Sermon by 25th HBS Head Priest

[illarraza]

And still, my challenge is brushed aside by the Buddhist masters who claim their practices excellent medicine for the people of this latter degenerate age. I would think especially the HBS, Shingon, Gold Mountain Temple, and Tibetian masters would rush to defend their faith and practice against this lowly layman of the Buddha founded sect.

http://www.drbachinese.org/vbs/1_100/vb ... 80_19.html

Illarraza

Illarraza are you claiming you can produce rain with a prayer?
Why not contact James Randi? He is offering 1 million USD to anyone who can pull off such a feat.
All the world will know that you are a true votary of the Lotus Sutra then. It will reach all the media.
This will bring many people to the Lotus Sutra and your interpretation of it especially.
http://web.randi.org/the-million-dollar-challenge.html
Are you up for it?

I'm not interested in a million dollars. Assemble one hundred Buddhist monks and lay leaders, all of whom claim that their teachings lead to un-excelled Supreme and Perfect Enlightenment, the end to sufferings, and a sturdy ship to cross the great ocean of life and death, invite the "amazing Randi", and they will all witness the great power of the Lotus Sutra and its votary. Randi will not give up his million dollars claiming that it took me up to five days to produce rain.

Illarraza disciple of Shakyamuni Buddha and Nichiren Daishonin

[dbusher]

Dear Yuren. I don’t frequent this site so I apologize for my delay. I hope I can answer you sufficiently. Please assume best intentions and know that “words can be woefully inadequate”.

Your quotes are not HBS doctrine. By word and source they would not resonate with HBS practitioners.

These are matters of Faith.

For a non-believer, not cleaning ones Butsudan results in a dusty Butsudan.

For someone of Faith , the act of serving ones alter “with a single of moment faith and joy” produces manifested evidence that “plants in the mind, the seed, the genuine cause of Buddhahood”.

This is Faith deepened through manifested evidence of a practice of the Lotus Sutra and not Faith based on the intellectual pursuit of doctrinal knowledge.

The first nurtures the Eternal fabric of the soul (spirit, 8th consciousness, aryashiki…) the later feeds ones scholarly nature. Both produce manifested evidence.

For someone of faith to choose not to serve ones alter manifests in a personal way that transcends the dust, the unlit candles, the empty fruit, water, flower and incent bowls.

The Gohonzon becomes just paper and the alter - just another place in a room.

No longer a spiritual place, there is a very tangible change that has been described by many traditions as “Buddha’s and protective deities have left” or have “Turned their focus away”.

These are not matters of scholarly relevance or concern I think.

To your point let me try to illustrate…

Illarraza says s/he can produce rain. (I apologize I don’t know gender of this person).

I have no reason to believe Illarraza can’t produce rain.

Let’s say s/he does this through a faith and practice (action).

Let’s say this practice produces results (rain) consistently. Enough so that Illarraza’s faith in his/her ability to produce rain is Faith that is “unwavering, strong, bold, deep and pure”.

Seeing this, you and I are moved to produce rain! Illarraza is very kind and his/her practice is available to anyone who wishes to take faith and practice in it.
We are free to take any action we wish.

You immediately embrace Illarraza’s practice with deep faith and diligence, “removing all doubts and embracing” Illarraza’s practice. Since it worked for Illarraza, it then works for you. You make rain!

Let’s say I am plagued with doubts. I spend time following Illarraza’s practice but my faith is weak and I tend to find more joy in studying other practices….some that claim to produce rain….others that make chocolate cake, others that calm the nerves, removes attachments, clears the mind or promise continued joy or prosperity, etc…

I, broadening and deepening my knowledge, honing my ability to debate and surpassing the tongue and earthly views of someone who is strong in faith, not skillful in doctrine…..BUT can produce rain.

I never produce rain. But I do learn to make the most excellent chocolate cake!

Now I approach you and ask “Yuren, if you were to practice this chocolate cake practice over here would it hinder your rain making process?”.

If one wishes to manifest the teachings of the Buddha, as he prescribed in the honmon chapters of the Lotus Sutra, then one should focus on that.

“The illnesses of human beings may be divided into two general categories,
the first of which is illness of the body. These illnesses do not require a Buddha to cure them…

The second category is illness of the mind. These illnesses arise from the three poisons and are of eighty-four thousand kinds.
They are beyond the healing powers of the two deities and the three ascetics [of Brahmanism] or the six non-Buddhist teachers..."- ‘Reply to the lay priest Toki’ – Master Nichiren Shonin

”…for the Buddha’s words are true, not false. He is like a skilled physician who uses an expedient means to cure his deranged sons.” Chp 16 Lotus Sutra

Gassho,
Dominic

[dbusher]

Illarraza. Please consider posting your comments here. If inclined.

I would like to invite you to call me at 520-275-0145 or join us at meetup.com/azsangha
Join us using ooVoo.

I am available anytime. I would like to extend this to anyone on this board or thread.

Namu Myoho Renge Kyo,

Dominic

[illarraza]

Illarraza. Please consider posting your comments here. If inclined.

I would like to invite you to call me at 520-275-0145 or join us at meetup.com/azsangha
Join us using ooVoo.

I am available anytime. I would like to extend this to anyone on this board or thread.

Namu Myoho Renge Kyo,

Dominic

Hi Dominic. My comment is unchanged. Rain challenges, not making the tastiest chocolate cake, are a tried and true Buddhist tradition embraced by the Daishonin. It is a useful faith practice to arrive at the superiority or inferiority of a particular teaching. A correct faith is, of course, a prerequisite for a successful outcome. HBS is an incorrect faith while Nichiren's is a correct faith. Who do you think will succeed in making rain, those with a correct faith or those with an incorrect faith? There must be very few so-called Nichiren Lotus Sutra Buddhists, let alone provisional Buddhists, who are absolutely confident that their faith and practice is correct because not one in twenty years has taken me up on my challenge. Shakyamuni Buddha states:

"If someone seeking the buddha wisdom
for a period of eight hundred thousand million
nayutas of kalpas
should practice the five paramitas,
during all those kalpas
distributing alms to the buddhas
and to the cause-awakened ones and disciples
and the multitude of bodhisattvas,
rare delicacies of food and drink,
fine garments and articles of bedding,
or building religious retreats of sandalwood
adorned with gardens and groves;
if he should distribute alms
of many varieties, all refined and wonderful,
and do this for the entire number of kalpas
to express his devotion to the buddha way;
and if moreover he should keep the precepts,
in purity and without omission or outflow,
seeking the unsurpassed way,
praised by the buddhas;
and if he should practice forbearance,
remaining in a posture of submission and gentleness,
even when various evils are visited on him,
not allowing his mind to be roused or swayed;
when others, convinced they have gained the Law,
harbor thoughts of overbearing arrogance
and he is treated with contempt and vexed by them,
if he can still endure it with patience;
and if he is diligent and assiduous,
ever firm in intent and thought,
for immeasurable millions of kalpas
single-minded, never lax or neglectful,
for countless kalpas
dwelling in a deserted and quiet place;
and if he practices sitting and walking exercises,
banishing drowsiness, constantly regulating his mind,
and as a result of such actions
is able to produce states of meditation,
for eighty million ten thousand kalpas
remaining calm, his mind never deranged;
and if he holds to the blessing of this single-mindedness
and with it seeks the unsurpassed way,
p.280saying, “I will gain comprehensive wisdom
and exhaust all the states of meditation!”
If this person for a hundred, a thousand,
ten thousand, a million kalpas
should carry out these meritorious practices
as I have described above,
still those good men and women
who hear me describe my life span
and believe it for even a moment
win blessings that surpass those of such a person.
If a person is completely free
of all doubt and regret,
if in the depths of his mind he believes for one instant,
his blessings will be such as this.
These bodhisattvas
who have practiced the way for immeasurable kalpas
when they hear me describe my life span
are able to believe and accept what I say.
These people will
gratefully accept this sutra, saying,
“Our wish is that in future ages
we may use our long lives to save living beings.
Just as today the world-honored one,
king of the Shakyas,
roars like a lion in the place of enlightenment,
preaching the Law without fear,
so may we too in ages to come,
honored and revered by all,
when we sit in the place of enlightenment
describe our life spans in the same manner.”
If there are those profound in mind,
pure, honest, and upright,
who, hearing much, can retain it all,
who follow principle in understanding the Buddha’s words,
then people such as this
will have no doubts. -- LS Chapter 17

Nichiren teaches, quoting the Lotus Sutra:

“If there are good men or good women who... believe and revere it with pure hearts and harbor no doubts or perplexities, they will never fall into hell or the realm of hungry spirits or of beasts, but will be born in the presence of the Buddhas of the ten directions.”

and

"Though one might point at the earth and miss, though there be one who binds the heavens, though the tides would cease to ebb and flow, and the sun rise in the west, it could never happen that the prayers of the devotees of the Lotus Sutra would go unanswered. If the bodhisattvas, the human and heavenly beings, the eight kinds of nonhuman beings, the two sages, the two heavenly deities, and the ten demon daughters would by some unlikely chance fail to appear and protect the practitioner of the Lotus Sutra, then above them they would be showing disdain for Shakyamuni and the other Buddhas, and below they would be guilty of deceiving the beings of the nine realms.

It makes no difference if the practitioner himself is lacking in worth, defective in wisdom, impure in his person, and lacking in virtue derived from observing the precepts. So long as he chants Namu-myoho-renge-kyo, they will invariably protect him. One does not throw away gold because the bag that holds it is dirty; one does not ignore the sandalwood trees because of the foul odor of the eranda trees around them; and one does not refuse to gather lotuses because the pond in the valley where they grow is not clean. If they ignore the practitioner of the Lotus Sutra, they will be going against their vow."

Illarraza