The Lotus Sutra: Its Spiritual Significance
The Lotus Sutra has gained enormous popularity in East Asia over the centuries because it offers a vision of universal salvation and the hope of eternal life. Other than for chanting purposes in some tradition, its teaching is not widely known. In our Western culture we see images of Kuan-yin virtually everywhere, though people may not be familiar with “her” significance as the Bodhisattva or Goddess of Mercy. Statues are popular as decorations in homes, gardens, restaurants, etc. In our community she is venerated particularly at the KoonYum temple nearby Foster Garden and at the :Palolo Kannonji temple. Even in Pure Land tradition she is the personification of the compassion of Amida Buddha. Many have noted the resemblance between Kuan-yin and the Virgin Mary. During the Christan persecutions of the Tokugawa era in Japan, the Virgin Mary was disguised as Kannon (Kuan-yin) who performs much of the function that the Virgin does for Christians.
Kuan yin as the “Goddess of Mercy,” works in the cosmos on behalf of all living beings. Her virtues are described in chapter twenty-five of the Lotus Sutra. She hears and sees the cries of the world. Long popular throughout Asia, she has made her way West. This illustration shows how interrelated our world is. Since ancient times an unceasing flow of ideas and hopes have moved east and west.
The Lotus Sutra itself has sometimes been called the “New Testament of Asia” and comparisons have been made with the Gospel of John focussing on the issues of the universality of salvation and the hope of eternal life. However, the Lotus Sutra is an expression of Mahayana Buddhism which evolved out of the long history of Buddhism and it has had influence in the lives of hosts of people in China, Tibet, Mongolia, Korea, Japan, extending to the West where there are now several translations available.
The text began to take shape from about 100 BCE. and has been translated into many languages. In Buddhist devotions and rituals, it has been read faithfully for some 2,000 years. It is also a source of philosophy, as well as religious faith. Actually, it is a compilation of texts comprised of twenty eight chapters created by unknown authors. It offers many themes and parables which have contributed to its popularity.
A major reason for the popularity of the Sutra lies in its emphasis on lay people.They are described as the good men and good women or as bodhisattvas or Buddhas-to-be. Together with its missionary perspective, the Sutra declares the principles of universal salvation and eternal life.
The teaching on universal salvation has as its background various divisions of early Buddhism. According to the principle of universality, all beings ultimately and equally attain the enlightenment of Buddhahood, despite the fact that individuals may follow paths suited to their own character and spiritual need. It is a way of proclaiming the ultimate unity of all religion in the face of diversity. The Sutra relates that even Devadatta; who is something on the order of Judas in the Christian tradition, as the symbol of a very evil person, will finally gain Buddhahood. According to the Sutra, Devadatta was a teacher of Sakyamuni in past lives, but as the cousin of Gautama Buddha in his lifetime, he suffered from envy and conspired either to kill Buddha or take over the Order. There are many legends surrounding him. But the Sutra indicates that ultimately, as a result of his good karma from that distant past, even he will be enlightened, giving hope to even the most evil person.
Another interesting illustration of the universality of enlightenment is the account of the Buddhahood of the Naga or Dragon king’s daughter. On the occasion when Buddha taught at the home of her father, she instantly believed the Buddha’s message and was immediately transformed to a Buddha. Buddha's disciples were amazed and questioned what happened on the ground that the instantaneous attainment of Buddhahood is impossible, seeing how long aeons of time it had taken for Sakyamuni himself to attain it. They were also disturbed that a woman would be able to become Buddha, since in Indian and early Buddhist teachings, women were barred from enlightenment for many, many aeons of time until they were reborn as men. To attain enlightenment instantaneously was simply unbelievable for them. With these vivid stories and teachings the Lotus Sutra brought hope into the lives of countless numbers of people in Asia who were destined for occupations considered low, menial or impure. Women held particularly low status in patriarchal Asian cultures.
Not only does the Sutra teach the universality of enlightenment, but it also proclaims the principle of faith. In chapter two, enlightenment and Buddhahood are assured to all those who aspire for it whether they express it in establishing great stupas, images or monasteries or even so much as scratching an image of Buddha on a wall or at play making a stupa of sand. It teaches that it is one’s aspiration and intention that is primary and not the form which may vary by skill or wealth.
As a Mahayana Sutra, the text constantly contrasts its ideal with the earlier Hinayana (smaller vehicle) followers who aspired merely for Nirvana and a passionless life of salvation for oneself. The Mahayana (the larger vehicle) is always presented as the way of compassion by which bodhisattvas strive for the enlightenment of all others besides themselves.
Another prominent feature of the Sutra related to the principle of Universality of Salvation is its educational theory. Mahayana Buddhism is a great missionary religion. The principles we have outlined were intended to be shared. It is the bodhisattva”s task to bring joy and release into the lives of people by revealing their true destiny. They attempt to abolish fear and anxiety, by revealing the truth of reality. They tell us who we are when we are blind to our own potential. This teaching also appears in other Mahayana Sutras. The principle is called hoben in Japanese or upaya in the Sanskrit. It is a truly compassionate view of human relations and guidance.
According to chapter 2 of the Sutra, the Buddha teaches people according to their ability and stage of development. It is a theory which recognizes individual differences and sees education as a process of growth, of building on the spiritual progress each person may gain going stage by stage. It is similar in principle to our graded school system.
It is important to note that in Mahayana Buddhism wisdom and compassion are inseparable. We often talk about people being wise, because they have some special knowledge or insight. However, Mahayana Buddhism makes it clear that there cannot be true wisdom without compassion. Wisdom will never be in contradiction to compassion. For Mahayana Buddhism all knowledge and wisdom has the goal of enhancing life and guiding beings to enlightenment. Therefore, wisdom has compassion as its essence, and compassion guides by wisdom. There are many people who seek to be wise; from the Mahayana standpoint, it is necessary also to become compassionate.
In order to ground the philosophy and teaching of the Sutra, chapter sixteen declares that the Buddha is really eternal. He has always been enlightened and will never become extinct. Thus the universality of enlightenment is based on the eternity of the Buddha whose life is the foundation of the cosmos. This teaching, in later times, evolved into a grand vlsion of the universal Buddha-nature where all things, including rocks and sticks and all forms of beings, are essentially manifestations of Buddha and where all beings are destined for enlightenment. In order to explain the earlier teaching of Buddhism that Gautama had become enlightened and taught forty years before entering Nirvana, the Lotus Sutra indicates that this was merely a device, an upaya, in order to stimulate spiritual search among those ancient people. Buddha, as the absolute life of the universe, can take any form in order to guide beings to enlightenment. Thus, whatever has transpired in Buddhist history or in aeons before or after is all essentially due to the working of the all-embracing Cosmic Buddha. In this thought the eternal life of all beings is the same as the eternal life of the Buddha.
The eternal life Buddha is the essential nature of all things. Through faith we become aware that we are part of that eternal life bound together with all other beings. Eternal life is our true nature. The view is reminiscent of the poem quoted by Apostle Paul from Cleanthes in the New Testament. God is that reality in whom we live and move and have our being. These are but a few of the more prominent religious principles that have made the Lotus Sutra very important in Buddhist history and philosophy,/as well as world religion.
However, because the missionary and educational function of the Sutra looms large, we should pay some attention to the vivid parables that illustrate in striking ways the teachings of Mahayana Buddhism. In all, there are some seven or eight major parables in the text. The most famous is that in chapter three concerning the burning house. The image of the world as a burning house goes far back into Buddhist history, even before Mahayana. The world of passion is always a raging inferno. In this story a father attempts to rescue his children from their fiery home. They are playing with their toys and do not notice the looming threat because of their distractions. In order not to panic them or hurt them, he lures them out with the promise of various kinds of toy carts which they each desired. Once they are out, he gives them each an ornate bull cart even more handsome than what he originally promised. While the story is meant to show the Buddha as a wise father who guides beings to enlightenment, it highlights particularly the contrast between the three-vehicles or diverse paths in Buddhism and the “One&;rdquo way taught by the Lotus. Its central theme is the principle of upaya and compassion. It is interesting that the father rejects the use of force to rescue them. Though perhaps unrealistic in some ways in our everyday world, it does indicate that in spiritual matters, at least, coercion is to be avoided.
The second story in chapter four is the account of a prodigal son, much like the New Testament story. The son went away from home and wasted his resources. He desired to return home and seek help from his father. In the intervening years his father had become very wealthy and powerful, so much so that when the son came to his home, he did not recognize it as his father’s. The father, however, recognized him and secretly sought to help the son recover his dignity and develop his character until the point when he could reveal that he actually was his father.
It is in many ways a touching story, reflecting again the Mahayana awareness of the integrity of the person, rejection of fear and anxiety and its educational philosophy of drawing the potentiality out of the person. In the end, the father revealed to everyone the true status of his son and turned his estate over to him. It is interesting that the son, despite his new-found position, did not change his character. Rather he lived humbly as before. It suggests that achievement of spiritual capacities and status should not encourage any sense of superiority in the religious person.
In chapter five we have an eloquent parable based on the monsoon rains. This story portrays the Buddha as a great rain cloud which fertilizes and stimulates the growth of the many diverse plants in the world. The rain falls equally on all things (as Jesus said, the rain falls on the just and the unjust alike.); they, in turn, grow, according to their natures and potentials. It argues for equality and individual differences, and for the creative power of the Dharma.
Another perspective is offered in the story of the man born blind. Being unable to see he does not believe the reports of those who see things in the world. Finally, he is cured by a skillful doctor and fmds the reports were true. However, his joy in being able to see physically made him proud that he could now see as well as others. He was then shown by sages that there was yet a deeper vision beyond the mere physical. In the application of the story, the blindness from birth relates to ordinary people blinded by their passions and attachments to the deeper realities of human life. However, the Buddha offers a yet deeper Dharma to overcome the superficiality of these views.
The story suggests that though we overcome blindness of one sort or another we may yet suffer from a deeper blindness. Self complacency and self-satisfaction, the great disease of the spirit. Buddhism possesses a critical spirit that challenges us to see the blindness in our sight.
Chapter 7 relates an interesting story of a group of travellers who must climb up a very difficult road in order to reach a place where many jewels were hidden. However, the road was so difficult that the guide felt compassion toward them. Through his magic power he conjured up a great city where they could rest. After resting, the guide makes the city vanish, and the travellers set out on their arduous path once again. While the parable intends again to demonstrate that the Hinayana (small, narrow vehicle, the opposition to Mahayan) teaching is merely a way-station on the road to Buddhahood, it makes an educational point, suggesting that when we travel toward some ultimate goal, it is necessary also to have secondary and or proximate goals in order to encourage development and a sense of progress. In education, as well as spirituality, we must help people see progress in their virtues and abilities or they lose heart. Also as with the man born blind, there is always something more toward which we should aim
&srquo;s house where he got drunk and went to sleep. The friend, however, had to leave on business before his companion woke up. Knowing he might be in need, he sewed a gem inside his coat. When the man awoke, he went about trying to find food and clothing and make a living unaware of the gem. Later, he met his old friend who chided him on his plight, because he had sewn the gem in his coat. He showed him the jewel with which he could satisfy all his needs. Though the story is very earthy, as profound parables are, it is basically telling us that we are generally unaware of our true natures or potentials. We are like the man in the drunken stupor. He went about thinking he was poor when he was actually rich. It is Buddhism's message that we are more than we think we are.However, a facet of the story suggests that the poor man would not have learned of his wealth except through his friend. The good friend in Buddhism is an important concept and relationship. We do not live in isolation, and we cannot grow unless we have fellowship and assistance from others. This is the context for understanding the principle of Other Power in Buddhism. It is not a belief in divinity or external power, but the interdependence of all beings which makes possible our lives and growth. Along with the educational ideal implicit in the Sutra, the role of the good friend is the basis of education. Education often becomes a contest or game between student and teacher. True education does not take place merely when there is a teacher and a student in a school building. Rather, it is a process that is realized when two friends share their insight.
The second major parable is the Eternal Life based in the chapter on the Eternal Buddha. It attempts to explain the relation between the historical Sakyamuni&rsquqo;s 40 year career of teaching and the eternity of the Buddha. In his explanation Buddha narrates the story of a physician father who, in order to cure his sons from a form of madness, offers them medicine, but they will not drink it. The father then goes to a foreign country on a trip and sends word back that he has died. The sons in their grief take the medicine and are cured. Thereupon, the father returns. He has always been alive, but had to make the sons confront his death, in order to get them to take the necessary medicine.
The point of the story is that Sakyamuni’s limited career was a device of the Eternal Buddha to arouse spiritual endeavor. In Buddhist meditation the contemplation of impermanence is the preliminary stage of spiritual development. The sense of change and loss in life make us look deeper into the nature of life and dispel passionate attachments. Emancipation from passion makes possible greater spiritual development.
However, it also suggests that spiritual existence is more than mere obsession with impermanence and negative abandonment of passion. That is only the first stage. The deeper stage is to recognize not only impermanence but emptiness as the nature of things and through emptiness the essential identity of all things. In Buddhism it is Emptiness which makes Wisdom compassionate and compassion wise. In probing the depth of existence we become aware of the eternal.
In many different ways the Lotus Sutra bids us to take up the spiritual search for wisdom and compassion. It challenges us through the teaching of universal salvation and eternal life to believe we are more than we think we are. It calls us to transcend our complacencies and see through our attachments and delusions by recognizing the Emptiness of all things. We have only touched the surface of the richness of this text, but we hope it might be sufficient to encourage you to look into it for yourself.
Translations
Leon Hurvitz, Scripture of the Lotus Blossom of the Fine Dharma. N.Y.: Columbia University Press, 1976, pp. 421.
Bunno Kato, et. aI., The Threefold Lotus Sutra. N.Y./Tokyo: WeatherhilllKosei, pp. 383.
H. Kern, The Saddharma-pundarikaor Lotusof the True Law, SacredBooksof theEast XXI. Oxford: 1909 (N.Y., Dover Publication),pp. 454.
Senchu Murano, The Sutra of the Lotus Flower of the Wonderful Law. Tokyo: Nichiren-shu Headquarters, 1974.
