Buddhism for Today, p241-242Because the Original Buddha is omnipresent, a virtuous person will naturally be able to perceive his teachings that are incomprehensible to ordinary men, just as a television set with good reception transmits a sharp picture. However, ordinary people cannot come in contact with the Buddha’s teachings until such great religious leaders as the Lord Sakyamuni, Chih-i, Prince Shōtoku, Saichō, Dōgen, and Nichiren appear in this world and directly preach the Law.
Even if people of little virtue happen to live in the same age as such religious leaders, they cannot come in contact with the teachings preached by them. This is because … the appearance of buddhas means that we are aware of them. The same thing can be said of the words “to see a buddha.” However often we hear the Buddha’s teachings, we cannot see a buddha unless we direct our mind toward him. This is how we should interpret the words “to see a buddha.” Although the Original Buddha exists in all times and in all places, his salvation does not appear unless we see a buddha in the true sense. Simply because the Original Buddha always exists close to us, we cannot expect his help if we are idle and lead greedy and self-centered lives.
Tag Archives: LS21
Day 21
Day 21 covers all of Chapter 16, The Duration of the Life of the Tathāgata.
Having last month considered the skillfull physician and what happened while he was away, we consider the medicine and the unwillingness of some sons to take the medicine.
“The father thought, ‘These sons are pitiful. They are so poisoned that they are perverted. Although they rejoice at seeing me and ask me to cure them, they do not consent to take this good medicine. Now I will have them take it with an expedient.’
“He said to them, ‘Know this! Now I am old and decrepit. I shall die soon. lam leaving this good medicine here. Take it! Do not be afraid that you will not be cured!’ Having thus advised them, he went to a [remote] country again. Then he sent home a messenger to tell them, ‘Your father has just died.’
“Having heard that their father had passed away from this world, leaving them behind, they felt extremely sorry. They thought, ‘If our father were alive, he would love and protect us. Now he has
deserted us and died in a remote country.’“They felt lonely and helpless because they thought that they were parentless and shelterless. Their constant sadness finally caused them to recover their right minds. They realized that the medicine had a good color, smell and taste. They took it and were completely cured of the poison. On hearing that they had recovered their health, the father returned home, and showed himself to them.
“Good men! What do you think of this? Do you think that anyone can accuse this excellent physician of falsehood?”
“No, World-Honored One!”
The Buddha said:
“I am like the father. It is many hundreds of thousands of billions of nayutas of asaṃkhyas of kalpas since I became the Buddha. In order to save the [perverted] people, I say expediently, ‘I shall pass away.’ No one will accuse me of falsehood by the [common] law.”
The Invitation To Take the Medicine of Salvation
Buddhism for Today, p248The Buddha never tries to force open our mouths and cram his excellent medicine down our throats. It is a sacred task for us to take it in our hands and put it into our mouths ourselves. The Buddha uses various means so tactfully that we quickly feel inclined to do so. That is, he indicates himself or indicates others, indicates his own affairs or the affairs of others. Of these indications, the greatest and the most urgent is that he himself has become extinct. Realizing that, those who have felt complacently that they can hear his teachings whenever they like or lazy people who have become tired of the teachings cannot help suddenly becoming serious. This is the most important reason that the Buddha’s extinction is a tactful means full of his great compassion.
Day 21
Day 21 covers all of Chapter 16, The Duration of the Life of the Tathāgata.
Having last month learned of the lifespan of the Buddha and why he implies he enters extinction, we consider the skillfull physician and what happened while he was away.
“I will tell you a parable. There was once an excellent and wise physician. He was good at dispensing medicines and curing diseases. He had many sons, numbering ten, twenty, or a hundred. [One day] he went to a remote country on business. After he left home, the sons took poison. The poison passed into their bodies, and the sons writhed in agony, rolling on the ground. At that time the father returned home. Some sons had already lost their right minds while the others still had not. All the sons saw their father in the distance and had great joy. They begged him on their knees, saying, ‘You came back safely. We were ignorant. We took poison by mistake. Cure us, and give us back our lives!’
“Seeing his sons suffering so much, the father consulted books of prescriptions, and collected good herbs. having a good color, smell and taste. He compounded a medicine by pounding and sieving the herbs, and gave it to them, saying, ‘This is a very good medicine. It has good color, smell and taste. Take it! It will remove the pain at once and you will not suffer any more.’
“The sons who had not lost their right minds saw that this good medicine had a good color and smell, took it at once, and were cured completely. But the sons who had already lost their right minds did not consent to take the medicine given to them, although they rejoiced at seeing their father come home and asked him to cure them, because they were so perverted that they did not believe that this medicine having a good color and smell had a good taste.
Lessons of the Parable of the Physician’s Sons
Buddhism for Today, p246-247In the Parable of the Physician’s Sons, the physician is the Buddha and the sons represent all living beings. The gist of the parable is that living beings cannot understand how much they owe to the Buddha as long as he abides in this world, but they conceive the desire to seek his teachings earnestly when he becomes extinct. For this reason, he temporarily enters nirvana through his tactful means.
The Buddha teaches us several important lessons in this parable. The first significant point is that the sons drink poisonous medicines while their father is away in a distant country. The poisonous medicines are illusions produced by the five desires. If people come in contact with the Buddha’s teachings daily, they will not suffer from these five desires disturbing their minds. However, when they avoid the Buddha’s teachings, they are apt to become obsessed by the five desires.
The next important point is that all the sons who drank the poison, even those who have lost their senses, to say nothing of the others who are still in their right minds, are delighted on seeing their father return home. The parable thus shows that even a madman can tell his father from other people. In the same way, even those with illusions who have lost their senses, for example, even a thoroughgoing materialist who boasts, “I don’t believe in God or the Buddha,” in the depths of his mind feels an unrest and loneliness that he cannot quite satisfy by material things. He seeks mental calm and satisfaction, though he is unaware of it. Therefore, if he encounters a teaching giving him spiritual peace and enlightenment, he is sure to be delighted with it. This is the same the sons who have lost their senses being glad to see their father approaching in the distance.
Day 21
Day 21 covers all of Chapter 16, The Duration of the Life of the Tathāgata.
Having last month considered the purpose of the sutras, we learn of the lifespan of the Buddha and why he implies he enters extinction.
“Good men! The duration of my life, which I obtained by the practice of the way of Bodhisattvas, has not yet expired. It is twice as long as the length of time as previously stated. Although I shall never enter into Nirvāṇa, I say to men of little virtue, ‘I shall pass away.’ I teach them with this expedient. Why is that? It is because, if they see me for a long time, they will not plant the roots of good, but become poor and base, and cling to the five desires so much that they will be caught in the nets of wrong views. If they think that I am always here, and do not think that I will pass away, they will become too arrogant and lazy to realize the difficulty of seeing me, and they will not respect me. Therefore I say [to them] expediently, ‘Bhikṣus, know this! It is difficult to see a Buddha who appears in [this] world.’ Why is that? It is because some men of little virtue cannot see me even during many hundreds of thousands of billions of kalpas while the others can. Therefore, I say [to them], ‘Bhikṣus! It is difficult to see a Tathāgata.’ Those who hear this and know that it is difficult to see me, will adore me, admire me, and plant the roots of good. Therefore l say [to them], ‘I shall pass away,’ although I shall not.
“Good men! All the Buddhas, all the Tathāgatas, do the same as I do. [They expound their teachings] for the purpose of saving all living beings. Therefore, [their teachings] are true, not false.
Revealing the Original Cause and Original Effect
Two Buddhas, p185-186Nichiren understood the revelation of Buddha’s inconceivable “lifespan” as the very heart of the sūtra. The sūtra text makes clear that, even after realizing buddhahood, Śākyamuni has remained in the world, and will continue to do so, for countless eons, “teaching the dharma and inspiring sentient beings.” For Nichiren, this signaled a seismic shift in the entire concept of buddhahood as a realm apart from the nine realms of ordinary experience. Conventional understanding holds that the cause of buddhahood and its effect, that is, practice and attainment, are separated in time. To become a buddha, one must carry out the practices of the bodhisattva for three immeasurable eons, a staggering length of time spanning countless lifetimes. The “trace teaching” or shakumon portion of the Lotus Sūtra, even while extending the promise of buddhahood to all beings, still preserves this perspective on realizing buddhahood as a linear process in which one moves from practice (nine realms) toward attainment (buddhahood). We see this in Śākyamuni Buddha’s predictions in the sūtra’s early chapters that his individual śrāvaka disciples such as Sāriputra, Mahākāśyapa, and others will become buddhas in the remote future, after many eons of bodhisattva practice. From this perspective, buddhahood remains a distant goal, abstracted from one’s present experience.
But with the origin teaching, Nichiren wrote, the cause and effect of the pre-Lotus Sūtra teachings and of the trace teaching are “demolished” and “original cause and original effect” are revealed: “The nine realms are inherent in the beginningless buddha realm, and the buddha realm inheres in the beginningless nine realms. This represents the true mutual inclusion of the ten realms … and three thousand realms in a single thoughtmoment.” That is, he saw the origin teaching as overturning linear views of practice and attainment, in which one first makes efforts and then realizes buddhahood as a later result, and revealing that cause (the nine realms) and effect (the buddha realm) are present simultaneously; buddhahood is manifested in the very act of practice.
Day 21
Day 21 covers all of Chapter 16, The Duration of the Life of the Tathāgata.
Having last month heard Śākyamuni’s expedient efforts in this Saha world and elsewhere, we consider the purpose of the sutras.
“Good men! All the sūtras that I expounded [hitherto] were for the purpose of saving all living beings. I told the stories of my previous lives [in some sūtras,] and the stories of the previous lives of other Buddhas [in other sūtras]. I showed my replicas [in some sūtras,] and my transformations [in other sūtras]. I described my deeds [in some sūtras,] and the deeds of others [in other sūtras]. All that I say is true, not false, because I see the triple world as it is. I see that the triple world is the world in which the living beings have neither birth nor death, that is to say, do not appear or disappear, that it is the world in which I do not appear or from which l do not disappear, that it is not real or unreal, and that it is not as it seems or as it does not seem. I do not see the triple world in the same way as [the living beings of] the triple world do. I see all this clearly and infallibly. The living beings are various in their natures, desires, deeds, thoughts and opinions. Therefore, I expounded the dharma with various stories of previous lives, with various parables, similes and discourses, in order to cause all living beings to plant the roots of good. I have never stopped doing what I should do. As I said before, it is very long since I became the Buddha. The duration of my life is innumerable, asaṃkhya kalpas. I am always here. I shall never pass away.
‘One In Many, Many In One’
Two Buddhas, p184-185Chinese exegetes debated how this primordially awakened buddha should be understood. Was he a finite being who had attained enlightenment an incalculably long time ago? Or was he without beginning or end? Zhiyi argued that the Buddha of the “Lifespan” chapter unites in one all three kinds of buddha “body” set forth in Mahāyāna teachings: the dharma body (dharmakāya), or timeless truth conceived as a “body”; the reward or enjoyment body (sambhogakāya), a subtle body endowed with transcendent powers resulting from a buddha’s countless eons of practice; and the manifest or emanation body (nirmāvakāya), the historical person who appears in the world. While the dharma body was understood as having neither beginning or end, conventionally, the reward body was said to have a beginning, and the manifested body, both a beginning and end. For Zhiyi, however, the buddha of the perfect teaching possesses all three bodies in one, interfused and interpenetrating. This concept inflects, in terms of the buddha, the nondual logic of “one in many, many in one” that we have already encountered with the threefold truth and the three thousand realms in a single thought-moment. Through this integration, the reward and manifested bodies participate in the timelessness of the dharma body, which does not exist apart from the other two. Notions of the primordial buddha’s constant presence in the phenomenal world were further developed by esoteric Buddhist thinkers, both in China and Japan, who equated the primordial Śākyamuni of the “Lifespan” chapter with the omnipresent cosmic buddha Mahāvairocana (J. Dainichi) who manifests as all phenomena.
Day 21
Day 21 covers all of Chapter 16, The Duration of the Life of the Tathāgata.
Having last month heard Śākyamuni that he became the Buddha in the remotest past, we hear his expedient efforts in this Saha world and elsewhere.
“Good men! During this time I gave various names to myself, for instance, the Burning-Light Buddha. I also said, ‘That Buddha entered into Nirvāṇa.’ I did all these things only as expedients.
“Good men! When some people came to me, I saw the strength of the power of their faith and of the other faculties of theirs with the eyes of the Buddha. Then I named myself differently, and told them of the duration of my life differently, according to their capacities. l also said to them, ‘I shall enter into Nirvāṇa.’ I expounded the Wonderful Dharma with these various expedients, and caused the living beings to rejoice.
“Good men! When I saw that some people of little virtue and of much defilement were seeking the teachings of the Lesser Vehicle, I told them, ‘I renounced my family when I was young, and attained Anuttara-samyak-saṃbodhi [forty and odd years ago].’ In reality I became the Buddha in the remotest past as I previously stated. I told them this as an expedient to teach them, to lead them into the Way to Buddhahood.