In the Sermon on the Lotus Flower of the Wonderful Law (Lotus Sutra), the lotus is a symbol of the purity of faith of bodhisattvas “unsoiled by worldly things.” That is, the flower represents a spiritual freedom unsullied by materialism, the narcotic effects of religious dogma, or any other illusions. In this way, the lotus is a metaphor for the beautiful buddha nature within each person, readily accessible regardless of class, race, gender, sexual preference, political or religious affiliation.
In the ancient tale of The Odyssey, Homer tells how the hero of the Trojan War, Odysseus, was trying to find his way home after years of war and wandering. Odysseus suffered many setbacks in his quest to reunite with his wife and son. One of those obstacles occurred when Odysseus and his men came into the land of the Lotus Eaters. In that country the delicious lotus fruit had a narcotic effect, similar perhaps to the high from opium made from poppies. One who ate this fruit became lethargic and forgetful. The friendly inhabitants of that land shared the lotus drug with some of Odysseus’ men. Odysseus himself wisely realized that if he wanted to successfully complete his journey home, he and his men must decline the temptation of the lotus and leave the denizens of that land and their illusory existence.
The Buddhist symbol of the lotus flower is the antithesis of the lotus plants in Homer’s Odyssey. We need to ask ourselves which lotus plant we are embracing: the lotus which numbs our spirit, or the lotus which liberates us from ignorance and illusions.
We have a choice. The Lotus Sutra can be a dogmatic prison, or it can be a treasure tower of love, light, and joy. We can see this teaching as a superior religious text which makes us its chosen people, or we can reject tribalism and religious fanaticism in favor of a more broadminded understanding of the message of the sermon.
Like the Bible, the Lotus Sutra is a collection of sermons and stories written over a long period of time by various authors. Jesus didn’t write the Bible, and Sakyamuni didn’t write the Lotus Sutra. Therefore, because each text lacks a single author and point of view, the content of each book is often contradictory and ambiguous, leaving all kinds of possibilities for different interpretations and conclusions. Each person who reads the Bible or the Lotus Sutra brings to his or her reading a perception heavily influenced by his or her personality, karma, life circumstances, and level of spiritual development.
Nichiren, like all of us, was to some extent a product of his time and culture. He was a wise and compassionate soul, bless his buddha heart, but he also lived in apocalyptic times, and chose to respond to his circumstances by seeing in the Lotus Sutra a message of hope, salvation, and exclusivity. While Nichiren’s sincere passion remains a guide for modern-day practitioners of the Lotus Sutra, we who do not live in his time or place and do not share his personality traits are not bound by the interpretations of the buddha who incarnated as Nichiren seven centuries ago. Nor are we bound by the interpretations of contemporary priests or lay leaders – unless we choose to be so bound.
I realize that for some people, what I am saying about being free to approach our religious texts and practice with a fresh perspective is not only unorthodox, it is blasphemous and arrogant. Who are you, they might ask, to question the traditional interpretations of the Lotus Sutra as handed down by Buddha Nichiren and our religious hierarchy?
My answer is simple. I am a buddha. I am neither superior nor inferior to Buddha Nichiren or to any buddha who is reading this essay. I am Myoho Renge Kyo, I am the Lotus Sutra, and so are you. We are free to make choices based upon the wisdom of the buddha within us, without interference or “guidance” from others who would tell us what to think. I embrace that freedom. This is my interpretation of the Lotus Sutra, influenced no doubt by my time (21st century), place (California), and level of spiritual development.
What I see in the Sermon on the Lotus is an ecumenical message, rather than a sectarian one. True, there are assertions by the authors of this text (and perhaps Sakyamuni as well) that the Lotus Sutra is the highest among all the Buddha’s teachings. But as Nichiren acknowledged, the Lotus Sutra has “very few factual teachings as such, but a great many words of praise.” And what is it that the sutra praises? The oneness of all beings, the joy of enlightenment, salvation for all, equality, compassion, wisdom – teachings not unique to this text or to Buddhism as a whole.
One can find similar concepts in the writing of the Sufi poet Rumi or the essays of Ralph Waldo Emerson, to name just two other sources. These lofty goals are the highest teachings of Buddhism, but they are also the highest teachings of any religion, and therefore the Lotus Sutra and the Bible and other texts are the highest teachings to the extent that they promote these truths. But when passages in the Bible or the Koran threaten the reader with punishment, then these excerpts are not the highest teachings, but rather the proponents of fear, and may therefore be ignored as limited and outdated teachings. So too with the Lotus Sutra.
When the Lotus Sutra says that a seeker of the Law should not accept “a single verse of the other sutras,” that is a phrase which we would be wise to reject. When the Lotus Sutra asserts that bodhisattvas should shun non-Buddhists, writers of secular literature, actors, people who raise pigs or sheep or chickens or dogs, or those who engage in hunting or fishing or other “evil activities,” and that widows and unmarried women and “the different kinds of unmanly men” and wrestlers should all be avoided, then we know that the authors of this text are reflecting their historical and cultural biases and need not be heeded by 21st century Buddhists.
Having declined to accept the teachings of the Lotus Sutra which are narrow-minded, I choose to embrace passages of the Law Flower Sermon which I interpret as embracing all of humanity. My favorite parable is the poetic verse of the Parable of the Medicinal Herbs, from which the following exerpt is taken:
“I look upon all things
as being universally equal,
I have no mind to favor this or that,
to love one or hate another…
I bring fullness and satisfaction to the world,
like a rain that spreads its moisture everywhere.
Eminent and lowly, superior and inferior,
observers of precepts, violators of precepts,
those fully endowed with proper demeanor,
those not fully endowed,
those of correct views, of erroneous views,
of keen capacity, of dull capacity –
I cause the Dharma rain to rain on all equally…”
(all sutra quotations are from The Lotus Sutra, Translated by Burton Watson)
To me, the “I” in the above passage is the Buddha, the Christ conciousness, God, the Great Spirit, Allah, or whatever name you wish to give to the Original Love Force, the Mystic Law, the One Reality, from which spring all beings and spiritual traditions. I believe that the same God force that inspired the Lotus Sutra also inspired the New Testament, Joseph Campbell, William Shakespeare, and the U.S. Constitution. These literary achievements are examples of the “expedient means” which the Buddha uses to disseminate the Buddha Way.
When the Law Flower Sutra urges us to “accept and uphold, read, recite, copy, and teach” it to others, what is it that we are to teach? Intolerance and self-righteousness? Or compassion and reverence? It’s up to each one of us to decide what is the real message of the Lotus Sutra. When in Chapter 23 we are told that the Lotus Sutra is “king among all the sutras,” does this mean that we are to look down on other teachings and their followers? Or shall we choose to understand that the reason the Lotus Sutra is king among sutras is that the main message of the sermon is to rejoice in the buddha nature of all beings, and to help all beings remember their divinity?
There is no greater truth than joy, enlightenment, and the Oneness of all things, and this truth is supreme, whether practiced in a Buddhist or any other spiritual context. The Lotus Sutra encourages and empowers individuals (not religious organizations) to awaken to the truth of our original enlightenment. That enlightenment enables us to realize that since we are all One Being, it is in our self interest to be kind to each other. Denouncing heretics is not the same as kindness. The Lotus Sutra is not a gospel of division.
Those who would use the Lotus Sutra to assert the superiority of their religious sect are completely missing the point of the Buddha’s sermon. The deplorable religious civil war which currently plagues the Nichiren Buddhist community is an illustration of why the Buddha admonishes us in Chapter 14 to “never engage in frivolous debate over the various doctrines or dispute or wrangle over them…Do not look with contempt on others…” Who cares which Nichiren sect or Christian church or branch of Islam is correct?
The same original enlightenment rains down upon us all, and bubbles up from within our souls. But “people of small wisdom delight in a small Law,” so those who pay lip service to the Lotus Sutra and then ignore its greatest teachings are choosing a self righteous path which fulfills their psychological need to feel separate from and superior to other people and teachings.
If we choose to embrace the view that the Lotus Sutra is a celebration of all lives and all paths, and we remember that the Gohonzon depicts and encompasses both good and evil, then we choose the loftiest interpretation of the Law Flower Sutra and the teachings of Nichiren: we choose the path of Oneness with All That Is.
“As the light of the sun and moon
can banish all obscurity and gloom,
so this person as he passes through the world
can wipe out the darkness of living beings,
causing immeasurable numbers of bodhisattvas
in the end to dwell in the single vehicle.”
Lotus Sutra, Chapter 21
“And while I stood there I saw more than I can tell and I understood more than I saw; for I was seeing in a sacred manner the shapes of all things in the spirit, and the shape of all shapes as they must live together like one being. And I saw that the sacred hoop of my people was one of many hoops that made one circle, wide as daylight and as starlight, and in the center grew one mighty flowering tree to shelter all the children of one mother and one father. And I saw that it was holy.”
Black Elk, Black Elk Speaks, by John Neihardt
© 2003
David Wigginton 