Revolutionary Dharma: The Teachings of the Lotus Sutra 1
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This is Part 1 of a two-part summary of a longer OMS course led by Zuisei Goddard on the foundational Mahayana text, the Lotus Sutra. Listen as Zuisei delves into this foundational Mahayana text, which uses the language and imagery of poetry and myth to set forth radical teachings that turned the traditional understanding of the Buddha’s dharma on its head and influenced many of the important schools of Buddhism, and now we benefit from its teachings..
Zuisei explores the Lotus Sutra’s central themes of universal buddhahood (we are all, without exception, nascent Buddhas), the importance of skillful means, the necessity of faith and devotion on the path, and the reality of the Buddha as not just a historical figure who lived and taught and died, but a universal principle of enlightenment. Going on to look at the seven parables that give life to these teachings, Zuisei brings the wisdom of the Lotus Sutra back to the here and now of our lives and the path to freedom that is always right beneath our feet.
This dharma talk, Revolutionary Dharma: The Teachings of the Lotus Sutra 1, was given by Zuisei Goddard. Scroll below for video, audio, and transcript.
Transcript
This transcript is based on Zuisei's talk notes and may differ slightly from the final talk.
Revolutionary Dharma:
The Teachings of the Lotus Sutra 1
Buddhist Studies Class
Welcome to this Lotus Sutra Study, which I’d like to begin with this quote from Bill Waldron, a professor of Indian and Tibetan Buddhism:
Poetry, literature, and art all convey recurrent human truths, albeit expressed in constantly changing forms, that we seldom mistake for universally valid scientific formulas. Religious languages, too, convey the distilled wisdom and compassion of human experience through the centuries, yet are often couched in symbolic images and stories that require their own distinctive modes of interpretation, more akin to poetry and art than to science or mathematics.
We can recognize that this kind of religious language is what the Lotus Sutra uses—it is more akin to poetry and art than to science or mathematics. It makes use of myth, rather than of fact—historical fact. Why? Why, unlike the suttas of the Pali Canon, this quintessentially Mahayana Sutra uses so much metaphor, so many parables. Another way of asking this is what are the problems the sutra is trying to solve that it can’t do in a logical, discursive way?
For those of you joining us for the first time, the Lotus Sutra was first discovered in the first century BCE in the city of Kashgar in Central Asia, now China. The most common version we use today is based on a Chinese translation of a Sanskrit version by the monk and scholar Kumarajiva in the fifth century CE. The text was most likely compiled in three sections: Chapters 2–9 during the first century BCE; Chapters 1, 10, 11 and 13–22 during the second century CE; and Chapters 12, 23–28 roughly around 150 CE. So the whole thing took about 250 years to write in its entirety, which is quite a bit of time for the teachings contained in it to be formulated and developed.
And what are these teachings? Why is the Lotus Sutra relevant for us today? All of us, without exception, are trying to be happy and not suffer. All of us are trying to not feel pain, and more importantly, to not experience the suffering that accompanies it. So those of us who come to practice, generally do so looking for a way to not suffer, and finding that way, we maybe decide to stay with it, to make it a central aspect of our lives.
What is Dukkha?
Last week, after spending some time with my fellow Buddhist teachers, I was reminded that those of us who decide to dedicate our lives to the dharma, do so because we think it’s the most effective way to put an end to the suffering we identify in ourselves and in the world. Those of us who’ve placed the buddhadharma at the center of our lives have done so out of faith that it can present us with a lasting solution to the problem of our persistent dissatisfaction—dukkha. We know, from our study and practice that the reason this dissatisfaction exists, is because of clinging.
It’s because we want what we don’t have, we have what we don’t want, and what we have, we can’t keep. That’s the suffering that comes from clinging, and the suffering that comes from impermanence. But there’s also the dissatisfaction that comes from believing in this self as a fixed, independent agent. Why is that unsatisfactory? Because somewhere deep down we think that we’re in control of our lives, but we’re not. If it were true, then we should be able to experience only what we want to experience, what is beautiful and pleasing and joyful. If we were to truly be able to act independently of everything else, then we should not be affected by what happens to other beings, what happens in other places. We should be able to choose our lives, always.
But that’s not what happens, is it? Instead, we’re subject to causes and conditions, most of which are beyond my control. If I’m an anxious person, for example, chances are I’m not choosing to be anxious. Being anxious is not what I want to be. Maybe as a child I was often left alone—those were some of the causes and conditions for my anxiety—and not knowing what was happening, not knowing whether I’d be safe, I grew fearful and restless, and then I carried that fear into adulthood. It’s not my fault that I’m anxious, but it is my responsibility since it will shape how I act in the world. Because of causes and conditions, and because I’m not in control of these, I experience things I don’t want, things I don’t like and wouldn’t choose—all the time, and so I suffer… and then I die. Which seems like a very bad deal, a terrible deal, if you’re into making deals. Life sucks and then you die. It’s not all bad, of course, but I often don’t get what I want, and I know I’m going to die, so that’s very disappointing.
The thing is, this isn’t a deal, nobody signed a contract, and there’s no fine print we failed to read. This is the wheel of samsara: the endless round of rebirths in which we’re trapped because of our greed, anger, and ignorance—the three poisons that Buddhism says power that wheel, particularly ignorance, since it drives the whole thing. When we don’t understand, we act out of our confusion, and that just keeps the wheel rolling. The reason we’re trapped, not just in this life but from one life to the next, is because of karma, because of cause and effect. There is in the world an inexorable law: every single cause is followed by an effect. You can’t have one without the other—would you agree?
Can you think of any cause that isn’t followed by an effect? For a cause to be called a cause, there must also be an effect and vice versa. It’s not even that one leads to the other; it’s that they are completely interdependent, mutually arising. Now, according to Buddhism, death doesn’t cut off this causal chain. The causes and conditions of this life carry over into a new life, even though the person who experienced those causes and conditions does not. It’s like turning off a light switch. When you flip off a light, the electrical circuit opens, interrupting the flow of electrons moving through the wires, but the potential energy, the electricity, remains. It never just disappears. Energy is neither created nor destroyed; it can only be transformed.
Similarly, death flips the switch on this life, Zuisei or Vanessa’s life, but the energy behind that life, its driving force, continues into the next—unless something happens to shut off the circuit, and that’s what we call nirvana (the unconditioned or the unbinding). It’s the complete stopping of the “outflows,” as Early Buddhism calls the taints of greed, anger, and ignorance. It’s only nirvana or nibbana that is completely free of causes and conditions, that stands outside the chain of dependent origination, and even outside of time. It transcends cause and effect, and is a realm that’s totally ineffable, yet when experienced, it’s also a state of utter peace and happiness, utter freedom.
[stay with me here; we’ll get to the Lotus Sutra soon]
The Birth of the Lotus Sutra: Already a Buddha
In Early Buddhism, three types of beings can attain nibbana: An arhat can attain nibbana with or without remainder. They can reach cessation of the taints—they stop desiring and getting angry and confused—but they’re still alive and operating from that place of wisdom, or they attain nibbana when they die and they’re not reborn, ever again. This is the ultimate goal. This is the holy grail—to be completely, utterly free from suffering and the round of rebirths. The second type of being is a pratyekabuddha, a solitary buddha, who attains nirvana but doesn’t really share it with others, a bodhisattva who, in Early Buddhism, is really just a buddha-to-be. It’s the step before buddhahood. There’s also a third kind of being called a samyaksambuddha, who attains nirvana spontaneously, but they’re so rare that there’s only ever once per era—Shakyamuni being the prime example, and it needs to be male, since the Buddha was a man. We’ll leave that aside for now
So, the problem is we suffer, that the reason is our clinging, mainly, but the good news is we don’t have to and that there’s a path. However, it’s a long an arduous path, and the way it was laid out originally, it really made it seem as if only monastics would be likely to complete it. In fact, at the time that the Lotus Sutra began to be written, various different Buddhist schools had popped up, and with them all kinds of internecine wars about each of their goals and practices, about who could attain enlightenment and how.
Bringing it close to home, so you can understand what was going on, imagine that the Dalai Lama came out and said, Zen is not an authentic Buddhist school, you don’t have the Buddha’s true dharma. All this quiet sitting that you do, and this koan practice—that’s not authentic teaching. It’s only yidam practice—visualization of a chosen deity—that can take you to liberation. What do you think would happen? Zen teachers everywhere would pop up and argue against that. They’d find ways to prove that our way, our practice, our realization is just as authentic as the Buddha’s, and they’d pull out examples from the Zen texts. Well, that’s what happened when a group of—most likely—Chinese monks began to write the Lotus Sutra.
As these debates were happening about the various vehicles and their conduciveness to enlightenment—the pratyekayana, the sravakayana, the bodhisattvayana—and the arguments about whose was the true dharma and whose wasn’t, and about whether you had to be a monk and a man to really get anywhere on the path, these Chinese monks were quietly compiling the Lotus Sutra with its revolutionary teachings. Actually, the sutra says, there’s only one vehicle, the ekayana and it’s buddhahood. There is only one dharma, which the Buddha teaches through all sorts of skillful means (upaya) and it is in essence that all of you, without exception, will become buddhas. Not only that—because you’re listening to this teaching of the Buddha, and because the Buddha only teaches bodhisattvas, that means you, right now, are already a bodhisattva.
So, you don’t have to be a monk, you don’t have to be learned, you don’t have to sit for hours and days and weeks, you just have to be devoted. All you have to do to realize yourself and attain liberation is completely revere the Lotus Sutra. If you do that wholeheartedly, you’ll realize its true teaching which, in case you missed it, is that you’re already on the path to buddhahood. When we say in Zen that we’re not sitting to become buddhas, but we’re sitting as buddhas—as the expression of our inherent awakening—we owe that teaching, in great part, to the Lotus Sutra. As we owe to it the teaching that samsara is nirvana.
There’s nowhere else you’ll find this ultimate peace. This transcendental realm? It’s actually right here, now. If that’s not revolutionary, I don’t know what is. The Lotus Sutra radically upended the Buddhist teachings, which were already radical to begin with. Instead of starting with the three poisons of greed, anger, and ignorance and then having to scrabble your way to buddhahood through a lot of effort and practice, we begin with buddhahood and work to unpeel its truth in our lives. It’s a very hopeful message, a very joyful message, and whenever you read or listen to particularly teachers speaking about the Lotus Sutra, this is what they all say: it’s a very hopeful, very compassionate teaching.
…you, right now, are already a bodhisattva.
I’ve told the story of a friend and fellow practitioner who, at an AA meeting, heard another participant say, “I know I’m broken” and thought, Nah, I don’t know about that. This isn’t for me. Then he came to Buddhism and someone said, “You’re perfect and complete, lacking nothing. You just need to realize that,” and he thought, I’m home.
But, if we’re all already buddhas, why is it so hard to see that? This too, is a problem the Lotus Sutra is trying to address, because it’s saying:
It’s not hard. It’s just that the teachings you heard before were not the true teachings. They were helpful, but not the Buddha’s authentic teachings, and so you were confused. These are the teachings you want to pay attention to. And all you have to do to realize them is embrace, read, recite, copy, and preach the Lotus Sutra. But if you’re pressed for time, just chant. Just chant its title, Namu Myoho Renge Kyo, and you’ll be set.
In addition to these central themes of universal buddhahood, of the importance of skillful means, of the necessity of faith and devotion on the path, the Lotus Sutra also establishes the Buddha as a cosmic, timeless principle. The reason the Buddha can teach all of those millions of bodhisattvas and bring them to realization even though Shakyamuni only taught for forty years, is that, in truth, the Buddha has always been here, will always be here, always teaching. So we move from this historical figure who lived and taught and died, to this universal principle of enlightenment—which is no longer something that we do, but something that we’re destined to experience by calling on the Lotus Sutra, which is also the embodiment of the Buddha.
That’s why faith is so important here. We trust that we might be deluded now, but through our practice and devotion we’ll come to realize the buddhahood that’s always been present. Faith itself becomes a manifestation of Buddha nature. It may seem a bit foreign to us Zen students, but to a Tendai practitioner, or to a Nichiren practitioner, or even to a Pure Land practitioner, it’s not foreign at all. Just because we can’t relate to a teaching doesn’t mean it’s neither true nor skillful for someone else. Like the parable of the medicinal herbs, where one rain nourishes all the different kinds of plants and herbs, the one dharma takes on all these different kinds of forms to bring beings of different capacities, different dispositions, to enlightenment. We don’t have to like or agree with a teaching to respect it, to appreciate it.
I had a couple of wonderful conversations, one with a Tendai priest, another with a Shin Buddhist priest, and I saw and heard and felt their utter dedication to the dharma, their faith in the Buddha’s teaching, and their compassionate vow to use it to alleviate the suffering of all beings. How wonderful that we live in a place and time where I can do my thing and they can do theirs! How wonderful that all these different streams flow from the one source.
Since I mentioned the parable of the medicinal herbs, let me lay out the seven parables in the Lotus Sutra. To me, the sutra’s greatest power is in its stories.The teachings it offers are momentous enough, but it’s the stories that people remember. You may never read the Lotus Sutra, but if you’re a Buddhist practitioner, and if you practice long enough, at some point you’ll encounter one of these stories. Over time, they’ve become completely woven into the Buddhist teachings, and that’s a good thing.
To make use of these stories in your life, think of these parable as stories, not so much about what the Buddha says about the dharma, but about what the dharma says about us, about the human condition. Why does the sutra use simile and parable, imagery and a kind of magic almost, to communicate the teachings? To get our attention.
You can bring your spreadsheet mind, your conventional, logical mind to the Lotus Sutra, but from the very first chapter you’re going to be struck with the fact that there’s something else going on with this text and that your spreadsheet mind, although helpful for science and mathematics, is not so helpful here. Same thing with all of the koans you’ll ever do, those of you who might take up koan study. You can think and evaluate and edit and compare all you want, but that won’t help you to see what you need to see. It certainly won’t free you.
The seven parables in the Lotus Sutra are:
“The Burning House”
“The Wealthy Father and Poor Son” (sometimes known as “The Prodigal Son”)
“The Medicinal Herbs (Rain of the Dharma)”
“The Magic City”
“The Jewel in the Robe”
“The Precious Pearl in the Topknot”
“The Excellent Physician”
Chinese commentators sometimes add two more stories. They split the parable of the medicinal herbs into two: the rain clouds that represent the Buddha and his one teaching, and the medicinal herbs which stand in for all the various disciples with their different capacities and inclinations. The other is the simile of the person digging for water in the dessert, in Chapter 10. They dig into the sand, and at first it’s all dry, but they don’t give up because they know water is near. They keep digging, and slowly the hole begins to get damp, and they know they’re nearing water. The treasure, buddhahood, is always present, so we have faith and persevere until we see it. It is there, yet some work is required to uncover it
Skillful Means & The Burning House
In “The Burning House,” a father tricks his sons into leaving a burning house by offering them bigger and better carts than the ones they’re playing with. The burning house, which is already falling apart and is also filled with demons and ghosts, is of course our world, it’s our lives, the world of samsara. Consider for a moment what it feels like when you’re filled with doubt, with jealousy, with anger or resentment. Doesn’t it feel like you’re being eaten alive? Those are the demons, and they’re not outside. All the horror stories humans have written and produced—they’re expressions of what we carry inside our hearts, inside our minds. But even without the extremes, the house is burning, as the Buddha famously said in the “Fire Sermon” (Adittapariyaya Sutta):
The eye is burning, the ear is burning, the nose is burning, the mind is burning, ideas are burning… burning with what? With the fire of greed, the fire of anger, the fire of ignorance.
There they are again—the fetters that keep us bound to samsara. So, leaving the house is leaving the world of samsara for the world of nirvana. Leaving the house is reaching the unbinding.
The Buddha, in the form of the father, is calling out to all of us to awaken from the dream, but like the kids, we’re too entranced by our toys, and so we ignore the teachings. The carts the kids are playing with are the provisional vehicles of the arhats, the pratyekabuddhas, and the bodhisattvas, which get replaced with the one true buddha vehicle. The good news is that the father is also in the house, the Buddha is here, in samsara, and he uses skillful means to get the kids’ attention. He “tells the children what they want to hear” and this is how he gets them go get out of the burning house. As is true not just here but in some of the early sutras as well, the Buddha asks his monks, Is the Buddha lying when he tricks his children? Shariputra says, No, he’s simply using skillful means to save the children’s lives.
It’s important here to stress that the sutras aren’t justifying unethical behavior. They’re not encouraging teachers to lie to their students. They are pointing to the difficulty of helping those who are sometimes so asleep that you can’t get them to wake up. You can’t force them; you can only encourage them. As is true of any parent, it’s hard to watch your children struggle. It’s hard when you see them choose their toys because you know the cost of that choice, but you can’t make it for them. You have to trust, and you have to do everything you can to guide them out of the house, or into their inheritance, as the parable of the poor son makes clear.
A teacher does indeed need to use all manner of skillful means to get her students to pay attention, to listen to the teachings, and to put them into practice. Sometimes you have to be mother, entertainer, cheerleader, cop—all rolled into one. Sometimes you have to tell the children what they want to hear, so that they’ll listen to what you have to tell them.
The Path Home & The Prodigal Son
In the “The Prodigal Son,” arguably the most famous in the Lotus Sutra, is a type of archetypal hero’s journey. There’s a quest, there’s overcoming obstacles, and there’s the change in the end. This parable appears in the chapter called “Belief and Understanding” in the Burton Watson translation, but would be better translated as “Faith and Understanding.” In Nichiren Buddhism, where the Lotus Sutra is the main text, faith is equal to practice. It’s not blind belief, but trust in the dynamic, harmonious nature of the universe and is expressed through the Daimoku, the chanting of Namu Myoho Renge Kyo. The implication is that the son gets lost, goes wandering, and takes a long time finding his way back home. When he gets home, at first, he doesn’t recognize it. There’s something operating underneath, something that’s not even conscious at first, and that’s the trust that he’ll end up where he needs to be, that coming home is possible and always within reach.
The spiritual quest is really a returning. We feel we’re lost, we feel we don’t belong or have become separated from something fundamental. I think anyone who’s paying attention feels this at some point. We’re living and working and doing our thing, but deep down we feel so alone, so disconnected. We think, Is this it? This can’t be it. Does anyone else feel what I feel? In this parable, the son personifies everything that keeps us bound: He’s afraid, he’s insecure, he’s deeply, deeply doubting of himself and his capacity. When his father recognizes him and tries to give him the fortune that he deserves that is his, the son freaks out. He thinks this powerful man is coming to imprison him and he’s so scared, he faints.
Think of this moment as the moment in which your self freaks out once you start to get really quiet. Your zazen has deepened to such a point that you’re beginning to forget yourself, but a part of you gets scared, doesn’t recognize your inheritance, and not recognizing it, balks. Your body jerks and brings you out of your samadhi or your mind starts jabbering nonstop, spewing nonsense so that the self can reassure itself it’s still there, still alive and well. Or this is like the moment in which Bodhisattva Never Disparaging says to someone, “I’d never dare disparage you because you too are a buddha!” and the person, instead of rejoicing, gets angry! They get offended: “How dare you make such an irresponsible prediction? Get out of here!” How dare you tell me I’m a buddha? How dare you give me such responsibility? I don’t want it! I’m not up to the task—not me. Sometimes we’d rather just keep playing with our toys, then we can just claim ignorance if there’s a shakedown. The son works for years in the father’s stables, shoveling manure because that’s the job he thinks he’s cut out for. How can you tell me to love myself? How can you tell me to offer myself loving-kindness? I’m angry, I’m petty, I’m jealous, I’m confused. I don’t deserve that love—I want it, desperately, but I don’t think I deserve it.
Years ago, when a group of Western teachers met with the Dalai Lama, the conversation turned to the prevalence of low self-esteem and self-hatred among practitioners, particularly in the US and Europe. At one point the Dalai Lama turned to his translator and they went back and forth, back and forth, then His Holiness turned to the group and asked:
“Low self-esteem? What’s this?”
The teachers explained that, in general, we don’t regard ourselves very highly, and so, deep down, we don’t think we deserve what we have.
His Holiness was so surprised!
He said, “But why? You’re all buddhas!”
One interesting point is that the parable never states why the son runs away from home in the first place. I think it doesn’t need to be said, since running is what we do until we become acquainted with and accept our buddha nature. The reason we need practice and realization is because of our strong tendency to run away, to not want to face what is difficult to face.
In 2014 a researcher at the University of Virginia did an experiment. He asked just over forty participants to sit in a bare room without cell phones or any other form of distraction or entertainment. They had to sit in the room for fifteen minutes and they had a choice to do nothing, or they could administer a mild electric shock to themselves. At the beginning of the experiment, they tested this shock, and all the participants said they’d rather pay money than experience it again. But when it came to the actual experiment, 67% of men and 25% of women chose to shock themselves rather than sit alone with their thoughts. One man shocked himself 190 times in the space of fifteen minutes! That is the challenge that we teachers face—we’d rather hurt than be quiet and still.
Conclusion
My faith in the dharma is deep and abiding, so when I stumble, I right myself and return to what I know, which is practice and realization. Which is the dharma and my capacity to practice it.
Explore further
01 : Coming Home with Zuisei Goddard
02 : Free Will and Karma with Zuisei Goddard
03 : Faith in Zen with Zuisei Goddard
Revolutionary Dharma: The Teachings of the Lotus Sutra 1, a dharma talk by Zen Buddhist teacher Zuisei Goddard. Video, audio, and transcript available.