The Essentials of Buddhist Philosophy, p45-46To see the true nature or the true state of all things is not to find one in many or one before many, nor is it to distinguish unity from diversity or the static from the dynamic. The true state is the state without any special condition. It is, in fact, ‘the true reality without a reality,’ i.e., without any specific character or nature. It is very difficult for the human mind to understand this idea of a reality in which there is no ‘sub-stance’ at all.
Daily Dharma – July 6, 2024
Ajita! Anyone who[, while he is staying outside the place of the expounding of the Dharma,] says to another person, ‘Let us go and hear the sūtra called the Lotus Flower of the Wonderful Dharma which is being expounded [in that place],’ and causes him to hear it even for a moment, in his next life by his merits, will be able to live with the Bodhisattvas who obtain dhāraṇīs.
The Buddha gives this explanation to Maitreya (whom he calls Ajita – Invincible) in Chapter Eighteen of the Lotus Sutra. The dhāraṇīs are promises made by Bodhisattvas to protect those who keep and practice the Lotus Sūtra. They are included in the sūtra so that we can use them to remind these Bodhisattvas, and ourselves, of the protection we enjoy from our practice. This protection is not just meant for us. It is for all beings. When we share the teaching of the Wonderful Dharma with others, we help them become aware of their potential to become enlightened.
The Daily Dharma is produced by the Lexington Nichiren Buddhist Community. To subscribe to the daily emails, visit zenzaizenzai.com
Day 6
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.
The Manifestation of Energy in Human Form
The Essentials of Buddhist Philosophy, p43If you do not insist on the existence of a central principle or absolute ego, you may define yourself in any way you please. When speaking roughly, it is quite correct to say that you exist and to describe yourself. But in minutely definite and exact language, it is impossible to define your own self or to describe yourself. However, there is no danger of losing yourself, for no one can extinguish the influence of your action, or latent energy. A particular manifestation of that energy in human form is yourself and the whole of you—for the present.
A substance may become energy and energy may become substance, but one must not think that the energy is preserved always in one and the same substance. By virtue of your own action you will get your next life and so on along the long line of lives. Having no permanent center, a living being changes itself as time goes on, sometimes for better, sometimes for worse. Your self does not exist apart from the changing manifestations, but the cycles of the changing manifestations as a whole constitute yourself. Therefore there is no possibility of the disappearance of your identity.
Daily Dharma – July 5, 2024
Medicine-King! Although many laymen or monks will practice the Way of Bodhisattvas, they will not be able to practice it satisfactorily, know this, unless they see, hear, read, recite, copy or keep this Sūtra of the Lotus Flower of the Wonderful Dharma or make offerings to it.
The Buddha gives this explanation to Medicine-King Bodhisattva in Chapter Ten of the Lotus Sūtra. For us to aspire to benefit all beings is rare and wonderful. However, without the guidance of the Buddha, our efforts to benefit others can degenerate into expectations of separate benefits for ourselves. In the Lotus Sūtra, the Buddha explains the limitations of his previous teachings, assures us of our capacity for enlightenment and how he is always helping us, and gives examples of great Bodhisattvas whose experience we can apply to our own lives.
The Daily Dharma is produced by the Lexington Nichiren Buddhist Community. To subscribe to the daily emails, visit zenzaizenzai.com
Day 5
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.”
Life Without Determinate Nature or Character
The Essentials of Buddhist Philosophy, p42While practically all the schools of thought begin with a static first principle, Buddhism begins with the actual, dynamic world, and the individual, by cultivating oneself, strives to realize the ideal in the end. Samsara (the rise and fall of life) is not an onward flow, but a ‘wavicle’ circle, each wave being a cycle of life appearing on the great orbit of Samsara. It has no beginning nor end, just as one cannot point out the beginning of a circle.
There is, therefore, no room for the idea of a First Cause or Creation which might determine things. In the Dhamma-pada (Book of Religious Verse) the idea is described as follows: “All that we are is the result of what we have thought; it is founded on our thoughts; it is made up of our thoughts.” We must remember, however, that though the will is free or undetermined in the human world, it may appear as abstract energy-instinct or animal desire which is not un determined among the beasts and lower forms of life which are the lesser waves in the continuity of self-creation. The individual is self-creating and freely so, largely because he has no determinate nature or character.
Daily Dharma – July 4, 2024
Muddy water has no mind but it still catches the moon’s reflection and naturally becomes lucid. Plants and trees catch the rain in order to blossom, but can we say they do this deliberately? The five characters of Myo Ho Ren Ge Kyo are not the text of the sutra nor a mere explanation; rather they are the sole intent of the whole sutra. Beginners may practice this without knowing the heart (of the Lotus Sutra), but their practice will naturally harmonize with its intention.
Nichiren wrote this passage in his Treatise on The Four Depths of Faith and Five Stages of Practice (Shishin Gohon-Shō). This is another way of saying that we do not need to rely on our own skills or wisdom to practice the Buddha Dharma. Whether we are brilliant or slow, focused or distracted, calm or agitated, when we rely on the Ever-Present Buddha, we are in harmony with the world.
The Daily Dharma is produced by the Lexington Nichiren Buddhist Community. To subscribe to the daily emails, visit zenzaizenzai.com
Day 4
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.
The Result of Self-Creation
The Essentials of Buddhist Philosophy, p41-42Buddhism has nothing to do with fatalism, for it does not admit the existence of anything like destiny or the decree of fate. According to Buddhism all living beings have assumed the present life as the result of self-creation, and are, even at present, in the midst of creating themselves. In other words, every being is a stage of dynamic becoming. Although the grade and form of life vary in each birth, one should not think of the strict distinction of time as past or future. In truth there is present only. That is to say, we have a long continuity of existence, birth and death being simply the rise and fall of the waves in the ocean of life. Birth and death are not the predestined fate of a living being but a ‘corollary of action (karma),’ as it has been called by some. One who acts must sooner or later reap the effect; while experiencing an effect, one is sowing seeds anew, thus causing the next wave of life to be high or low according to the nature of one’s preceding actions.