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The Lotus Sutra: A Contemporary Translation of a Buddhist Classic Kindle Edition
by Gene Reeves (Translator) Format: Kindle Edition
4.7 4.7 out of 5 stars 334 ratings
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Table of Contents
Preface
Translator’s Introduction
THE SUTRA OF INNUMERABLE MEANINGS
1:Virtuous Conduct
2:Dharma Preaching
3:Ten Blessings
THE SUTRA OF THE LOTUS FLOWER OF THE WONDERFUL
DHARMA
1:Introduction
2:Skillful Means
3:A Parable
4:Faith and Understanding
5:The Parable of the Plants
6:Assurance of Becoming a Buddha
7:The Parable of the Fantastic Castle-City
8:Assurance for the Five Hundred Disciples
9:Assurance for Arhats, Trained and in Training
10:Teachers of the Dharma
11:The Sight of the Treasure Stupa
12:Devadatta
13:Encouragement to Uphold the Sutra
14:Safe and Easy Practices
15:Springing Up from the Earth
16:The Lifetime of the Tathagata
17:The Variety of Blessings
18:Blessings of Responding with Joy
19:The Blessings of the Dharma Teacher
20:Never Disrespectful Bodhisattva
21:Divine Powers of the Tathagata
22:Entrustment
23:Previous Lives of Medicine King Bodhisattva
24:Wonderful Voice Bodhisattva
25:The Universal Gateway of the Bodhisattva Regarder of the Cries of the
World
26:Incantations
27:The Previous Life of King Wonderfully Adorned
28:Encouragement of Universal Sage Bodhisattva
THE SUTRA OF CONTEMPLATION OF THE DHARMA PRACTICE OF
UNIVERSAL SAGE BODHISATTVA
Notes
Glossaries
Glossary of Proper Names
Glossary of Terms
Bibliography
Index
About the Translator
The Lotus Sutra is regarded as one of the world's great religious scriptures and most influential texts. It's a seminal work in the development of Buddhism throughout East Asia and, by extension, in the development of Mahayana Buddhism throughout the world. Taking place in a vast and fantastical cosmic setting, the Lotus Sutra places emphasis on skillfully doing whatever is needed to serve and compassionately care for others, on breaking down distinctions between the fully enlightened buddha and the bodhisattva who vows to postpone salvation until all beings may share it, and especially on each and every being's innate capacity to become a buddha.
Gene Reeves's new translation appeals to readers with little or no familiarity with technical Buddhist vocabulary, as well as long-time practitioners and students. In addition, this remarkable volume includes the full "threefold" text of this classic.
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Review
A highly readable new translation of the great Lotus Sutra, Gene Reeves skillfully renders the complexity of the text from a scholarly standpoint while delivering its flavor for practitioners. An invaluable resource for students in the classroom as well as in the meditation hall.--Mark Unno, University of Oregon, author of Shingon Refractions
Difficult as it may be to interpret ancient Tibetan Buddhist imagery for contemporary meditators, it is perhaps even more challenging to make historical Buddhist texts accessible. In a new translation of The Lotus Sutra, Gene Reeves aims to do just this. Reeves uses everyday language wherever possible, translating into English many words that previous works have left in Sanskrit. This approach is particularly appropriate for the Lotus Sutra, which emphasizes that enlightenment is attainable for everyone.-- "Tricycle"
For readers who are not familiar with the Lotus Sutra, this is an excellent opportunity to acquaint oneself with a bedrock Mahayana text. Dr. Reeves brings a welcome perspective of both scholarship and sympathy to the text, which is extremely multifaceted and requires flexibility to fully represent its fascinating-and at times somewhat frustrating-elements. This new version is also particularly important because it includes the rarely translated Sutra of Innumerable Meanings and the Sutra of Samantabhadra Bodhisattva, which are traditionally considered to be the preface and appendix of the main text and hold an important place in the liturgy and study of the Lotus Sutra. And Dr. Reeves has made a strong effort to make the text truly accessible to anyone, including non-Buddhists and non-specialists.-- "Tricycle Editors' Blog"
This translation is immediately the new standard, expressing the Lotus Sutra with accuracy, clarity, and fresh readability. The text's genius and subtle spiritual teachings are skillfully captured for a wide audience.--Taigen Dan Leighton, Loyola University, author of Visions of Awakening Space and Time: Dogen and the Lotus Sutra --This text refers to an alternate kindle_edition edition.
Review
A highly readable new translation of the great Lotus Sutra, Gene Reeves skillfully renders the complexity of the text from a scholarly standpoint while delivering its flavor for practitioners. An invaluable resource for students in the classroom as well as in the meditation hall.--Mark Unno, University of Oregon, author of Shingon Refractions
Difficult as it may be to interpret ancient Tibetan Buddhist imagery for contemporary meditators, it is perhaps even more challenging to make historical Buddhist texts accessible. In a new translation of The Lotus Sutra, Gene Reeves aims to do just this. Reeves uses everyday language wherever possible, translating into English many words that previous works have left in Sanskrit. This approach is particularly appropriate for the Lotus Sutra, which emphasizes that enlightenment is attainable for everyone.-- "Tricycle"
For readers who are not familiar with the Lotus Sutra, this is an excellent opportunity to acquaint oneself with a bedrock Mahayana text. Dr. Reeves brings a welcome perspective of both scholarship and sympathy to the text, which is extremely multifaceted and requires flexibility to fully represent its fascinating-and at times somewhat frustrating-elements. This new version is also particularly important because it includes the rarely translated Sutra of Innumerable Meanings and the Sutra of Samantabhadra Bodhisattva, which are traditionally considered to be the preface and appendix of the main text and hold an important place in the liturgy and study of the Lotus Sutra. And Dr. Reeves has made a strong effort to make the text truly accessible to anyone, including non-Buddhists and non-specialists.-- "Tricycle Editors' Blog"
This translation is immediately the new standard, expressing the Lotus Sutra with accuracy, clarity, and fresh readability. The text's genius and subtle spiritual teachings are skillfully captured for a wide audience.--Taigen Dan Leighton, Loyola University, author of Visions of Awakening Space and Time: Dogen and the Lotus Sutra --This text refers to an alternate kindle_edition edition.
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Product details
ASIN : B00HT53JNO
Publisher : Wisdom Publications; Illustrated edition (14 April 2014)
Language : English
File size : 7226 KB
Text-to-Speech : Enabled
Screen Reader : Supported
Enhanced typesetting : Enabled
X-Ray : Not Enabled
Word Wise : Not Enabled
Sticky notes : On Kindle Scribe
Print length : 501 pagesBest Sellers Rank: 357,012 in Kindle Store (See Top 100 in Kindle Store)21 in Mahayana Buddhism
79 in Buddhist Sacred Writings (Kindle Store)
123 in Inspirational & Religious Poetry (Kindle Store)Customer Reviews:
4.7 4.7 out of 5 stars 334 ratings
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Brent
5.0 out of 5 stars Namo Keepers of The Law Flower Sutra!
Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on 18 August 2020
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Namo Keepers of the Law Flower Sutra.
This version is translated in a more modern way compared to older versions that still have Sanskrit words and is still written in old dialect including the way people used to convey vast unimaginable amounts of time. So, it would be easier to understand terms and amounts of time in this version of the Law Flower Sutra. I have read the older style and I had to look up definitions in the back of the book a lot. After 3 times through I started remembering Sanskrit terms. I would recommend reading this version and the older style with Sanskrit words. In the introduction, Reeves mentions the inconstancies or contradictions in the text that apparently possibly Reeves and however many others think are in the Law Flower Sutra or the Dharma in general. (Reeves is most likely talking about meanings being lost in translation) But, (be assured the original teaching is still there enough in English), there are no contradictions in this text or the Dharma. At least not in the Kosei Published version of The Lotus Sutra. I have not read this version through to the end. In fact, a big part of The Law Flower Sutra is to reassure practicing Buddhists (in the lower vehicles) that there are no contradictions in the Buddha’s teachings and that the Buddha speaks only truth. Buddhism is difficult to understand and this Sutra states it is the most difficult Sutra to understand. The Buddha teaches according to the faculties of those wishing to learn. That said, the Buddhas are fully enlightened former sentient beings with supernatural powers that ordinary beings cannot even begin to fully understand. Enlightened beings are not bound by the basic laws of space/time or physics of the natural dualistic conceptual universes. So, if you reach a part in the Sutras that seems to contradict itself remember these two things. The Law Flower Sutra is literally the door to one becoming a bodhisattva-mahasattva in which you strive to reach Prajnaparamita for the sake of all beings not just yourself. I probably should add as well that Reeves writes about what most would think are imaginary beings in this text (in the intro) and how it goes to show that we mix our current modern perceptions in with what is again only truth. There are an infinite amount of worlds out there so how can we say for sure any of the beings mentioned are imaginary. The Sutra says Dragons come up out of the ocean and there are probably thousands of sightings of UFOs coming out of and entering the water seemingly everywhere on Earth. The Sutra mentions demons and black demons in particular. I have recently seen videos of what can only be called black demons on a paranormal TV show called “Paranormal Activity” trying to scare people in various ways. I never saw a video of or even heard of a black demon before I recited The Lotus Sutra then all the sudden I saw like 5 or 6 different recordings of them. There was also a believable video of a reptilian humanoid apparently terrified of humans hanging off the side of a mountain. We humans are the most potentially dangerous species on the planet. The non-human beings mentioned in the Sutra are no more imaginary than you or me and everything else we conceptualize dualistically. The Buddha (once he attained final nirvana under the Bodhi Tree) no longer had what would be considered everyday conversations. He waited to be asked to teach the Law then literally did nothing but that on Earth until his body passed away and he is still teaching the Dharma somewhere and everywhere. He did not speak unless it was truth. The Bodhisattvas look after this Sutra just like it says in the Sutra. The only thing we need to worry about is understanding it incorrectly and not changing it so much it is no longer The Buddha’s teachings. No disrespect to Reeves or anyone. I’m so grateful that Wisdom Publishing and Gene Reeves put this version of this Sutra to print. That is no minor undertaking. Thank you so much.
Namo Gene Reeves!
Namo Buddha Ya!
Namo Dharma Ya!
Nama Sangha Ya!
May all obtain omniscience!
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Joseph J. Truncale
TOP 500 REVIEWER
4.0 out of 5 stars An interesting and informative book for anyone who is into Buddhism. The Lotus Sutra is a founation text for many Buddhists.
Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on 28 March 2014
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I am more of a scientific minded kind of individual, but in my search for knowledge I have made it my business to also read numerous religious material such as The Bible (both the old and new testament), The Koran, and numerous other philosophical treatises. I also have an interest in Zen, Buddhism, and Nichiren Buddhism system.
This huge 492 page text (The Lotus Sutra translated by Gene Reeves) is what might be considered the primary book of many Asian philosophical systems such as Zen and the numerous Buddhist sects around the world. This is the reason I decided to read this book. I will admit to not completely understanding everything in this volume, but than I had the same problem plowing through the Bible and the Koran many years ago. Nevertheless, I do have a better understanding of why this book is so important to Buddhists.
Like most religious type texts, the Lotus Sutra has numerous stories and parables as it explains what it means to seek and become like a true Buddha. The book covers the following material: Translator's introduction, which emphasizes that this book is aimed at people interested in Buddhism but are not necessarily Buddhist scholars. The Sutra of innumerable meanings explains virtuous conduct, Dharma preaching and the ten blessings. The next section is the largest and some of the areas covered in The Sutra of the Lotus Flower of the Wonderful Dharma include: An introduction, skillful means, a parable, faith and understanding, the parable of the plants, assurance of becoming a Buddha, assurance of the five hundred disciples, teachers of Dharma, sage and easy practices, springing up from the earth, never disrespectful Bodhisattva, incantations and much, much more. The final section (The Sutra of Contemplation of the Dharma practice of Universal Safe Bodhisattva) also covers the notes, glossaries, glossary of proper names, glossary of terms, bibliography and the index. There is so much information in this book that this review cannot do justice to all the material.
If you are into Asian religion or philosophy, this is one basic text that should be on your list of must reads.
Rating: 4 Stars. Joseph J. Truncale (Author: The Samurai Soul: An old warrior's poetic tribute)
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Matt Jenkins
5.0 out of 5 stars An Excellent Contemporary Translation
Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on 1 September 2010
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The Lotus Sutra is one of the world's great religious scriptures and most influential texts. It has been a seminal work in the development of Buddhism throughout East Asia, and by extension in the development of Mahayana Buddhism throughout the world. Taking place in a vast and fantastical cosmic setting, the Lotus Sutra places emphasis on skillfully doing whatever is needed to serve and compassionately care for others, on breaking down sharp distinctions between the ideals of the fully enlightened buddha and the bodhisattva who vows to postpone personal salvation until all beings may share it together, and especially on each and every being's innate capacity to become a buddha.
This new translation takes particular care to appeal to readers with little or no familiarity with technical Buddhism vocabulary, and this volume includes the full "threefold" text of this classic [The Sutra of Innumerable Meanings, The Sutra of the Lotus Flower of the Wonderful Dharma and The Sutra of Contemplation of the Dharma Practice of Universal Sage Bodhisattva].
"This translation is immediately the new standard, expressing the Lotus Sutra with accuracy, clarity, and fresh readability. The text's genius and subtle spiritual teachings are skillfully captured for a wide, modern audience."
-Taigen Dan Leighton, Loyola University, Chicago.
"A highly readable new translation of the great Lotus Sutra, Gene Reeves skillfully renders the complexity of the sacred text from a scholarly standpoint while delivering its flavour for practitioners. An invaluable resource for students in the classroom as well as in the meditation hall."
-Mark Unno, University of Oregon.
"Dr Reeves uses accessible and attractive language, highlighting the Lotus Sutra's central messages of joy and peace."
-Chun-Fang Yu, Columbia University.
Another fine edition is The Threefold Lotus Sutra .
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Sonia Flavia
5.0 out of 5 stars Beginner’s paradise
Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on 26 November 2022
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This translation is so beautiful and accessible. I find myself just sinking into the rhythm of the language and prose. Highly recommend.
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S. Bola
4.0 out of 5 stars An absolutely essential existential read.
Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on 19 December 2014
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I personally have enjoyed studying Buddhist literature ever since moving to Japan eight years ago. Yet, despite my intentions to see this book as a way to examine my own spirituality, I just couldn't come to regard this as anything other than ancient propaganda. Don't get me wrong, from a historical standpoint I found the Lotus Sutra to be quite interesting. But the book takes such great pains at preserving their beliefs, and attacking other sects with words. There are so many references to the authority and perfection of the "Greater Vehicle", the recruitment of followers to spread doctrine (implying that this is one of the most noble of acts), heaping rewards on all true followers, and adding to the pantheon any number of enlightened beings to solidify this sects hold on supreme authority. Being even slightly aware of this book's self-righteous claims lessens my ability to regard it as absolute truth in a religious sense. So for me its worth is in it's cultural and historical descriptions.
The translation is superb here, but there were a few instances where the book uses a less familiar term when describing something. This meant that I was forced to pause and reexamine my other books to guarantee I was connecting the right words across all translations. Still this problem didn't arise too much, and was solved for the most part with a little common sense. A wonderful and interesting read overall.. and the translation makes it easy to read.
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B. Lutze
5.0 out of 5 stars Mindestens die zweitbeste erhältliche Lotos Sutra Übersetzung
Reviewed in Germany 🇩🇪 on 7 February 2016
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Gleich vorneweg, ich empfehle drei Lotos Sutra Übersetzungen. Die von Burton Watson, diese hier von Gene Reeves und die deutsche Version von Margareta von Borsig. Wenngleich alle drei wertvoll sind, gibt es Übersetzungsunterschiede, da sie aus dem chinesischen übersetzt wurden und dort, wie in vielen Sprachen, ein und das gleiche Wort unterschiedlich ausgelegt werden kann. Das zweite Kapitel etwa heißt bei Watson "Expedient Means", bei Reeves "Skillful Means", bei Borsig "Geschicklichkeit. Die berühmte Phantom-Stadt aus Kapitel 7 des Sutras heißt bei Watson "Phantom City", bei Reeves "Fantastic Castle-City" und bei Borsig "Zauberstadt". Man sieht, dass den Übersetzungen unterschiedliche Bedeutungen entspringen. Die meisten Kapitel und Begriffe sind von Watson sehr gut übersetzt worden. Reeves ist jedoch zeitgenössicher und es klären sich bei ihm viele Begriffe, da er nicht nur übersetzt, sondern auch viele Begriffe in Sanskrit überprüft und origineller übersetzt. Z.B. nennet er den Buddha "Tathagata", was viel schöner ist, als das von Watson benutzte und etwas sperrige "The Thus Come One".
Leider gibt es nicht DIE eine Übersetzung, ich empfehle immer mindestens zwei parallel. Dennoch ist die Version von Gene Reeves unverzichtbar und nach Watson mindestens die zweitbeste Übersetzung, wenn nicht sogar die beste.
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Eric Maroney
4.0 out of 5 stars The Long Sutra
Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on 14 March 2012
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Gene Reeves did an excellent job in translating The Lotus Sutra from the Chinese into English. It is here, the entire work, not abridged. The translation is clear and easy to read. He made concessions to English speaking audiences in certain places, making the text more accessible.
That is the both the virtue and vice of this work. It is ALL here, and for readers simply interested in the flavor of the work, this is not the book for you. The Lotus Sutra is structured around individual sutras, usually speeches in prose by the Buddha. Following the prose, there same ideas are presented in verse. This pattern is more or less replicated for over thirty sutras.
So, for a reader wanting to immerse herself in The Lotus Sutra, this is the work for you. For those who wish to get the flavor of the book without wading into its repetitions, look elsewhere.
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Will Jerom
3.0 out of 5 stars Superficial, with some meaning
Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on 19 August 2009
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If I were strictly going by the philosophical and moral content of this book, I would give it 2 stars, but because it indicates something illuminating about Mahayana Buddhism I can give it three. First the weakness of this book: it drones on about endless eons of time, about absurdly numerous billions and billions of Bodhisattvas, bestowing empty praise and formulaic sermons that really have very little substance. In terms of moral depth, and even the depth of Buddhist thought, much of this text remains at a tediously superficial level. Second, its strength: by a study of this book, one does appreciate how Mahayana, by declaring innumerable Bodhisattvas to have exited, and by affirming a complexity of teachings (all contained in the One Great Vehicle) is making an argument against Theravada Buddhism. Additionally, the (too often tedious) glorification, ornamentation, and fantastically wonderful beings the sutra describes illustrate how it may have been also competing with the wonders of Hinduism and its deities. Some valuable moral gems are scattered throughout, though far too few, and choked by the weeds of empty verses, flatulent praise and pious rhetoric. A serious scholar of Buddhism can learn from this text, but only if repetitive statements of hollow glorification can be endured. In a nutshell: study elsewhere first about Buddhism, and it will better prepare you to find some meaning in the Lotus Sutra. Final comment: this translation at least is rendered into a very readable composition.
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Steve Lowry
5.0 out of 5 stars Every time the opportunity comes I enjoy reading and reflecting on these words
Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on 18 September 2016
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It is so delightful to have a very readable and lively translation of a scripture beloved to so many. Every time the opportunity comes I enjoy reading and reflecting on these words. Reeves companion book, "Stories from the Lotus Sutra," is also very good. This is a teaching from the heart of the mahayana, and I've always felt it's special gift was the joy of true entrustment. To experience the presence of a vast multitude of awakened and awakening beings, here for us, ever offering "skillful means" to nudge us toward discovery of the ultimate dimension, this is what turns our hearts and minds to that deep trust and confidence making the path joyous. Thanks to all the hard working and perceptive translator/ practitioners whose work of love is so fruitful.
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Jacob T.
5.0 out of 5 stars Great Translations
Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on 25 September 2020
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I really like the wording, makes the very myth heavy introductions to the sutras easier to understand for English speakers. The pages are set up very nice and elegantly, and despite it being a paper back it has a nice look inside and out. The Glossary of Proper Names is a nice touch as well.
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John Aaron
2.0 out of 5 stars Making Buddhist Wisdom into Greek Mythology
Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on 6 January 2017
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This is a fine translation. Readable, clear, poetic. So why two stars? It's something that's mentioned in almost every review - but I think the problem is more serious than has often been discussed.
That's the translator's need to change the names of non-human beings in the text to figures from Greek mythology.
Yes. As many others have noticed, it's jarring. But it's more than that. One of the realities of the Buddhist worldview is that there are innumerable other types of intelligent beings, some beneficent, and some maleficent. These beings - the rakshas, yakshasas, kimnanras, and many others are, to a Buddhist, absolutely real. They are as real as humans or animals.
But Mr. Reeves "translation" of these creatures into satyrs, nymphs, centaurs does far more harm than simply sounding infelicitous. His approach makes these creatures - and by extension, the vast cosmos of the Lotus - seem mythological. Not real. A fantasy.
And that, I think, does a major injustice to the world view of the sutra.
Without that? I'd give the translation 5 stars. But I think this choice on his part is sufficiently serious that it needs to be pointed out as more than just a rather bizarre translation choice.
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Kalmi
4.0 out of 5 stars Good translation for the first timer
Reviewed in Canada 🇨🇦 on 26 November 2012
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This is my first ever encounter with the Sutra of the Lotus Flower of the Wonderful Dharma. I found the translation easy to understand and follow. While I know many of the quintessential Buddhist Sanskrit terms that are usually left untranslated, I appreciate the translator's use of more commonplace English phrases or expressions in their place to make it more approachable for the novice.
As for the Lotus Sutra itself it is a text that every Buddhist and every non-Buddhist who has any interest whatsoever in East Asian religion or culture should read. And this translation is a great place to start.
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Chrisiel Christ
5.0 out of 5 stars Mr.Bezos
Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on 9 April 2021
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Read the first page. I need the joules to read my books. I work 40-60 hour weeks. Help me manifest a better job.
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Ashley Joseph
5.0 out of 5 stars Good read
Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on 10 November 2021
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Good read will read aviation
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Zendogg
5.0 out of 5 stars The Last Sutra
Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on 5 June 2021
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Great translation of this important Buddhist literature. Probably the best for contemporary readers.
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Jimmer
5.0 out of 5 stars Very accessible
Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on 25 April 2017
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This is an easy to read translation. You don't have to be a scholar or a long time practicing Buddhist to understand this version. The Burton Watson translation is the only other one I have read. It was more difficult. Mr. Reeves' version is easier for a new Buddhist or someone who wants to read and learn about Buddhism to digest.
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Paul Smith
4.0 out of 5 stars Read
Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on 14 October 2019
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stinkypete
5.0 out of 5 stars A Pleasure to Read!!
Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on 2 January 2013
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This is a masterful translation of one of the seminal texts in Buddhism. Praises to Dr Reeves for this very english version of this text. His wonderful word choice and flow has made it informative and easy to read for seven days, 21 days, 3 months, one lifetime, two lifetimes, or as many lifetimes as the sands of the Ganges. I never expected this book to be as wonderful as it has turned out to be. A profoundly moving read.
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Dena
5.0 out of 5 stars Love this book!
Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on 3 January 2021
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Received the book quickly and in perfect condition!
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C. Marbutt
3.0 out of 5 stars It's Still the Lotus Sutra
Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on 21 October 2013
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Reviewing the Lotus Sutra is like reviewing Homer's Iliad or the Book of Jonah. It is one of the world's great wisdom texts but that doesn't mean it is an easy read. It was originally written more or less to be performed, to be chanted and brought to life by human voices, not perused from the luxury of our armchair. Reeves does an admirable attempt at translating but the use of the terms from Greek mythology still remains a problematic and unnecessary choice and in hind sight I would have probably went with another translator.
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Cass
5.0 out of 5 stars I loved, and love this book
Reviewed in Canada 🇨🇦 on 15 July 2016
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I loved, and love this book. Not a Lotus Sutra scholar, and can't say I totally understand it, but it is very poetic, and I return time and time again just for the joy of reading something calming and beautiful.
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Upasaka Heng He
3.0 out of 5 stars Mistaken choices
Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on 3 September 2013
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The choice to translate using Greek mythology instead of the Indian is a mistake I cannot comprehend. To be honest, Greek mythology is not much closer to us than Indian mythology is (and I'm European). Otherwise a solid translation but the Greek mythology thing is unforgivable, so I have to give it 3 stars. It's a shame because Gene Reeves is a great mind and a great translator. I can't fathom the reason for that decision.
Nothing else calls for a review. The Lotus Sutra is the king of all Buddhist texts.
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Jessica K. Hill
4.0 out of 5 stars A Great Start to Buddhism
Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on 21 October 2012
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A difficult but needed book. Any learned Buddhist should probably have a copy of at least one of the Lotus Sutras in their possession. I have yet to finish this book and it is a tough one to read but I think it will be a beneficial one to have read.
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Andre Nicolaou
5.0 out of 5 stars Interesting
Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on 16 May 2019
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It's a great book, that is difficult to read, for obvious reasons. It's a translation, however, if you focus the book is truly amazing!
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Robert
5.0 out of 5 stars Buddhism
Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on 16 March 2019
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Well written, great translation.
The Lotus Sutra should be on the National Curriculum an amazing book well up there dare I say with the Christian Bible.
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Laurie
5.0 out of 5 stars A beautiful book to use--very attractive art-work
Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on 30 August 2017
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A beautiful book to use--very attractive art-work. And beautifull translation of the prose and the poetry. Very interesting translator's introduction and articles. My delays in responding dues to holidays and old age !
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a h
5.0 out of 5 stars An important work and truly life changing
Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on 12 July 2019
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I highly recommend this book- an amazing translation from and expert author, one of the best!
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Rameses MMX
5.0 out of 5 stars A Great Translation
Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on 23 July 2012
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Reeves does a excellent job translating this sutra and making it very readable, especially for anyone not already familiar with it. He provides some great notes that add pertinent and interesting information to the Lotus Sutra. I didn't mind that he traded out the more technical Buddhist terminology for more lay terms. He still gets the meaning across.
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Benjamin Clark
2.0 out of 5 stars Not a translation I would recommend.
Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on 4 January 2020
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One of the lesser recommended translations that I have read. The use of Greek mythological creatures almost immediately turned me off to the entire work. I rather spend the time looking up and cross referencing Indian and Hindu terms than have something watered down to be " relatable" I feel like it takes away from the original work.
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Rich Wolf
5.0 out of 5 stars Beautiful
Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on 5 September 2013
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I am awed by the ability to explain the sutra(s) in an understandable manner by so many contemporary authors. We clearly live in a time wherein the opportunity to attain understanding is available to anyone who is willing to commit themselves to taking the time to digest these texts.
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Henry L Ullman
4.0 out of 5 stars A readable translation of a complex text
Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on 23 August 2014
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An easy to understand transltion especially when paired with STORIES OF THE LOTUS SUTRA by the translator.
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Robert Santiago
5.0 out of 5 stars Five Stars
Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on 28 December 2017
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Good quality book, easy to understand.
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Juniper
4.0 out of 5 stars Four Stars
Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on 24 October 2015
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Recommend.
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LA Rose
5.0 out of 5 stars Studying The Lotus Sutra by Reeves
Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on 4 November 2010
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Our book club is so enjoying the books,they are in excellent condition and the delivery was speedy. Reeves translation is quite remarkable and well understood by those seeking enlightement. We love it
Rose Munoz
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浅田さんのファーン
5.0 out of 5 stars とてもわかりやすい
Reviewed in Japan 🇯🇵 on 15 June 2017
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平易な英語で読め、お経の内容がよく理解できます。そして、グロッサリーも、とても優れており、研究者にとっても役立つと思います。
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Knitting Diva
5.0 out of 5 stars Five Stars
Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on 28 January 2015
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This version contains wonderful, easy to follow language that still conveys the heart of the original text.
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Donald Sharp
5.0 out of 5 stars The Lotus Sutra
Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on 4 March 2014
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A contemporary translation of a Buddhist classic text, which should be helpful to us all, beginner and steady practitioner alike.
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eric heugel
5.0 out of 5 stars Five Stars
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Nam myoho renge kyo is life itself , the Lotus sutra is life itself
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Zentao
5.0 out of 5 stars IF YOU HAVE TO ASK MAYBE YOU ARE NOT READY YET
Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on 13 January 2016
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IF YOU HAVE TO ASK MAYBE YOU ARE NOT READY YET
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IC
4.0 out of 5 stars Four Stars
Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on 24 May 2015
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Good translation
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たいみそ
5.0 out of 5 stars 高卒でがんばれば 読める英語
Reviewed in Japan 🇯🇵 on 18 June 2009
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法華経はよく読んでいるので 英語でも読みやすいもんです＾＾ 日本語訳よりも かえって イメージしやすいような気がしますので 英語が何とか読める人なら 法華経の日本語訳よりも こちらを すすめます 併読するには 岩波文庫版がいいでしょう ついでに書けば 水書房「法華経の風光」紀野一義 が 最高の解説書です
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Table of Contents
Preface
Translator’s Introduction
THE SUTRA OF INNUMERABLE MEANINGS
1:Virtuous Conduct
2:Dharma Preaching
3:Ten Blessings
THE SUTRA OF THE LOTUS FLOWER OF THE WONDERFUL
DHARMA
1:Introduction
2:Skillful Means
3:A Parable
4:Faith and Understanding
5:The Parable of the Plants
6:Assurance of Becoming a Buddha
7:The Parable of the Fantastic Castle-City
8:Assurance for the Five Hundred Disciples
9:Assurance for Arhats, Trained and in Training
10:Teachers of the Dharma
11:The Sight of the Treasure Stupa
12:Devadatta
13:Encouragement to Uphold the Sutra
14:Safe and Easy Practices
15:Springing Up from the Earth
16:The Lifetime of the Tathagata
17:The Variety of Blessings
18:Blessings of Responding with Joy
19:The Blessings of the Dharma Teacher
20:Never Disrespectful Bodhisattva
21:Divine Powers of the Tathagata
22:Entrustment
23:Previous Lives of Medicine King Bodhisattva
24:Wonderful Voice Bodhisattva
25:The Universal Gateway of the Bodhisattva Regarder of the Cries of the
World
26:Incantations
27:The Previous Life of King Wonderfully Adorned
28:Encouragement of Universal Sage Bodhisattva
THE SUTRA OF CONTEMPLATION OF THE DHARMA PRACTICE OF
UNIVERSAL SAGE BODHISATTVA
Notes
Glossaries
Glossary of Proper Names
Glossary of Terms
Bibliography
Index
About the Translator=
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Preface
THIS NEW TRANSLATION of the Lotus Sutra is intended primarily for people who are interested in Buddhism but are not Buddhist scholars. My intention is to provide a highly readable English version of this important text. I want to make this text accessible to ordinary readers with little or no familiarity with technical Buddhist vocabulary. Several other translations are available, some better than others. For scholars interested in comparison of Sanskrit and Chinese versions, for example, the translation by the late Leon Hurvitz will be useful.
While I do my best to make the sutra accessible, I never deliberately compromise the meaning of what I find in it. There are passages in this text that I don’t like and wish were not there. There are passages that are extremely difficult if not impossible to understand. There are a great many ambiguities, some intentional, some probably not. My purpose is not to eliminate or soften such passages or to settle the controversies to which they have given rise, but only to provide a version that reveals as much meaning in the sutra as possible.
My first exposure to this sutra was around 1980 when I was invited to participate in a workshop sponsored by the lay Buddhist organization Rissho Kosei-kai, which has its headquarters and the vast majority of its members in Japan. The workshop was designed to enhance interest in the Lotus Sutra among participants, but it had the opposite effect on me. I found a number of things in the text uncongenial. In succeeding years, however, I became increasingly fascinated by this sutra. And I came to think that part of what discouraged me initially was the poor choice of terms in the translation I had read.
Nearly a decade later I decided to move to Japan to study the Lotus Sutra and improve my skills in Japanese and Chinese languages. I was encouraged both by Nikkyo Niwano, the founder and then president of Rissho Kosei-kai, and by Yoshiro Tamura, the foremost Japanese scholar of Tendai thought, who had recently retired from the University of Tokyo and was teaching at Rissho University.
Tamura died within a few months of my moving to Japan, so our several joint projects had to be abandoned. But Tamura’s blend of passionate, personal interest in the Lotus Sutra, combined with his profound scholarship and academic rigor, is an inspiration to me still. Nikkyo Niwano, on the other hand, was entirely lacking in scholarly, academic credentials. But he had the same sensibility as Tamura, except that whereas Tamura was primarily an academic and secondarily a follower of the Lotus Sutra, Niwano was primarily a practitioner and devotee of the sutra and secondarily one who studied the scholarship about it. I regard both of these men as my great Dharma teachers, and feel more indebted to them than I can express.
As I became more familiar with Japanese and Chinese versions of this sutra, and despite the fact that some new translations had appeared in print, I became even more convinced that a version for ordinary English-language readers was needed, one that avoided Buddhist jargon and Sanskrit terms as much as possible.
I began dabbling with a translation of my own about a dozen years ago. The first privately printed
version was in 2001. Since then there have been many revisions and a few revised versions. I’m sure there will be more. Translation of any large and complex Chinese text is not something one can ever expect to get right. All one can hope for is that it will become better.
When Kumarajiva or other translators felt that they could not translate a Sanskrit word into Chinese, they transliterated it; that is, they provided a phonetic equivalent to the Sanskrit. This is one of the reasons why many Sanskrit terms have become familiar in English, terms such as buddha, dharma, stupa, and so on, they are basically transliterations of Sanskrit terms. The normal procedure when translating a Chinese Buddhist text into English is to translate into English what the translator into Chinese translated and use the Sanskrit term if it was only transliterated into Chinese. This works fine, of course, for scholars already familiar with many Sanskrit terms, but less well for others. What I have done in this translation, then, is to translate into English wherever I can; that is, wherever I think there is a reasonably good English equivalent for the term in question.
Sometimes such choices are relatively easy to make. For example, the Sanskrit term kalpa, often left untranslated, is here rendered as eon. Perhaps age would work just as well, but I can see no point in retaining the Sanskrit.
Some choices will be more controversial. The Sanskrit term sangha is often used in English, both in translations and in general use among English-speaking Buddhists, where it has come to mean just about any Buddhist community. For this translation, I have chosen to use monks, since it was often used to translate sangha into Chinese, and monk(s) is what the Chinese character in this sutra literally means. Originally in India and still today in many of the Buddhist worlds of Asia, sangha still refers exclusively to a community of monks. Thus, to use sangha where the text has monks could be confusing or misleading. Where the text intends a larger grouping that includes monks but is not limited to them, I use assembly or, as is often the case in this text, great assembly.
My decision to use the English (originally Greek or Roman) equivalents for most Indian mythological creatures will seem misguided to some. The great Buddhist and Sanskrit scholar Hajime Nakamura was the first to point out to me how closely related these imaginary creatures are. When I saw that Jean-Noël Robert used translations of these terms in his excellent translation of the Lotus Sutra into French, I decided to do the same. The Sanskrit equivalents can be found in the glossary of terms. The one exception to this practice is the term asura, which does not correspond very well with titan and appears in English-language works, translations, and dictionaries. In the case of Dharma I retain the Sanskrit, whereas others have chosen to translate it. Some translators have used law. While I understand that choice, I think it is unfortunate. Sometimes, especially in non-Buddhist Indian usage, dharma does mean something like a regulatory principle, the way things ought to be. In Buddhism generally, the term has several uses, sometimes quite vague. Sometimes, especially in the Universal Sage Sutra translated here, it means something like method. But in the Lotus Sutra the much more fundamental meaning of dharma is teachings, in particular the teachings of the Buddha. Sometimes this same term refers to the fundamental truths that the Buddha realized and taught, as later interpreters have insisted. But even in such cases, the meaning of teachings is always retained or included. In this text, dharma is Buddha-dharma. Given this complexity, I think it is best to retain the Sanskrit term.
Making the situation more complicated, the term dharma in this and other texts has a quite different meaning, which I render as things and for which others have sometimes use phenomena.
These things are a consequence of ordinary sense experience; they are what we experience. Such things, of course, are not necessarily physical objects but can be events or even ideas. Fortunately, this use of dharma is almost always readily distinguishable from its use as teaching.
In the course of doing this translation earlier versions of it have been used in classes in Tokyo, Beijing, and Chicago, and the International Buddhist Congregation of Rissho Kosei-kai has used them for study and recitation. Along the way I have received a great many comments and helpful suggestions. Two staff members of Rissho Kosei-kai — Michio Shinozaki, the president of Rissho Kosei-kai’s seminary, Gakurin, and Yukimasa Hagiwara, now head of Rissho Kosei-kai’s Dharma Missions department — read the entire manuscript and proposed many improvements.
A former student of mine, now a retired Unitarian Universalist minister, Robert Swain, worked carefully on an earlier version of the text of the Dharma Flower Sutra itself, making numerous improvements in my English expressions. Professor Brook Ziporyn of Northwestern University has reviewed and refined the translations of the opening and closing sutras, and made useful suggestions on parts of the Lotus Sutra as well. Min Yang has been very helpful in developing Pinyin versions of the dharanis in chapters 26 and 28. And three reviewers for Wisdom Publications offered many useful suggestions.
I have consulted various versions of Kumarajiva’s translation into Chinese along with two frequently used Japanese versions of his translation. But the main reference text for this translation has been the three-volume version published by Iwanami Shoten with translations and extensive notes by Yukio Sakamoto and Yutaka Iwamoto. One of the great virtues of this version is that it includes on facing pages the Chinese text, a Japanese version of the Chinese, and a translation into Japanese from Sanskrit.
Despite the differences between this translation and earlier ones, I feel enormously indebted to previous translators. I have consulted and been informed by earlier translations at every point along the way. The earliest of these is the one still in use by Rissho Kosei-kai called The Threefold Lotus Sutra, in which the translation of the Lotus Sutra itself was done by Bunnō Katō, based in part on work previously done by W.E. Soothill. While the present version is significantly different from Katō’s, I remain enormously indebted to him for initially arousing my interest in the sutra and prompting me to try to improve on his translation.
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PAGE 12 OF 636
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Translator’s Introduction
LOTUS SUTRA" does not correspond to anything in Chinese or Japanese. The full title in Chinese is 妙法蓮華経, pronounced Miao- fa-lian-hua jing, and Myō-hō-renge-kyō in Japanese. Literally these characters mean wonderful Dharma lotus flower sutra. Although just 法華 is sometimes found, the usual shortened title in the text itself is 法華経, pronounced Fa-hua jing in Chinese and Hoke-kyō in Japanese. In English this would be Dharma Flower Sutra. I’m uncertain about how or why this text came to be called the Lotus Sutra in English. I suspect it is because the first Western translation of it, in 1852 by Eugene Burnouf into French, was titled Le lotus de la bonne loi.
Often used as the base of statues of buddhas and bodhisattvas or held in the hands of bodhisattvas, the lotus flower may be the most common of Buddhist symbols. It is especially important in Mahayana Buddhism, where it symbolizes the bodhisattva as one who is firmly rooted in the mud of the earth and flowering toward the sky. It is a symbol of working in the world to help others to awaken while finding inspiration in a sense of the cosmos.
Thus the lotus flower and the lotus plant are important in the sutra. But more important than the plant itself, it seems to me, is its flowering. The sutra wants us to understand it as a blossoming of Buddha-dharma. Its own short title, Dharma Flower Sutra, or even Dharma Flowering Sutra, would thus be more appropriate than Lotus Sutra for the short title of this text, except, of course, for the fact that it is already well known as the Lotus Sutra.
THE TEXT
The sutra is thought to have been translated into Chinese at least six times, the first being by Dharmaraksha (竺法護) in 286 CE. He gave it the title Zheng-fa-hua jing (正法華經), or True Dharma Flower Sutra. While this translation has received some attention from scholars, it has had very little influence on East Asian Buddhism or culture, as it was surpassed by the translation of Kumarajiva (鳩摩羅什) in 406, to which the title Miao-fa-lian-hua jing (妙法蓮華經) was given. The only other existing translation is actually a revision of Kumarajiva’s version. An additional three translations found in some catalogs are no longer known to exist.
Save for a translation from Sanskrit by H. Kern, originally published in 1884 as a volume of The Sacred Books of the East, edited by Max Müller, all East Asian and almost all Western versions of the sutra are based on the translation by Kumarajiva, as are almost all commentaries. In fact, existing Sanskrit manuscripts are much more recent than the Chinese translations. Unfortunately, as I think is true of all translations of Buddhist texts into Chinese, the Sanskrit versions from which they were translated are lost.
There are significant differences among the existing versions, summarized well by Yoshiro Tamura in his introduction to The Threefold Lotus Sutra. We do not know how to explain these differences. Perhaps Kumarajiva translated very freely or had a Sanskrit version quite different from those we now possess.
The Chinese versions are usually said to be translations from the Sanskrit Saddharmapuṇḍarīka-sūtra. But while many Sanskrit texts and especially fragments of texts of this sutra have been found all over the northern part of the Indian subcontinent, they are all much more recent than existing Chinese versions.
The version in this book, like virtually all contemporary Chinese and Japanese versions, has twenty-eight chapters, though Kumarajiva’s version had only twenty-seven. Sometime, probably in the fifth or sixth century, the text of what is now the Devadatta chapter was moved from the end of chapter 11 to form a separate chapter 12.
Formation of the Lotus Sutra
Traditionally the Dharma Flower Sutra has been divided into two parts. In recent times some scholars have proposed a threefold division that compliments rather than supplants the traditional division. A change of focus after chapter 9, and the fact that making copies of the sutra becomes important after chapter 9 but is not mentioned at all in chapters 2–9, have led to the conclusion that chapters 2–9, with their focus on shravakas, constitute an earlier version of the text, and that chapters 10–21, focusing on bodhisattvas and the practice of the bodhisattva way, were added later. Chapter 1 is seen as having been created along with this second group as an introduction to the whole in an attempt to make the two groups coherent. Finally, the last six chapters are regarded as another group, stressing the practice of bodhisattvas. Some of the chapters in this group evidently were circulated as separate sutras, perhaps before the Lotus Sutra itself was created. Though we do not know how far back such practice extends, chapter 25, Regarder of the Cries of the World (the Guanyin jing or Kannon-gyō), is used as a separate sutra to this day. Some regard chapter 12 as part of this third group. Compilation of the sutra probably took place within the first century of the common era. In the Mahāprajñāparamitā-upadeśaśastra, attributed to Nāgārjuna and supposedly written around 200 CE, there are citations from Lotus Sutra chapters up to the last. If the dating of this text is correct, it would indicate that by the end of the second century the contents of the Lotus Sutra were pretty much what we have now.
This division of the sutra into three parts can also be understood doctrinally. The first part elucidates a unifying truth of the universe (the One Vehicle of the Wonderful Dharma); the second part sheds light on the everlasting personal life of the Buddha (Everlasting Original Buddha); and the third part emphasizes the actual activities of human beings (the bodhisattva way).
While the traditional division of the sutra into two halves is useful for understanding its teachings, the division into three groups of chapters is useful for understanding the historical development of the sutra and some of the various inconsistencies in it, both doctrinal and stylistic.
The Opening and Closing Sutras
For centuries the Lotus Sutra has been closely associated in East Asia with the Sutra of Innumerable Meanings and the Sutra of Contemplation on the Dharma Practice of Universal Sage Bodhisattva, typically referred to as the opening and closing sutras, the three together being referred to as the three-part Dharma flower sutra and published as The Threefold Lotus Sutra. In chapter 1 of the Dharma Flower Sutra it is said that for the sake of all bodhisattvas the Buddha taught the Great Vehicle sutra called Innumerable Meanings (無量義經 Wuliang yi jing). Tradition has it that a sutra with this name was received by the monk Hui-piao (慈表) from the translator Dharma-jātayaśas (曇摩伽
陀耶舍) toward the end of the fifth century. It has been taken to be a translation from a Sanskrit Amitārtha Sutra, which has been lost. There may have been an earlier translation, also now lost. Although a passage in this sutra, mentioning a truth not yet revealed after more than forty years of teaching, has been taken to be a reference to the Lotus Sutra, in fact the Lotus Sutra is not explicitly mentioned in this sutra. Virtually nothing is known of its origins or connection to the Lotus Sutra. Some believe that it may have been originally composed in Chinese.
The existing Sutra of Contemplation on the Dharma Practice of Universal Sage Bodhisattva in Chinese, Guan-puxian-pusa-xing fa jing (觀普賢菩薩 行法經) — often shortened to Puxian-guan jing (普賢 觀經) and in Japan often termed the Zange-kyō (懴悔經), also pronounced Sange-kyō, the repentance sutra — is traditionally believed to have been translated by Dharmamitra (曇無蜜多) in the middle of the fifth century, following two earlier translations, including one by Kumarajiva, which are now lost. In it the Lotus Sutra is explicitly mentioned, clearly indicating an intended connection. In this case, too, no Sanskrit version has been found.
A Religious Inspirational Text
There are many ways to read any important text. The Lotus Sutra has been taken to be a polemical document reflecting a conflict between conservative, classical monks and Mahayana upstarts. Its purpose would be to assert the superiority of the Great Vehicle, the Mahayana, over more conservative traditions while disparaging the smaller vehicle.
While it certainly is possible to read the Lotus Sutra this way, we know too little about the beginnings of Mahayana Buddhism and the formation of this sutra to speak confidently about that history. In any case, it certainly is not as a record of Indian Buddhist history that this sutra has been read over many centuries by the peoples of East Asia, where it has almost universally been regarded as a religious text, recited as a devotional practice, and esteemed as a source of protection from forces both natural and human, real and imagined, and where it has inspired a range of Buddhist and secular arts and served as a spiritual basis and resource for political rebellion or reform.
In short, this text has become one of the world’s great religious scriptures and most influential books. It did not acquire that renown as a polemic against people or schools largely unknown to East Asian readers.
I believe we will understand this text better if we treat it as an inspirational text, rather than assuming its purpose was to give its readers ammunition against other Buddhists. Its main thrust is to encourage readers to understand themselves in certain ways. It seeks, in other words, to change human behavior by influencing the religious orientation and values of its auditors or readers.
It teaches, for example, that everyone without exception has the potential to be a buddha. This simple teaching would later develop into doctrines and theories about Buddha-nature. But in this text what we actually have is not so much a doctrine as a series of stories, narratives that appeal to the human imagination as well as to the rational mind. The story of Devadatta, for example, tells us nothing at all about the historical Devadatta, but it encourages us to understand that just as Devadatta, everywhere known to be evil, is told that he is to become a buddha, so we too, no matter how imperfect, have the potential to become a buddha. We also need to understand that this story teaches us that a buddha is one who sees the potential for good in others, even in enemies. It encourages us to realize our own capacity to be a buddha for someone else. Many other stories in this sutra are
designed to move us to behave in accord with the sutra, primarily by helping others by sharing its teachings with them.
The Devadatta story is followed immediately by the very interesting story of the dragon princess, a little girl whom Manjushri Bodhisattva proclaims to be capable of becoming a buddha immediately. This story was obviously intended to persuade monks, who would have been its only early auditors and readers, that women as well as men have the potential of being buddhas, common prejudice and informed opinion to the contrary. At the climax of the story, the girl tells her two male critics, a shravaka monk and a bodhisattva, that if they look — if they really look using their spiritual eyes — they too will see her as a buddha. In other words, this story is not designed merely to criticize male assumptions, though it does do that; it also affirms the positive potential to be a buddha in the very men it also criticizes. This also means, of course, that it affirms the positive potential of both its female and its male auditors or readers.
All readers of the Lotus Sutra would be well advised to ask what the story is saying about themselves.
The sutra certainly is, however, a Mahayana text, one that champions a Mahayana Buddhist understanding of Buddha-dharma. But its claim to superiority should not be seen as opposing or excluding anyone. Quite the opposite, it affirms the equality of everyone and seeks to provide an understanding of Buddha-dharma that excludes no one.
Though we can make conjectures based on what we find in the text, virtually nothing is known about the origins of the Dharma Flower Sutra in India, as we know very little about the early centuries of the Mahayana movement of which it was an important part. It’s even quite likely that it is inappropriate to think of Sanskrit as the original language of this sutra. Sanskrit was a bit like the Latin language in medieval Europe: texts originally written in a vernacular were translated into Latin or Sanskrit to give them higher status and wider appeal. While it is possible that some of the Lotus Sutra was originally composed in Sanskrit, it is very unlikely that much of it was.
Thus while it is possible, even likely, that this sutra once existed in some other Indian language or languages, there is no hard evidence for this. It’s also very likely that before being committed to any written form, most if not all of the text existed in oral versions. It also seems obvious that some parts of the sutra, especially the final six chapters, and possibly chapter 12 or at least the Devadatta and dragon princess stories in chapter 12, circulated separately at least in oral form. Chapter 25, the Guan-yin chapter, has circulated separately for several centuries down to the present and is sometimes confused with the whole sutra.
Historical Significance
While the Lotus Sutra has had a fair share of critics, ranging from those who regard it as nothing more than snake oil to those who consider its influence pernicious, there can be no doubt that it has been enormously influential in East Asia from the time of its translation by Kumarajiva down to the present. In recent times it has served as a foundation for numerous Buddhist reform movements, especially in Taiwan and Japan. Today, with a revival of Buddhism in China, the sutra is widely studied and recited there as well, both by monastics and by laypeople. In Japan, where Buddhism is more sectarian than in other East Asian countries, well over fifty new Buddhist religious organizations claim to be based on the Lotus Sutra, most notably Soka Gakkai, now one of the largest Buddhist organizations in the
world; Rissho Kosei-kai, which has pioneered Japanese involvement in international interfaith encounter and cooperation; and Reiyu-kai, the mother of the vast majority of new Japanese Buddhist movements and organizations.
The influence of the Lotus Sutra has not been limited to religious organizations. For many centuries it has had a major impact on East Asian culture, especially on art and politics. In the Chinese section of any major art museum one will find that a great many images are based solely on the Lotus Sutra, images such as the two buddhas sitting side by side in the stupa of Abundant Treasures Buddha, or Universal Sage Bodhisattva mounted on a white elephant with six tusks, or the burning house from the parable in chapter 3 of the sutra.
After reading it at an early age in his father’s study, Japan’s greatest twentieth-century storyteller and poet, Kenji Miyazawa, became devoted to the Lotus Sutra, writing to his father on his own deathbed that all he ever wanted to do was share the teachings of this sutra with others. Yet in writings published during his lifetime Miyazawa seldom if ever mentions the Lotus Sutra. He sought, rather, to display or illuminate its teachings implicitly, without explicit reference to the sutra. He wanted to embody the sutra quietly, both in his writing and in his life. This was no secret, however, in his impoverished native Iwate prefecture in the northeastern region of Japan’s main island, where he was widely known as Kenji Bodhisattva.
Much of the influence of the Dharma Flower Sutra can be attributed to its being championed by the Tiantai/Tendai and Nichiren schools and denominations. Founded by the monk Zhiyi in the sixth century, Tiantai attempted to order the huge variety of Buddhist sutras by treating the Lotus Sutra as the summation of the Buddha’s teaching. This understanding of the sutra was enormously influential for many centuries, even after Tiantai as a school had largely died out. Brought to Japan among the earliest Buddhist texts to come from Korea and China, the Dharma Flower Sutra was soon established as the major spiritual protector of the nation, with monasteries and nunneries built in every province primarily for the purpose of reciting the Lotus Sutra. Mount Hiei, outside of Kyoto, soon became the headquarters of the growing Tendai denomination of Buddhism. There all the major figures in the development of new denominations of Buddhism studied the Lotus Sutra, including Dogen (1200–53), the much-revered founder of the Soto branch of Zen, who made extensive use of the Lotus Sutra in developing his own approach to Zen ideas and practice.
Among these founders of new streams of Buddhism was Nichiren (1222–82), founder of what has been called both the Dharma Flower School and the Nichiren School. Nichiren was fanatically devoted to the Lotus Sutra, at different times in his life urging study of it, extolling devotion to it, and even proclaiming the adequacy of reciting only its title. In Japan it is mainly Nichiren and related schools that carried the Lotus Sutra into modern times, giving it such a prominent place in twentieth-century Japanese culture and politics.
The sutra has also continued to attract devotees in countries of Chinese culture and language. In Taiwan, for example, it is the initial inspiration behind the nun Dharma Master Cheng Yen, the founder and head the Tsu-chi Foundation, the largest Buddhist charitable organization in the world. It is recited regularly at temples both in Taiwan and in Singapore. And in China itself it is now a prominent part of the resurgence of Buddhism, both monastic and lay. Although this sutra is not the main text for any organization, as it is for many in Japan, it is widely studied and recited regularly in temples and lay Buddhist organizations.
Though often unrecognized, the relation of the Lotus Sutra to popular East Asian devotion to Guan-yin (Kannon in Japanese pronunciation) is also an important part of this story. This bodhisattva, who embodies compassion, is easily the most popular and important Buddhist figure in East Asia, found not only in Buddhist temples of all kinds and sizes but also in Daoist and popular Chinese temples, in Shinto shrines, in ordinary homes, and increasingly in mammoth outdoor statues. The Lotus Sutra is not the only sutra in which Guan-yin appears, but it is the oldest, and more than any other it has provided a textual basis for the remarkable growth of Guan-yin devotion in China beginning in the tenth century. Consistent with the Guan-yin chapter of the sutra, The Universal Gateway of the Bodhisattva Regarder of the Cries of the World, though certainly not always based on it, devotion to Guan-yin embodies fundamental themes of the sutra, particularly its emphasis on skillfully doing whatever is needed to help or save others, on breaking down sharp distinction between the buddha and bodhisattva ideals, on the importance of leadership by women, and especially on having Buddha-dharma infuse everyday life and popular culture, in part by fostering compassionate care for the poor.
The Fantasy Setting
Whatever else it may be, the Lotus Sutra is a storybook containing a great variety of parables and other stories, and stories-within-stories. Some of the characters are ordinary human beings, typically monks and nuns, some of them regarded as historical, such as Shariputra and his colleagues, some as fictional actors in a parable, typically a father figure, as is the physician-father who gets his dying children to take an antidote to a poison by leading them to believe he has died. Several major characters in these stories are human but not only human beings, such as the bodhisattvas Manjushri, Maitreya, and Medicine King. Other major figures who clearly are not only human also appear in these stories include Abundant Treasures Buddha and Universal Sage Bodhisattva. A large variety of gods, goddesses, and mythical creatures are also part of the setting for several stories.
The central figure in much of the text is the Buddha — Shakyamuni Buddha. Here he has supernatural powers; for example, he illuminates the infinite worlds of the universe with a light that emerges from a tuft of hair between his eyebrows. Yet the text frequently reminds the reader of the human, historical life of Shakyamuni, reminding us of key events in his life on earth: having a son and stepmother, becoming awakened under a tree, teaching ascetics at Varanasi, and so on.
Often these stories are given a vast, probably infinite cosmic setting. Almost always in the background is the idea of vast reaches of time, divided into periods in which a buddha’s teachings are alive and effective and periods in which they are merely formal, followed without enthusiasm to very little effect. Just as time is fantastically extended, so too is space. Shakyamuni lights up all the worlds on more than one occasion, in one case using that light to invite buddhas from all over the universe to come to this world to witness the presence of Abundant Treasures Buddha in his magnificent stupa, which has arrived from the distant past. Bodhisattvas travel to visit this world from other very distant worlds, and on such occasions extremely rare flowers rain down from the heavens, drums and other musical instruments make music by themselves, and the worlds, including this one, shake and tremble in the six ways that a world can shake and tremble.
To be sure, some of these fireworks have entertainment value, livening up stories. But that is not their only function.
In Kenji Miyazawa’s most famous story, The Night of the Milky Way Railroad, a young boy falls asleep and has a fantastic dream in which he and his best friend ride a very special train through the
starry night, encountering a variety of strange and interesting characters and events. Eventually he realizes that the train is actually carrying souls of the dead to another world and discovers that he is the only one on the train with a round-trip ticket. He wakes up from the dream to learn that his best friend has drowned in the river that runs through their town, where a festival has been going on. And in that river he sees reflected the river that is the Milky Way, through which he has been traveling. It’s a kind of epiphany, a moment in which the earthly river and the heavenly river, each with the stories of life and death associated with it, are envisioned as one. Then the boy finishes what he set out to do before falling asleep — going to the store to get some milk to take home to his mother.
That, in part, is what the Lotus Sutra tries to achieve though fantasy — moments of cosmic connectedness that enable us to carry milk home to our mothers. It seeks, in other words, to have us be inspired by a cosmic vision, one that puts our lives into a cosmic perspective and encourages us to live better, perhaps like the lotus plant itself whose roots sink deeply into the mud of the earth while its blossom is caressed by the sun.
KEY TEACHINGS
Traditionally, following Zhiyi, the sixth-century founder of the Chinese Tiantai School of Buddhism, the Dharma Flower Sutra was understood to be composed of two halves. The first, ending with chapter 14 and centered on chapter 2, the Skillful Means chapter, is called the opening half and has to do with the idea of the one vehicle of many skillful means. The second half, centered on chapter 16, the chapter on the length of the Buddha’s life, has to do with how the Buddha is both everlasting and embodied in a great many forms. This twofold division is still a useful one, as it provides a convenient way of understanding key teachings of the sutra and unifying diverse parts of the text.
One Vehicle of Many Means
Often the model of the one vehicle of many means is the famous parable of the burning house found in chapter 3 of the Lotus Sutra. A father manages to get his children to abandon their play and escape from a burning house by telling them that the playthings they had long wanted — carriages drawn by goats, deer, and oxen — are waiting for them just outside the gate. But after everyone is safely outside, the father decides that he is rich enough to give each of the children a much larger and nicer carriage drawn by a great white ox. And this he does to the children’s great delight.
The parable can be taken to indicate that there are four vehicles in all and that the three lesser ones are replaced by the great one. More commonly, however, the one vehicle is understood to be inclusive of the three. Shariputra, the Buddha says in chapter 2, with their powers of skillful means, the buddhas have distinguished three ways within the One Buddha–Vehicle. The three carriages represent three different approaches to practicing Buddha-dharma — the shravaka, the pratyekabuddha, and the bodhisattva ways. Very little is said about the second of these three, that of monks who pursue awakening by and for themselves deep in forests in isolation from others. The first, the shravaka way, is a portrayal of traditional monks who pursue awakening in monastic communities, primarily by listening. Shravaka means hearer. Quite often in the text these first two ways are assimilated into a single way, such that there is a contrast between this pair, exemplified by monks who pursue the fundamentally negative goals of nirvana, putting out of passions, and such, and the third way, the way of the bodhisattva, which is basically understood to be the pursuit of awakening in interaction with others in the world.
Here there is also a basic contrast between the goal of the shravaka, which is to become an arhat, one who is worthy of offerings, and the goal of the bodhisattva, which is to become a buddha. Bodhisattvas are often called children of the Buddha because they are formed by the teachings of the Buddha. Who and what they are is more importantly a function of what they have learned from the Buddha than it is of their birth. In a sense, the Dharma they have inherited from the Buddha is more important than the genes and culture they have inherited from their parents. Much of the Lotus Sutra is a championing of this bodhisattva way, which is also the way to supreme or complete awakening. The goal of nirvana should, according to this text, be understood as a limited and inadequate goal, but nevertheless one that can lead to the bodhisattva way and thus to supreme awakening.
While the three ways can be understood as two, they can also be understood as representative of many ways. Ever since I became a buddha, Shakyamuni says at the beginning of chapter 2, I have used a variety of causal explanations and a variety of parables to teach and preach, and countless skillful means to lead living beings. The reason the Dharma is so difficult to understand and accept is that a great many teaching devices have been used, among them both the metaphor of the three vehicles and the reality underlying the metaphor, the three different approaches themselves. What makes everything clear, says the Buddha, is an understanding of the one vehicle of many skillful means now being revealed.
While the Lotus Sutra rejects the extreme of pure diversity and the consequent danger of nihilism through use of the one vehicle as the unity in purpose of the many skillful means, it also clearly rejects the opposite extreme of complete unity in which diversity disappears or is relegated to mere illusion. Here diversity is not lamented but regarded as a necessary consequence of the fact that living beings and their situations are diverse. And it is celebrated as the way in which a diversity of people can share the Dharma. Even when the sutra describes a future paradise, it includes shravakas as well as bodhisattvas; the diversity of approaches never disappears. In this sense, as in many others, this sutra teaches a middle way, here a middle way between utter diversity and sheer unity.
The infinite variety of ways of teaching have the one purpose of leading all living beings to pursue the goal of becoming a buddha, a goal that everyone without exception can reach, though the time may be very long and the way far from smooth or easy. Shariputra, Sakyamuni says in chapter 2, buddhas of the past, through an innumerable variety of skillful means, causal explanations, parables, and other kinds of expression, have preached the Dharma for the sake of living beings. These teachings have all been for the sake of the One Buddha–Vehicle, so that all living things, having heard the Dharma from a buddha, might finally gain complete wisdom.
As in the case of the carriages in the parable of the burning house, the great vehicle can be understood as replacing the other vehicles, or as making skillful means unnecessary. There are passages in the sutra that suggest this interpretation. We might call this the narrow interpretation of the Lotus Sutra, a perspective taken by some followers of Nichiren. They insist that in the Lotus Sutra they have found the one truth in light of which all other claims, and all other forms of religion including all other forms of Buddhism, are to be rejected as false and misleading. Most of those who study the Lotus Sutra, however, understand the teaching of the one vehicle in a much more generous, inclusive way.
The one vehicle itself can be understood as nothing but skillful means. That is, without a great variety of skillful means there can be no one vehicle, since it is through skillful means that living beings are led toward the goal of being a buddha. Without skillful means the one vehicle would be an empty,
useless vehicle. Furthermore, the one vehicle itself is a teaching device, a skillful means of teaching that the many means have a common purpose.
When speaking of skillful means, some contemporary interpreters of Buddhism choose to use phrases such as mere skillful means or only skillful means to indicate that teaching by skillful means is an inferior practice, something used only when one does not have something better. But this is never, I think, the perspective of the sutra itself. There, when some action is said to be a skillful means it is always taken to be something wonderful, a way by which someone, typically the Buddha or a stand-in for the Buddha, is able to save people, converting them into bodhisattvas.
Though I think this image of the one vehicle of many skillful means is the primary model for the reality of the one and the many, throughout the text a variety of other images express the theme of the reality and importance of the one and the many. On more than one occasion, for example, the many worlds of the universe are brought together into a unity. In a related image, Shakyamuni Buddha is said to have countless embodiments in other worlds, buddhas who are real in their own right yet closely tied to Shakyamuni Buddha. Similarly, buddhas of the past, present, and future are many and different, yet are somehow one in that they teach the same thing and their lives follow the pattern of Shakyamuni’s. All of these images serve to affirm the inseparability of the one and the many.
One Buddha of Many Embodiments
The second half of the sutra, centering on chapter 16, can be understood as involving another one-and-many, the one Buddha of many embodiments. Throughout the sutra, but especially in the second half, there is an expressed concern over the question as to who is going to carry on Shakyamuni Buddha’s teachings after his complete nirvana, his death. Various bodhisattvas promise to do so, often with an expectation that they will face strong opposition and humiliation. The most dramatic affirmation of the role of bodhisattvas in continuing to spread Buddha-dharma is the story in chapters 15 and 16. Some of the bodhisattvas who have come to this world along with their buddhas in order to see Abundant Treasures Buddha in his stupa offer to remain in this world to help Shakyamuni Buddha, the buddha of this world, in his especially difficult task of teaching and demonstrating the Dharma. Shakyamuni basically responds by saying, Thanks, but no thanks. We already have plenty of bodhisattvas of our own. Then a great host of bodhisattvas springs out of the earth. Everyone is shocked and wants to know who could have led and taught such an incredibly large number of bodhisattvas. And Shakyamuni Buddha responds that he taught them all. How such a thing could be possible, when Shakyamuni had been alive and teaching for only a relatively few years, is taken up in chapter 16.
I agree with those who understand that this great hoard of bodhisattvas includes bodhisattvas of ages to come; that is, bodhisattvas who will carry on in place of the Buddha when he is no longer available, at least no longer available as the historical Shakyamuni Buddha. Because the Buddha and his Dharma are alive in such bodhisattvas, he himself continues to be alive. The fantastically long life of the Buddha, in other words, is at least partly a function of and dependent on his being embodied in others. With the exception of the now deceased Abundant Treasures Buddha, while many different buddhas appear in the Lotus Sutra, not one is unaccompanied by bodhisattvas, suggesting that buddhas need bodhisattvas. Those who do the work of the Buddha are bodhisattvas, even when they don’t know they are doing the work of the Buddha.
Thus the bodhisattvas found in the final chapters, including Guanyin, can quite appropriately be regarded as buddhas. It is no accident that both Wonderful Voice Bodhisattva and Guan-yin, the
Regarder of the Cries of the World Bodhisattva, can take on the form of a buddha when that is what is needed. Scholars may very well say that Guan-yin is not a buddha, but any devout Chinese layperson can tell you that Guan-yin is a fully awakened buddha who has chosen to continue to work in this world as a bodhisattva. Such a view is consistent with the Lotus Sutra.
Embodying the Buddha is not something limited to bodhisattvas, at least not to bodhisattvas who are recognized as such. In some ways chapter 10, Teachers of the Dharma, is the most surprising and unconventional chapter in the sutra. There the Buddha points to a huge congregation, one that includes not only monks, nuns, laypeople, shravakas, and bodhisattvas but also a large assortment of nonhuman creatures, dragon kings, centaurs, and such, and he tells Medicine King Bodhisattva that if anyone asks what sorts of beings will become buddhas in ages to come, Medicine King should tell them that these are the ones who will do so. This chapter insists not only that all living beings have the potential to become buddhas eventually but that anyone can be a Dharma teacher now.
The idea in this sutra that everyone has the ability to become a buddha gave rise to the association of the sutra with the notion of Buddha-nature as found in somewhat later Mahayana sutras. The term Buddha-nature is another powerful expression of the reality and importance of the one Buddha in many embodiments. One’s Buddha-nature is both the Buddha’s and one’s own. Consequently, anyone can develop an ability to see the Buddha in others, their Buddha-nature. Thus, to awaken is to see, to see the Buddha, or as the text often says, to see countless buddhas.
It would be a great mistake, I think, to reify this notion, turning it into some sort of substantial reality underlying ordinary realities, something that is easy to do and is often done. In the text itself, it seems to me, Buddha-nature has no such ontological status. It is mainly a skillful way of indicating a potential, a potential with real power, to move in the direction of being a buddha by taking up the bodhisattva way.
It is also a very clever way to answer the question of how it is possible for one to overcome obstacles, however conceived, along the path of becoming a buddha. If ordinary human beings are completely under the sway of passions and delusions, by what power can they break through such a net of limitations? Some say that it is only by one’s own strength; one can be saved only by oneself. Others say that it is only by the power of Amida Buddha or perhaps Guan-yin that one can be led to awakening. The Lotus Sutra says that it is by a power that is at once one’s own and Shakyamuni Buddha’s. The Buddha really is embodied in the lives of ordinary people. He himself is both a one and a many.
Wisdom, Compassion, and Practice
While the ideas of one vehicle of many skillful means and one Buddha of many embodiments can be seen as the central teachings of the two halves of the sutra, a great many other things are, of course, taught in the Lotus Sutra, some implicitly, some explicitly. There is, for example, the important notion that the Dharma rains on all equally, nourishing all in accord with their needs. Combined with the ideas that Buddha-nature can be found in all people, that anyone can be a Dharma teacher, that all are equally children of the Buddha, and that following the bodhisattva way is not limited to those identified as bodhisattvas, one finds a powerful counter to the prevailing Indian ideas of rank and status as purely a function of birth and stage of life.
In addition to the extremely important but relatively abstract notion of following the bodhisattva way, the Lotus Sutra frequently advocates concrete practices, which are often related to the sutra itself.
They are often given as sets of four to six practices, but include receiving and embracing the sutra, hearing it, reading and reciting it, remembering it correctly, copying it, explaining it, understanding its meaning, pondering it, proclaiming it, practicing as it teaches, honoring it, protecting it, making offerings to it, preaching it and teaching it to others, and leading others to do any of these things. The six transcendental practices taught especially for bodhisattvas also play a prominent and important role. But in the first chapter we find a story about a previous life of Maitreya Bodhisattva in which, as the disciple of another bodhisattva, he was called Fame Seeker because he was especially attracted to lucrative offerings. He read and memorized many sutras but forgot all of them and gained nothing from his reading. But, having planted roots of goodness, he was able to meet countless buddhas and later became Maitreya Bodhisattva, the future buddha. Even more influential is the story of Never Disrespectful Bodhisattva in chapter 20. This bodhisattva did not read and recite sutras but simply went around telling everyone he met that they would become buddhas. Often despised for this, he persisted in refusing to be disrespectful to anyone. Later, after hearing the Lotus Sutra from the sky, he was able to enjoy a large following and eventually became Shakyamuni Buddha. What’s most important, these stories seem to say, is not which religious practices you use but how you treat others. To do good, in other words, is to follow the bodhisattva way.
The Lotus Sutra itself ends with a chapter on the bodhisattva Universal Sage and is traditionally followed by a sutra on the contemplative methods of Universal Sage Bodhisattva. Universal Sage has widely been taken to symbolize Buddhist practice, putting Buddhist teachings to use in everyday life, making them a foundation of one’s life. Manjushri and Maitreya are the two bodhisattvas who appear repeatedly in the sutra. Manjushri symbolizes Buddhist wisdom: both practical wisdom, the wisdom that solves or overcomes problems through knowledge and rational analysis, and creative wisdom, the imaginative wisdom that leads to fresh solutions to practical problems — difficulties such as helping one’s son to overcome a depressing sense of inadequacy, or getting one’s children to take an antidote for poison. Maitreya, along with Guan-yin, symbolizes compassion — not as just a state of mind but as the energy and drive, the inner motivation, that make it possible to work for the benefit of others as well as oneself. Universal Sage can be said, then, to symbolize the coming together in everyday life of wisdom and compassion, which can be taken perhaps as one way of expressing the heart of the Lotus Sutra.
Peace
Throughout the sutra many traditional Buddhist doctrines are mentioned and sometimes discussed, especially the four holy truths, the eightfold path, the twelve-link chain of causes and conditions, and the six transcendental practices. Thus it is possible to interpret the sutra as having the purpose of overcoming suffering. Such basically negative goals as overcoming suffering, getting rid of attachments, becoming free of faults, dispelling illusion, and so on are not to be disparaged. They do describe very important Buddhist goals. But at least for the Lotus Sutra they are not enough. Beyond them there is always a positive goal.
The positive goal of the Dharma Flower Sutra is described in several different ways. Here I have used the idea of becoming a buddha as the highest goal. Of course being a buddha is also called supreme awakening, often translated as enlightenment. So it might rightly be said to be the highest goal. Another very prominent term in the sutra is joy. Over and over we are told that a result of hearing even a small part of the sutra is joy. And we are allowed to witness the great joy that comes to Shariputra when he realizes that he too is a bodhisattva on the way to becoming a buddha. Joy can be said to be the goal of the Lotus Sutra. Another equally important term is peace. It is not my intent, the Buddha says in chapter 3, to lead people to extinction. I am the king of the Dharma, free to teach the Dharma, appearing in the world to bring peace and comfort to all the living. Peace can also be said to be the goal of the Lotus Sutra.
The goal of peace has inspired many people to work not just for inner peace but for peace in families, communities, nations, and the world. Peace is not the mere absence of conflict. It brings joy and happiness to living beings and gives them the strength to share their joy and happiness with others, so that all can work together to transform the world into a pure land of peace.
The Sutra of the Lotus Flower of the Wonderful Dharma
including the opening and closing sutras
The Sutra of Innumerable Meanings
and
The Sutra of Contemplation of the Dharma Practice
of Universal Sage Bodhisattva
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THE SUTRA OF INNUMERABLE MEANINGS
1:Virtuous Conduct
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2:Dharma Preaching
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3:Ten Blessings
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THE SUTRA OF THE LOTUS FLOWER OF THE WONDERFUL
DHARMA
1:Introduction
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2:Skillful Means
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3:A Parable
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4:Faith and Understanding
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5:The Parable of the Plants
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6:Assurance of Becoming a Buddha
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7:The Parable of the Fantastic Castle-City
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8:Assurance for the Five Hundred Disciples
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9:Assurance for Arhats, Trained and in Training
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10:Teachers of the Dharma
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11:The Sight of the Treasure Stupa
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12:Devadatta
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13:Encouragement to Uphold the Sutra
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14:Safe and Easy Practices
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15:Springing Up from the Earth
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16:The Lifetime of the Tathagata
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17:The Variety of Blessings
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18:Blessings of Responding with Joy
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19:The Blessings of the Dharma Teacher
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20:Never Disrespectful Bodhisattva
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21:Divine Powers of the Tathagata
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22:Entrustment
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23:Previous Lives of Medicine King Bodhisattva
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24:Wonderful Voice Bodhisattva
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25:The Universal Gateway of the Bodhisattva Regarder of the Cries of the
World
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26:Incantations
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27:The Previous Life of King Wonderfully Adorned
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28:Encouragement of Universal Sage Bodhisattva
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