Day 10 concludes Chapter 6, Assurance of Future Buddhahood, and opens Chapter 7, The Parable of a Magic City.

Having last month considered in gāthās a Buddha called Great-Universal-Wisdom-Excellence, we consider in gāthās the period of time Great-Universal-Wisdom-Excellence sat at the place of enlightenment

The Buddha said to the bhikṣus:

“The duration of the life of Great-Universal-Wisdom-Excellence Buddha was five hundred and forty billion nayuta kalpas. [Before he attained Buddhahood,] he sat at the place of enlightenment and defeated the army of Mara. He wished to attain Anuttara-samyak-saṃbodhi, but could not because the Dharma of the Buddhas had not yet come into his mind. He sat cross-legged without moving his mind and body for one to ten small kalpas. During all that time the Dharma of the Buddhas did not come into his mind.[1, 2, 3]

“[Before he sat at the place of enlightenment,] the Trāyastriṃs̒a Gods prepared him a lion-like seat a yojana high under the Bodhi tree so that he might be able to attain Anuttara-samyak-saṃbodhi on that seat. When he sat on that seat, the Brahman-heavenly-kings rained heavenly flowers on the area extending a hundred yojanas in all directions from that seat. From time to time withered flowers were blown away by fragrant winds and new flowers were rained down. [The Brahman-heavenly-kings] continued this offering to him for fully ten small kalpas. [After he attained Buddhahood also,] they continued raining flowers until he passed away.

“[When he sat on that seat,] the four heavenly-kings beat heavenly drums, and the other gods made heavenly music and offered it to him. They continued these offerings also for fully ten small kalpas. [After he attained Buddhahood also,] they continued these offerings until he passed away.

The Daily Dharma offers this:

When he sat on that seat, the Brahman-heavenly-kings rained heavenly flowers on the area extending a hundred yojanas in all directions from that seat. From time to time withered flowers were blown away by fragrant winds and new flowers were rained down. [The Brahman-heavenly-kings] continued this offering to him for fully ten small kalpas. [After he attained Buddhahood also,] they continued raining flowers until he passed away.

The Buddha describes the life of an ancient Buddha named Great-Universal-Wisdom-Excellence in Chapter Seven of the Lotus Sūtra. In the story, when that Buddha took the seat from which he would become enlightened, the gods who created his world recognized the immense benefit all beings were about to receive and showed their joy by filling the skies with these beautiful flowers. After that Buddha became enlightened, gods from innumerable other worlds came to his world to make offerings, giving up the pleasures of their own worlds. The enlightenment of any being extends beyond the personal contact we have with that being. It changes the entire universe.

The Daily Dharma is produced by the Lexington Nichiren Buddhist Community. To subscribe to the daily emails, visit zenzaizenzai.com

Day 9 covers Chapter 5, The Simile of Herbs, and introduces Chapter 6, Assurance of Future Buddhahood.

Having last month considered in gāthās the large cloud covering everything on earth, we consider in gāthās how the Buddha is like the cloud.

I am like the cloud.
I appeared in this world
Just as the large cloud covered
Everything on the earth.

Since I appeared in this world,
I have been expounding
The reality of all things
To all living beings.

(The Great Saint,
The World-Honored One,
Said to the multitude
Of gods and men:)

I am the Tathāgata,
The Most Honorable Biped.
I have appeared in this world
Just as the large cloud rose.

All living beings are dying of thirst.
I will water them.
I will save them from suffering.
I will give them the pleasure of peace,
The pleasure of the world,
And the pleasure of Nirvana.

All gods and men!
Listen to me with one mind!
Come here and see me,
Who am the Most Honorable One!

I am the World-Honored One.
I am not surpassed by anyone.
I have appeared in this world
To give peace to all living beings.

I will expound the Dharma as pure as nectar
To you all in this great multitude.
My teachings are of the same taste.
They are for emancipation, that is, for Nirvana.

I will expound these teachings [of mine]
With a wonderful voice.
My purpose is
To reveal the Great Vehicle.

The Daily Dharma offers this:

I am the World-Honored One.
I am not surpassed by anyone.
I have appeared in this world
To give peace to all living beings.

The Buddha makes this declaration in Chapter Five of the Lotus Sūtra. If it were anybody but the Buddha saying this, we would accuse them of arrogance: pretending to know more than they really do. However, with the Buddha, we realize that his wisdom and compassion are boundless, and that his superiority is for our benefit.

The Daily Dharma is produced by the Lexington Nichiren Buddhist Community. To subscribe to the daily emails, visit zenzaizenzai.com

Day 8 concludes Chapter 4, Understanding by Faith, and closes the second volume of the Sutra of the Lotus Flower of the Wonderful Dharma.

Having last month considered in gāthās how the father convinced his son to come work for him, we consider in gāthās how the father encouraged his son.

The rich man saw him from the window.
He thought:
“He is ignorant.
He willingly does mean work.”
Thereupon the rich man
Put on old and dirty clothes,
Picked up a dirt-utensil,
And walked towards his son.
With this expedient he came to his son,
And told him to work on, saying:
“I will pay you more.
You can use twice as much oil for your feet.
You can take food and drink as you like.
You can use more matting to warm yourself with.”

Sometimes he chided him, saying:
“Work hard!”
At other times he coaxed him, saying:
“I will treat you as my son.”

By his wisdom the rich man succeeded
In leading his son into his household.
Twenty years after that
He had his son manage his house.

The son was entrusted
With the keeping of the accounts
Of gold and silver,
And of pearl, crystal, and so on.
But he still lodged
In the hut outside the gate, thinking:
“I am poor.
None of these treasures are mine.”

The Daily Dharma offers this:

Sometimes he chided him, saying:
“Work hard!”
At other times he coaxed him, saying:
“I will treat you as my son.”

These verses are part of the story of the Wayward Son told by Subhūti, Mahā-Kātyāyana, Mahā-Kāśyapa, and Mahā-Maudgalyāyana in Chapter Four of the Lotus Sūtra. The son in the story has become attached to his lowly existence. The father must teach him slowly with expedients to prepare him to come into his inheritance. The story explains the disciples’ understanding of how the Buddha uses expedients to prepare us to aspire for enlightenment. The Buddha leads each of us differently, and as we progress in our wisdom, he changes how he teaches us. All this is preparation for us to come into the Buddha’s own mind and enjoy his wisdom.

The Daily Dharma is produced by the Lexington Nichiren Buddhist Community. To subscribe to the daily emails, visit zenzaizenzai.com

Day 7 concludes Chapter 3, A Parable, and begins Chapter 4, Understanding by Faith.

Having last month considered that some will scowl at this sutra and doubt it, we consider how those who slander this sūtra will be punished.

Some of them will become
Camels or asses.
They will always be heavily loaded,
And beaten with sticks or whips.
They will think of nothing
But water and hay.
Those who slander this sūtra
Will be punished like this.

Some of them will become small foxes.
They will suffer
From mange and leprosy.
They will have only one eye
When they come to a town,
They will be struck by boys.
Some of them
Will be beaten to death.
After they die
They will become boas.
Their bodies will be large,
Five hundred yojanas long.
They will be deaf and stupid.

They will wriggle along without legs.
They will be bitten
By many small vermin.
They will suffer day and night.
They will have no time to take a rest.
Those who slander this sūtra
Will be punished like this.

Some of them will become men again.
They will be foolish, short, ugly,
Crooked, crippled, blind, deaf,
And hunchbacked.
No one will believe their words.
They will always have fetid breath.
They will be possessed by demons.
Poverty-stricken and mean,
They will be employed by others.
Worn-out, thin,
And subject to many diseases,
They will have no one to rely on.
Anyone who employs them
Will not take care of them.
They will lose before long
What little they may have earned.
When they study medicine,
And treat a patient with a proper remedy,
The patient will have another disease
Or die.
When they are ill in health,
No one will cure them.
Even when they take a good medicine,
They will suffer all the more.
They will be attacked by others,
Or robbed or stolen from.
Their sins will incur these misfortunes.
These sinful people will never be able to see
The Buddha, the King of the Saints,
Who expounds the Dharma
And teaches all living beings.
They will always be reborn
In the places of difficulty
[In seeing the Buddha].
They will be mad, deaf or distracted.
They will never be able to hear the Dharma.
For as many kalpas
As there are sands in the River Ganges,
They will be deaf and dumb.
They will not have all the sense organs.
Accustomed to living in hell,
They will take it for their playground.
Accustomed to living in other evil regions,
They will take them for their homes. They will live
Among camels, asses, wild boars, and dogs.
Those who slander this sūtra
Will be punished like this.

When they are reborn in the world of men,
Deafness, blindness, dumbness,
Poverty, and many other defects
Will be their ornaments;
Dropsy, diabetes, mange,
Leprosy, carbuncles, and many other diseases
Will be their garments.
They will always smell bad.
They will be filthy and defiled.
Deeply attached to the view
That the self exists,
They will aggravate their anger.
Their lust will not discriminate
Between [humans,] birds or beasts.
Those who slander this sūtra
Will be punished like this.

See Those Who Abandon the Lotus Sūtra

Day 6 continues Chapter 3, A Parable

Having last month considered why the Buddha uses expedient teachings, we consider in gāthās the Parable of the Burning House.

Thereupon the Buddha, wishing to repeat what he had said, sang in gāthās:

I will tell you a parable.
A rich man had a manor house.
It was old, rotten,
Broken and ruined.
The house was about to collapse.
The lower parts of the pillars were rotten;
The beams and ridge-poles, tilting and slanted;
The foundation and steps, broken;
The fences and walls, corrupt;
The plaster of the walls, peeling;
The rush thatched on the roof, falling;
The rafters and eaves, slipping out of each other;
The hedges around the house, bent;
And refuse and debris, scattered all over.

In this house lived
Five hundred people.
Kites, owls, crested eagles,
Eagles, crows,
Magpies, doves, pigeons,
Lizards, snakes, vipers, scorpions,
Millipedes, wall lizards, centipedes,
Weasels, badgers, mice, rats,
And poisonous vermin
Were moving about.

Maggots and other vermin
Assembled on the excretions
Scattered all over
In the house.

Foxes, wolves, and small foxes
Were crawling on corpses,
Biting them, chewing them,
And dismembering them.

Many dogs were scrambling for their prey.
Weak and nervous from hunger,
They were seeking food here and there.
They were fighting with each other,
Snapping at each other,
And barking at each other.
The house was
So dreadful, so extraordinary.

Mountain spirits, water spirits,
Yakṣas and other demons
Lived here and there.
They fed on people and poisonous vermin.

Wild birds and beasts
Hatched their eggs,
Suckled or bred.
They protected their offspring.
Yakṣas scrambled for their young,
Took them, and ate them.
Having eaten to their hearts’ content,
They became more violent.
They fought with each other.
Their shrieks were dreadful.

The demons called kumbhandas
Crouched on the ground
Or jumped a foot or two above the ground.
They walked to and fro
And played at their will.
They seized dogs by the legs,
Or hit them
Until they lost their voices,
And held their feet against their necks.
They enjoyed seeing them frightened.

Some demons,
Tall, large,
Naked, black, and thin,
Lived in the house.
They were crying for food
With loud and evil voices.

The necks of some demons
Were as slender as needles.
The heads of some demons
Were like that of a cow.
They ate people or dogs.
Their hair was disheveled
Like mugworts.
They were cruel and dangerous.
Always hungry and thirsty,
They were running about, shrieking.

Yakṣas, hungry spirits,
And wild birds and beasts
Were unbearably hungry.
They were looking out of the windows
In all directions for food.
The house was so dangerous, so dreadful.

See The Buddha and This Dangerous World

Day 5 begins Chapter 3, A Parable

Having last month considered the Buddha called Flower-Light, we consider world of the Buddha called Flower-Light.

The number of the Bodhisattvas [in that world] will be countless, inconceivable, beyond any mathematical calculation, beyond inference by any parable or simile. No one will know the number except the Buddha who has the power of wisdom. When those Bodhisattvas wish to go somewhere, jeweled flowers will receive their feet and carry them. Those Bodhisattvas will not have just begun to aspire for enlightenment. A long time before that they will have already planted the roots of virtue, performed the brahma practices under many hundreds of thousands of billions of Buddhas, received the praises of the Buddhas, studied the wisdom of the Buddhas, obtained great supernatural powers, and understood all the teachings of the Buddhas. They will be upright, honest, and resolute in mind. The world of that Buddha will be filled with such Bodhisattvas.

“Śāriputra! The duration of the life of Flower-Light Buddha will be twelve small kalpas excluding the period in which he was a prince and had not yet attained Buddhahood. The duration of the life of the people of his world will be eight small kalpas. At the end of his life of twelve small kalpas, Flower-Light Tathāgata will assure Resolution-Fulfillment Bodhisattva of his future attainment of Anuttara-samyak-saṃbodhi, saying to the bhikṣus, ‘This Resolution-Fulfillment Bodhisattva will become a Buddha immediately after me. He will be called Flower-Foot-Easy-Walking, the Tathāgata, the Arhat, the Samyak-sambuddha. His world will be like mine.’

“Śāriputra! After the extinction of Flower-Light Buddha, his right teachings will be preserved for thirty-two small kalpas. After that the counterfeit of his right teachings will be preserved also for thirty-two small kalpas.”

See Taking Personally the Three Phases of the Dharma

Day 4 concludes Chapter 2, Expedients, and completes the first volume of the Sūtra of the Lotus flower of the Wonderful Dharma.

Having last month considered why the Buddhas show their enlightenment with various teachings, we consider how King Brahman, Heavenly-King Śakra, The four heavenly world-guardian kings, Great-Freedom God, and other gods asked the Buddha to turn the Wheel of the Dharma.

Śāriputra, know this!
Seeing with the eyes of the Buddha
The living beings of the six regions, I thought:
“They are poor, and devoid of merits and wisdom.
They incessantly suffer because they are taken
To the rough road of birth and death.
They cling to the five desires
Just as a yak loves its tail.
They are occupied with greed and cravings,
And blinded by them.
They do not seek the Buddha who has great power.
They do not seek the Way to eliminate sufferings.
They are deeply attached to wrong views.
They are trying to stop suffering by suffering.”

My great compassion was aroused towards them.
I for the first time sat at the place of enlightenment[,]
[And attained enlightenment].
For three weeks afterwards,
I gazed on the tree,
Or walked about, thinking:
“The wisdom I obtained is
The most wonderful and excellent.
The living beings [of the six regions]
Are dull, attached to pleasures,
And blinded by stupidity.
How shall I save them?”

On that occasion King Brahman,
Heavenly-King Śakra,
The four heavenly world-guardian kings,
Great-Freedom God, and other gods [of each world],
And thousands of millions of their attendants
Joined their hands together [towards me] respectfully,
Bowed to me,
And asked me to turn the wheel of the Dharma.

See The Meaning of the Buddha’s Reluctance to Teach

Day 3 covers the first half of Chapter 2, Expedients.

Having last month concluded today’s portion of Chapter 2, Expedients, we return to the top and consider what the Buddha said when he emerged quietly from his samādhi.

Thereupon the World-Honored One emerged quietly from his samādhi, and said to Śāriputra:

“The wisdom of the [present] Buddhas is profound and immeasurable. The gate to it is difficult to understand and difficult to enter. [Their wisdom] cannot be understood by any Śrāvaka or Pratyekabuddha because the [present] Buddhas attended on many hundreds of thousands of billions of [past] Buddhas, and practiced the innumerable teachings of those Buddhas bravely and strenuously to their far-flung fame until they attained the profound Dharma which you have never heard before, [and became Buddhas,] and also because [since they became Buddhas] they have been expounding the Dharma according to the capacities of all living beings in such various ways that the true purpose of their [various] teachings is difficult to understand.

“Śāriputra! Since I became a Buddha, I [also] have been expounding various teachings with various stories of previous lives, with various parables, and with various similes. I have been leading all living beings with innumerable expedients in order to save them from various attachments, because I have the power to employ expedients and the power to perform the pāramitā of insight.

See Why Did the Tathāgata Address Only Śāriputra?

Chapter 1, Introductory (Conclusion)

Having last month considered Mañjuśrī’s response to Maitreya Bodhisattva, we consider a Buddha called Sun-Moon-Light.

“Good men! Innumerable, inconceivable, asamkya kalpas ago, there lived a Buddha called Sun-Moon-Light, the Tathagata, the Deserver of Offerings, the Perfectly Enlightened One, the Man of Wisdom and Practice, the Well-Gone, the Knower of the World, the Unsurpassed Man, the Controller of Men, the Teacher of Gods and Men, the Buddha, the World-Honored One. He expounded the right teachings. His expounding of the right teachings was good at the beginning, good in the middle, and good at the end. The meanings of those teachings were profound. The words were skillful, pure, unpolluted, perfect, clean, and suitable for the explanation of brahma practices. To those who were seeking Śrāvakahood, he expounded the teaching of the four truths, a teaching suitable for them, saved them from birth, old age, disease, and death, and caused them to attain Nirvāṇa.[1] To those who were seeking Pratyekabuddhahood, he expounded the teaching of the twelve causes, a teaching suitable for them. To Bodhisattvas, he expounded the teaching of the six paramitas, a teaching suitable for them, and caused them to attain Anuttara-samyak-saṃbodhi, that is, to obtain the knowledge of the equality and differences of all things.

“After his extinction there appeared a Buddha also called Sun-Moon-Light. After his extinction there appeared another Buddha also called Sun-Moon-Light. In the same manner, seventy thousand Buddhas appeared in succession, all of them being called Sun­Moon-Light with the surname Bharadvaja.

See Glimpsing the ‘Infinite Absolute Buddha’

Day 1 covers the first half of Chapter 1, Introductory

Having last month considered Maitreya’s question, we consider Maitreya’s question in gāthās:

Thereupon Maitreya Bodhisattva, wishing to repeat what he had said, asked him in gāthās:

Mañjuśrī!
Why is the Leading Teacher
Emitting a great ray of light
From the white curl between his eyebrows?

[The gods] rained mandārava-flowers
And mañjūṣaka-flowers.
A breeze carrying the fragrance of candana
Is delighting the multitude.

Because of this, the ground has become
Beautiful and pure;
And this world quaked
In the six ways.

The four kinds of devotees
Are joyful.
They are happier than ever
In body and mind.

The light from [the white curls]
Between the eyebrows of the Buddha illumines
Eighteen thousand worlds to the east.
Those worlds look golden-colored.

I see from this world
The living beings of the six regions
Extending down to the Avici Hell,
And up to the Highest Heaven

Of each of those worlds.
I see the region to which each living being is to go,
The good or evil karmas he is doing,
And the rewards or retributions he is going to have.

I also see the Buddhas,
The Saintly Masters, the Lion-like Ones,
Who are expounding
The most wonderful sūtra
With their pure and gentle voices,
And teaching
Many billions of Bodhisattvas.
The brahma voices of the Buddhas
Are deep and wonderful,
Causing people to wish to hear them.

I also see the Buddha of each of those worlds
Expounding his right teachings to all living beings
In order to cause them to attain enlightenment.

He explains his teachings
With stories of previous lives,
And with innumerable parables and similes.

To those who are confronted with sufferings,
And tired of old age, disease, and death,
The Buddha expounds the teaching of Nirvana,
And causes them to eliminate these sufferings.

To those who have merits,
Who have already made offerings to the past Buddhas,
And who are now seeking a more excellent teaching,
The Buddha expounds [the Way of] cause-knowers.

To the Buddha’s sons
Who are performing various practices,
And who are seeking unsurpassed wisdom,
The Buddha expounds the Pure Way.

See What It Means To Be A Reader of the Dharma Flower Sutra