Queequeg wrote: ↑Fri Feb 02, 2018 12:39 am
Even the particular text of the Lotus as we know it is upaya. I have no problem with that.
Then it is not definitive and requires interpretation.
The Buddha actually asserts this in the Sutra. Its why Nichiren could collapse the Lotus, and the entire corpus of all teachings of the Buddhas, anytime, anywhere, into the title.
The practice of collapsing the meaning of texts into their titles is a pan-Indian hermeneutical device. It is not unique to Nichiren, nor even to Buddhism.
Its the name given to the Buddha's most sacred teaching at this time and place.
Such statements are statements of sentiment and not fact.
There is a definitive teaching. It finds expression in innumerable ways.
Those expressions cannot be definitive if they are innumerable. Since they are not definitive, the teaching they purport to express cannot be definitive either.