The Pure Land and the Lotus Sutra

Years ago, I used to write down sutra verses I’d find (in English) into my little sutra book, but after a while I often forget what I wrote down. Recently I found this really fascinating verse from the twenty-third chapter of the Lotus Sutra, which I had apparently written down:

The woman who hears and keeps this chapter of the Previous Life of Medicine-King Bodhisattva will not be a woman in her next life. The woman who hears this sutra and acts according to the teachings of it in the later five hundred years after my extinction, will be able to be reborn, after her life in this world, [as a man sitting] on the jeweled seat in the lotus flower blooming in the World of Happiness [the Pure Land] where Amitāyus Buddha lives surrounded by great Bodhisattvas. He [no more she] will not be troubled by greed, anger, ignorance, arrogance, jealousy, or any other impurity. He will be able to obtain the supernatural powers of a Bodhisattva and the truth of birthlessness. When he obtains this truth, his eyes will be purified. With his purified eyes, he will be able to see seven billion and two hundred thousand million nayuta Buddhas or Tathāgatas, that is, as many Buddhas as there are sands in the river Ganges.
Transalation by Rev. Sencho Murano

There is a lot to unpack here.

In Indian culture, it was felt that birth as a women was disadvantageous. This was probably due to the realities of the time: patriarchal society, extreme risks of childbirth in a pre-modern society with medical technology, dowry customs, etc.¹ So, the idea was that rather than being reborn again as a woman in the next life, the sutra promises that such a woman could be reborn as a man by being reborn in the Pure Land of Amitāyus Buddha.

Amitāyus Buddha is one of the names of Amida Buddha. It is also used in the Immeasurable Life Sutra, where one of the vows of Amida Buddha is the following:

(35) If, when I attain Buddhahood, women in the immeasurable and inconceivable Buddha-lands of the ten quarters who, having heard my Name, rejoice in faith, awaken aspiration for Enlightenment and wish to renounce womanhood, should after death be reborn again as women, may I not attain perfect Enlightenment.
Translation by Rev. Hisao Inagaki

Here, we see essentially the same thing: if a woman is weary of the challenges of womanhood, she can choose to be reborn as a man in the Pure Land of Amida (Amitāyus) Buddha in accordance with his vow. Should his vow fail, the Pure Land would not be. Since it does exist, the vow is certain.

You can read this in two ways, I think:

This reaffirms a patriarchal attitude that woman are inferior, and therefore being a man is better on the Buddhist path, or
Buddhism was realistic about the challenges of woman in a patriarchal society of the time, and therefore offered something not found in other religious paths.

I think it is up to the reader to decide. To be honest, in light of other aspects of the Lotus Sutra, such as the Parable of the Dragon Princess, or Shakyamuni’s prophecy of Buddhahood to his nun disciples, I am inclined to think that the latter interpretation is what the authors of the Lotus Sutra intended. The Lotus Sutra reads as something (relatively) progressive for the time.

Separately, it’s interesting that the Pure Land of Amida Buddha is even referenced in the Lotus Sutra at all, and both sutras use the same name, Amitāyus, not the more common Amitābha. Typically, Buddhism tends to treat the Lotus Sutra and the Pure Land as separate traditions. They overlap because they are both Mahayana-Buddhist traditions, but often people focus on one or the other.

Further, the Pure Land of Amida Buddha is not prominent in the Lotus Sutra. Instead, the “pure land” of Shakyamuni Buddha in chapter sixteen is the big reveal. So, Amida Buddha’s Pure Land is more like a backup singer in the band, or a spinoff character.

But, having had some exposure to Tendai-Buddhist thought, and seeing overlapping texts like these, I feel it’s clear that they were meant to be one tradition, not two. From the Lotus Sutra perspective, the Pure Land path is part of the larger progression toward Buddhahood. From the Pure Land perspective, Buddhahood is all but assured if you are reborn there because of the radiance and magnetism of Amida Buddha. So, it feels like they are two sides of the same coin in a way. If you add the Zen perspective of the Pure Land, things get even more interesting.

How one approaches all this is up to you. If nothing else, the Lotus Sutra shows that there are many gates, and many ways to approach the Buddhist path, but they are like rivers all feeding into the same ocean.

Namu Shakamuni Butsu
Namu Amida Butsu

P.S. Despite my “break” in December, I decided not to wait on this one. 😅

¹ One could make the argument that even now in 21st century modern society, life as a woman is still not an easy one. But imagine life when you were expected to have many children, and the average childbirth had a 10% chance of killing you each time, so many women did not live past their 20s and 30s. Further, if your husband was a terrible person, you had little if any recourse.

Asakusa Temple Sutra Book

This is the last in a series of Japanese-Buddhist sutra books that I wanted to share. I talked about this Soto Zen sutra book, a Rinzai Zen book and a Jodo Shu sutra book. Today, I wanted to share the sutra book I purchased at Asakusa Temple in Tokyo, Japan.

Asakusa Temple (more properly Sensoji Temple, 浅草寺)¹ is super famous, and chances are if you have visited Tokyo, you probably went to Asakusa Temple. Asakusa is technically its own Buddhist-sect now, but for much of its history it was a Tendai Buddhist temple that enshrined a legendary statue of Kannon Bodhisattva that supposedly washed up on shore and enshrined in the year 645. This is called the Yanagi no Miei (柳御影, roughly translated “the [sacred] willow image”). The featured photo above shows where it is enshrined at Asakusa Temple.

Not surprisingly, the sutra book’s liturgy focuses on Kannon-related chants. This sutra book is sold in two sizes, but the contents are the same:

The illustration inside the cover depicts the legendary statue :

The liturgy to the left of the illustration is a form of Taking Refuge in the Three Treasures (san-ki-é-mon, 三帰依文) done in a more native-Japanese style, than the Sino-Japanese version I posted here. Both versions are perfectly valid and are chanted.

More examples below are chants that we’ve seen in older posts in right to left order:

the Sangémon (repentance) on the right,
Kaikyoge (verses for opening the sutra) second page from right, and
the Kannon Sutra itself on the left half.

Unlike other examples I’ve seen, this sutra book posts the entire Kannon sutra, not just the verse section. It’s about 3 times as longer than usual.

Next, we see a classic: the Heart Sutra. This makes sense since the Heart Sutra was spoken by Kannon Bodhisattva, not Shakyamuni Buddha. So. it fits the theme.

And last but not least, after the Heart Sutra is the Ten Verse Kannon Sutra (second from right), and Dedication of Merit verse.

Finally on the far left page is a simple recitation chant of devotion to Kannon Bodhisattva: namu kanzeon bosatsu (南無観世音菩薩). I’ve often used that to sign off blog posts, and unlike more esoteric mantras, this is a very common statement of devotion, much like the nembutsu for Amida Buddha. Feel free to chant it in your Buddhist practice!

Anyhow, this sutra book is something visitors to Asakusa Temple would probably overlook without the necessary background (or religious inclination), but it’s a fascinating look at Tendai Buddhist liturgy, but in a way that’s adapted to a particular temple, and to a particular deity.

Namu Kanzeon Bosatsu

P.S. That covers all the sutra books I wanted to cover here in the blog. I own a few more, but they’re not interesting or unique enough to justify another blog post. If I pick up another sutra book, I’ll post again. But if you did enjoy this mini-series, thank you for reading!

¹ The words “asakusa” and “senso” are literally just two different ways to read the same Chinese characters.

Revisiting the Five Hindrances

SPOCK: If there are self-made purgatories, then we all have to live in them.
Star Trek, “This Side of Paradise”, stardate 3417.7

The Five Hindrances in Buddhism was something I briefly touched on in the past, and something I think about from time to time, but then I ran into this neat excerpt by the Chinese Tiantai (Tendai) founder, Zhi-yi:

The practitioner is like a person who has gained freedom from a debt or one who has been cured of a serious disease, like a starving man arriving in a prosperous country, or like one who has been rescued safe and unharmed from a band of villains. When he eliminates these five hindrances, his mind becomes calm and secure and he feels clear, cool, and blissful.

Just as with the sun and moon which may be obscured and prevented from shining brightly by the five phenomena of smoke, dust, clouds, fog and the hand of the asura known as Rāhu, so it is as well with the human mind and the five “covering” hindrances.
The Essentials for Practicing Calming-and-Insight & Dhyana Meditation by Zhiyi, translated by Kalavinka Press, page 75

I really like this quote for a few reasons.

First the benefits of self-discipline, and personal conduct are like getting out of debt. By not committing harmful actions towards others (and by extension yourself), you are no incurring further debt. Because you are no longer incurring debt any existing “karmic debt” run its course, your personal purgatory that much shorter. It bring a kind of freedom, even if it seems counterintuitive.

長からむん心も知らず黒髪の乱れてけさはものをこそ思え

I do not even know how long your feelings will last. My long black hair is all disheveled and, this morning, my thoughts too are in a tangle!
Poem 80 of the Hyakunin Isshu, translation by Joshua Mostow

Second, it reiterates that the Five Hindrances really do get in the way of clear thinking, and prevent one from being level-headed and in control. This leads to further harmful actions, incurring further “debt”, etc. So, it helps to know what the Five Hindrances are, and to observe them in your own life, and to know how best to counteract them.

Easier said than done, but every time you counteract ill-will, or laziness, you’ve lightened the burden in your own self-made purgatory.

Namu Shakamuni Butsu

P.S. Featured photo taken at Ryoanji temple in 2023.

The Flexibility of Tendai

As I talked about in a recent post, the main core idea of the venerable Tendai (天台) sect in Japanese Buddhism, including its parent Tiantai sect in China, is that the Lotus Sutra is the most important text in the Buddhist canon, a kind of capstone (lit. “complete teaching”, engyō 円教) for the rest of Buddhist literature up to that point. Because the Lotus Sutra is pretty long (equivalent to a modern book), I tried to summarize its teachings here.

Anyhow, Tendai/Tiantai focuses on how to put the Lotus Sutra into practice. For Japanese Tendai in particular, this is encapsulated in a phrase called shishū yūgō (四宗融合) meaning “Four Integrated Practices”. According to my book, these are listed as follows:

Meditation¹
Esoteric Practices (mantras, dharani, mandala, etc)
Precepts
Pure Land²

This a lot. It helps to think of Tendai as a big umbrella or parasol with a bunch of people standing under it.

Different people under the umbrella represent different Buddhist followers, with different practices and inclinations, but the umbrella itself represents the concept of upāya (“expedient means”) or hōben (方便) in Japanese. This is one the main themes of the Lotus Sutra, and expresses that all Buddhist teachings and practices lead toward the same end goal, and thus whatever works for a person at that time is perfectly fine for that person.

This is encapsulated in the 25th chapter of the Lotus Sutra, the so-called Kannon Sutra, because the Bodhisattva Kannon (a.k.a. Guan-Yin, Avalokiteshvara, Chenrezig, Quan Âm, etc) according to this chapter takes on whatever form is most beneficial for that person and teaches the Dharma to them. Thus, Kannon can appear as a man, woman, monk, rich person, etc. It’s also why statues of Kannon often depict them as having 1,000 arms, each holding a different object. Similarly, many of the early Buddhist monks who were Tendai followers practiced it differently from one another. On the one hand, you have monks like Eisai, who focused on meditation and precepts (and would later found the first Rinzai Zen temples), you also had monks like Genshin who focused a lot more on Pure Land practices, as well as esoteric experts such as Ennin.

Tendai as a sect in Japan was almost universal in the 9th through 12th centuries, but for a variety of historical (often self-inflicted) reasons, it has diminished in size and influence. Yet when you visit historical temples in Japan such as Asakusa Temple in Tokyo, Kiyomizudera Temple in Kyoto, and Sanjusangendo in Kyoto, these are all Tendai temples. Further, its influence lives on in newer sects that we know well: Zen, Pure Land, Nichiren and such, which all inherited practices and concepts even if they apply them in differing ways.

But while Tendai as an organized sect is somewhat diminished,³ its teachings of “umbrella” or “universal” Buddhism continue to live on. Rather than insisting there’s only one way to practice Buddhism, it gives a large, spacious framework for people to figure out their own path and use the vast toolkit available to work it out, all under the Lotus Sutra concept of expedient means. Use what works for you, and do not be afraid to adapt, change, or expand your practice as you go.

Namu Shakamuni Butsu
Namu Amida Butsu
Namu Kanzeon Bosatsu

P.S. Publishing off-schedule just for fun. Happy Sunday!

¹ Tendai/Tiantai has the same meditation tradition as Zen, but tends to call it shikan (止観) not zazen (座禅) meditation. The founder, Zhi-yi, in China wrote multiples treatises, the Mohe Zhiguan, that provides a comprehensive manual about meditation. I have a copy of the The Essentials for Practicing Calming-and-Insight & Dhyana Meditation, but have only read parts of it. It is a nice training manual for those interested, but it is a little dense since the intended audience was the monastic community.

² In the time of Zhi-yi, the founder of Tiantai, Pure Land Buddhism was approach more as a meditation tradition than a separate set of practices that what we see today. By the time it came to Japan, this had changed somewhat, and we see through the writings of Genshin that there were a variety of approaches both devotional and meditation-focused.

³ According to my book, as of 2015, the number of registered followers in Japan was around 1.5 million give or take. This makes it the second smallest of the major sects in Japan, and one-eighth the size of Jodo Shinshu-sect Buddhism. Only Rinzai Zen is smaller (1.1 million).

The Lotus Sutra: the Capstone Teaching?

It’s been a while since I discussed anything that relates to Tendai Buddhism, but I was doing a bit of nerd-reading with my free time, and thought this was interesting to share.

As Buddhism spread from India via the Silk Road, transmitted by such peoples as the Kushans, Sogdians, and Parthians (the same Parthians who contended with Rome from to time), the vast wealth of Buddhist texts, teachings and information flooded into China in waves.

This import of information was kind of haphazard at first, but as translations improved and information continued to come, China developed its own schools of thought to help make sense of it all.

One of the first successful efforts was by a Chinese monk named Zhi-yi (智顗, 538–597 CE)¹ who founded the Tiantai school. He, or possibly by later patriarch Zhan-ran (湛然, c. 711-782 CE),² analyzed the various teachings and Buddhist texts and developed a chronology called the Five Time Periods and Eight Teachings (五時八教, wǔshí bājiào).³ This chronology looks like so:

The Buddha (Shakyamuni) taught the Flower Garland Sutra first, but it was incomprehensible to disciples.
The Buddha stepped back and taught Agama sutras next. The Agamas are equivalent to the Pali Canon in the Theravada tradition, and nearly the same in terms of content. The Agama sutras were more grounded and practical and thus easier for his community to understand.
Next, the Buddha taught sutras such as the Vimalakirti Sutra as an introduction to Mahayana teachings, and thus higher than the Agamas.
Next, the Buddha taught the Perfection of Wisdom sutras, such as the Heart Sutra, as a more complete teachings.
Finally, the Buddha taughy his ultimate teachings: the Lotus Sutra and Nirvana Sutra because the disciples were now ready.

Thus, out of all the Buddhist texts, Zhi-yi argued that the Lotus Sutra was the complete and ultimate teaching (円教). In Japanese Tendai Buddhism, 円教 is pronounced as engyō, or is sometimes more formally called hokke engyō (法華円教, “the complete teaching that is the Lotus Sutra”). Much of Tendai Buddhism is thus about putting the Lotus Sutra teachings into practice. From the Tendai perspective, things like meditation, venerating Amida Buddha, esoteric practices like mantras, and upholding the precepts are all ways to put the Lotus Sutra into practice, and Zhi-yi wrote quite a bit about this subject.⁴ The idea, expressed through the phrase shi-shū-yū-gō (四宗融合) or “Four Integrated Schools”.

The historicity of Zhi-yi’s textual analysis is unfortunately pretty dubious. Modern archeology and Buddhology show that the very earliest texts, historically, were the Agamas / Pali Canon (the Dhammapada and Jataka Tales probably came even earlier), but even those were not recorded in writing until three to four centuries after the Buddha. So, even with the earliest texts, we have a gap from when the early disciples passed everything down orally before committing to writing generations later. Granted, Indian oral tradition was quite sophisticated and designed to minimize errors and corruptions in recitation, but the Agamas and Pali Canon do slightly diverge from one another, mostly in ways that are interesting to scholars only.

The Mahayana Sutras such as the Vimalakirti Sutra, Lotus Sutra and Perfection of Wisdom sutras were written down even later. One could argue that they were passed down orally⁵ and just recorded later for some reason, but textual analysis casts this into doubt. The Mahayana sutras are more like “reboots” or compilations of earlier teachings, more polished and such.

Which is where the Lotus Sutra comes in, I think.

This is personal bias, admittedly, but I do believe that the Lotus Sutra is a capstone of the Buddhist tradition, not because the Buddha saved it for last. Instead, the authors of the sutra did a really nice job of synthesizing earlier teachings into a single narrative, and devised clever parables to bring the teachings to readers in a fresh, new way. The Lotus Sutra doesn’t necessarily introduce a lot of new teachings so much as it brings it all together. Like a capstone or keystone. There’s something in there for everyone, in other words.

So, to me the Five Time Periods and Eight Teachings isn’t very useful in a literal, historical sense, but it is useful for showing how some sutras synthesize other sutras into increasing comprehensive narratives.

P.S. featured photo is the capstone of the main entrance of Giusti’s Palace, photo by Paolo Villa, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

¹ Pronounced like “Jer-yee” in English. The “zhi” in pinyin sounds like English “jerk” without the “k” at the end. His name in Japanese is read as Chigi, by the way.

² Pronounced like “John-ron” in English. In Japanese, his name is read as Tannen.

³ This is read in Japanese language as gojihakkõ.

⁴ Pure Land practices as we recognize them do not seem to be prominent in Zhiyi’s time and were adopted into Tiantai later, and thus Japanese Tendai even later through such figures as Genshin.

⁵ The Lotus Sutra, for example is a mix of verse sections with narrative text around them. It’s argued that the verse sections came first, and then authors composed the narrative sections around them. When the verse sections were first composed is anyone’s guess.

Misery

Suffering is endemic to this world, whether it be a stripper hustling just to make $20, refugees who lose their homes, or soldiers fighting to defend their homeland, or children who are simply neglected and unloved.

If you stop to think about all this suffering, pain and misery, it’s completely overwhelming, heartbreaking.

Even if you had all the money in the world, and give it away, it provides only temporary relief. If you held all the power in the world, you could only affect so much change. Worse, you might fall into hubris.

From the game *Fire Emblem: Three Houses*

I think this is why the Buddha-Dharma is so helpful.

Photo courtesy of the Yomiuri Shimbun newspaper. This is the *fumetsu no hōtō* (不滅の法灯), the “Unextinguished Lamp of the Dharma” at Mount Hiei.

A candle flame doesn’t seem like much, but in a very dark place, that candle flame really stands out.

The majestic light of the Buddha Amitāyus is the most exalted….If, sentient beings encounter his light, their three defilements are removed; they feel tenderness, joy and pleasure; and good thoughts arise. If sentient beings in the three realms of suffering see his light, they will all be relieved and freed from affliction. At the end of their lives, they all reach emancipation.
The Immeasurable Life Sutra, translation by Rev. Hisao Inagaki

I often think about the old stories of Honen, the 12th century monk who spread the Pure Land teachings in Japan. It was a time of rampant disease, warfare, and income inequality. Honen couldn’t fix any of these things but he taught a simple message to any who would listen. If nothing else, it gave hope and a sense of direction in a directionless world.

A multilingual sign posted at the front of Chion-in Temple in Kyoto, Japan. Reads in English: "This is the road of respectful affability toward Chionin temple. It is the road to encounter Master Honen. It is also the route to obtain the way of Buddhism. For the old, the weak, women, and children are lead to brightness, peaceful, and the meaning of life by collecting wisdom from the Buddha. To free tiresome beings, to let them gain dignity, and to accept the true happiness ingenuously. This is, Buddhism." — A multilingual sign posted at the front of Chion-in Temple in Kyoto, Japan.1

Sometimes, small, sincere gestures of kindness can be the best help of all.

Namu Amida Butsu

P.S. an older post on the same subject.

P.P.S. Two days and I am already violating my own blog schedule. 🤦🏼‍♂️ This was an impromptu post I wrote after yesterday’s political disaster.

1 the sign above reads in Japanese:

親しみ慕われる知恩院への道。それは法然さまに出会う道。そして、お念仏のみ教えをいただく道。仏さまの智慧をいただいて、老若男女すべての人が、明るく正しく仲よく生きることに通じる道。人生の疲れを癒し、生きる尊さ、喜びを素直にいただくことができる道。それがこの道。智慧の道。

In English I would roughly translate this as:

This is a path toward closeness with Chion-in Temple. That is to say the path for encountering Master Honen. It is also a path for receiving the teachings of the nembutsu. One receives the compassion of the Buddha, regardless of age or gender, a path that leads to a bright, upright, affable life. A path that heals weariness, reveres life, leads to sincere joy; this is that path. A path of Compassion.

In Ukrainian via Google Translate:

Дорога до улюбленого храму Чіон-ін. Це шлях до зустрічі з Хонен-самою. І шлях до отримання вчення Нембуцу. Шлях, який веде до людей різного віку, чоловіків і жінок, які живуть яскраво, праведно та гармонійно завдяки мудрості Будди. Шлях, який дозволяє зцілити втому життя та насолоджуватися гідністю та радістю життя. Ось цей шлях. Шлях мудрості.

In Arabic via Google Translate:

الطريق إلى معبد تشيون إن المحبوب. هذا هو الطريق لمقابلة هونين-ساما. والطريق لتلقي تعاليم نيمبوتسو. طريق يؤدي إلى الناس من جميع الأعمار، رجالًا ونساءً، للعيش بشكل مشرق وصالح ومتناغم من خلال حكمة بوذا. طريق يسمح لك بالشفاء من تعب الحياة والاستمتاع بكرامة الحياة ومتعتها. هذا هو هذا الطريق. طريق الحكمة.

In Spanish via Google Translate:

El camino hacia el querido templo Chion-in. Ese es el camino para encontrar a Honen-sama. Y el camino para recibir las enseñanzas del Nembutsu. Un camino que lleva a personas de todas las edades, hombres y mujeres, a vivir de manera brillante, recta y armoniosa a través de la sabiduría de Buda. Un camino que permite sanar el cansancio de la vida y disfrutar de la dignidad y la alegría de vivir. Ese es este camino. El camino de la sabiduría.

Buddhism and Parenting

True story, I had some spare time one day recently to sit and meditate,¹ first time in a while. I set the app to 10 minutes, and sat on the ol’ cushion. About five minutes into this, my youngest child walked in and asked me to unlock the parental control on his tablet.

Concentration broken, oh well.

This is a frequent issue with being a parent and being a Buddhist, but it’s not a new one.

In the Buddha’s time, he distinguished the “householder” followers with the “renunciant” ones. This wasn’t meant to denigrate one versus the other, but it was intended to differentiate those who fully could devote themselves to the Dharma (the “renunciants”), to those who had other, competing obligations (the “householders”). Because the renunciants could, in theory, devote themselves full time to practice, and had cut loose any personal obligations and bonds, they could progress a lot further along the Buddhist path. The lay followers (householders) could still progress, but they would be hampered by their mundane obligations, social “entanglements”, and such.

However, because the Buddhist path was intended to help all, the renunciants would set aside certain days of the lunar month for outreach, helping lay followers through teaching and shared practice. This is known as Uposattha in the earliest Buddhist communities.

In later centuries, especially through the Mahayana tradition, Buddhist thinkers and communities sought to expand Buddhist practice to be more engaging toward lay Buddhist followers. The goal of such practices was not intended to replace the traditional monastic establishment, but (I believe) to help fill in the gaps. By expanding the available gates of Buddhist practice, people from all walks of life could find a place to start, and progress. In other words, an even more inclusive Buddhism.

Which comes back to my situation.

If we think of daily life as a box, there are only so many Lego bricks we can fit in there. Most of those Lego bricks, as a parent, are already spoken for, so that leaves only a bit of space left for “me time”. Within that spare time, self-help can be time-consuming, impractical. Or, one is just too mentally exhausted to do anything else but space out. In some ways, life as a “householder” hasn’t changed all that much since the Buddha’s time. We suffer less from hazards like dysentery and Viking raids, but the distractions and obligations are still there.

In any case, until the kids leave the nest, and especially after retirement, I have to be realistic in my own expectations. Simple practices such as the nembutsu, the odaimoku (a la Nichiren Buddhism), the Mantra of Light, or the Heart Sutra, combined with upholding the Five Precepts amidst daily life, are a helpful way to keep up one’s training while being realistic about time and energy. Even reciting something as simple as the nembutsu deepens the karmic bond with the Buddha and hopefully makes the world a slightly better place.

Also even a bit of forward momentum is better than to squander one’s life staring at a screen. 😉

¹ my meditation routine has always been very … inconsistent.

Going Off The Rails: A Cautionary Historical Tale

Speaking of going off the rails, I once wrote about how politics had a pretty corrosive effect on the Tendai Buddhist monastic community on Mount Hiei during the late Heian Period of Japanese history, but there’s aspect to this increased corruption and declining monastic discipline: the esoteric Buddhist tradition itself. Scholar Paul Groner has done extensive research about Tendai Buddhism and history, and published an article in 1987 about an influential Tendai monk named Annen (安然, 841–889?) who’s innovations to esoterica and Buddhism had a detrimental impact to the community.

This is also covered in a book I’ve been reading recently about the “Original Enlightenment” teaching that medieval Tendai strongly advocated at the time. More on that book later (it’s a tough read, so it’s taking me a while).

A quick history of Tendai Buddhism in Japan and the Esoteric tradition.

Esoteric Buddhism (a.k.a. Vajrayana) was imported into Japan in early centuries of history, but mostly as an afterthought.¹ It wasn’t until a monk named Kukai (空海; 774 – 835), founder of Shingon that Vajrayana Buddhism came to the fore. Kukai had studied it thoroughly under Indian and Chinese masters in the Chinese capital, and brought back a full program to Japan. It was the hot, new thing among the elite classes of Japan at time.

Saicho, founder of Tendai, had made the same journey to China, but was focused on learning Tian-tai (parent sect of Tendai) teachings, and only had a partial, incomplete training in Vajrayana. His disciples Ennin and Enchin also journeyed to China, and came back with a much more complete training, and helped establish a separate esoteric lineage from their rivals, the Shington sect under Kukai. The esoteric tradition within Tendai is called Taimitsu (台密).

Esoteric Buddhism was hugely popular among the affluent nobility in the capitol of Kyoto, who employed monks to officiate ceremonies, exorcise demons, cure illnesses, and bring prosperity. The Imperial Court also employed large numbers of monks regularly to pray for the safety of the nation from natural disasters, plagues and such. Over time, the Tendai sect in particular, due to its close proximity to the capitol, and extensive esoteric tradition developed a very close relationship with the government. Monks who were esoteric masters (阿闍梨, ajari) were especially popular among the elite. Further, because high-ranking monks in the Tendai order often came from noble families, there was increasing social relationships too. Popular monks were invited to parties, participated in poetry recitals and so on.

Back to Annen.

According to Dr Groner’s article, Annen was trained by two eminent monks at the time: Tankei (湛契, 817-880) and Henjo (遍昭, 817-890), the same Henjo who wrote poem 12 of the Hyakunin Isshu anthology. Both were part of the Tendai order on Mount Hiei, but found favor with the aristocracy and became “celebrity” priests.

Tankei was later defrocked after an affair with the Imperial prince’s wet nurse, but due to connections went on to serve in the Imperial bureaucracy and rose through the ranks until he reached junior fourth rank (equivalent to minor nobility). Strangely, while the Imperial government supported his defrocking over the affair, the Tendai sect establishment were angry about it, apparently not viewing the breaking of the vow of celibacy as a serious issue.

Similarly, Henjo was a nobleman for a long time, eventually who ordained in the Tendai order after the death of his liege Emperor Ninmyo in the year 850. By 868, after becoming an accomplished esoteric master, he mingled with the nobility again and was even granted a property by Ninmyo’s son for a new temple: the Unrin-in (雲林院). As Henjo established a monastic community there, in close proximity of the capitol, he started running the community his own way, shortening monastic training time, relaxing standards, etc.

Annen through training under Tankei and Henjo, developed into an accomplished master of the esoteric practices. He became a prolific writer and advocated a more urbane approach to monastic discipline where sincere intention was more important than actual discipline through the monastic precepts. For example, in his work, the futsu jubosatsukai koshaku (普通授菩薩戒広釈), Annen downplayed violating the precepts by explaining them away as an training expedient. It would be OK to violate the precepts in some situations, for example as an act of compassion for sentient beings.

Not everyone within the Tendai order agreed with this: The venerable Enchin complained in his generation that monks were already getting lax, wearing expensive robes, skipping the fortnight assembly, and so on. But Annen’s influence was too strong, and his interpretation of following the precepts loose enough for monks to bend the rules as this wished. This coupled with certain trendy theories at the time, such as the idea that “grasses and trees were enlightened”, led to a decline in monastic discipline that persisted all the way until the Edo Period (17th -19th century) when serious efforts to reintroduce monastic discipline were finally re-introduced. This was the Anraku Movement, by the way.

The issue is twofold: the vagueness of the Bodhisattva precepts employed by the Tendai sect exclusively allowed for individual interpretation. A monk with sincere intentions might still uphold proper behavior, but a monk with less sincere intentions might bend the interpretation to suit his conduct, rather than the other way around.

The second issue was the increasing intermixing of monks with the aristocracy. In the Buddha’s time ages ago in India, this was strictly forbidden. Monks were to withdraw from the contemporary world, and concentrate on strict monastic practice. Now, monks were fraternizing openly with the Imperial court instead of focusing on practice. This was done under the guise of “compassion for others”, but the results speak for themselves.

Anyhow, it easy to see how religious practice and teachings can fall under the sway of sophistry and go off the rails. Even in the Buddha’s time, he addressed this. In a conversation with the senior disciple Kashyapa in the Saddhammapaṭirūpaka Sutta (SN 16:13), the Buddha explains:

“These five downward-leading qualities tend to the confusion and disappearance of the true Dhamma. Which five? There is the case where the monks, nuns, male lay followers, & female lay followers live without respect, without deference, for the Teacher. They live without respect, without deference, for the Dhamma… for the Saṅgha… for the training… for concentration. These are the five downward-leading qualities that tend to the confusion and disappearance of the true Dhamma.
Translation by Thanissaro Bhikkhu

Once people started interpreting the Dharma their own way, the real Dharma got obfuscated, monastic disciples get confused, and things go off the rails.

Not surprisingly, this wasn’t the last time this happened in Japanese history.

P.S. Dr Groner’s article is a good read, so check it out.

¹ Called Mikkyō (密教) in Japanese, “secret teaching”.

Ablution

A floor tile mosaic showing two peacocks flanking a foundatin. Above the fountain is the Greek palindrome "ΝΙΨΟΝΑΝΟΜΗΜΑΤΑΜΗΜΟΝΑΝΟΨΙΝ".

Recently, I have been dabbling in learning ancient Greek language for the first time in years. I polished off my old DVD copy of the Greek 101 course from The Great Courses which I bought during the Pandemic after my local library no longer had it available.¹ It’s been fun to review old lessons, get reacquainted with such a gorgeous language, and so on.

Anyhow, something I wanted to share was a famous axiom in Koine Greek found throughout the Eastern Roman (a.k.a. the Byzantine) world:

ΝΙΨΟΝΑΝΟΜΗΜΑΤΑΜΗΜΟΝΑΝΟΨΙΝ
(Νίψον ἀνομήματα, μὴ μόναν ὄψιν)

“Wash your sins, not only your face.”

This is pronounced as Nipson anomēmata mē monan opsin. This is a famous palindrome (same forwards or backwards) that according to Wikipedia is attributed to one Saint Gregory of Nazianzus. I am not super familiar with the Orthodox tradition, but feel free to consult Wikipedia for more details. You can find it at many monasteries across the Eastern Roman world, including the holy font at the Hagia Sophia, the central church of Constantinople.

In any case, the concept of ablution is also found in Buddhism and expresses a similar sentiment.

Buddhism has a popular custom whereby one performs some kind of ablution with water or incense before approaching a Buddhist altar to pray. It is not strictly required, but is commonly performed as a gesture of respect toward the Buddhist deity you are visiting by cleansing oneself at a superficial level. Within Japanese Buddhism, some sects encourage this more than others; from what I have learned Tendai Buddhism tends to emphasize this a lot, Pure Land Buddhist sects (e.g. Jodo Shu and Jodo Shinshu) do not. The emphasis varies, in other words.

But also ablution in Buddhism is not limited to the external ritual; we also the concept of repentance (e.g. “washing the soul”). This is not the same thing as Western religions, where someone begs God for forgiveness for transgressions committed. Instead, the Buddha strongly encouraged us to constantly evaluate our past conduct, and use the Dharma as a kind of yard-stick to measure them: were they skillful actions, or unskillful actions? Inevitably, one must confront their own unskillful actions. We all do. It is part of being a human being.

So, in Buddhism, many traditions have a ritual were people reflect on their past actions and renounce them, resolving to do better. It is encouraged to do this in front of a statue of the Buddha, and to repeat the liturgy out loud, not just in one’s mind:

All of the misdeeds I’ve committed in the past, are the result of my own greed [or craving], anger and delusion [or ignorance]. I renounce [or repent] these misdeeds.
Translations vary by community, this is just one example.

The idea is that by acknowledging and confessing one’s faults, one not only learns from one’s mistakes, one also potentially diminishes some negative karma that one has sown, and also prevents further self-harm (i.e. guilt, self-recrimination) by letting go and forgiving oneself.

So, just as the old Greek palindrome says, Buddhist practice is not only washing one’s face, but also one’s “soul”.²

Namu Shakamuni Nyorai

P.S. A common misunderstanding is the primary language in the Roman Empire was Latin. In fact, most of the population spoke Greek as their primary language, though this varied widely by region. This prevalence of Greek was both a leftover from the Hellenistic Age, but also because even Romans felt that Greek was a prestige language, and wealthy Romans hired Greek tutors for their children when possible. Julius Caesar’s famous “Et Tu Brute” quote was actually recited in Greek (Kai Su Teknon).

¹ I prefer having hard copies of things, whenever possible.

² Buddhism is somewhat unique among world religions in that it teaches the concept of “no-soul” (anatman), so by “soul” I don’t mean a literal soul, but the mind and one’s provisional self.

Who is Vairocana Buddha: the Buddha of the Sun ?

Now, I, Vairocana Buddha am sitting atop a lotus pedestal;

On a thousand flowers surrounding me are a thousand Sakyamuni Buddhas.

Each flower supports a hundred million worlds; in each world a Sakyamuni Buddha appears.

All are seated beneath a Bodhi-tree, all simultaneously attain Buddhahood.

All these innumerable Buddhas have Vairocana as their original body.
The Mahayana version of the “Brahma Net Sutra”, translation by Young Men’s Buddhist Association

If you ever visit the famous Todaiji temple in Nara, Japan, you will see a truly colossal structure like so:

Inside as you approach is a colossal Buddha statue:

A massive temple interior showing an immense, seated bronze Buddha statue with a similarly massive halo behind it. There are small buddhas in the halo. The buddha holds its palm straight out at the viewer. — A side profile of the Great Buddha (daibutsu) of Todaiji Temple in Nara, Japan. This Buddha is Vairocana Buddha, the “Buddha of the Sun”. Taken in 2023.

This picture does not convey the size very well. It’s truly massive. But what is this Buddha?

This Buddha is a somewhat obscure figure named Vairocana (pronounced Wai-ro-chana) in Sanskrit, which means something like “of the Sun”. So, Vairocana is the Buddha of the Sun.

Vairocana features in a few Buddhist texts in the Mahayana canon: the Brahma Net Sutra quoted above and the voluminous Flower Garland Sutra, for example. It is also very prominent in esoteric traditions in Japan (Shingon and Tendai sects) as Maha-Vairocana (“Great Buddha of the Sun”).

The Brahma Net Sutra introduced Vairocana and explains that all Buddhas that appear in such-and-such time and place are embodiments of Vairocana. Thus Vairocana isn’t just another buddha, but is their source. Vairocana, in other words, embodies the Dharma.

That is why in the Great Buddha statue above at Todaiji Temple, you see rays of light emanating outward with “mini Buddhas” among them. Each of these Buddhas is thought to have the same basic origin story as the historical Shakyamuni Buddha. Hence in the text they are all just called “Shakymunis”. All these Buddhas have the same basic qualities ( Chapter Two of the Lotus Sutra teaches the same thing, by he way), one is the same as all the others.

This is primarily a Mahayana-Buddhist concept, but has precedence in pre-Mahayana sources. Consider the Vakkali Sutta from the Pali Canon:

“Enough, Vakkali! What is there to see in this vile body? He who sees Dhamma, Vakkali, sees me; he who sees me sees Dhamma. Truly seeing Dhamma, one sees me; seeing me one sees Dhamma.”
Translation by Maurice O’Connell Walshe

So the historical Buddha, founder of the Buddhist religion, Shakyamuni, is telling his disciples that his personage is less important than the Dharma. Mahayana Buddhism simply applies this same teaching towards all the Buddhas.

Also, some Buddhist texts assign different Buddhas to this role: the “cosmic” Shakyamuni Buddha of the Lotus Sutra or Amida Buddha in interpretations.

But it doesn’t really matter what you call this embodiment of the Dharma.

What matters, I think, is that the source of Buddhist wisdom is the Dharma, not a specific teacher, and that the Dharma pervades everywhere, regardless of the particular community, or lack thereof….

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