illarraza wrote:Contrary to what the Soka Gakkai and Nichiren Shu teach, Nichiren did reject the Mahayana...
Such a thorough rejection, and yet he liberally quotes from these Mahayana Sutras... Of which the Lotus is one...
Curious.
He is far more systematic of his rejection of the Mahayana scriptures in his seminal work The Opening of the Eyes. He also teaches that ignorant persons living in this latter age of evil and confusion, should discard the Mahayana and devote themselves solely to the Lotus Sutra. Nichiren however was hardly an ignorant person. For him, the Mahayana scriptures were not a source of confusion. He could utilize them to his hearts content in order to refute them and use them to praise and validate the Lotus Sutra.
illarraza wrote:For him, the Mahayana scriptures were not a source of confusion. He could utilize them to his hearts content in order to refute them and use them to praise and validate the Lotus Sutra.
Oh, so, his views were more nuanced than your original statement suggests. Wow. Fancy that.
Illaraza blustering and overstating his case. Impossible.
There is no suffering to be severed. Ignorance and klesas are indivisible from bodhi. There is no cause of suffering to be abandoned. Since extremes and the false are the Middle and genuine, there is no path to be practiced. Samsara is nirvana. No severance achieved. No suffering nor its cause. No path, no end. There is no transcendent realm; there is only the one true aspect. There is nothing separate from the true aspect.
-Guanding, Perfect and Sudden Contemplation,
In effect, we may say that the main chord of the net, that which deals with the attainment of Buddhahood, is expounded in the Lotus Sutra, while the finer meshes of the net are made clear in the various other canonical texts. They function as finer meshes for the Lotus Sutra, and therefore it is perfectly proper to cite them as proof to support the validity of the Lotus Sutra. Moreover, because the reality of the attainment of Buddhahood is found only in the Lotus Sutra and the attainment expounded in the sutras preached prior to the Lotus exists in name alone, it is clear that the latter were preached solely for the sake of the Lotus Sutra. In this sense, these other sutras serve as proof of the validity of the Lotus Sutra.
Question: What proof is there that the Lotus Sutra is the main chord?
Answer: T’ien-t’ai says, “One should understand that this sutra [the Lotus] only sets forth the main chord of the Thus Come One’s teachings and does not go into details regarding the finer meshes.”6
Question: What proof is there that the pre-Lotus sutras represent the finer meshes?
Answer: Miao-lo states, “The skin, the complexion, the hair, the coloring—these are set forth in the various other canonical texts.”7
Question: What proof can you give that the attainment of Buddhahood is limited to the Lotus Sutra?
Answer: The Lotus Sutra states, “There is only the Law of the one vehicle, there are not two, there are not three.”8
Question: What proof can you give that the sutras preached prior to the Lotus were preached for the sake of the Lotus Sutra?
Answer: The Lotus Sutra states, “Though they [the Buddhas] point out various different paths, in truth they do so for the sake of the Buddha vehicle.”9
This sutra, the Lotus, is myō, or wonderful, in two ways. As a commentary states, “This sutra sets forth two kinds of myō.”51 One is the comparative myō, the other the absolute myō.
The term “comparative myō” means that the Lotus Sutra is being considered in comparison to the sacred teachings of the first four periods of the Buddha’s preaching life. The earlier teachings, those preached prior to the Lotus Sutra, are despised. These sutras preached prior to the Lotus Sutra are referred to as still limited, while the Lotus Sutra is referred to as all-encompassing.
The term “absolute myō” means that the sacred teachings of the Buddha’s lifetime are opened up and merged with the Lotus Sutra.
Again, the Lotus Sutra may be viewed from two aspects: one, that of what is opened up, and two, that of what is capable of opening up.
The passage in the Lotus Sutra on how the Buddhas “open, show, cause [living beings] to awaken to, and induce them to enter”52 the Buddha wisdom; the passage on how “all have attained the Buddha way”;53 or the word myō, or wonderful, that is implicit in each one of the 69,384 characters, the eight volumes and twenty-eight chapters of the entire Lotus Sutra—these are representative of the myō of the aspect that is capable of opening up. But persons who are in the habit of discussing the Lotus Sutra without fully understanding it merely gain the same type of benefit and advantage as from the sutras preached prior to the Lotus.
The teachings of the Āgama sutras are opened up and merged with the passage in the Lotus Sutra that states, “I use these nine devices, adapting them to the living beings when I preach, my basic aim being to lead them into the great vehicle.”54
The teachings of the Flower Garland Sutra are opened up and merged with the passage that reads, “In all the worlds the heavenly and human beings and asuras all believe that the present Shakyamuni Buddha . . .”55 The teachings of the Wisdom sutras are opened up and merged with the passage on the eighteen aspects of non-substantiality in the “Peaceful Practices” chapter.56
The teachings on rebirth in the World of Peace and Delight set forth in the Meditation Sutra and other sutras are opened up and merged with the passage in the Lotus Sutra that reads, “When her life here on earth comes to an end, she will immediately go to the World of Peace and Delight.”57
The teachings on how to practice with a distracted mind and still gain good roots58 are opened up and merged with the passage that reads: “[If persons with confused and distracted minds] . . . once exclaim, ‘Hail to the Buddha!’ then all have attained the Buddha way.”59 The teachings on all living beings are opened up and merged with the passage that states, “But now this threefold world is all my domain, and the living beings in it are all my children.”60 The teachings of the non-Buddhist texts are opened up and merged with the passage that reads, “If they should expound some text of the p.64secular world or speak on matters of government or occupations that sustain life, they will in all cases conform to the correct Law.”61
The passages regarding the opening up and merging of the teachings on rebirth in the Tushita heaven, and on attainment of enlightenment by beings in the human and heavenly realms, are so numerous that I will not try to cite them here.
Persons who do not fully understand this sutra, the Lotus, look at passages in the sutra that say that, if one reads the sutra, one will be reborn in the human or heavenly realms;62 they look at passages that speak of going to the Tushita heaven or the heaven of the thirty-three gods;63 or they look at passages that speak of rebirth in [Amida’s] land of Peace and Sustenance;64 and they suppose that though one may practice the teachings of the Lotus Sutra in this impure land of ours, and though its principles may be very admirable, one cannot hope thereby to reach the stage where there is no more regression in one’s progress to enlightenment. So they assert that one must continue to be reborn again and again for long ages in this impure land, hoping for the dawn of [Maitreya’s] appearance some 5,670 million years in the future; or they claim that, when one is reborn in the realm of animals or that of human beings, the process of rebirth blots out all memory of previous existences and hence one can never put an end to one’s sufferings. Still others object that the Lotus Sutra represents a type of self-empowered religious practice and hence is very difficult to carry out.
Errors of this kind in all likelihood come from a failure to distinguish between the two roads to salvation, that put forward in the sutras prior to the Lotus and that of the Lotus. Persons who propound such views not only lead themselves astray into the darkness of delusion, but they blind the Buddha eye of all living beings.
The idea that one should seek rebirth in the Tushita heaven is found frequently in the Hinayana sutras, and in a few cases in the Mahayana sutras as well. The idea that one should strive for rebirth in the Western Paradise is found in many Mahayana sutras. All these passages are examples of that which should be opened up and merged [with the Lotus Sutra].
But according to the teachings of the Lotus Sutra, the Tushita heaven is to be counted among the lands of the Buddhas of the ten directions, the Western Paradise too is none other than one of the lands of the Buddhas of the ten directions, and the realms of human and heavenly beings are none other than such lands. When the Lotus Sutra addresses evil persons, it speaks of the evil that is a part of the Ten Worlds, and assures them that, since evil persons too are endowed with the five types of vision, even the most evil of all persons are capable of being saved. When it addresses women, it assures them that women are endowed with the Ten Worlds and that women in any of the Ten Worlds can attain Buddhahood. So long as one, through the Lotus Sutra, sets one’s mind on the attainment of perfect and true enlightenment, one can never be dragged back into the nine realms of unenlightened existence by the power of karma.
Yes, Doc. Now we're talking. This explanation of the Lotus is so much more compelling than blanket condemnations. It's one thing to critique those who presumably ought to know this such as the learned monks of Nichiren's time. But people these days hardly know the name, let alone the power inherent in the name to open the True Aspect. We ought adapt to the times.
There is no suffering to be severed. Ignorance and klesas are indivisible from bodhi. There is no cause of suffering to be abandoned. Since extremes and the false are the Middle and genuine, there is no path to be practiced. Samsara is nirvana. No severance achieved. No suffering nor its cause. No path, no end. There is no transcendent realm; there is only the one true aspect. There is nothing separate from the true aspect.
-Guanding, Perfect and Sudden Contemplation,
