Stories of the Lotus Sutra - Chapter 24: Seen With Joy by All the Living

[Bion]

pexels-miguelconceicaofotografia-28824473.jpg Hello, everyone. I hope your Monday is going well and that you had a great weekend.
We continue to sail this ship of ours towards the shore, turning a new page in our book. Or better said, a new chapter.

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Reading Assignment: Chapter 24 - Seen With Joy by All the Living

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I do not doubt that this chapter will bring up some strong emotions and give rise to some tough questions. I considered whether to include a real, historical image of what this chapter is about. I will not, however, though I think our absolute duty, as followers of the Buddha, is not to turn our heads away from mortality, impermanence, suffering, and death.

Take your time reading this chapter and reflecting on it, and once more, on Reeves' interpretation. We all had a feeling that Reeves added a certain flavor to his interpretations, and that maybe he represented a specific school's ideas about the Lotus Sutra. Well, it is true. He served as the international advisor at Rissho Kosei- kai, a Japanese lay Buddhist movement which branched off from the older Reiyūkai and is primarily focused on the Lotus Sutra and veneration of ancestors. So, there's your answer to that question. Also, fun fact: Reeves taught for many years at Tsukuba University.

Please return here with your comments and reflections as soon as you're ready.

Our next Zoom meeting will be next Saturday, the 18th. For links to join and more information, visit our Study Page.

Happy reading!
With metta, and in gassho

sat lah

[Tenryu]

I had already read about the history of Buddhist self-immolations before, so when Reeves mentioned that this chapter has sometimes been used to justify them, I immediately felt uncomfortable. Not because the chapter deals with mortality, suffering, or death. Those are realities we cannot and should not turn away from. My discomfort comes from something else: I find it very difficult to reconcile the deliberate destruction of one's own body with the Buddhist emphasis on compassion and the preservation of life. For me, the first precept naturally includes my own life as well.

As I sat with that, my mind kept returning to the idea of skillful means. I have trouble seeing how destroying the very body through which the bodhisattva path is lived could be understood in that way.

At the same time, I think I can understand Reeves' symbolic reading of this Chapter. The burning of the body becomes an image of complete dedication to the path: offering ourselves, our time, and our energy to help others.

This reminded me of Thich Nhat Hanh's words that the most precious gift we can offer is our time. In that sense, giving someone our time is already a form of offering ourselves. When we are truly present for another person, we are offering our very body, our attention, and the limited time we have in this life.

I also found myself thinking about Dōgen here. His emphasis is usually not on extraordinary acts, but on this very body and this very life as the place where the Dharma is realized. The body is not simply an obstacle to overcome; it is the ground on which practice happens. Perhaps this is also why the image of the lamp came to mind: "Be a lamp unto yourself." A lamp can illuminate the way and others, but it also needs to keep burning.

This passage stayed with me:

"The greatest happiness comes from putting the Lotus Sutra into practice by following the bodhisattva way of traveling around in this world helping others, thus enabling the Dharma to live in the world."

While reading it, I caught myself mentally removing a few words:

"The greatest happiness comes from following the bodhisattva way of traveling around in this world helping others, thus enabling the Dharma to live in the world."

Maybe Reeves intends both sentences to point to the same thing. But I noticed that my attention naturally shifts away from the text itself and toward the lived practice. It reminded me again of Chapter 16, where the Buddha continues to live through our own embodiment of the Dharma.

In that sense, what keeps the Dharma alive is not only preserving a teaching, but people trying, however imperfectly, to live it.

Gasshō,
Tenryū
s@+lah

[Bion]

Those are realities we cannot and should not turn away from. My discomfort comes from something else: I find it very difficult to reconcile the deliberate destruction of one's own body with the Buddhist emphasis on compassion and the preservation of life. For me, the first precept naturally includes my own life as well.

As I sat with that, my mind kept returning to the idea of skillful means. I have trouble seeing how destroying the very body through which the bodhisattva path is lived could be understood in that way.

Here's a slightly different perspective for you.

What if we forget about his body as the unique vehicle for bodhicitta? It is not one's own body, for there is no self that it belongs to. It's simply a temporary collection of skandhas, which will eventually decay, like everything else. The bodhisattva path was built with myriads of lifetimes in mind.

Compassion is exemplified in the jataka tales, the stories about the bodhisattva's journey towards becoming the Buddha, by means of stories of sacrifice. In one of them, the bodhisatta, living as a compassionate prince, encounters a starving tigress so weak from hunger she is about to devour her own cubs. To save both mother and cubs, he throws himself off a cliff to become her meal. In another story, living as a rabbit, he offers himself as food to a starving god (Śakra) because he has no other provisions to share. In another story, born as a generous king, he sacrifices his own flesh and organs to a god disguised as a blind eagle to protect a fleeing dove.

So, when one doesn't see oneself limited by just this life, and when one values compassion above a notion of self, what effort is it to give up one's present body and life? There's always a next one!! That's the commitment and the wish: to continue and continue. Sure, one cares for this body and uses it as best as one can to express the dharma, but, if the need be, one also gives it up with no hesitation.

gassho
sat lah

[Tenryu]

Thank you, Bion. I think that’s exactly the perspective I was missing.

I can definitely see how the Jātaka stories fit together with this chapter. If we really take emptiness and countless lifetimes seriously, then attachment to this particular body naturally looks very different.

I think where I still end up is probably just my Dōgen bias. He keeps bringing me back to this body and this life as the place where practice happens, so that’s the lens I almost automatically read through.

I don’t think you’ve changed my conclusion, but you’ve definitely helped me understand the perspective a little better.


Gassho,
Tenryū
sat&lah

[Bion]

I think where I still end up is probably just my Dōgen bias. He keeps bringing me back to this body and this life as the place where practice happens, so that’s the lens I almost automatically read through.

Ah, but it seems to me that those parts of Dogen Zenji's teachings that are more often emphasized can also overshadow other aspects of who he was and what he taught.

Yes, practice undoubtedly is realized in this body and life, and that's what Dogen Zenji aimed to clarify for everyone. But he also spoke of good and evil karma, of not denying cause and effect and past and future lives, for example. He actually wrote a whole fascicle of the Shobogenzo on the topic. As a matter of fact, his own words are:

"Others say that when one dies, one invariably returns to the ocean of the nature. Since, even without studying the buddha dharma, one naturally returns to the ocean of awakening, one does not revolve through birth and death; hence, there is no future life. This is the nihilistic view of an other path. Those who maintain this kind of false understanding are definitely not disciples of the Buddha"

His faithful disciple Ejo also recorded his teacher's words as

“In ten thousand kalpas and thousands of lives, how many times are we born and how many times do we die? This cycle of lives is samsara [suffering], caused only by blind clinging to worldly affairs.”

The man seriously believed in rebirth and future lives, being quite traditional in that sense.

So, it's easy to see that beyond concepts like non-duality, or practice-realization, there were more shades to his teaching and beliefs. This is all to say, maybe your bias is only from a specific side of Dogen Zenji

( I have to admit, I just really wanted to have fun with this )

gassho
sat lah

[Tenryu]

Fair enough!

You’re absolutely right that Dōgen was far more traditional on karma and rebirth than he’s sometimes presented today. I didn’t mean to suggest otherwise.

What I was trying to get at is more about emphasis than doctrine. Whenever I read Dōgen, I find my attention continually drawn back to this body, this moment, this practice. That’s simply the lens I’ve ended up looking through.

So I guess it isn’t so much a Dōgen bias as a my reading of Dōgen bias.

Thanks for keeping me honest.

Gasshō,
Tenryū
st&lah

[Bion]

Fair enough!

You’re absolutely right that Dōgen was far more traditional on karma and rebirth than he’s sometimes presented today. I didn’t mean to suggest otherwise.

What I was trying to get at is more about emphasis than doctrine. Whenever I read Dōgen, I find my attention continually drawn back to this body, this moment, this practice. That’s simply the lens I’ve ended up looking through.

So I guess it isn’t so much a Dōgen bias as a my reading of Dōgen bias.

Thanks for keeping me honest.

Gasshō,
Tenryū
st&lah

clack clack!!!

gassho
sat lah

[carolynz]

Okay, I am going to say something here, I hope it hangs together because it is whirling around my head.

I saw the burning monk in Viet Nam in the newspapers back in the day. I did not understand it at the time, and still don't.

If I understand it, the idea is that burning yourself is the ultimate sacrifice. It demonstrates the extent of your devotion to relieving the suffering of the world. It is a public notification to the one(s) causing the suffering, asking them and the world, to change. It is a demonstration of the suffering caused by wars against different people and beliefs.

I am not sure there is a place for such sacrifice in this world, or that it achieves its objectives. Looked at from the oppressor's POV, he/she already knows they are causing suffering, and doesn't care. Especially in the world today, oppressors are killing a lot of people. In their view, what is one (or two) more? Could this (burning yourself) also be seen as a very painful way to stop your own suffering?

I think the idea of reincarnation does play a part in the attitude towards this tradition of burning. Yet, how do we know that in fact we do have lots of lives to live? I am willing to accept the idea of reincarnation because to me it makes sense, giving us more chances to learn, and it could be argued that one lifetime is not enough. The Christian religion teaches about heaven and God, and as it is a particular belief system, this is something taken on faith. It seems to me that the idea of reincarnation is another way to look at our time here on earth, also taken on faith. But I don't think one idea necessarily rules out the other? (question)

I am also torn about wars and just/unjust causes. Would I take up arms against Hitler for instance?

I'm just not convinced that burning yourself, or even one finger, is the way to go.

Gassho,
Carolyn
sat lah

[Maro]

Please read the following in the context of the difference between something that grabs attention and the paying attention.

In the post that introduced this chapter Bion wrote that this chapter will bring up some strong emotions and give rise to some tough questions and I found myself asking “why?”

And then I read the first post where Tenryu writes that he finds difficult to reconcile the deliberate destruction of one’s own body with the Buddhist emphasis on compassion and the preservation of life.

And there it was ! The strong emotion arising to such an extent that I stopped reading further and I had to sit and make space.

There is a book written by Thich Nhat Hahn called “Lotus in a Sea of Fire” and it starts like this “The world first began to give real consideration to the Vietnamese problem and the role of Buddhists only after the Venerable Thich Quang-Duc burned himself on Phan-dihn-Phung Street in Saigon on June 11, 1963, to call the attention of the world public to the sufferings of the Vietnamese people under Ngo Dinh Diem’s oppressive regime”.

Somebody used his own body as a means to call our attention (or grab our attention if there is no other way for us to pay attention). I have sat with this photo in the past for quite a long time imagining how this upright monk in the midst of fire must have perceived the “self”, the body and compassion.

Sometime later on I will come back to read the remainder of Tenryu’s post and the quite a few that follow - it is the first time since I have joined TL that such a strong reaction came up and I will take care of it because I can see its root


Gassho
Maro
sat lah

[Bion]

The Christian religion teaches about heaven and God, and as it is a particular belief system, this is something taken on faith. It seems to me that the idea of reincarnation is another way to look at our time here on earth, also taken on faith. But I don't think one idea necessarily rules out the other? (question)

I am also torn about wars and just/unjust causes. Would I take up arms against Hitler for instance?

I'm just not convinced that burning yourself, or even one finger, is the way to go.

Gassho,
Carolyn
sat lah

Many practicing Buddhists nowadays don't believe in literal rebirth, and it seems not to affect their practice. Many reinterpret it in terms of a renewal of existence in every moment. Experience is created at every meeting of skandhas and the world, and this has nothing to do with an enduring self that continues from one moment to the next, but is merely a continual unfolding of conditions. What is thought, felt, and intended becomes the conditions for what presents itself in the next moment.

Your question about wars is also great, and very complicated to answer. I don't think there is a definitive correct answer to it, but only an individual one. It has to arise from one's own wisdom.

As for your last comment, I am with you. Humans too easily fall into extreme behaviors. The Buddha never asked any disciple to harm themselves or sacrifice body parts. As a matter of fact, the Middle Way he taught for 45 years was about not mortifying oneself, not punishing the body to any extreme and not indulging in sensual pleasures. For the Buddha, it is by abandoning greed, anger, and ignorance that one proves their devotion.

gassho
sat lah

[carolynz]

Hi Bion,

Thanks for your words of wisdom! It is good to know that the Buddha did not recommend self immolation, but I think I can see when people get to a desperate situation and see it as something they should do, maybe the only thing.

I can certainly accept that some things are unanswerable, like if a lion is chasing you, what would you do? Or if you run into an empty car at midnight, would you leave your insurance information?

I am charmed by the Lotus Sutra, and it helps me so much to understand something about these wise, ancient people and their (and increasingly my own) beliefs. The translation captures the spirit of these gentle people dedicated to erase the suffering of our ("only") world. As I discover more, I realize the gap between my "intellectual knowldge" and my all too human reactions to certain situations and world events.

My computer was out yesterday, so this is my second (and shorter!) answer.

Gassho,
Carolyn
lah

[Bion]

Hi Bion,

Thanks for your words of wisdom! It is good to know that the Buddha did not recommend self-immolation, but I think I can see when people get to a desperate situation and see it as something they should do, maybe the only thing.

I am glad to have helped clarify things a bit.

Speaking of desperate times, there was actually a custom of self-mummification in Japan, called sokushinbutsu, mostly practiced by certain sects. While some of those attempting this practice did it in pursuit of enlightenment, for some, in desperate times of famine, illness, or other disasters, it was an act of compassionate sacrifice, as mummified monks would become enshrined Buddhas, relics, protectors of the area. There are various mummies like that displayed in temples around the mountains of Yamagata prefecture, each with its own story of self-sacrifice.

Here's an example:

shinnnyokai_1.jpg
Gassho
sat lah

[Chiko]

From Master Dogen’s Genjokoan:

“Firewood turns into ash and does not turn into firewood again. But do not suppose that the ash is after and the firewood is before.

We must realize that firewood is in the state of being firewood and has its before and after. Yet, having this before and after, it is independent of them. Ash is in the state of being ash and has its before and after.

Just as firewood does not become firewood again after it is ash, so after one's death, one does not return to life again. Thus, that life does not become death is a confirmed teaching of the Buddha Dharma. For this reason, life is called the non-born.”

When Buddhism talks about a precious human life, it’s not just because it’s human—it’s how we use it. Look how long Thích Quảng Đức‘s legacy has endured, and likely how much quicker he ended such pervasive violence. But tell me, is his final act an embodiment of the Dharma?

Gassho,
Chiko
st/lah

[Menmoku]

Dear Friends,
Brother Reeves really disappointed me in his commentary on this chapter.
1. The world is full of suffering because it would be boring without it? My comment on this commentary is that it is the words of someone who really hasn't seen suffering up close enough.
2. The Pureland would be boring? Again these arecthe words of someone who has lived a priviliged life and 'likes a bit of a challenge'. No, heaven seems like...well...heaven for me.
Boddhisattvas don't come here for fun or becausecthey are bored in the Purelands, they come out of compassion forcthe horrific suffering of beings here.
3. The whole man/woman Pureland thing - there is only one sex in the pureland as they do not reproduce so there is no need for mothers and fathers. Beings are androgenous in the Pureland and possibly look more like men due to absence of breasts...but really we don't know what the Pureland and it's being look like...
Gassho,
Menmoku

[Naiko]

This Sutra has certainly challenged me at every turn. I’m very torn about this chapter so forgive my rambling. Like many seekers, I long to devote myself completely to a practice, but some forms of devotion are just ugly. I kept asking myself where is the Middle Way in this?

I understand that Thích Quảng Đức sacrificed himself in protest of a great injustice being done to Buddhists in Vietnam. The danger in acts like this is that you get that shock value the first time, and then need to escalate to greater extremism. Such extremism leads some people to justify committing horrific acts of violence.

Thank you, Bion, for providing an alternate view by reminding us that the body is a temporary aggregate, and the traditional view is a long one over many lifetimes. I confess to being very skeptical about the traditional Buddhist belief in rebirth. I was once regressed under hypnosis to recall past lives, and I’m still skeptical. I feel I do need to spend more time contemplating this.

As to the report of monks burning their fingers and such as acts of devotion, I find that utterly repellent. I don’t see the Middle Way there at all, even as I acknowledge the teaching that there is no body. But the body is a miracle, all those billions of parts dancing together is a miracle. That goes for every living thing, and every ecosystem, the whole planet, the whole universe. It’s all holy, even if it’s impermanent, and it should be treated as such.

Gassho,
stlah

I note with some amusement that Reeves admitted this chapter wasn’t his favorite. For him, that’s a strong condemnation.