The Lotus Sutra in Zen

[Taco_Rice]

What role does the Lotus Sutra play in the Zen school, and what is the significance placed on this Sutra in relation to other Sutras by the various Zen sects?

Thanks!

[jundo cohen]

What role does the Lotus Sutra play in the Zen school, and what is the significance placed on this Sutra in relation to other Sutras by the various Zen sects?

Thanks!

Hi Taco,

Speaking for the Soto neck of the woodless woods, the Lotus was cherished by Dogen. He riffed on so much of the already wild Lotus as the "standard melody" for his own word Jazz, wisely wilding the already wisely wild imagery and parables,

If you would like to read an essay on this, here are two by Taigen Leighton ...

http://www.ancientdragon.org/dharma/art ... _and_dogen

https://nirc.nanzan-u.ac.jp/nfile/2862

,,, who also has a book expanding on the topic.

http://www.amazon.com/Visions-Awakening ... 019532093X

Modern Soto teachers also tend to digg the Lotus, me too.

We tend also to like (right through like and dislike, of course) the Diamond Sutra and Heart Sutra and other Perfection of Wisdom Literature, much of the feel of the Flower Garland, the Vimalakirti (especially in modern times for the attitude toward lay folks). Dogen does not seem to have been a fan of the Surangama, and neither was his teacher, both describing it as spurious. Dogen often quoted from the Parinirvana Sutra. The Lankavatara was closely associated with the Chan school in the early days, but seems to have been supplanted by the Perfection of Wisdom around the time of the 6th Ancestor.

Gassho, Jundo

[DGA]

Did Dogen have any remarks on the chapter in which Buddha Shakyamuni claims his lifespan is extraordinarily long, something like ten to the power of a bajillion eons long?

Or Chapter Three (the herb parable), in which Buddha Shakyamuni claims to be leading all beings to Buddhahood according to their capacity?

I'm asking because I think these may shed some fresh light on the increasingly round-in-circles thread on Buddha as an ordinary fellow.

http://dharmawheel.net/viewtopic.php?f=69&t=22153

Speaking for the Soto neck of the woodless woods, the Lotus was cherished by Dogen. He riffed on so much of the already wild Lotus as the "standard melody" for his own word Jazz, wisely wilding the already wisely wild imagery and parables

[jundo cohen]

Did Dogen have any remarks on the chapter in which Buddha Shakyamuni claims his lifespan is extraordinarily long, something like ten to the power of a bajillion eons long?

Hello,

One of the Taigen essays I linked to is very much focused on that (although I believe they all mention it).

A close reading of Dōgen’s references to this story discloses how his hermeneutical
play with its imagery of ground, space, and emptiness expresses
immediate awakening, beyond stages of cultivation; he cites the inconceivable
life-span story as an encouragement to present practice.

Among all of the numerous references to the Lotus Sutra in Dōgen’s
Shōbōgenzō, he refers in more of the essays to chapter sixteen on the Buddha’s
life-span than to any other chapter, with the exception of chapter two on skillful
means. ... Much of the essay involves intricate wordplay and discussion concerning the
polarity of turning the Dharma flower, in realization, or being turned by it, in
delusion, which Dōgen eventually resolves in characteristically non-dualistic
fashion. He says, for example, near the end of the essay, “The reality that exists
as it is,… is profound, great, and everlasting [specifically referencing the Buddha’s
life-span in chapter sixteen], is mind in delusion, the Flower of Dharma
turning, and is mind in realization, turning the Flower of Dharma, which is
really just the Flower of Dharma turning the Flower of Dharma” (Nishijima
and Cross 994, pp. 29–20). So in Dōgen’s reality, ultimately the Lotus turning
the practitioner, as well as the practitioner turning the Lotus, are both simply
and non-dualistically the Lotus Dharma turning the Wondrous Lotus Dharma.

...

In this section of the essay, Dōgen also clarifies that in his discussion of earth
and space he is interpreting the Lotus by characteristically indulging in a significant
pun, using the double meaning of kū 空 as both space and emptiness.
Soon after affirming the open space underground as the realization of the Lotus
and as the life-span of Buddha, Dōgen quotes the famous Heart Sutra passage,
stating that, “There is turning the Lotus of ‘Form is exactly emptiness,’ and turning
the Lotus of ‘Emptiness is exactly form.’” (Nishijima and Cross 994, p.
27) Thus Dōgen recognizes the bodhisattvas’ underground open “space” as
also emptiness, or śūnyatā. This verifies the immanence of the emptiness, or the
insubstantiality of all existents, within the ground of earth/space, and the empty
nature of all the forms that compose earth and space. By recognizing the Lotus
Sutra space under the ground as, in part, a metaphor for emptiness, Dōgen also
here implies the study of emptiness as the study that propels the Lotus Sutra
underground bodhisattvas.

...

Thus the whole of the Lotus
Sutra and the inconceivable life-span of Śākyamuni is also an embodiment for
Dōgen of the whole-hearted, single-minded practice he advocates in his instructions
for zazen, or sitting meditation. Throughout his references to the enduring
Śākyamuni, Dōgen uses the story to celebrate the importance of and encourage
ongoing dedicated practice. Dōgen’s praxis of embodiment of awakening
in this very body and mind, sokushin zebutsu, is linked to these descriptions of
the enduring Śākyamuni as reality itself. Practice becomes the requisite ritual
performance-expression of an active faith in this awakened reality as already,
and ongoingly, being expressed and present in this conditioned, phenomenal
world
https://nirc.nanzan-u.ac.jp/nfile/2862

Or Chapter Three (the herb parable), in which Buddha Shakyamuni claims to be leading all beings to Buddhahood according to their capacity?

Not as many references, and few direct. For example, from Shobogenzo Hokke Ten Hokke ...

And these phrases from the Lotus Scripture also refer to Samantabhadra,*
for he has succeeded in helping the Dharma’s flowering to arise in others in ways
that are beyond the intellective mind’s ability to grasp or fathom. Also, he has
succeeded in causing the profound, vast, and far-reaching supreme, fully perfected
enlightenment to flow throughout Jambudvipa.* In that he has done this, the earth
is able to produce the three kinds of grasses and the two kinds of trees, large and
small, and the rain is able to moisten them all.1

Translator:
1. This is a reference to “The Parable of the Herbs” in the Lotus Scripture, where ordinary,
conventional human beings are likened to small grasses, the shravakas and pratyekabuddhas
who follow the Lesser Course to various shrubbery, and the bodhisattvas who follow the
Greater Course to three types of vegetation: tall grasses (such as bamboo), small trees, and
large trees. In the parable, the rain is likened to the rain of Dharma which the Buddha
showers down upon them so that they may all come to their spiritual fruition.
http://www.thezensite.com/ZenTeachings/ ... nHokke.pdf

Gassho, J

[DGA]

That's helpful in coming to how Dogen is understood by Zen practitioners whose main language is English. Thank you for that.