Devotion to the Lotus Sutra is manifested in the five practices of upholding, reading, reciting, explaining, and copying the text of the Lotus Sutra.

I’ve participated in Shakyo practice, the ritual copying of the Lotus Sutra, during which I traced the letters of Namu Myoho Renge Kyo.

That practice seems so shallow compared to this tale from Readings of the Lotus Sutra, a collection of essays edited by Stephen F. Teiser and Jacqueline I. Stone.

The tale of the seventh-century nun Miaozhi, as recounted in Huixiang’s Accounts of the Propagation of the Lotus Sutra, provides a vivid example of the effort that might go into [ritually copying the sutra].

To produce the pulp used in making the paper for her sutra, Miaozhi planted saplings in the nearby hills, which she nurtured daily with perfumed water. Once the trees had matured, she constructed a hut from mud mixed with fragrant water, where she had a craftsman boil and press the bark into paper, ensuring all the while that he observed the proper protocols to purify both himself and the materials. With the paper in hand, she built yet another chamber for copying the sutra, again with utmost attention to ritual purity. Having finally located a skilled calligrapher who was willing to uphold her ritual specifications, Miaozhi first had the man fast for a period of forty-nine days, after which he finally began to inscribe the text. Each time he entered the sanctuary to copy the Sutra, he was required to bathe and don a purified robe. Miaozhi knelt in adoration beside him as he wrote, incense burner in hand and right knee to the ground. When the scribe withdrew at the end of the day, she remained in the chamber to offer incense and ritually circumambulate the work in progress. The task finally completed, Miaozhi created splendid accoutrements for the manuscript, including ten sets of specially constructed robes that were to be worn (after bathing) by persons who came to pay obeisance to the sutra.