“World-Honored One! The bhikṣus, bhikṣunīs, upāsakās or upāsikās who seek, keep, read, recite and copy this Sūtra of the Lotus Flower of the Wonderful Dharma in the defiled world in the later five hundred years after [your extinction], if they wish to study and practice this sūtra, should concentrate their minds [on study and practice] strenuously for three weeks. When they complete [the study and practice of] three weeks, I will mount a white elephant with six tusks, and appear before them with my body which all living beings wish to see, together with innumerable Bodhisattvas surrounding me. I will expound the Dharma to them, show them the Way, teach them, benefit them, and cause them to rejoice.
Chapter 28: The Encouragement of Universal-Sage Bodhisattva
With the encouragement of Universal-Sage Bodhisattva I concentrated my mind on study and practice strenuously for three weeks. It was a very unusual 21 days.
Let me set the stage: On June 29, my wife left for Upstate New York to prepare her parents’ house for sale. Her flight home is schedule July 24. Ostensibly, I was left behind to care for our cats and watch over the house and perhaps harvest a few of those year-round “Honey, Do…” that ripen and demand to be harvested.
In reviewing my wife’s travel plans it occurred to me that I had an excellent opportunity from July 1 to July 21 to take up the encouragement of Universal-Sage Bodhisattva to concentrate my mind on study and practice strenuously for three weeks.
So I declared a 21-day stay-cation retreat, promising to wear my dark blue samue between sunrise and sunset including while preforming a daily one-hour walking meditation.
Before I started I imagined that I would add a half-hour midday service to my existing practice during which I would recite aloud a portion of the Sutra of Innumerable Meanings and, when that was completed, The Sutra of Contemplation of the Dharma Practice of Universal Sage Bodhisattva (Reeves). But by the end of the first day I felt that was not ambitious enough. Beginning with Day 2, I began reciting all of both sutras as separate midday practices. Each takes about one hour to recite.
For the first two weeks I walked an hour, performed my morning service, recited first one sutra and then the other and finished the day with my regular evening service. Between each element I would read and write.
Still, I had this nagging feeling that “I have now made these offerings, yet I do not think that they are enough,” to quote Gladly-Seen-By-All-Beings Bodhisattva.
I wanted to recite the entire threefold Lotus Sutra in a single day. Better still, I wanted to recite it in shindoku on one day and in English the next. Since I don’t have shindoku versions of the Sutra of Innumerable Meanings and The Sutra of Contemplation of the Dharma Practice of Universal Sage Bodhisattva, the English would suffice. I vowed to do this on Saturday and Sunday, the final two days of my 21-day stay-cation retreat.
During the final week, I tested how long it takes to recite one fascicle (there are eight in the Lotus Sutra, plus the other two sutras). And I pushed my entire practice – morning service, Innumerable Meanings, Contemplation of Universal Sage, evening service – into a single session to get a feel for sitting for hours in front of my altar.
On Friday, as a final exercise, I extended my morning service daimoku to one hour and added an hour of daimoku after each of the sutras and concluded by extending my evening service daimoku to one hour. I was chanting in front of my altar from 6:30am to after 5pm, with short breaks between elements.
As I prepared for Saturday and Sunday I had expectations that it would take, maybe, 12 hours to accomplish my morning service and recitation of the complete Lotus Sutra and my evening service. I was wrong.
On Saturday I did my morning walking meditation from 5:07am to 6:17am. I took a short nap and began my morning service just before 7am. The sutra of Innumerable Meanings required just under an hour and the eight fascicles of the Lotus Sutra in shindoku consumed 9 hours and 21 minutes. The Contemplation of Universal Sage took just over an hour. I finished a very abbreviated evening service at 9:50pm, having taken a handful of small breaks during the day. It had been a 14 hour and 54 minute day, not counting the walking meditation.
On Sunday, the final day of my retreat, I decided to skip the walking meditation and instead start with the instructions offered by Universal Sage (Reeves, p420):
If anyone wants to reach supreme awakening rapidly and see the buddhas in the ten directions and Universal Sage Bodhisattva in this life, they should purify themselves by taking a bath, putting on clean clothes, burning rare incense, and living in a secluded place. They should recite and read the Great Vehicle sutras and think about the meaning of the Great Vehicle.
I showered, dressed in a clean samue and began my morning service at 5:50am. The Sutra of Innumerable Meanings required an hour. The English recitation of the eight fascicles of the Lotus Sutra consumed 9 hours and 58 minutes. The Contemplation of Universal Sage took a little more than an hour. And I concluded a full evening service at 7:50pm, exhausted but happy that I had finished that day and the 21 days.
Over the next couple of weeks I expect to publish daily quotes from the two sutras to add to those I posted in the final 14 days of my 21-day stay-cation retreat.