen (to despise those who read and recite, write and keep the sutra);
- hating goodness, or zōzen (to hate those who practice the above mentioned goodness);
- jealousy of goodness, or shitsuzen (to envy those who practice this goodness);
- grudging goodness, or konzen (to grudge those who practice this goodness).
The Great Spirit of the Lotus Sutra
Buddhism for Today, p58-59The Buddha’s compassion is useless unless all living begins can realize it. For this reason, he purposely does not use his divine power.
If we penetrate further beneath the surface of this meaning, we can see that if the Buddha were to lead all living beings straight to enlightenment, they could not understand his teachings and would lapse because they are so absorbed in pleasures of the senses and material things. Therefore, he desires to lead them from the first step, which is to cause them to realize the dreadful state of this world.
In spite of the compassionate consideration of the Buddha, living beings often only glance at their father’s face (the Buddha’s teachings); they do not consider how these teachings concern their own lives, and they do not listen to them wholeheartedly. We have often experienced this, which shows clearly the mental state of ordinary people.
Then the Buddha as a final measure displays goat carts (the śrāvaka-vehicle), deer carts (the pratyekabuddha-vehicle), and bullock carts (the bodhisattva-vehicle). Now all living beings are attracted to the Buddha’s teachings for the first time. Hearing his words, “Take whichever teaching of these three that you like; I will give you any of them,” they run out of the burning house while imagining these attractive playthings to themselves.
To imagine attractive playthings to oneself means that one has already entered into the mental state of śrāvaka, pratyekabuddha, or bodhisattva. To run out of the burning house means that one is already seeking after the Buddha’s teachings. When living beings remove illusions from their minds, they can immediately escape from the burning house of suffering in this world.
However, they do not yet think of being saved from the burning house. Their minds are filled with the desire to obtain one of the attractive carts—the enlightenment of a śrāvaka, a pratyekabuddha, or a bodhisattva. Then they ask the Buddha for these carts. This means that each asks for his own enlightenment. Then quite unexpectedly, beyond the enlightenment of the three vehicles, they see the supreme teaching, that is, the enlightenment of the One Buddha-vehicle (the great white-bullock cart), shining brilliantly.
The Buddha really wishes to give this great cart to all living beings. So he gives the same thing unsparingly and equally to anyone who has advanced to the mental state of seeking supreme enlightenment. How wonderful the Buddha’s consideration is! All can attain the Buddha’s enlightenment equally — this is the great spirit of the Lotus Sutra.