The Vajra Prajna Paramita Sutra, p61-63Living beings who produce the purest, most sincere thought of belief upon hearing the Vajra Sutra are those who have planted good roots before limitless millions of Buddhas. Giving rise to such a true, real mind, a mind that is without the least divergence or skepticism, they obtain limitless and unbounded blessings and virtue.
Such people have realized the emptiness of people and so have no mark of self, others, living beings, or a life. Having no self means seeing the self as empty. Having no mark of others means seeing people as empty. Self and people both empty, living beings are also empty. Naturally when living beings are empty then there is no mark of a life, which refers to the continual quest for immortality as well as to the constant pursuit of all things which one loves and cannot see through.
Having realized the emptiness of people one should also realize the emptiness of phenomena, and relinquish the mark of the non-existence of phenomena as well. When there is no longer any judgment of phenomena as being right or wrong, then one has arrived at the basic substance of dharma.
If those living beings’ minds grasp at marks, if they hold to the mark of people, they still grasp at the four marks and have not obtained liberation. They have not genuinely put everything down. If they grasp at the mark of phenomena they are still attached to the four marks; if they grasp at the mark of the nonexistence of phenomena, they are also attached to the four marks, because they have not seen through and smashed them. They have not realized the emptiness of people, of phenomena, and of emptiness itself.
Regarding that principle, the Buddha often said to the bhikṣus, “You should know that the dharma which I speak is like a raft.”
The raft is used to cross the sea of suffering birth and death.
Before you have ended birth and death, you use the raft in cultivation. Once you have ended birth and death, you should put the raft aside. If you do not put the raft aside you have an attachment. If you do not put the dharma aside you have an attachment.
Attachment to the dharma can infect one like a disease. Using the dharma which teaches the emptiness of phenomena as medicine, the disease can be cured. Once cured, if a person fails to realize he is well and continues to take medicine, then he develops a senseless attachment to the medicine, and that amounts to yet another sickness. Those who have realized the emptiness of people and the emptiness of phenomena must also relinquish attachment to the non-existence of phenomena.
The marks of phenomena should be cast aside. When one has ended birth and death one should put phenomena aside. People and phenomena are empty. One should even cast aside true proper dharma, how much the more so the non-existence of phenomena. One should relinquish all one’s persistent attachments.
Myōhō Renge Kyō Promise for March 29, 2025
Anyone who keeps Myōhō Renge Kyō
After my extinction
Will be able to obtain
Innumerable merits a previously stated.He should be considered
To have already made various offerings.
He should be considered
To have already built a stupa
With a yasti soaring up to the Heaven of Brahman,
The upper part of it being the smaller,
A stupa which was adorned with the seven treasures,
And with thousands of billions of jeweled bells
Sounding wonderful when fanned by the wind.
He should be considered to have already enshrined
My śarīras in this stupa,
And offered flowers, incense, necklaces, heavenly garments,
And various kinds of music to it,
And lit lamps of perfumed oil around it for innumerable kalpas.
Tao-sheng: Ignorant and Unaware
Tao-sheng Commentary on the Lotus Sutra, p208[The children] do not know that the fires are coming towards them. They are not frightened or afraid. They are about to suffer, but do not mind. They do not wish to get out.’
They don’t think that [desires] harm the [wisdom] life: they are “unaware and ignorant.” Being “ignorant and unaware,” how can they be made perturbed and afraid?
Injury pressing in upon the wisdom-life is not taken as a calamity. Without being told of what has happened, how can they have any wish to leave?
Vajra Sutra: Giving Without Marks of Giving
The Vajra Prajna Paramita Sutra, p54-55A Bodhisattva should not dwell anywhere when he practices giving. In other words, he should not be attached when he gives. If he is able to free himself from attachment, he has understood that the substance of the Three Wheels, composed of:
- One who gives,
- One who receives, and
- That which is given, is empty.
If your act of giving carries with it the thought, “I practice giving and have done many meritorious and virtuous deeds,” or if you are aware of the receiver, or of the goods given, then you have not left the mark of giving. You should give and be as if you had not given. If you attach to the marks of the six sense objects – forms, sounds, smells, tastes, tangible objects, and mental constructs – when giving, your merit and virtue are limited. If you fall victim to the thought, “I contributed a million dollars to a certain temple,” then all you have is a million dollars’ worth of merit. When the money runs out, so do your merit and virtue.
If you are not attached to the mark of giving, you accrue limitless merit and virtue, even by giving as little as a single cent. If you fail to practice the proper method of giving, then although you may give gifts throughout as many great kalpas as there are motes of dust, you will still have accomplished nothing. It still has been just like boiling sand to make rice; no matter how long you cook it, it never becomes rice.
Sakyamuni Buddha used the analogy of “empty space in the ten directions” to represent the extent of merit and virtue involved in the act of giving which is detached from the mark of giving. He said, “Subhūti, a Bodhisattva should only dwell in what is taught thus.” A Bodhisattva who has already resolved to realize Bodhi should think of what he has thus been taught and adhere to it in cultivation.
If you remember what you have given, then I will forget it. If you can forget it, then I will keep it in mind. It is the same with the Buddha who, knowing the minds of all living beings, is aware that you have not forgotten the merit and virtue of your acts of giving, and so he finds it unnecessary to remember them himself. When you forget them, the Buddha remembers. Do you think it is better for you or the Buddha to remember?
You think, “I am afraid that if I forget, the Buddha will forget, too, and then I simply will not have any merit at all.”
Never fear. If you forget about your acts of giving the Buddha will eternally remember them. As it says later in the Vajra Sutra, “All the various thoughts which occur to all living beings are completely known to the Tathagata.” When you do good things, you remember them, but when you do bad, do you also cherish the memories? No, you try to forget your offenses immediately, yet you fondly ponder the good you have done. You should forget the good and remember the bad. Why remember the bad? So you will not do it again. Why forget the good? So you will feel the need to do more.
Myōhō Renge Kyō Promise for March 28, 2025
Anyone who believes and receives Myōhō Renge Kyō
Should be considered
To have already seen the past Buddhas,
Respected them, made offerings to them,
And heard the Dharma from them
In his previous existence.
Tao-sheng: The Rich Man’s Dilemma
Tao-sheng Commentary on the Lotus Sutra, p207The rich man was very frightened at the great fires breaking out from the four sides of the house. He thought, ‘I am able to get out of the gate of the burning house safely, but my children are still inside. They are engrossed in playing.’
This is the second segment. The Buddha is awakened to the suffering [of the other beings]. [The fact] that [these living beings] are originally transformed does not correspond with the fact that suffering exists: he is “alarmed.” Perceiving suffering makes his mind confused and he fears that the wisdom-life may be burned up in the fire; hence, he is “terrified.”
The Buddha has his manifested form present in the house, also showing that he is in the state of suffering. The moment one enters nirvāṇa, the wisdom-life is [mobilized] to produce the power of [nirvāṇa] with remnants [upadhiseṣa-nirvāṇa), which enables one to reach [nirvāṇa] without remnants. That is what [the word] able implies. To follow before everything else the Buddha’s teaching is also what [the phrase] able to get out [safely] through this burning doorway means.
[The Beings’] minds roam in the five these are “games.” Never discarding them at any moment, they are “attached” [to desires].
Vajra Sutra: Avoiding the Mark of Self
The Vajra Prajna Paramita Sutra, p52Although Bodhisattvas take numberless beings to extinction, there are actually no living beings taken across. That is the manifestation of the perfect substance and the great function of prajña. The substance of real mark prajña is without the slightest inequality. As is said later in the sutra, “This dharma is level and equal with no high or low.” The function of contemplative prajña originally is without a mark; as the text later says, “Those who have relinquished all marks are called Buddhas.”
If a Bodhisattva crosses living beings over and yet attaches to a self who takes them across, the four marks are not yet empty, and the false mind is not yet subdued. Such a person turns his back on prajña and becomes involved in the four marks that unite to form a self. The mark of self is the root of all marks. If one can turn the illusion of self around, then he can take living beings across to nirvana. He can separate himself from the four marks, subdue his mind, and thereby become a true Bodhisattva.
Myōhō Renge Kyō Promise for March 27, 2025
“Mañjuśrī! Myōhō Renge Kyō is the most excellent and profound teaching of all the Tathāgatas. Therefore, I expound Myōhō Renge Kyō lastly just as the powerful king gave the brilliant gem lastly, the one which he had kept in his topknot for a long time.
Tao-sheng: Three Tens of Sons
Tao-sheng Commentary on the Lotus Sutra, p207In this house lived children of the rich man, numbering ten or twenty or thirty.
Those who have already been converted are “sons.” There is the differentiation of the three vehicles: it is “three” [of thirty or three tens]. There are so many [of those who have been transformed]: thus “ten” [of three tens].
Vajra Sutra: How Rare
“How rare, World Honored One, is the Tathagata who remembers and protects all Bodhisattvas and causes them to be well-endowed.”
The rare occurrence Subhūti refers to is the appearance of a Buddha, a World Honored One. Śākyamuni Buddha had arranged his seat and sat down without saying a word. Was Subhūti making something out of nothing, making waves where there was no wind, setting up wrong where there had not even been a right, placing a head on top of a head, adding a mark to a mark; was he just looking for trouble? If the Buddha had spoken a principle or made a sign it might have made sense to respond, “How rare, World Honored One,” but all Śākyamuni Buddha had done was arranged his seat and sat down.
This passage merits very special attention, for the main point of the Vajra Sutra is right here. By the time Śākyamuni Buddha had arranged his seat and sat down, he had already finished teaching dharma. That is why Subhūti uttered his words of praise. For Śākyamuni Buddha had taught the prajña of real mark, which is apart from the mark of the spoken word, apart from the mark of the written word, apart from the mark of the conditioned mind, apart from each and every mark. Only sages who had certified to the fruit understood; common people were not up to it. Realizing that, Subhūti hoped Śākyamuni Buddha would speak a provisional teaching, an expedient dharma of literary prajña, for the sake of living beings. That is why he prefaced his request for dharma by saying, “How rare is the World Honored One.” Truly rare is the Tathagata. Rarely is there a World Honored One. The real mark prajña is a protection and an endowment for all Bodhisattvas. The dharma is extremely wonderful.
The Vajra Prajna Paramita Sutra, p36-37