SGI's equality:
"You say you have gotten benefits from the Gohonzon, but they are far smaller than mine. Yours are just like the tip of your little finger. The benefits I have received from the Gohonzon are as big as this auditorium." -- Josei Toda
"Even if you leader is wrong, you should folllow no matter what." -- longstanding SGI principle
Shakyamuni Buddha's and Nichiren Daishonin's equality:
"At the start I took a vow, hoping to make all persons equal to me, without any distinction between us, and what I long ago hoped for has now been fulfilled. I have converted all living beings and caused them all to enter the Buddha way. -- Lotus Sutra Chapter 2
"A good believer is one who does not depend upon persons of eminence or despise those of humble station; who does not rely on the backing of superiors or look down on inferiors; who, not relying on the opinions of others, upholds the Lotus Sutra among all the sutras, Such a person the Buddha has called the best of all people" -- Nichiren
Shakyamuni's equality is based on the World of Buddhahood and Josei Toda's/SGI's on the Worlds of Animality and Anger.
Hi Mark, I've been reading and re-reading 3 different versions of the LS (Kubo/Yuyama (BDK), Reeves, and Murano) today and cannot find an exact quote like the one you cited in this post from Chapter 17. Could you give a longer copy of this passage? There are plenty of guarantees of future enlightenment and unlimited merit, but none of becoming the immediate equal of the Buddha. In fact in Chapter 5 it says (BDK) that "I am the Bhagavat.
ReplyDeleteNo one is equal to me." Where is my error?
True true. That is a an interpretation of the following passage:
ReplyDelete“Further, O, Ajita, if there is anyone who, hearing of the great length of the Buddha's life span, understands the import of the words, the merit gained by that man shall have no limit or measure, for he shall be able to produce the Unexcelled Wisdom of the Tathagata."
I will change it. Nevertheless, Chapter 16 states:
"Listen then all of you attentively to the secret, mysterious, and supernaturally pervading power of the Tathagata."*
Bunno states, "According to Chih-i [and Nichiren -- added by me] by "secret" is meant that the one body of the Buddha is three bodies, and by "mysterious" that the three bodies are in the one. Spiritually or supernaturally pervading power, or power of spiritual or supernatural pervasion, or ubiquity, is the function of the three bodies, or trikaya: the dharmakaya (truth-body or Law-body), the sambhogakaya (reward-body or bliss-body), and the nirmanakaya (mutation-body or response-body). Dharmakaya indicates the buddhahood in its universality, nirmanakaya the buddhahood embodied or personalized, and sambhogakaya the buddhahood as spiritualized. Chih-i attributes the revelation of the trikaya in this form to this passage and emphasizes the unity of the trinity as constituting the only correct doctrine of the Buddha's person and reality." -- Bunno translator of the Threefold Lotus Sutra
Furthermore, Chapter 16 states,
"I either preach my own body
or preach the body of another or show my own body
or show the body of another or show my own matter
or show the matter of another. The various words I preach
are all true and not empty. What is the reason?
The Tathagata knows and sees the appearance
of the Three Worlds in accordance with reality:
there is no Birth-and-Death,
whether backsliding or emerging;
likewise there is neither existence in the world
nor extinction; they are not real; they are not void,
they are not thus; they are not different.
It is not as the Three Worlds
see the Three Worlds. In such a matter as this
the Tathagata sees clearly
and is without error."
Certainly, when we preach the Sutra, believe in the life span of the Buddha, chant and teach other to chant Namu Myoho renge kyo, we are the Reward Body of the Buddha. By the reasonings above, through faith in the Eternal Buddha's life-span we are see that we ourselves are at once the Tathagata of Original Enlightment, possessing the Three Buddha-Bodies in one.
Thanks for reminding me of the Trikaya doctrine. Namu Myoho Renge Kyo
DeleteAs far as the Buddha's statement in Chapter 5 that you were so kind to highlight, certainly it doesn't supercede the Buddha's statement in Chapter 2, “At the start I took a vow, hoping to make all persons equal to me, without any distinction between us, and what I long ago hoped for has now been fulfilled. I have converted all living beings and caused them all to enter the Buddha way.”, let alone the essential teachings from Chapter 16.
ReplyDelete