"Buddha to Buddha" EP. 1: What is the Lotus Sūtra?
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- Опубліковано 8 лют 2025
- QUESTION 1:
“WHAT IS THE LOTUS SŪTRA?”
&
QUESTION 2:
“WHAT IS THE ‘ESSENCE’ OF THE LOTUS SŪTRA?”
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Thank you 🙏
Magnificent. Thank you.
Another fabulous episode! Thank you ❤🙏
Wonderful video. Thank you 🙏
Gassho Sensei,
Ooh love it! I have questions! 1
What is the basic view of the pure land Dharma door in Tendai ? 2. How do Tendai laypersons practice the pure land Dharma door and how so his different from the way monastics do it?
I would have liked to ask a similar question (n.1), thank you!
Great questions! I've put them on the list 👍
Wonderful video Jikai sensei. It has helped me elucidate some of the Lotus Sutra and see things in a different light. Now I have a small question: If Buddhahood is assured, what is the point of practice in this life?
Thank you.
This is a great question, and by no means small :) I'm thinking of making a video addressing this in detail (perhaps with a word on the often misunderstood doctrine of Original Enlightenment). But for now, I'll try to provide some useful food for thought on this issue. Keeping it simple for now, remember that we heard: 唯佛與佛乃能究盡諸法實相 or "Only a Buddha together with a Buddha can fully fathom the True Characteristic of all dharmas.". We touched a little bit on how there are layers to this passage: i.e. first seeing this as an exaltation of Buddhahood that excludes you; then coming to see that the Buddha teaching you (who are also a Buddha), is “a Buddha together with a Buddha” etc. One of the layers that we looked at was touched on in passing at 37.26 . That is, when the Buddha tells you that you will become a Buddha, if you believe Him when he says this, notice what occurs in yourself: you presently, imagine the Buddha you will become in the future. Importantly, the Buddha you will become one day, also looks back on the you now, knowing that everything you did was essential to his Buddhahood. If he removed you from his career, he would not be a Buddha ‘now’. He therefore sees your life (which is an irremovable part of his Buddhahood), as all of his Buddhahood.
BUT, don’t lose the context of all of this: it is ONLY between “a Buddha together with a Buddha” that the “true characteristic of all dharmas is understood”. If on hearing the Buddha say “you will become a Buddha”, you stop practising, then there is no “Buddha together with [a future] Buddha”. Unpacking this, would take more than this short comment, but simply put: it is only ‘within the frame’ of “a Buddha together with a Buddha” that any of this is meaningful. This is in part why the Lotus Sutra stresses ‘faith’. If you do not ‘believe’ the Buddha when he says “you will become a Buddha”, then there is no “Buddha together with a Buddha”. And if you don’t practise (i.e. continue the causal chain which brought you to hear the Buddhas word in the Lotus Sutra), then there is also no “Buddha together with a Buddha” (at least in the immediate).
If we look closely, there is another ‘layer’ working under all of this too though. That is, there are examples in the sutra of individuals who ‘do not believe’, and then later become Buddhas. And there are examples of individuals doing things which are not conducive to bodhi in a common-sense reading (i.e. not practising), who later become Buddhas. Keeping it simple, if a Buddha is able to help all beings because he “knows the experiences, predilections and capacities of all sentient beings”, this is because he has been all of them. Think even of your ‘unwholesome’ acts, experiences etc, within the frame of Buddhahood by asking the question: “In what context is this, something which a Buddha would need to choose/experience/understand?” Misunderstood and misapplied, this very important teaching leads to horrors; and understood and appropriately applied, this very important teaching leads to Buddhahood. This is why the Buddha spent so many years not teaching it, and telling us that it is "difficult to believe, and difficult to understand" :) And it is also why in the sutra He tells us:
《妙法蓮華經》卷1：「我始坐道場， 觀樹亦經行， 於三七日中， 思惟如是事， 我所得智慧， 微妙最第一。 眾生諸根鈍， 著樂癡所盲， 如斯之等類， 云何而可度？」(CBETA 2022.Q3, T09, no. 262, p. 9c4-8)
“The Sūtra of the Lotus Flower of the Sublime Dharma ” (Fascicle 1: Chapter 2: “Skilful Means”):
When I initially sat at the Place of the Way, contemplated [beneath] the tree and circumambulated it for a period of three times seven days, I reflected on such an issue: the wisdom which I attained is profoundly sublime and most supreme. All of the faculties of sentient beings are dull, attached to pleasures and blind with ignorance; [in the case of] such beings as these, how could they be liberated?
《妙法蓮華經》卷1：「我即自思惟： 『若但讚佛乘， 眾生沒在苦， 不能信是法； 破法不信故， 墜於三惡道。 我寧不說法， 疾入於涅槃。 尋念過去佛， 所行方便力， 我今所得道， 亦應說三乘。』」(CBETA 2022.Q3, T09, no. 262, p. 9c13-18)
“The Sūtra of the Lotus Flower of the Sublime Dharma ” (Fascicle 1: Chapter 2: “Skilful Means”):
I then thought to myself: “If I only praise the Buddha-Vehicle, sentient beings mired in suffering, will not believe this Dharma; and destroying the Dharma due to their disbelieving, will descend to the Three Evil Paths. I would prefer not to preach [this] Dharma, and quickly enter into nirvana. [I then] Reflected upon the power of skilful means cultivated by Buddhas of the past. The path which I now have attained should also be preached as Three Vehicles.”
🙏🙏🙏
Can you talk about chapter 25th of Lotus Sutra and what's you're understanding of it?🙏(Avalokiteshvara Chapter)
Thank you for the Request 🙏 I will add it to my list for a future episode.