Scrupulous fidelity to tradition is everywhere a characteristic of tribal religion. Its morality is based upon the sanctity of the communal life amounting to the adoration of blood kinship and the observance of social rules. The individual is almost nothing in the face of the community, and unreasoning submission to social sanction is the essential condition of individual life. Authority and tradition, not the person and conscience, are the ultimate foundation of morality which, though remaining still in force, are being modified by the influence of modern civilization on village life. This has been the strength and at the same time the weakness of Japanese morality. It was the force that solidified the feudal régime and still sustains the solidarity of the people as a body.
History of Japanese ReligionQuotes
The Life of a Buddha
The life of a Buddha cannot be discussed in terms of a beginning or an end, because the true reality of life has no beginning or end. Though it may seem contradictory, this is in keeping with the three truths of emptiness, provisional reality, and the Middle Way. The life of the Buddha has no birth or death because it is a selfless expression of the dynamic and interdependent nature of life. However, as a part of the dynamic interplay of all things, the Buddha’s enlightenment unfolds in terms of this world’s concepts of birth and death, striving and awakening. From the perspective of the Middle Way, the Buddha’s enlightened life is what it is and cannot be defined as either transcendent or mundane, though it displays both aspects.
Lotus World: An Illustrated Guide to the GohonzonThe Example of the Lotus Flower
“Ren” is lotus and “Ge” is flower, and “Renge” means lotus flower. The Lotus Sutra is named after the lotus flower because the lotus and lotus flower have unique natures that are suitable to symbolize the teaching of the Sutra. The lotus grows in muddy ponds and blooms beautiful white flowers, but the flower is never defiled with a muddy color; it always remains white. Even though the pond becomes muddier, the lotus flowers become a purer white. This symbolizes human struggle, and the salvation of the Lotus Sutra. The muddy pond represents a degenerated human society. A pure white flower represents enlightenment. Although this world is corrupt and deeply defiled, as long as you hold the Lotus Sutra, you will never be corrupted, but achieve a calm state of enlightenment, and together we will be able to transform this world into an ideal pure land.
Spring WritingsIllusion and Reality
I think the parable of the Magic City is fascinating because it presents us with the opportunity to examine the concept of illusions. The Magic City was an illusion for the travelers, a necessary illusion, which when its value had been realized it ceased to exist. So in that case it becomes substantial and then ceases to exist. When we think about what we learn later in Chapter XVI about the Buddha not really dying and not really leaving the world we have the illusion being the thing we no longer see. Hopefully that makes some sense. Let me state it again: The Buddha not being in this world is the illusion, the reality is that he is always present; Buddhahood is always present, though it seems to have disappeared, so the absence is the illusion.
Lecture on the Lotus SutraLeading All Beings to Buddhahood
Though the Buddha taught a variety of concepts, such as the Four Noble Truths for the monastic voice-hearers, Dependent Origination for the privately awakened ones, and the Six Perfection for those who wished to become buddhas (the vehicle of the bodhisattvas), they are all different aspects of the One Vehicle of Buddhahood. When the Buddha taught the One Vehicle in the Lotus Sutra, he finally made it clear that all along his intention had been to lead all beings to Buddhahood.
Lotus SeedsJudging the Truth of Any Teaching
The Nirvana Sutra … set out four guidelines for judging the truth of any teaching. … These guidelines are: (1) to rely upon the Dharma, not upon persons; (2) to rely on the meaning, not on the words alone; (3)to rely on wisdom, not on knowledge alone; and (4) to rely on sutras that reveal the whole truth, not on sutras that only reveal partial truth.
Awakening to the LotusThe Eye of the Law
The correct Buddhist view of the world and humankind is inseparable from the law of dependent origination. In symbolizing this relationship, primitive Buddhist texts describe an aspirant who has acquired proper understanding and has arrived at the first stage of enlightenment as having received the Eye of the Law, unblemished and unsoiled. Frequently, similar texts say that the Eye of the Law consists in being able to see that all things born of causes and conditions cease to exist when those causes and conditions are destroyed. In short, a person who has attained this stage of understanding perceives the principle of dependent origination, equated with the immutable Law.
Basic Buddhist ConceptsJikkai-gogu
The mutual possession of the ten realms (Jikkai-gogu) means that each of the ten realms of living existence contains the characteristics of the other nine realms. The realm of hell to the realm of heavenly beings are known as the “Six Regions” which are the realms of transmigration (rebirth) one reaches according to karma, or the deeds of one’s previous lives. The realm of Srāvaka to the realm of Buddhahood are the realms of “the four holy ones” or those who transcend the cycle of transmigration.
“Spiritual contemplation (kanjin) means for one to meditate on his own mind, observing through it ten realms, from the hells up to the realm of Buddhas, all of which are by nature contained in every mind.” (Kanjin Honzon Shō, WNS2, p. 131).
Buddha Seed: Understanding the OdaimokuPerceiving the Great Truth
[T]he multitude, being still unenlightened, are unable to perceive the great truth that this present world is the world of Buddhas and of Glorious Light, and are unconscious of the Paradise into which they have already actually entered. Their minds being thus confused, they give rein to the four passions of avarice, anger, folly, and pride, and find themselves in the painful regions of birth, old age, disease, and death; so that they are obliged to pass through a series of transmigrations in the world of evils, which is ever a prey to Great Fire in times past, and present, and future. But all these pains and miseries are, in fact, voluntarily incurred by the people themselves; they are not proper and natural to the real state of the world, which is, in itself, free from them altogether.
Doctrines of Nichiren (1893)Damaging Comparisons
Every time we make a comparison between our life and the life of someone else we are actually to some degree living someone else’s life. We are creeping out of our life into theirs. Straying into someone else’s life and out of ours may seem innocuous, relatively harmless, yet it can be very damaging to our own life and potentially deadly to our relationship with others as well. Even if we don’t see the effect as dramatically as we would with an auto accident, the damage is done nonetheless. Judging our lives by the standards of another or vice versa does us no good, because there isn’t an exact equality of capabilities, living conditions, past causes, social context, family background…and on and on the list could go.
Lotus Path: Practicing the Lotus Sutra Volume 1