What the Buddha Taught, p47-49[Among the three essentials – Ethical Conduct (Sila), Mental Discipline (Samādhi) and Wisdom (Paññā)] Mental Discipline includes three other factors of the Eightfold Path: Right Effort, Right Mindfulness (or Attentiveness) and Right Concentration. (Nos. 6, 7 and 8 in the list).
Right Effort is the energetic will (1) to prevent evil and unwholesome states of mind from arising, and (2) to get rid of such evil and unwholesome states that have already arisen within a man, and also (3) to produce, to cause to arise, good and wholesome states of mind not yet arisen, and (4) to develop and bring to perfection the good and wholesome states of mind already
present in a man.Right Mindfulness (or Attentiveness) is to be diligently aware, mindful and attentive with regard to (1) the activities of the body (kāya), (2) sensations or feelings (vedanā), (3) the activities of the mind (citta) and (4) ideas, thoughts, conceptions and things (dhamma). …
The third and last factor of Mental Discipline is Right Concentration leading to the four stages of Dhyāna, generally called trance or recueillement. In the first stage of Dhyāna, passionate desires and certain unwholesome thoughts like sensuous lust, ill-will, languor, worry, restlessness, and skeptical doubt are discarded, and feelings of joy and happiness are maintained, along with certain mental activities. In the second stage, all intellectual activities are suppressed, tranquility and ‘one-pointedness’ of mind developed, and the feelings of joy and happiness are still retained. In the third stage, the feeling of joy, which is an active sensation, also disappears, while the disposition of happiness still remains in addition to mindful equanimity. In the fourth stage of Dhyāna, all sensations, even of happiness and unhappiness, of joy and sorrow, disappear, only pure equanimity and awareness remaining.
Thus the mind is trained and disciplined and developed through Right Effort, Right Mindfulness, and Right Concentration.
Daily Dharma – May 28, 2024
Anyone who keeps this sūtra
In the latter days after my extinction
Should have compassion towards laymen and monks
And towards those who are not Bodhisattvas.
He should think:
‘They do not hear this sūtra.
They do not believe it.
This is their great fault.
When I attain the enlightenment of the Buddha,
I will expound the Dharma to them
With expedients
And cause them to dwell in it.’
The Buddha sings these verses to Mañjuśrī in Chapter Fourteen of the Lotus Sūtra. In our zeal to help other beings, we may create expectations of how they will receive our efforts, or how they will change themselves after hearing the Buddha Dharma. We may even blame them for not improving as quickly as we might want. These verses remind us that there is no shortage of time available for our efforts to benefit others.
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Day 1
Day 1 covers the first half of Chapter 1, Introductory
Having last month considered the ray of light emitted by the Buddha, we consider Maitreya’s question.
Thereupon Maitreya Bodhisattva thought:
“The World-Honored One is now displaying a wonder [, that is, a good omen]. Why is he displaying this good omen? The Buddha, the World-Honored One, has entered into a samadhi. Whom shall I ask why he is displaying this inconceivable, rare thing? Who can answer my question?”
He thought again:
“This Mañjuśrī, the son of the King of the Dharma, has already met innumerable Buddhas and made offerings to them in his previous existence. He must have seen this rare thing before. Now I will ask him.”
At that time the bhikṣus, bhikṣunīs, upāsakās, upāsikās, gods, dragons, and other supernatural beings thought, “Whom shall we ask why the Buddha is emitting this ray of light, that is, why he is displaying this wonder?”
At that time the congregation included the four kinds of devotees: bhikṣus, bhikṣunīs, upāsakās and upāsikās. They also included gods, dragons, and other supernatural beings. Maitreya Bodhisattva, wishing to have his doubts removed, and also understanding the minds of the congregation, asked Mañjuśrī:
“Why is the World-Honored One displaying this good omen, this wonder? Why is he emitting a great ray of light, illumining eighteen thousand worlds to the east, and causing us to see those beautifully-adorned worlds of the Buddhas?”
Conduct Based on Love and Compassion
What the Buddha Taught, p46-47[Among the three essentials – Ethical Conduct (Sila), Mental Discipline (Samādhi) and Wisdom (Paññā)] Ethical Conduct (Sīla), based on love and compassion, includes three factors of the Noble Eightfold Path: namely, Right Speech, Right Action and Right Livelihood. (Nos. 3, 4 and 5 in the list).
Right speech means abstention (1) from telling lies, (2) from backbiting and slander and talk that may bring about hatred, enmity, disunity and disharmony among individuals or groups of people, (3) from harsh, rude, impolite, malicious and abusive language, and (4) from idle, useless and foolish babble and gossip. When one abstains from these forms of wrong and harmful speech one naturally has to speak the truth, has to use words that are friendly and benevolent, pleasant and gentle, meaningful and useful. One should not speak carelessly: speech should be at the right time and place. If one cannot say something useful, one should keep ‘noble silence.’
Right Action aims at promoting moral, honorable and peaceful conduct. It admonishes us that we should abstain from destroying life, from stealing, from dishonest dealings, from illegitimate sexual intercourse, and that we should also help others to lead a peaceful and honorable life in the right way.
Right Livelihood means that one should abstain from making one’s living through a profession that brings harm to others, such as trading in arms and lethal weapons, intoxicating drinks, poisons, killing animals, cheating, etc., and should live by a profession which is honorable, blameless and innocent of harm to others. One can clearly see here that Buddhism is strongly opposed to any kind of war, when it lays down that trade in arms and lethal weapons is an evil and unjust means of livelihood.
These three factors (Right Speech, Right Action and Right Livelihood) of the Eightfold Path constitute Ethical Conduct. It should be realized that the Buddhist ethical and moral conduct aims at promoting a happy and harmonious life both for the individual and for society. This moral conduct is considered as the indispensable foundation for all higher spiritual attainments. No spiritual development is possible without this moral basis.
Daily Dharma – May 27, 2024
Thus, what the people in the Latter Age of Degeneration should be afraid of are not swords and sticks, tigers and wolves, or the ten evil acts and the five rebellious sins but those monks who wear Buddhist robes and pretend to be high priests without knowing the true teaching and those people who regard monks of provisional teachings as venerable and hate the practicers of the True Dharma of the Lotus Sutra.
Nichiren wrote this passage in his Treatise on Chanting the Great Title of the Lotus Sūtra (Shō Hokke Daimoku-shō). In Nichiren’s time, Buddhist monks had a great influence on the leaders of Japan, and thus on the lives of ordinary people. Wars, taxes, disease and education were no less important in Nichiren’s time than they are now. Nichiren recognized that the greatest danger came not from external forces, but from those within the country who took positions of power to benefit themselves rather than others. Nichiren’s reliance on the Wonderful Dharma, and his refusal to be coerced by his persecutions, show us how to live in this degenerating age.
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Another Innumerable Day Before Day 1
Having last month in the Sutra of Innumerable Meanings considered the Bodhisattva Fully Composed’s reaction to the 10 beneficial effects of this sutra, we consider the benefits earned from learning of the Sutra of Innumerable Meanings.
Within the gathering, thirty-two thousand great-being bodhisattvas attained the specialized focus of mind of infinite meanings, and thirty-four thousand great-being bodhisattvas gained access to countless and innumerable Dharma-grasping empowerments and became capable of turning all nonretrogressing Dharma wheels of the buddhas of the past, present, and future. The monks, nuns, laymen, and laywomen, the heavenly beings, nāgas, yakṣas, gandharvas, asuras, garuḍas, kiṃnaras, and mahoragas, and the leaders of empires great and small—rulers of silver-wheel, iron-wheel, and lesser-wheel domains, kings, princes, officials of state, and citizens who were noblemen, noblewomen, or people of great means—with hundreds of thousands of their numerous followers assembled together there, upon hearing the Buddha Tathāgata expound this sutra, variously realized the stage of an ardent mind, the stage of attaining the highest still-unsettled condition, the stage of attaining irreversible good roots,17 the stage of ultimate worldly perception, the fruit of entering the stream, the fruit of one remaining return, the fruit of non- returning, the fruit of arhatship, or the fruit of pratyekabuddha. Or they achieved the bodhisattva stage in which phenomena are grasped as being without origination or cessation. Or they obtained one Dharma-grasping empowerment, or obtained two Dharma-grasping empowerments, or obtained three Dharma-grasping empowerments, or obtained four Dharma-grasping empowerments, or five, six, seven, eight, nine, or ten Dharma-grasping empowerments, or obtained hundreds of millions of myriads of Dharma-grasping empowerments, or obtained innumerable Dharma-grasping empowerments—as countless and immeasurable as the Ganges River’s sands; all, accordingly, became capable of turning a nonretrogressing Dharma wheel. Innumerable living beings awakened the aspiration for the full dynamic of ultimate enlightenment.
Three Essentials of Buddhist Training and Discipline
What the Buddha Taught, p46These eight factors [of the Noble Eightfold path] aim at promoting and perfecting the three essentials of Buddhist training and discipline: (a) Ethical Conduct (Sila), (b) Mental Discipline (Samādhi) and (c) Wisdom (Paññā). It will therefore be more helpful for a coherent and better understanding of the eight divisions of the Path, if we group them and explain them according to these three heads.
Ethical Conduct (Sīla) is built on the vast conception of universal love and compassion for all living beings, on which the Buddha’s teaching is based. It is regrettable that many scholars forget this great ideal of the Buddha’s teaching, and indulge in only dry philosophical and metaphysical divagations when they talk and write about Buddhism. The Buddha gave his teaching ‘for the good of the many, for the happiness of the many, out of compassion for the world’ (bahujanahitāya bahujanasukhāya lokānukampāya).
Daily Dharma – May 26, 2024
The gods, men and asuras in the world think that I, Śākyamuni Buddha, left the palace of the Śākyas, sat at the place of enlightenment not far from the City of Gayā, and attained Anuttara-samyak-saṃbodhi [forty and odd years ago]. To tell the truth, good men, it is many hundreds of thousands of billions of nayutas of kalpas since I became the Buddha.
The Buddha makes this proclamation in Chapter Sixteen of the Lotus Sutra. This was the first time he revealed himself not as the temporal Siddhartha Gautama, the man who left home and became enlightened, but as the Ever-Present Buddha Śākyamuni who has been alive for innumerable eons helping beings to become enlightened and will continue that existence for twice that time into the future. This is the highest teaching of the Buddha, the purpose of all his expedient teachings that came before, and the Wonderful Dharma that is most difficult to believe and understand. When we comprehend the existence of this Ever-Present Buddha for even the blink of an eye, we gain more clarity about the world than through any of the Buddha’s other teachings.
The Daily Dharma is produced by the Lexington Nichiren Buddhist Community. To subscribe to the daily emails, visit zenzaizenzai.com
Between Day 32 and Day 1: The Procession
Having last month considered the elephant with six tusks and seven limbs, we consider the procession of the elephant.
The elephant’s trunk becomes the color of a red lotus flower. On the trunk, the manifested buddha form emits a beam of light from between its eyebrows. The beam is golden-colored and, as before, goes into the elephant’s trunk, emerges from inside the trunk and enters the elephant’s eyes, then comes out of the elephant’s eyes and curls back to enter its ears. The beam comes out of the elephant’s ears and extends to the top of its neck; then it gradually moves up to the elephant’s back and transforms into a golden saddle. The saddle is inlaid with the seven precious metals and gems, it has posts on four sides made of the seven precious metals and gems, and a multitude of jewels adorn it so as to form a jeweled platform. In the middle of the platform is a single lotus flower made of the seven precious metals and gems. One hundred jewels combine to form the stamens of this lotus flower, and its pod is a magnificent maṇi jewel. A single bodhisattva will be there, sitting erectly in the lotus posture: his name is Universal Sage. His body is the color of a white jewel, fifty kinds of rays of light, in fifty kinds of colors, are radiating from the nape of his neck, and golden rays of light are coming forth from all the pores of his body. Innumerable manifested buddha forms are at the ends of these golden rays, accompanied by manifested bodhisattva forms as their retinues.
Walking slowly and with quiet purpose, raining numerous jewel-like flowers, the procession will pass before the practitioner. The elephant will open its mouth, and the exquisite maidens in the pools at the tips of its tusks will sing and strum pleasant music, their sublime voices lauding the one genuine path of the Great Vehicle. Feeling both joy and reverence after perceiving this, the practitioner should further internalize and recite the extremely profound sutras, pay homage to all of the innumerable buddhas respectively in the ten directions, pay homage to the stupa of Many-Treasures Buddha and to Śākyamuni, likewise pay homage to Universal Sage and the various eminent bodhisattvas, and speak aloud this declaration:
“If I am worthy of seeing Universal Sage as a happy result of past actions, I petition you, O Universally Virtuous One, to show me your body and form!”
The Fourth Noble Truth
What the Buddha Taught, p45-46The Fourth Noble Truth is that of the Way leading to the Cessation of Dukkha (Dukkhanirodhagamiṇīpaṭipadā-ariyasacca). This is known as the ‘Middle Path’ (Majjhimā Paṭipadā), because it avoids two extremes: one extreme being the search for happiness through the pleasures of the senses, which is ‘low, common, unprofitable and the way of the ordinary people’; the other being the search for happiness through self-mortification in different forms of asceticism, which is ‘painful, unworthy and unprofitable.’ Having himself first tried these two extremes, and having found them to be useless, the Buddha discovered through personal experience the Middle Path ‘which gives vision and knowledge, which leads to Calm, Insight, Enlightenment, Nirvāṇa.’ This Middle Path is generally referred to as the Noble Eightfold Path (Ariya-Aṭṭaṅgika-Magga), because it is composed of eight categories or divisions:
- Right Understanding (Sammā diṭṭhi),
- Right Thought (Sammā saṅkappa),
- Right Speech (Sammā vācā),
- Right Action (Sammā kammanta),
- Right Livelihood (Sammā ājīva),
- Right Effort (Sammā vāyāma),
- Right Mindfulness (Sammā sati),
- Right Concentration (Sammā samādhi).
Practically the whole teaching of the Buddha, to which he devoted himself during 45 years, deals in some way or other with this Path. He explained it in different ways and in different words to different people, according to the stage of their development and their capacity to understand and follow him. But the essence of those many thousand discourses scattered in the Buddhist Scriptures is found in the Noble Eightfold Path.