Sutra study

[Mujin]

What would be a suitable sutra to begin studying?

Gassho,

Mujin

SatTodayLAH

[Kokuu]

Hi Mujin

For me, The Heart Sutra is a good place to start especially since we chant it so often! I really like Red Pine's book which has a nice commentary.

We also enjoyed studying The Platform Sutra earlier this year and the record of our discussions is here: https://forum.treeleaf.org/forum/tre...ook-club/page4

Gassho
Kokuu
-sattoday/lah-

[Jundo]

I just wish to second the Heart Sutra, and Red Pine's readable and quite comprehensive introduction.

The Platform Sutra (especially the earliest version, in the Yampolsky translation, before it was "fancied up" by later rewritings) is marvelous too. One note is that it is not really a Sutra (except in one sense.) So, a Sutta/Sutra is meant to be the words of the Buddha. Even the Heart Sutra, although the Buddha does not speak there directly, is considered so as the Buddha in the long version says "take it away" to Kannon, who then gives the teaching. The Platform Sutra is the story of the 6th Ancestor in China, not the Buddha. In fact, the title is probably short for something more like "The 6th Ancestor's Teachings ABOUT the Diamond Sutra while Sitting on the Jukai Platform." So, it is not really a "Sutra." (The only way it may be is that illustrious Zen masters of the past were sometimes considered "Living Buddhas" ... but no other writing by another old Zen Master is treated that way, so maybe that theory is not so likely.)

There are other Sutras good for Soto Zen folks, although they all need to be approached with some guidance and understanding. Dogen and most of the other old Zen dudes would riff off of the Sutras like the Diamond, Lankavatara and Lotus, and Dogen (as a former Tendai priest) had a particular resonance with the Lotus Sutra. Taigen has a book and a couple of wonderful essays on that, such as this one ...

http://www.thezensite.com/ZenEssays/DogenStudies/The_Lotus_Sutra_as_a_Source.html

Taigen's book is marvelous ...

https://www.amazon.com/Visions-Awakening-Space-Time-D%C5%8Dgen-ebook/dp/B005BP2FUW/ref=tmm_kin_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&dib_tag=se&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.Ua2rHh0erG4COkVOuWJWKGQoaejcOeFp5xqH2fCQoZsVcvnE29y2txiYmoKD9qF2R7Knfn_kK6iau55fBdg0BRiI95FfjifkxvxWZed19nZPTs78rby5MzA-nb_REybBEaLW5zLMbwgLFkuS5QyeHeL9bNGChPgfYSe-mMaPTh9eP_dXCa6BM5ZyAz4B0mh6d431aKwWxRcY8njdHwebhIZMAPimuAg4FhodIy_3FEo.Gvzj8a87WCMPTWG6Zh_xMbmhwAMdIHaGdtiumVy5MM4&qid=1757475622&sr=1-13

Dogen took the original wildness of the Lotus and wilded it up more. I wrote about that in my Zen Master's Dance book ...
.

Dōgen wilds and re-wilds the already fantastically wild Lotus Sutra. In a famous scene in the text, a stupa (a traditional pavilion or tower containing the ashes or relics of a Buddha or other great Ancestor) thousands of miles tall emerges from the ground and comes to rest in midair. Buddha Śākyamuni sees that another Buddha, named Abundant Treasures, is sitting inside, and the two Buddhas share a seat within the tower and preach together. In an astonishing kind of metaphysical loop, all this is depicted as occurring in the sky over Vulture Peak, the Indian sacred site where the Lotus Sutra is being preached: a scene of the preaching of the very book that contains within it the preaching scene. It is already a pretty wild vision before Dōgen even sets to work on it.

Here is the original:

At this time, before the Buddha, a stupa of seven treasures
[gold, silver, pearl, etc.], five hundred yojanas in height and
two hundred and fifty yojanas in length and breadth,
sprang up from the earth and abided in the sky . . . When
that Buddha [Abundant Treasures] was practicing as a
bodhisattva in the past, he deeply vowed: “After I have realized
Buddhahood and died, if anywhere in the ten directions
there is any place where the Lotus Sutra is being
preached, my stupa shall spring out and appear in that place
so that I may hear the sutra’s preaching.”

In a Shōbōgenzō essay called “Hokke-Ten-Hokke” (The Flower of Dharma Turns the Flower of Dharma), Dōgen takes this scene, flips it around, stirs it up, and brings it home. The expression “turning the flower of Dharma” can mean a Buddha’s preaching of the Dharma, or Buddhist truth, which turning by the Buddha’s flowery tongue expresses the whole beautiful turning universe that is itself like a flower turning:

[Dōgen says:] There is the turning of the flower of Dharma
in the appearance “before the Buddha” of the “treasure
stupa,” which is a “height of five hundred yojanas.” There is
the turning of the flower of Dharma that is the “Buddha
sitting inside the stupa,” whose breadth is “two hundred
and fifty yojanas.” There is a turning of the flower of
Dharma by springing forth from the earth and abiding in
the earth, whereby mind is without obstructions and matter
is without limits. There is the turning of the flower of
Dharma in springing out of the sky and abiding in the
earth, which is limited by the eyes and limited by the body.
Vulture Peak is within the stupa, and the treasure stupa
is on Vulture Peak. The treasure stupa is a stupa of treasure
abiding in space, and space opens space for the treasure
stupa. The timeless Buddha within the stupa shares a
seat with the Buddha of Vulture Peak, and the Buddha of
Vulture Peak shares the realization of the Buddha within
the stupa. When the Buddha of Vulture Peak experiences
this state within the stupa together with body, mind, and
all things, he also enters into the state of the turning of
the flower of Dharma. [. . .] This “within the stupa,”
“before the Buddha,” “the treasure stupa,” and “space” are
not limited to Vulture Peak; they are not limited to the
realm of phenomena; they are not limited to some halfway
stage; neither are they the whole world. Nor are they
matters of some fixed “place in the Dharma.” They are
simply “non-thinking.”

The sacred all and everything of this scene and all reality, so thoroughly interconnected and interflowing, every bit pouring in and out of every bit, is the turning of the flower of the Buddha’s teaching, the whole universe turning, sometimes experienced in the world of restrictions and sometimes unrestricted. And all of it is the “non-thinking” (hi-shiryō) of zazen.

There are other Sutras that have been important to Zen folks. The Lankavatara is said to have been influential on Zen folks early on (with its Yogachara perspectives), but was actually displaced by the Perfection of Wisdom Sutras (e.g., Diamond, Heart Sutra) from about the time of the 6th Ancestor on. Other Sutras are mostly important to us as they were interpreted throough Dogen's lens and expression. Dogen did not seem to like the Shurangama, thinking it Chinese apocrypha (it is, he was right!), but he still quotes from it from time to time. Also, the Mahaparinirvana Sutra (not to be confused with the Theravadan Sutta of almost the same name.)

This month I am talking about the Fo yijiao jing (Sutra of the Bequeathed Teachings of the Buddha), which Dogen quotes in his final Shobogenzo essay ... LINK

Gassho, Jundo
stlah

[Hoshuku]

Has anyone tried reading the Mahayana Mahaparinirvana Sutra? I’m 350 pages in and see why the Lotus Sutra is more popular. I have a friend who practices with Shinnyo-en, which has the Nirvana Sutra as one of its three pillars but I suspect they have a somewhat idiosyncratic interpretation.

Stewart 法宿
SatLah

[Hoshuku]

I think my sutra study has helped to unearth remenants of Evangelical Christianity in me. I realized that I had a hold over in my mind in that I assumed that all sutras were equally beneficial to read and formed some form of progresive revelation. I'm now angling more towards viewing the writers as doing their best to reveal something useful - all in good faith. However, the results are variable. Better to take a general drift of sutras in general and see which way they generally point and not to become too fixated on one. Interesting little quirk in me....

Hoshuku
Satlah

[Jundo]

I think my sutra study has helped to unearth remenants of Evangelical Christianity in me. I realized that I had a hold over in my mind in that I assumed that all sutras were equally beneficial to read and formed some form of progresive revelation. I'm now angling more towards viewing the writers as doing their best to reveal something useful - all in good faith. However, the results are variable. Better to take a general drift of sutras in general and see which way they generally point and not to become too fixated on one. Interesting little quirk in me....

Hoshuku
Satlah

Very wise way to approach the Sutras.

Gassho, J
stlah