(II) Revolutionary Dharma: The Teachings of the Lotus Sutra 2
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This is Part 2 of a two-part class led by Zuisei Goddard on 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.
In this talk, Zuisei continues to explore the Lotus Sutra's seven parables, which, like mirrors, reflect the trials and possibilities of being human. She unpacks their teachings on buddha nature, skillful means, and the jewel each of us carries without knowing it. That is to say, we can’t practice to attain liberation; we can only practice to realize it’s always been there. Along the way, she asks what it would mean to let this potent teaching thread itself through everything we do and how we might live if we grasped that it all boils down to just this: Love.
This dharma talk, Revolutionary Dharma: The Teachings of the Lotus Sutra 2, 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 from the final talk.
Revolutionary Dharma:
The Teachings of the Lotus Sutra 2
Buddhist Studies Class
Welcome to our closing session of our Lotus Sutra Study, a journey we’ve taken through the sutra’s many teachings. Last class I gave an overview of the Lotus Sutra, placing it in its historical context and speaking of its importance for our school. I also spoke of two of the seven parables in the sutra, the “Parable of the Burning House” and the “Parable of the Lost Son.” In one sense, to do these justice, you could devote a whole class to each, at least, but barring that, we’ll do our best with the time we have, since I also want to give you a chance to ask questions about the chapters we didn’t cover in as great detail as before.
Just as a reminder, the main teachings of the Lotus Sutra are its introduction of the teaching of the One Buddha Vehicle, the Buddhayana, the establishment of complete enlightenment as the goal, as opposed to arhatship or attainment of nirvana, and it says that all beings are able to access that enlightenment. It says the Buddha is timeless, and that all other buddhas are manifestations of this one eternal Buddha.
Now, let me continue where we left off with the parables, restating that these parables are like mirrors. They show us to ourselves, and show us the difficulty of living as human beings, and also the opportunity, the possibility we have of making this a better dream, a good dream, as my teacher once said, given that we all are dreaming it. Each of these stories is saying something about who we are, and about who it’s possible for us to become.
The Third Parable: The Medicinal Herbs
The third parable is that of the “Medicinal Herbs,” in which the Buddha compares himself to a rain cloud, raining down dharma and nourishing various kinds of plants, shrubs, and herbs. It says, “What falls from the cloud is water of a single flavor, but the plants and trees, thickets and groves, each accept the moisture that is appropriate to its portion.” I mentioned in our last class that it’s from the Lotus Sutra that we get the teaching that the dharma has one taste, one flavor, and yet is able to satisfy all kinds of beings. Please note that it doesn’t say that all beings will like the teaching. It doesn’t say that all will agree with it, but for those wanting to put an end to suffering, it will offer the right antidote.
This is a good point to keep in mind. What is the measure of a teaching? That it’s attractive, that it’s comfortable or easy to practice? Not necessarily, but it should meet the need of the one who’s seeking. That’s why it’s helpful to know what it is we’re looking for when we start to practice.
At the monastery, the Guardian Council, a group made up of senior students and monks, had the task of asking these questions of prospective students: Why do you practice? Why do you practice here? Why now, at this moment in your life What do you hope practice will give you? Everyone once in a while, the person couldn’t answer. They weren’t clear about what was driving them, and the Guardian Council would say, Let’s wait. Spend some time clarifying what it is you’re looking for, because otherwise you’ll drop this the moment things get hard, the moment it doesn’t meet your expectations. They gave me a hard time, in fact. I think my answers were very intellectual at first, until one moment when, desperate, I blurted out something like, I have to, I just have to practice, and I need help. Then they let me pass through that gate.
The Buddha’s teaching was said to meet students where they were. Like loving-kindness, it falls on all beings equally, those who observe the precepts and those who break them, the sutra says, those who have correct views and those who have erroneous views. In other words, the dharma doesn’t discriminate between high and low, right and wrong. It just is. Whether we’re open to hear it and receive its nourishment is another story, but it has nothing to do with our capacity, our intelligence, our virtue, or anything else. It doesn’t matter what you’ve done—if you’re willing to let this rain nourish your roots and branches, your trunk and leaves, it will.
Here the skillful means do change a little. Instead of the Buddha adjusting his teaching, it’s the students who work to receive this one-flavored rain. This is where we meet the dharma, instead of trying to change it to suit our preferences, which is easy to do in our dharma-shopping age. Someone doesn’t like a practice, they just switch it for another. Sometimes it’s necessary to try different things to see what’s the best fit—what style of practice we’re most likely to actually do. We also lose something when we’re not willing to face what’s more challenging.
I was reflecting on the power of monastic training, monastic living, to chip away at our shopping mind. When you live and train in a monastery, your preferences take the back seat to the community’s harmony and well being. You eat the food that’s served to you, you follow the schedule as it’s laid out, you do the jobs that you’re given to do. Sometimes you like those jobs, sometimes you don’t, but like and dislike is not the point; the point is to bring yourself wholeheartedly to each task, each activity. When you do this, you begin to see that your preferences get in the way of your happiness, which seems contradictory. If I know what I want, and I work to get what I want, then I should be happy, right? It’s that very chasing after what we like and pushing away what we dislike that causes us troubles and anxiety, the pleasure and aversion, the chasing and pushing away.
At the same time, you don’t have to give up your preferences either. You just don’t take them so seriously, and when you don’t, you can move freely through your days, doing what needs to be done and finding fulfillment and satisfaction there. If we apply this to our practice of the dharma, it means that we keep working to meet the dharma as it is, not as we like it. We don’t change our zazen practice every time we start to get bored or restless. We trust that if the teacher has given us a practice, it’s for a reason—that they see it is what we need and that they trust we have the capacity to do it.
So, we do bring our own capacity and skill to the study and practice of the dharma, but we also let go of our preference for Dharma on Demand. This is an ancient tradition, and although innovating to keep it current and relevant is necessary and skillful up to a point, reinventing the dharma in our own image is not. How do we know the difference? Practice and experience, trial and error—and trust. A whole lot of faith in the dharma and in yourself.
All the various paths, various skillful means need not contradict themselves if they’re based on the one true dharma. The fact that I prefer to sit in silence doesn’t negate another’s preference for chanting the daimoku or for doing a visualization. What we each want, and what we’re relying on, is liberation—the complete release from suffering. How we get there is less important than that we do.
The Fourth Parable: The Magic or Phantom City
In the “Parable of the Magic City (or Phantom City),” we have another more paired down version of the hero’s journey. The first was the “Parable of the Lost Son,” now we have the “Magic City.” The Buddha is telling the story to his millionfold audience and he says, I was teaching them about nirvana, but because I know that people “delight in petty doctrines” and would rather stick to sense pleasures, to teach them, I use skillful means. Then he tells them the story of the magical city.
A group of seekers is traveling through a bad stretch of road, a steep and difficult road, lonely and fearsome. The group starts to falter when they begin complaining and saying they want to give up. Maybe they doubt that the road they’re on is the right one. Maybe they wonder if they can get to where they’re going, and whether it’s even worth it. The leader of the group says, No, no, don’t give up—there’s a city up ahead. We can eat and rest there, we’re almost there. He conjures up a city out of nowhere.
Just like all our various forms: becoming a student, taking the precepts… It’s one of our challenges as teachers to keep students engaged, to keep them inspired. Ultimately, each of us must do this for ourselves, because the teacher won’t always be there. But, this is part of our work—to know what might help a student persevere. There are those who don’t need any markers, any recognition, or encouragement. They’re going to keep going, no matter what. They do what they do for the love of it and nothing else. But these are few. Most of us will get discouraged at some point, and then it’s nice to have a little help.
So this is what the guide does, but then the group starts to get a little too comfortable:
This city is great, they say, Let’s just stay here. The Buddha says, No, no, there’s more. Now that you’ve gotten your second wind, you have the strength to continue, so let’s keep going because we haven’t arrived.
For some students, the magic city is a task. You give them a task that will challenge them and let them rise up to the occasion. For some, it’s is a well-timed word. They just need a little bit of encouragement, an acknowledgment that what they’re doing is working, and all they need to do is keep going. Some students you leave alone and let them figure it out, let them get to the magic city by themselves. There’s no recipe for this, and sometimes you make mistakes— So you acknowledge that, Well, that didn’t work, and keep going, try again.
Sometimes it’s necessary to try different things to see what’s the best fit—what style of practice we’re most likely to actually do.
In this parable, we can understand it on one level as the Buddha showing his concern that his students won’t grasp the ultimate teaching, so he creates steps along the way for them to work their way up to liberation. If arhatship is what you’re after, go for it, but know that there’s more.
On another level, we can understand the parable to be describing the path itself. Very few people go from samsara to nirvana in an instant. It does happen, but it’s rare. Most of us need to work our way into it. First we rely on external forms, and gradually we gain strength internally, from our own practice and realization, until we reach a point when we realize we’ve arrived. We’ve arrived because we were never not there. Still, we must take step by careful step until we can see, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that each step contains the whole path.
We can also see in this parable the three principles of great doubt, great faith, and great determination. The travelers are unsure, and the guide says, No, trust, you’re almost there. They must have determination to keep going and not give up when it gets a little difficult.
The Fifth Parable: The Jewel in the Robe
The setting here is the Buddha has just given 500 arhats a prophecy of enlightenment, and delighted, they say to the Buddha, We used to think we’d attained wisdom, but now we see our mistake. They thought that becoming arhats was the goal, but then the Buddha says, No, you can become perfectly enlightened.
And so the arhats say, We were mistaken, just like a man who, visiting a friend, got drunk on wine and fell asleep. And as he was sleeping, his friend sewed a jewel into the sleeve of his robe. But he didn’t know about it, so off he goes wandering the world, going through all sorts of hardship, until he meets his friend again by chance, and the friend says, What are you doing?! You didn’t have to go through all this trouble. Didn’t you see you had a jewel in your sleeve the whole time?!
Once again, there’s a bit of a dig toward the Theravadins—you think you’ve arrived, having attained arhatship but no, all along you had this jewel in your robe, your buddha nature, and now you can realize it and put it to use.
We can also understand this in another way: The man’s drunkenness is delusion, and very simply, any moment in your life in which you doubt yourself. A moment in which you can’t see, can’t touch your own capacity, let alone your perfection. In those moments, if someone told you, “You have a jewel in your sleeve,” would you believe it? Would you even listen? That “drunkenness” is very real, just as delusion in all its forms is very real. Maybe we’re drunk on insecurity, or on jealousy, or rage that feels so real, so all-encompassing, that even if our whole robe were made of jewels, we wouldn’t be able to use them.
One of our koans says:
A monk once said to Master Caoshan, “I am poor and destitute. I beg you, O, Master, please help me and make me rich.” Caoshan said, “Venerable!” “Yes, Master?” the monk replied. Caoshan said, “Having tasted three cups of the best wine of Qingyuan, do you still say that your lips are not yet moistened?”
You think you’re poor and destitute, but look again. You’ve drunk the best wine and still, you say your lips are dry. You have everything you need and still, you say you lack so much.
What we each want, and what we’re relying on, is liberation—the complete release from suffering. How we get there is less important than that we do.
What happens in that moment when something shifts, do you ever wonder? One moment you’re completely enmeshed, completely in the throes of an emotion or a difficult thought, and in the next moment something happens and POOF! It’s gone. I think of the Buddha saying to Angulimala, “I’ve stopped Angulimala, it’s you who hasn’t stopped.” Does everyone know the story of Angulimala? It’s the Buddha’s words, “I’ve stopped; now you stop,” that wake up Angulimala. Or the moment when Kisagotami brings her dead baby to the Buddha and asks him to bring it back to life and he says, Sure, just bring me a mustard seed from the house of someone who hasn’t died. She goes from house to house until she realizes that there isn’t anyone in the whole world who hasn’t been touched by death, who hasn’t known death, and in that moment, she recovers her mind. As I said in the previous parable, sometimes it’s a word, sometimes it’s an action, sometimes it’s a gesture offered at the right time that snaps you back to yourself.
I remember once really struggling with something. I can’t remember the details but I remember the feeling, I was very stuck. So I went to my bookshelf and picked out Shantideva, and I opened The Way of the Bodhisattva to a random page. Whatever I read brought me back to me, as if I’d brought the problem to my teacher and he’d said exactly what I needed to hear. Except this time it was Shantideva, speaking to me across the centuries.
Shantideva, who said:
May I be an isle for those who yearn for land,
A lamp for those who long for light;
For those who need a resting place, a bed;
For all who need a servant, may I be their servant.
May I be the wishing jewel, the vase of plenty,
A word of power and the supreme healing,
May I be the tree of miracles,
And for every being the abundant cow.
Not only do I have that jewel—I am that jewel myself.
The Sixth Parable: The Precious Pearl in the Topknot
“The Precious Pearl in the Topknot” is similar, but has a slight twist. In this story the Buddha is a great Wheel-turning King—in Buddhism the perfect, universal worldly ruler who rules by justice and dharma. In fact, when the Buddha was born, a sage prophesied that he’d become either a great spiritual ruler or a wheel-turning king. His father really hoped it would be the second, though it didn’t turn out that way. This Wheel-turning King rewards his soldiers with treasure every time they win a battle, but he saves the most excellent treasure, the jewel hidden in his top knot, for only the most excellent merit, and this jewel is, of course, the Lotus Sutra.
In Buddhism, the topknot has great significance. On one hand it represents the long hair of the nobles, which Siddhartha cut off when he left home and became a renunciant, but in Buddhist iconography, the topknot or ushnisha is one of the thirty-two marks of a buddha, so it distinguishes a buddha from other beings In many representations, the Buddha is shown with a jewel in his topknot, known as the cintamani, the “wish-fulfilling jewel.”
This theme of giving an offering recurs in the sutra, right? Here the jewel is the Lotus Sutra itself, the most special gift, and the Buddha only preaches it to those who are ready for it. Those who aren’t ready will criticize it, they’ll try to demean it and say it’s not a true teaching which just shows how valuable it really is. It’s a little like that reverse psychology that says the more you charge for something, the more valuable it becomes. The Buddha says he’s guarded the Lotus Sutra “through the long night,” and now, finally, he gives it to Manjushri, the bodhisattva of wisdom.
So there’s a very interesting dynamic that gets established with the Lotus Sutra. On one hand, it offers a popularizing practice—anyone can do it, regardless of class, intelligence, position, time, ability. On the other, the sutra keeps referring to itself as a very special teaching, as the ultimate teaching, reserved for those who can understand and receive it. It is both. To practice and realize the teachings of the sutra, you don’t need great learning. You do need enough trust in yourself and in the dharma to be open to it.
In his commentary, Thich Nhat Hanh says this:
The Buddhas and bodhisattvas have great powers of concentration. When these beings dwell in great samadhi, full of the energy of understanding and compassion, the words they speak or the sounds they produce become dharanis.
Any sound, any word—even a single phrase or verse from a sutra, such as the Lotus Sutra or the Heart Sutra—that is produced in a state of great concentration has the power to transform.
A dharani is a verbal formula that holds the meaning of a teaching, so it’s a kind of mnemonic that is thought to contain power, regardless of whether it has meaning—many dharanis don’t have meaning. They’re just sounds or syllables that nevertheless have power, particularly protective power. It’s similar to a mantra, but longer, usually. Here Thich Nhat Hanh is saying that when a buddha speaks, or a bodhisattva speaks, their words become dharani, and therefore their words can transform. This is how, reciting with great concentration Namu Myoho Renge Kyo—“Respect for the Sutra of the Lotus Flower of the Wonderful Dharma”—can change you, as at least one person I know would attest.
The Seventh Parable: The Excellent Physician
Finally we have the “Parable of The Excellent Physician.” It appears in the chapter of the Buddha’s limitless lifespan, where we learn that, more than just a historical person who was born, lived, and died, the Buddha has been teaching for countless eons, and will continue to do so, endlessly. It’s like the Buddha was playing at living and dying for the benefit of those who can’t fathom his limitlessness, then he shares the parable:
A physician had many, many kinds of medicines, but while he was away working, his children drank poison. A few of the children recognized the father and took the medicine readily, but others were too poisoned to see clearly, so they refused. Seeing this, the father goes away, telling his children that he’s dying. I’ll leave the medicine here, he says, You should take it. Then he sends a messenger to say that he died, and the children are so shocked, that they come to their senses and take the medicine.
It’s a strange parable, at first glance. But when someone is in the throes of delusion, perhaps only a shock like that will bring them back to their senses. The Buddha’s taking a chance—the children could have died while he was gone. But they were going to die anyway if they didn’t take the medicine. So he sends a shocking message, and in an instant, they wake up.
Jan Nattier, a professor who focuses on Mahayana Buddhism, says that the Lotus Sutra is a “leap philosophy,” which says that liberation is not the result of a long process of practice and cultivation, but something that happens instantaneously the moment we realize we’ve always been liberated. You can’t practice to attain liberation; you can only practice to realize it’s always been there. This should sound very familiar to us in Zen, since it’s exactly the stance that the school takes. In a moment we go from delusion to enlightenment, from samsara to nirvana. In fact, we don’t go anywhere, delusion is simply seen through as enlightenment, samsara as nirvana.
You can’t practice to attain liberation; you can only practice to realize it’s always been there.
Hakuin, a Japanese Zen master (1686–1769), struggled for a long time with the Lotus Sutra, but he kept at it, studying it and studying it despite his doubts. One night, as he was studying, he heard a cricket chirping and had a sudden-realization experience, and all his doubts about the sutra and everything else were laid to rest. So keep at it—maybe it’ll happen to you!
There’s another reason for the parable. The Buddha said that if he told everyone from the beginning his lifespan was immeasurable, they wouldn’t be inspired to practice, because they wouldn’t know how rare it is to encounter a Buddha. So, like the physician, he feigned his death, and only tells us he’s eternal when he feels we can hear the teaching and use it well. This new Buddha is therefore the universal principle of enlightenment, always present in the world. If you struggle with the Lotus Sutra’s teachings, think of Master Dogen, who in one of his fascicles said, “Do you turn the Lotus Sutra, or does the Lotus Sutra turn you?” Further, if we are it, this question becomes moot.
Practices of the Lotus Sutra
Remember that the five practices delineated in the Lotus Sutra are to:
embrace and uphold its teaching, having faith in it
read it continuously, to deepen your understanding and faith
recite it or chant it silently or aloud, from a book or memorized
expound it, teaching its meaning to others
copy, as a meditative practice and as a way to preserve the teachings
In these five ways, you make the sutra living teaching, an ever-present teaching in your life, threading itself through everything that you do. What would that be like, to have your mind focused on this instead of worry or doom scrolling, or gossip or just vegging out or shutting down, arguing? To have your mind focused on one thing, one thing with the power to transform at least your way of seeing the world?
In some Buddhist schools, there’s a tradition of chanting chapter 25 of the Lotus Sutra, which focuses on Avalokiteshvara, the “Hearer of the Cries of the World.” It’s a chapter that’s thought to grant protection, like the dharanis. Protection from war and conflict, from floods, from famine, you name it. Rev. Myokei Caine-Barrett, a Nichiren priest—the first woman of Japanese descent and the only Western woman to be ordained as a priest—says that one of the practices of Nichiren Buddhism is to read one chapter of the Lotus Sutra each day, so that once a month, you read the whole text. You do that every day, every week, every month of every year of your life. When you do, she says, “it's like a snake in a tube whose life automatically straightens up.” Chanting we develop the heart that says, I see you. I’m with you. I am you. We do this through our zazen, and also our chanting, which takes a different form.
Let me also offer you this quote by Jacqueline Stone, one of the writers of Two Buddhas Seated Side by Side, which is one of the commentaries I’ve been using in my own study of the sutra:
What I tell my students is that any practitioner-believer, someone involved in a tradition—whether consciously or not—is involved in a process of “hermeneutical triangulation,” as we might call it. They are continually having to negotiate between the received tradition and the social, political, and historical circumstances in which they live. At any moment, some parts of the received tradition are going to speak more powerfully, more cogently, than others. Other elements that perhaps were important in the past may now become marginalized; still others may be interpreted in novel ways. Practitioners are continually involved in this process. The more conscious one is of engaging in it, the more effective new adaptations of tradition are likely to be.
By necessity, each of us will interpret a teaching based on what we’re living at the time, and the more deliberately, the more aware we can be as we do this, the better for the tradition. Otherwise we’re changing things based on our preferences, not the needs of the people practicing. But there is, always, a process of reinterpretation, there has to be, otherwise a teaching dies.
Conclusion
To end, let me share with you this wonderful fact I found out about recently: I came upon an article that said that Thoreau translated the Lotus Sutra from French back in 1844. Emerson had introduced him to South Asian and East Asian philosophies, and Thoreau became very taken with them, so when excerpts of it were published in Emerson’s journal, The Dial, by an anonymous author, everyone thought it was Thoreau. Then I came upon another article that corrected the misconception, and the title was “Anonymous Was a Woman—Again.” It wasn’t Thoreau who translated the Lotus Sutra, it turns out, but Elizabeth Peabody, an American educator, writer, and translator who created the first English translations of the text, back in the 19th century.
Thoreau did say in one of his writings some years later:
I know that some will have hard thoughts of me, when they hear their Christ named beside my Buddha,” Thoreau wrote a few years later, “yet I am sure that I am willing they should love their Christ more than my Buddha, for the love is the main thing, and I like him [Christ] too.
Love is the main thing. Ultimately, that’s the main point of the sutra, though it doesn’t spell it out. Or does it?
Watch or listen to the talk for the following important points in chapters 14-28:
Lifespan of the Tathagata, Bodhisattva Never Disparaging, Medicine King-immolation, Avalokiteshvara, Dharani, Samantabadhra
Explore further
01 : (I) Revolutionary Dharma: The Teachings of the Lotus Sutra 1 with Zuisei Goddard
02 : Buddhist Study at Ocean Mind Sangha with Zuisei Goddard
03 : Angulimala translated by Thanissaro Bhikkhu
Revolutionary Dharma: The Teachings of the Lotus Sutra 1, a dharma talk by Zen Buddhist teacher Zuisei Goddard. Video, audio, and transcript available.