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Chanting Growers Group (2013-∞)

Weird

Weird

3rd-Eye Jedi
Veteran
It is the same with a Buddha and an ordinary being. When deluded, one is called an ordinary being, but when enlightened, one is called a Buddha. This is similar to a tarnished mirror that will shine like a jewel when polished. A mind now clouded by the illusions of the innate darkness of life is like a tarnished mirror, but when polished, it is sure to become like a clear mirror, reflecting the essential nature of phenomena and the true aspect of reality. Arouse deep faith, and diligently polish your mirror day and night. How should you polish it? Only by chanting Nam-myoho-renge-kyo.
Click to expand...


---> https://www.nichirenlibrary.org/en/wnd-1/Content/1
 
Weird

Weird

3rd-Eye Jedi
Veteran
The Lotus Sutra says: “If there are good men or good women who, on hearing the ‘Devadatta’ chapter of the Lotus Sutra of the Wonderful Law, believe and revere it with pure hearts and harbor no doubts or perplexities, they will never fall into hell or the realm of hungry spirits or of beasts, but will be born in the presence of the Buddhas of the ten directions, and in the place where they are born they will constantly hear this sutra. If they are born among human or heavenly beings, they will enjoy exceedingly wonderful delights, and if they are born in the presence of a Buddha, they will be born by transformation8 from lotus flowers.”9 The phrase “good women” is found in this passage of the sutra. If it does not refer to the deceased, Myōhō, then to whom does it refer? The sutra also states, “This sutra is hard to uphold; if one can uphold it even for a short while I will surely rejoice and so will the other Buddhas. A person who can do this wins the admiration of the Buddhas.”10 My p.192praise of your mother counts for little, but the sutra says that she “wins the admiration of the Buddhas.” Thinking, “How encouraging, how encouraging!” you should apply yourself earnestly to faith. Nam-myoho-renge-kyo, Nam-myoho-renge-kyo.
Click to expand...

---> https://www.nichirenlibrary.org/en/wnd-1/Content/21
 
SoCal Hippy

SoCal Hippy

Active member
Veteran
"Therefore, when once we chant Myoho-renge-kyo, with just that single sound we summon forth and manifest the Buddha nature of all Buddhas; all existences; all bodhisattvas; all voice-hearers; all the deities such as Brahma, Shakra, and King Yama; the sun and moon, and the myriad stars; the heavenly gods and earthly deities, on down to hell-dwellers, hungry spirits, animals, asuras, human and heavenly beings, and all other living beings. This blessing is immeasurable and boundless."

(How Those Initially Aspiring to the Way Can Attain Buddhahood through the Lotus Sutra - The Writings of Nichiren Daishonin, Vol.1, page 887)
 
SoCal Hippy

SoCal Hippy

Active member
Veteran
T’ien-t'ai states, "By observing the fury of the rain, we can tell the greatness
of the dragon that caused it, and by observing the flourishing of the lotus
flowers, we ca tell the depth of the pond they grow in." Miao-lo says, "Wise men
can perceive the cause of things, as snakes know the way of snakes." When the
skies are clear, the ground is illuminated. Similarly, when one knows the Lotus
Sutra, one understands the meaning of all worldly affairs.

(WND 376)
 
Weird

Weird

3rd-Eye Jedi
Veteran
The Buddha’s teachings, however, are various, perhaps because people’s minds also differ greatly. In any event, Shakyamuni Buddha taught for no more than fifty years. Among the teachings he expounded during the first forty and more years, we find the Flower Garland Sutra, which says, “The mind, the Buddha, and all living beings—these three things are without distinction”; the Āgama sutras, which set forth the principles of suffering, emptiness, impermanence, and non-self; the Great Collection Sutra, which asserts the interpenetration of the defiled aspect and the pure aspect;1 the Larger Wisdom Sutra, which teaches mutual identification and nonduality; and the Two-Volumed, Meditation, and Amida sutras, which emphasize rebirth in the Land of Perfect Bliss. All of these teachings were expounded specifically for the purpose of saving all living beings in the Former, Middle, and Latter Days of the Law.
Nevertheless, for some reason of his own, the Buddha declared in the Immeasurable Meanings Sutra, “[Preaching the Law in various different ways], I made use of the power of expedient means. But in these more than forty years, I have not yet revealed the truth.” Like a parent who has second thoughts about the transfer deed he wrote out earlier, Shakyamuni looked back with regret upon all the sutras he had expounded during the previous forty and more years, including those that taught rebirth in the Land of Perfect Bliss, and declared that “though immeasurable, boundless, inconceivable asamkhya kalpas may pass, they will in the end fail to gain unsurpassed enlightenment [through these sutras].”2 He reiterated this in the “Expedient Means” chapter of the Lotus Sutra, saying, “Honestly discarding expedient means, I will preach only the unsurpassed way.” By “discarding expedient means,” he meant that one should discard the Nembutsu and other teachings preached during those more than forty years.
Having thus undoubtedly regretted and reversed his previous teachings, he made clear his true intention, saying, “The World-Honored One has long expounded his doctrines and now must reveal the truth,”3 and “For long he p.77remained silent regarding the essential, in no hurry to speak of it at once.”4 Thereupon Many Treasures Buddha sprang forth from beneath the earth and added his testimony that what Shakyamuni had said is true, and the Buddhas of the ten directions assembled in the eight directions5 and reached with their long broad tongues to the palace of the great heavenly king Brahmā in testament. All the beings of the two worlds and the eight groups, who were gathered at the two places and the three assemblies, without a single exception witnessed this.
In light of the above sutra passages, setting aside evil people and non-Buddhists who do not believe in Buddhism, with regard to those who, though Buddhist believers, have devout faith in provisional teachings preached before the Lotus Sutra such as the Nembutsu, and devote themselves to reciting it ten, a hundred, a thousand, ten thousand, or as many as sixty thousand times a day without chanting Nam-myoho-renge-kyo even once in the course of ten or twenty years, are they not like a person who, clinging to the transfer deed already nullified by his parent, refuses to accept its revised version? They may appear to others as well as to themselves to have faith in the Buddha’s teachings, but if we go by what the Buddha actually taught, they are unfilial people.
This is why the second volume of the Lotus Sutra states: “But now this threefold world is all my domain, and the living beings in it are all my children. Now this place is beset by many pains and trials. I am the only person who can rescue and protect others, but though I teach and instruct them, they do not believe or accept my teachings.”6
Click to expand...
---> https://www.nichirenlibrary.org/en/wnd-1/Content/10
 
Weird

Weird

3rd-Eye Jedi
Veteran
The Heritage of the Ultimate Law of Life


Written by Nichiren

Background
I HAVE just carefully read your letter. To reply, the ultimate Law of life and death as transmitted from the Buddha to all living beings is Myoho-renge-kyo. The five characters of Myoho-renge-kyo were transferred from Shakyamuni and Many Treasures, the two Buddhas inside the treasure tower, to Bodhisattva Superior Practices, carrying on a heritage unbroken since the infinite past. Myō represents death, and hō, life. Living beings that pass through the two phases of life and death are the entities of the Ten Worlds, or the entities of Myoho-renge-kyo.
T’ien-t’ai says that one should understand that living beings and their environments, and the causes and effects at work within them, are all the Law of renge (the lotus).1 Here “living beings and their environments” means the phenomena of life and death. Thus, it is clear that, where life and death exist, cause and effect, or the Law of the lotus, is at work.
The Great Teacher Dengyō states, “The two phases of life and death are the wonderful workings of one mind. The two ways of existence and nonexistence are the true functions of an inherently enlightened mind.”2 No phenomena—either heaven or earth, yin or yang,3 the sun or the moon, the five planets,4 or any of the worlds from hell to Buddhahood—are free from the two phases of life and death. Life and death are simply the two functions of Myoho-renge-kyo. In his Great Concentration and Insight, T’ien-t’ai says, “Arising is the arising of the essential nature of the Law, and extinction is the extinction of that nature.” Shakyamuni and Many Treasures, the two Buddhas, are also the two phases of life and death.
Shakyamuni Buddha who attained enlightenment countless kalpas ago, the Lotus Sutra that leads all people to Buddhahood, and we ordinary human beings are in no way different or separate from one another. To chant Myoho-renge-kyo with this realization is to inherit the ultimate Law of life and death. This is a matter of the utmost importance for Nichiren’s disciples and lay supporters, and this is what it means to embrace the Lotus Sutra.
Click to expand...


---> https://www.nichirenlibrary.org/en/wnd-1/Content/29
 
Weird

Weird

3rd-Eye Jedi
Veteran
In your letter you ask, “What is signified by the Thus Come One Many Treasures and his treasure tower, which appeared from beneath the earth?” The teaching on the treasure tower is of great importance. In the eighth volume of his Words and Phrases of the Lotus Sutra, the Great Teacher T’ien-t’ai explains the appearance of the treasure tower. He states that it has two distinct functions: to lend credence to the preceding chapters and to pave the way for the revelation to come. Thus the treasure tower appeared in order to verify the theoretical teaching and to introduce the essential teaching. To put it another way, the closed tower symbolizes the theoretical teaching, and the open tower, the essential teaching. The open tower reveals the two elements of reality and wisdom.1 This is extremely complex, however, so I will not go into further detail now.
In essence, the appearance of the treasure tower indicates that on hearing the Lotus Sutra the three groups of voice-hearers perceived for the first time the treasure tower within their own lives. Now Nichiren’s disciples and lay supporters are also doing this. In the Latter Day of the Law, no treasure tower exists other than the figures of the men and women who embrace the Lotus Sutra. It follows, therefore, that whether eminent or humble, high or low, those who chant Nam-myoho-renge-kyo are themselves the treasure tower, and, likewise, are themselves the Thus Come One Many Treasures. No treasure tower exists other than Myoho-renge-kyo. The daimoku of the Lotus Sutra is the treasure tower, and the treasure tower is Nam-myoho-renge-kyo.
Click to expand...

https://www.nichirenlibrary.org/en/wnd-1/Content/31
 
SoCal Hippy

SoCal Hippy

Active member
Veteran
How wondrous it is that, around two hundred years and more into the Latter Day
of the Law, I was the first to reveal as the banner of propagation of the Lotus
Sutra this great mandala that even those such Nagarjuna and Vasubandhu,
T'ien-t'ai and Miao-lo were unable to express. This mandala is in no way my
invention. It is the object of devotion that depicts Shakyamuni Buddha, the
World-Honored One, seated in the treasure tower of Many Treasures Buddha, and
the Buddhas who were Shakyamuni's emanations as perfectly as a print matches its
woodblock.

(WND, 831)
The Real Aspect of the Gohonzon
Written to Nichinyo on August 23, 1277
 
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