Lotus Sutra Class

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SF-03223
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Context of the Lotus Sutra - history of Hinayana and Mahayana texts - stylistic differences of - history of Lotus Sutra - key elements/doctrine of sutra - key elements of Chapter 1 Introduction

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what i would like to do tonight as for smaller
talk about stuff
practical things and then
introduce the
lotus sutra give a little context and background of lotus sutra
or maybe we could actually get into it tonight start
reading it to talking about it tonight
so the lotus sutra is of you know
big sutra really famous address
weeks so
oh before i going to power like to highlight what parts of that i'd like to highlight i want to first of all apologize to you for
in advance for
making them will schedule
steak scheduling mistake
which i seem to do from time to time i forgot to write down the data these classes and so i have conflicts with some of the classes
so
there are two tuesday nights that i can't come to the class so
what i would like to do is add
two thursday nights
which i realized that you may not be everybody may not be able to make those thursday nice and so i
i am and i'll give you the dates
in a moment but i want to work
welcome you to either come to the tuesday nights and not the thursday nights if you can't make it it's you can still certainly attend the class or do not think the glass if you don't feel like you know you want to do that
and i'm sorry that i
that's the case but i'm kind of stuck like know i can't get out of those two to several commitments
so i thought we will meet on tuesday may seventh
tuesday may fourteenth
thursday may sixteenth
tuesday may twenty first
thursday may twenty third tuesday may twenty eighth
so that's six classes and to them or on thursday nights
garcia the airstrike eight train their sixteen so as the seventh to the the servants
tuesday the fourteenth
thursday sixteenth
tuesday the twenty first thursday the twenty third and tuesday the twenty eighth
okay itself
and like i say i think it over and do whatever you think is best and i cannot happen again i do apologize
it's one of those things where by not write something down it's you know something else happens and that that and sometimes you can get out of it and sometimes you can and these particular cases i just i tried and i can't get out of the most things that i said i would do it
he just he answered eleventh of june yeah you know last two weeks for the right yeah
right
so i'm adding to in up in the month of may
in a certain way it might be nice because it immerses the little bit more
deeply into the sutra in the sense that will be hitting it twice a week is going to feel for those who can make so i will understand at you
don't want to continue our best why i'm not sitting on my usual sheet if we signed up an oil next week and see if you can decide to know between now next week where they want to stay with the class and you're welcome to kind of not going on thursday nights i know group for green gulch residents i understand that's a night off and you might learn club do something
different line not all the way on one of those thursdays yeah but that's fine with me you know that sometimes you might say well gee if i missing two classes i don't wanna you know i don't want to do it so i'll give you a week to think it over the next week off and other sheet and see who's going to stay with class
so
next thing i'd like to do in sir
talk to you a little bit about
first of all the context of the lotus sutra
my other suitors in general and
which because a lot of suitors are my on a buddha sutra and i see looking around here that some of you know these things very well and others have you done so our kind of
stock as if
none of us knew any of it
and then i want to talk a little bit about the lotus sutra itself about texts that were reading and about die some of the most important
doctrines of the lotus sutra
and then i will tell you which chapters i think we should try to study in these six meetings
so you can have that
and then start of beginning and see what it says
so
guess i was spoke to repay
that the assumption was that quoted text tonight is that correct reasonably it is in diversity and i know the expressly thank you yeah very good
fish
so

as you all know i'm sure the buddhist canon is a very vast right as a lab tech center and
the so-called early texts or foundational texts or sometimes called hitting on a texts
are really different from the my antics
in a way i talked about this and my talk on sunday i talked about them more the difference between the my texts in the hindi on tax the and i used the term any on it with quotation marks around just because it's convenient historical distinction but actually the word hitting on as a pejorative term
i don't like to use our but anyway we use a temporary
those early texts are
historical
relatively speaking brief seem to take place on the planet earth more or less
involving
this very wonderful and powerful spiritual teacher named shakyamuni buddha
in which he speaks and tell us about his teachings and tries to and speaking to human beings who would like to put these tissues in a practice and explains them and he
you know categorizes down and so on it's fairly straightforward
stuff very helpful very
more or less down to earth there are some demons and
supernatural creatures that appear from time to time and there's some miracles that happens sometimes but in general you get the feeling that you can almost believe that these these people really existed in this
this guy really said this stuff and so on
kind of like in a way like the bible for you sounds like the earth and walking around or guys of people various people
but the my other sutures are called in sanskrit by polio suitors by police which isn't by polyamines extended
or amplify or expanded
and these sutures are way way longer than the other citrus much much longer and when i mean a really long sutra in the earlier canon might be mean fifty page would be a really long sujet and alive the suitors are very short you know one page and some of that there's different various collections some of the collections or collect
this is just one page sutures or even partners less than a page
in the longer discourse the sutras are you know up to maybe fifty pages or forty pages that's really long sleeve you know all these my other suitors some of the run to the thousands of pages and the lotus sutra i don't know how many pages in this book in is three four hundred pages citizen yeah three hundred and some
three hundred and some pages so far far longer than the
earlier texts
and they don't really take place on earth they take place you know in some world kind of beyond space and time in they're very extravagant and their poetry parables and
many of them are long and enthusiasm and sometimes short on doctrine
or or logic even you know
so they're wonderful to read in the way you really can get into oh and i hope that this part of our class we will learn
read out loud name either in unison center when by one or something like that just as a way of appreciating the sutras and how they sound
each other my other citrus is a kind of a whole world in itself whereas the earlier sutras where
same understanding that there were other suitors that we're talking about other teachers teachings the mya sutras are like a whole world and themselves each one trying to from a different perspective present the whole diner so that all you need to do is read this sutra and that's all you need to know the kind of feel
during and in fact that were different schools with unlike with him the any such as with my sisters they would be a school that would rise up it that would venerate the sutra or study only to sutra or believe that only the sumptuous was the best
because they were a swan was that kind of complete and full expression of the in itself didn't need the others
whereas the so-called helios interests
once they were written down they were more were written down richard of maybe one or two hundred years and there was a canon that was closed and that was that
with the maya researchers the situation as much more vague
you know there are many many many many my anus interests some of which are recognized by some schools and others and other schools and just a realist almost as if there's an outpouring of these scriptures which purport to be
words of the buddha but clearly are much or later there are some liliana suitors that are quite early but most of my answer to that much later than the original canon
it appears as if the my and a movement which is characterized by an emphasis on this kind of enthusiastic
way of in devotional a way of understanding buddhism but also emphasizing compassion and universality that's why it's called mahayana which means the great vehicle as opposed to the hinayana which means lesser vehicle the miami supposed to be teaching for everyone all everybody can join you don't need any special
to be a monk or nun or anything like that just and everybody this can be part of this great vehicle it seems as if that tendency or that movement in buddhism was they are very early on nobody knows exactly there was no like luther created you could point to it say this was the person
reformed it wasn't like that it would appear that among the earliest
communities of monks and nuns there were people who
we emphasize the side of the buddhist teaching
and cherished this more universal more free and easy attitude
in some point they began preaching and teaching about this and and at some later point they began writing down some of these teachings and the are the lotus sutra would appear to be one of the earliest of the minus sutras that may be written down as early as the first or second century
also they the people who compile the sutras had a very loose idea about how one went about doing such thing for instance with the earlier sutras there was a lot of care to keep the text pure and so on with these mirjana sutras often p
people were just say this is a good suit over here why don't we put this on to that and add this hundred and some of them are really confused conglomerations of a variety with scholars you know when they do their textual studies they feel pretty sure that most are many my sutras are a kind a conglomeration of various suggests that were
added on here and there and sometimes it's hard to tell what is this doing there are compounds is written in different style etc etc but it all is put together into one sutra and this is also true this is true of the lotus sutra hear me accretions they think most of the my on a movement seemed like it
was stronger in northern india than in southern india
and northern india is
no to the west of is this northern and central asia than china silk road
through central asia and so as a result of that the buddhism that went to china and china receivers i'm fairly early on like in the first century the common era the buddhism that went to china in that time
was pretty much my artistic and chinese buddhism although there were so called hinayana schools and tendencies in chinese buddhism pretty much
chinese buddhism is my on buddhism various perversions in mayan on my of buddhism
one thing about the maya citrus that's also in addition to this you know more symbolic language and looser sense of the text and expanded and august stuff one of the
characteristics of the sutras that's very interesting and bizarre and away when you read it is the fact that
this
people who were writing down these texts and transmitting them in india and across central asia and china they kind of had a beef you know because they were trying to establish the legitimacy of these texts
say against a candidate was a little older
and there's and i'm not going to go into the various ways in which doctrinally there were arguments between the hinayana and mahayana there were some arguments although i'm trying not to lose my train of thought earbuds but there were arguments but
basically all that the my on a proposed was already in the hinny i insisted they emphasize things more strongly and some different ways but the point i'm trying to make here is that they were arguing against a canon
so they often this had a variety of implications number one they often were very belittling
and polemic against the hinayana viewpoints they would often have a characters in the sutras who would be quite for relation dumb who were any artists per pound the hinayana views and they were often ridiculed
so this is a little embarrassing and
we we try not to take this to literally in this day and age and when we see that buddhism is really one digitally
so they were political but in addition to their you have this interesting phenomena in my other suitors where the sitter will go on saying something about the dharma and all of sudden will stop and it will say now if you want it really do something good what you should do is read this sutra and you should com
see it and you should venerated and you should make into light incense and trump and you should bow to it and you should make sure other people read it and you should pass it around and you should go and then and the merit of doing this as equals to have many many many blah blah blah are millions of sand and madonna's on the old twenty pages like that know and then they'll be another chapter and and there's the launch a while and then all of a sudden
it'll say that again the merit of reading this sutra is so great that nobody can believe it in everybody else china but this is but this is more far greater than that sort so there's a lot of these searches are full of this kind of thing because clearly the the authors of the sutra and we don't because we don't know who the
authors ireland and supposed to be the word of the buddha and i'm sure that the people who wrote the such as down did feel that it was the where the buddha coming through them the authors of these sutures are constantly in concerned about the fact that we should really venerate the sutras and not say that they're not to order the buddha not say that they're not important or that
they're not real because the good at an early say these things so
then the lotus sutra also has this feature we probably won't spend a whole lot of time discussing that partner because you know not much to say about it but but it isn't there and and saw another quality of the this is a devotional quality as such as
are promoting a sense of devotion towards themselves almost like the physical presence of the sutra almost being like a boot itself and also a sense of devotion toward the buddha
and you'll see that this is a big feature of the lotus sutra because the earlier teachings were really not devotional much at all it's actor in the sense of them was at the buddha was it was a human being in a teacher who i was a great very great teacher for this age whose ultimate purpose and goal
was to pass out of existence altogether
and achieve peace and show us how to do the same thing
so the buddha passed away so what's there to venerate what's there to be devoted to be were in the my other sutras there is you'll see as we get into this discussion and lotus sutra it's one of the my of main burdens of its teaching is that the buddha dinner really pass away
it look like and it wasn't really true
so anyway these are just as the little bit about the difference between and hinayana and mahayana sutras now the lotus sutra itself
they think is the first or second century text one of the earliest of the mahayana sutras and
the the earliest texts or the lotus sutra that exists is actually in chinese because it was translated first translated in shot into chinese in the year two hundred and fifty five
and there is no earlier text than that so now some people even wonder whether it ever existed in india
as such
and scholars think that perhaps
it maybe it existed in them maybe it was written in central asia as as the my buddhism came from india through central asia china think or everybody always used to think you know there was indian buddhism their chinese buddhism
and nobody paid much attention to central asian buddhism
because central central asia didn't have all these great indian culture of chinese culture you know they didn't have the weight of these cultures but i think that the little by little they're discovering their a lot of creative activity went on this in a smaller countries of central asia and it's possible that the lotus sutra was actually composed in central asia in some central asian language and translated for
some that language into chinese because the earliest sanskrit texts that are extent now are probably maybe eleventh century there's a couple of texts that they think could use considerably earlier than that but no definitely no earlier than a fifth century so are we talking like you time
where central asia know that's like what countries nepal in afghanistan burma here
turkey turkish part of parts of turkey that you know in there
in most places have a plan
yeah yeah there's a mixture of all kinds of attacks there are there are texts that exists in central asian languages too
so it's much more of a mixed complicated situation
so anyway
so was translated into hundred fifty five and then there was this very famous central asian actually monk named coomera jiva
who are the story goes some
was very started and famous and and and well considered to be a real buddha so much so that the emperor of china
ah at the time
who was a buddhist yeah china was very much buddhist country image in the i'm talking now about the fifth century the emperor of china decided he would conquer this murderous cuccia i think was the name of the central asian country where coverage even though to conquer cuccia so that he could catch her g than bring up china which are you actually did
and captured can rejuvenate
and brought it with china and then set him up to translate
texts in chinese and sakura jiva set up the most famous translation bureau in the history of buddhist before he had all the greatest chinese literati got them together and they translated many many many texts and they did it it was like a kind of amazing brain trust you know because
it was a hard job to translate from whatever it was either sanskrit or procreate or whatever some central asian language into chinese you know it's a very big language barrier there and
cultural barrier the chinese were pretty culturally sophisticated and it was really hard to figure out how you're going to render these buddhist terms and buddhist concepts of the chinese with the chinese pre-existing where thought
so they just got the best minds together in china and korea jiva sort of directed this translation outfit and they produced texts that that sort of became
crown in the jewel yeah i mean crown jewels of the of the a chinese culture for centuries afterwards
i'm sure i am having trouble hearing that name
coverage either k u m
a are i and now is there a com r k u m a r
hey jay idea kumara jiva
so he's really really famous and buddhist history as one of the premier translators and in the history of buddhism
so anyway partly because of the lotus sutra as style and what it says and partly because of the
excellence of the translation that como to g the made with his translation bureau the flow suggests are like up there in china and chinese buddhism as like the greatest two three of all time you know china
and it had a huge influence and all chinese buddhism and all of the chinese buddhist schools more than any other sidr i think more we don't really know what influence that had in india central asia particularly was it doesn't have occupy the same place in
india's central asia as it doesn't china
now i said partly because of camera jiva and partly because of the nature of the text itself so what what about it while the thing about it is that it has in it
a number of a wonderful parables
by a large and know we were familiar with parables from christian bible and and but by and large and a buddhist literature doesn't have parables and quite the same way
these little sort of neat little teaching stories that really make a point kind of
but the lotus sutra has maybe five or six or seven of the most famous parables and all a buddhist thought and since
the chinese see the sanskrit language is a highly inflected language and which means it has like in a life
different prefixes and suffixes that changed with attend to the verb in the salon software what would you have a language like that you can it's very easy and natural to make
a fine distinctions so that's a good language for philosophy
sanskrit is it is a consummate philosophical language
so an indian thought buddhist art and another indian thought is very extremely given to philosophizing
because of that the language really lends itself to them
but chinese is the opposite in chinese there's almost no inflicted language you can't tell what the verb is in the present tense of the past tense you can't tell whether it's a here is sheer it was doing this or that you can tell whether it's singular plural you can't tell much of anything it's all contextual so this is a
pretty lousy language for but we consider our languages is an indo european language so for us we can really relate philosophically to sanskrit because we come from it and we have an inflected indo european language but chinese language just totally different kettle of fish so when the chinese received indian
philosophy they had a very hard time with it
first of all he could not figure out what it was all about it when they try to translate it it didn't compute
and they finally managed and then they made a lot of mistakes this whole scholars have written whole books about how the chinese misunderstood buddhism for hundreds of years because not really because the language difference was so great that they couldn't figure out what was being said here and the trend mistranslated and mr concepts because indian philosophical concepts are fairly subtle and buddhists
the philosophical concepts are fairly subtle and so the chinese for hundreds of years misunderstood things like emptiness they didn't we really misunderstood it for a couple hundred years anyway they love the lotus sutra because the lotus sutra is essentially poetic there's very little philosophy in the lotus sutra
other suitors are much more philosophical and make those kind of distinctions and this one doesn't it's really full of poetry and parable and that kind of thing and so you can see why and it's very magical and mysterious and wonderful so you can see why and appeal to the chinese and they ran away raised it up
very high place and in fact the chinese had a big problem when they and they they were clear the buddhism was was from india you know when they were receiving these teachings which in itself as amazing thanks since the chinese are extremely like most p
people and great cultures all over the world extremely arrogant and think that only their culture is the only good culture and the only smart culture so it's amazing in its net in itself that they would accept a transmission from another culture and accepted as a meaningful of course the buddhist and china were in a constant struggle ago
against chinese culture who sometimes chinese culture was surrounding the buddhism and sometimes chinese culture didn't like buddhism and and put it down as a foreign teaching so there was this always going on but it's amazing that there were some chinese and many trainees who accept this teaching
so they had a problem of accepting all these holy teachings that were all true right they felt coming from india commercial central asia and all contradicting each other
you say when you get this holy scripture that of the buddha says blah blah line and you get another holy scripture where the blue buddha says don't believe that
for that's strange you know what he's supposed to do with that how do you understand that the chinese had a big problem with trying to understand that
so they have various attempts which the indians apparently never did in this way but the chinese made various attempts to make it all makes sense to put the teachings in a kind of hierarchy and in the system where of it all makes sense and and where you explain why it said this and why this contradicted that and when it wouldn't want at all
the great school of chinese buddhism that
did this systematizing explaining was called the t anti school
and the anti school and maybe some time along the way here one of us navy me or somebody else one of the all other old timers could
maybe to give him a report about what the t anti school said was the system to wire that the you know how this all teachings all rank and were hierarchies and so on but the point i want to make tonight is simply the fact that the ten tie school said at the lotus sutra was the real and ultimate teaching at a buddha
that it was all leading up to the below to search all the other teachings were sort of preparing everybody for the lotus sutra and the lotus sutra actually more or less says that itself that's why they gotta it
so they had a very elaborate system of categorizing the various sutras showing how they all that the buddha had this great plan and when he taught business talk that prepare for this and be very that was all leading up to the lotus sutra yes even in a heart sticker according to that school here i don't say it's true and
send us their as their system now the interesting thing is that the tn tie school was transmitted to japan the lotus sutra enjoyed in japan and even i'll explain in a minute and even in even more exalted place in japan than it did in china and the t anti school which
was a one of the key schools and chinese buddhism was transmitted to japan as the ten school and the tendai school
you know had a huge monastic establishment in the
which was found that i think it's something like the seventh or eighth century and basically the tendai school was japanese buddhism for
maybe five hundred years or so
and in the kamakura period which is like the thirteenth century
there a huge reformation of buddhism
but almost all the people who were part of that reformation came out of the ten nice called like martin luther you know that came out of catholics all the reformers of buddhism in the commiphora came out of the tender school and so and that's why i'm mentioning this because dog in was one of the reformers and kamakura school
and he knows the founder of our lives in and he was a tendai person and here and the lotus sutra he thought the lotus sutra was enormously important as well
so we can we talk about the liberal mean when we mention the names of the buddha buddhists you know in the wheelchair
in other times we say we mention the lotus sutra as if i were one of the buddhist that's how you know there's all these buddhist blob of buddha this book that for the other thing and the sonata for the rigueur citric as the for the rick suitors the sanskrit name for lotus sutra lotus are the true law sutra
so dog and really venerated this sutra and he has several
chapters in the shovel gonzo are about different phrases and teachings of the sutra
now also in the this just to show you how much people in the far east love the sister and how powerful exotic was in the kamakura period some of the other reformers
we're one of one of the other farmers was a man by them of nature man who was also attend i'm like in nature and
said
that there was only one way to practice and that was by reciting and venerating the lotus sutra that was actually own anything else was a waste of time including zaza and precepts it was all a total waste of time the only thing that was really effective in this declining edge he said was
to recited venerate the lotus sutra even to the point where he said that all you have to do is say the name of the lotus sutra repeat the named la souter and that's all you needed it and to this day the largest sects in japanese buddhism believed us nature insect and the soka gakkai and so on that's what they do
do they are wearing a kilt that's what that's what assess the lotus sutra as the japanese the japanese way of measuring accused lotus or the to law sutra and they just say that name tina turner said
ten
yeah and herbie hancock says that she proved
that's right and that's their practice is just reciting the recitation of the name lotus sutra because they feel all of the sutures so wholly and so powerful that just to evoke its name
in you know confers nine immeasurable spiritual benefits
and that's how you know important to lotus sutra is in the far east knitting training plan
now one other thing about the text that i didn't mention that my notes say here is that you will see when you read the text that that that there's a verse part and a pros part
and more or less it's entirely the case that they say exactly the same thing in fact you'll be reading along and pros and then it'll say and to make this point even more clear manjushri repeated what he just said in verse and then they'll be ten pages of verse saying
more or less the same thing that process so if you want to save time you could skip i would skip the verse and that pros if you want to do that
and they say again just give you the full scope here at the scholars say that that the verse part
his earlier it's actually written in a slightly different language the first part is written in what they call buddhist hybrids sanskrit
which is and then reason why they got go as hybrid sanskrit was because they
had this verse that was probably written in procreate
which was a pre sanskrit ties language
and then when they translated into sanskrit it didn't rhyme right because it was her profit fate
so they couldn't they couldn't quite figure out how to make it rhyme and sanskrit so they had to make up words that didn't exist in sanskrit you know to sort of make rhyme so they created a hybrid sanskrit and the hybrids ask you to seems to be an earlier language than classical sanskrit so that's how they know that the first part is earlier
and the pros parts are written in at least better sanskrit and not hybrid sanskrit the conventional sanskrit and so and least in the sanskrit texts that were working from the chinese texture but in the sanskrit texts that the half and looks like that
so
the pro sections i think our little bit more clear and explanatory and if i was going to only read one i would read prose and verse
ah
yeah
the earliest capitalism ten sanskrit well see we don't know we don't know it could be you see that there were earlier sanskrit texts that chinese that we're we're pretty clearly translated text from some other language jack it could have in sanskrit or could have been a central asian language
but all those texts were missing gotten the spirit like you know the vast majority of the buddhist text disappeared and we have translations are versions with the original texts are gonna mention the hybrid sanskrit texts that translation going to change yeah added a bad right or or maybe nothing the later ones were now
so anyway
so that's a little bit and another footnote about the text
now i want to without i don't want to go on say much about this because i want to talk about the
key sort of ideas or doctrines of the lotus sutra and the reason why i don't want to talk about it much is because that's exactly what we'll be getting into read it but i want to just stop by way orient you toward what you'll be reading on just mentioned where are the key element of elements or doctrines of the lotus sutra that are important
ah
the first one is
you can look at it from two different angles one analyst to say that the lotus sutra teaches that there's only one
all these different teachers in buddhism the hinayana and mahayana this enough really there's only one teaching it's there's only one vehicle there's not many vehicles there's only one vehicle
and that everyone must aim for one vehicle which is the buddha vehicle which is buddha of it and we will have to aim for budapest it's the only real practice
previous to do this there was the idea that there were various paths and various vehicles in various attainments there were the our hearts who attained nirvana there were the body sophos who were aiming toward buddhahood there were the buddha's there with the project voters who are achieved enlightened
on their own and these different types of practitioners are different destiny destinations
but lotus sutra says these destinations are all false
there's only one destination and that's buddhahood and were all have to go for buddha
the rises
well then why are there all these teachings about project buddhas and bodhisattvas and in our hearts and so on if there's only one vehicle why did the buddha previous to the lotus sutra teach all these other
vehicles and the lotus sutra the buddhist says it's because of rupiah skillful needs the dharma is actually beyond definition beyond comprehension beyond understanding if i had taught this in the beginning everybody would have freaked out
and gone crazy and and just went berzerk and on screaming out of there so i knew that i had this sort of bring them along slowly so i cut them nurse night after dad and i give this native yeah and now i feel that you're ready to hear the truth which is it's all baloney
mlt anything that it takes wherever beings are you know that that i will i will give a teaching that will be in line with what they need but really and truly now i'm telling you you're ready to hear this that there's only one vehicle and in one of the famous passages of the lotus sutra which is astonished me i was reading all these
different synopsis and then nobody mentioned this you know and i thought gee i known as passages in the lotus sutra and it wasn't a lot of surgery know in fact i was reading it
and it's this very famous part where is the only suture i think that where this happens
you know in the sutras
you know there's an assembly of people there i would always says thus have i heard the boot is what sets systems such a place and listening to him there were the following people there were so many monks there are so many nuns is what it says on the any other suitors in the my yoga sutras it says there were six billion marks and there were twenty two billion times and there was no six billion canarias the
routers and fighting demons or ghosts and gods and the seven gods and their hands on it's over
yeah yeah right all sitting there won't within this little room listening to the buddha this is the only surgery in which at some point the buddha starts to tell us something and a whole bunch of them get up and leave
you know they walk out on the buddha can you imagine it
five thousand and it says five thousand monks and nuns got up and left and why the reason why they get up and will read that part the reason why they get up and left because they didn't like what the buddhists say they didn't like the teaching
you know and the reason why they didn't like teaching tcs because the buddha was saying to them all the things that you have been doing it all that you think that you have attained are hardship forget it it's meaningless
it's only arrogance that makes you think that you've attain our hutch of really we all have to attain buddhahood there's only one vehicle and they didn't like that one bit
so they got up and left and in the says in the siege of the buddha didn't say anything he just let them leave and then when they left he said good
how is it now the people who are capable of hearing this have left and now we can really get down to business and i'll go on now to reach the sutra
so
there were a lot of people who didn't like this idea that was one vehicle easy because it implies that these other things are not significant and so this is a a little bit of the
a clinic that i spoke of earlier trying to argue for weren't present for the position but the other side of that this teaching of one vehicle and skillful means is that it's really a universal vehicle and that's one of the second the second key element or doctrine that let's talk by the lotus
sutra is that this vehicle is absolutely universal everyone is included everyone will become a buddha
everyone must become a buddha that was on any anybody left out whatsoever and there's a famous chapter twelve in which the buddha explains that even david data is gonna be a buddha which is very shock because david data was the buddhist cousin who was a great disciple for a while and and he turned on the buddha and try to kill him you know
and so nothing could be worse than that i'm trying to kill the good is like this person is going to be in hell for a gazillion lifetimes you know and that's that's that's so there are people like that that can really become a buddhist we think but in the lotus sutra the buddhists is no no even david data will
become of then there's the famous passage in that st chapter to illustrate that the sutra is universal and other for a famous chapter in and another famous section in that chapter which is chapter twelve is about this little girl who was another queen mother princess she's eight years oh
old naga princess who becomes a buddha
in the first of all not how can not have become an august like an underwater snake and how could i not have become food it
because you know there was very sexist thing and i was very considered very very heavy the idea wow a woman can be congress so this is all to say that this is a universal vehicle this is not a vehicle in which anyone whatsoever is left out so that's a second doctrine which
i think
you know this emphasis on this is
different from what we had heard in previous texts
this famous part in the sutra where
the buddha says there are an infinite number of body saucers that i bring to enlightenment moments of some he says well if there's an infinite number of work surface how can it be that
you have to live forever in order to enlighten an infinite number is very surface as a buddhist as well it's true
and they said oh of it you know but what about nirvana what about in apparent nevada what about you're going to extinction as it says it all the suitors as a buddhist religious center
wasn't really true
that i went to nirvana the only reason that i pretended that they went to nirvana was so that i can encourage people because i figured if they thought that i was gonna be around forever
they would never practice they were figure that they had all the time in the world and so i needed to get them activated and so on earth do that i passed into nirvana i seem to pass it on it would actually i really didn't
and the true buddha is this universal endless
principal
you know endless existence that does not have is not impermanent
this is very radical since all of early buddhism is based on the notion of permanence
even the boot is a permanent the idea here that the buddha is actually the the impermanence was just
a trick and other rupiah
you know to help things along this is astonishing
so these kind of teachings are really different than you will give a very different impression in know from what early buddhism teaches and i think as we study them and i was as we discussed them will get into the differences and similarities what is it really mean it was the implications for our practice and so on and so forth
but i just wanted to kind of put that out there let you know what the love you know how what the lotus who just talking about how that differs from what went before and august
so have you said all that
i know that somebody you don't have caught oh one more points to more practical point
which chapters will we read in which chapters will be discussed so on
ah
of course
ah oh texts this is a texter that i think these this is the one that you were a party and mostly the walk watson sixth so this is actually pretty good because
burton watson who translate this text is mostly translate chinese literature he's not really a boot august
and so if you want you know the real buddhist flavor that's bad news and then this is a better texts we aren't hermits is text because he's also a buddhist scholar whose you know an expert reader of chinese are both working from coverage and text
so these are both english translations of coomera jews fifth century chinese texts but herbert's gives it a real buddhist
flavor and watson gives it more of a literary flavor which has actually worked in a way more readable but there's something that you'll miss from buddhist point of view so
but i think if i haven't read this watson one and i'm really not really enjoying sex the beautiful interior is really good translator good writer
so will read this one mostly and will keep will refer to the harvests one okay
and also as an interesting photos is that the people who paid for this text to be translated are the meet and buddhist soka gakkai people they grabbed a birdie watson but twenty years ago and said you really have to make it translation of lotus sutra so they kind of finance
his work on the and when he wanted to figure out what it said and solve problems he used the japanese knit year-round or soka gakkai version of the text so it's going to have more flavor like that whereas this one has more of a flavour of sanskrit ties early in a buddhist philosophical
pre mature and sect kind of feeling and of that matters to you will relate to something to know so what i thought we would do is
to read the whole text to start to beginning and just see if you can read it all six weeks because it's a wonderful tax and like i say this is really readable it's very i'm finding it just you start reading and is can like you breathe it's really delightful so please do read the whole text if you can if you want
it's not hard to understand or apps juice or something and then i thought that next week on the fourteenth we would
talk about chapters two and three
which are really about papaya
just kind of skillful means and one vehicle teaching
and also includes the famous parable of the burning house
and you will enjoy reading of sure
and then
on the next thursday the sixteenth
we would read chapters four and five
which include
the parable of the rich man's son in chapter four and chapter five is this beautiful image is very famous in buddhism with the reign of dharma dharma like a rain falling down equally on all plants and various things because of their seeds roots spring up in different ways but the rain is the same the metaphor
your very beautiful and famous metaphor a caravan in buddhism chapters four and five on the twenty first we would do chapter seven and eight the parable of the fence of city
when the phantom city
these are all parables about explaining why the buddha gave these teachings which are just not really true
you are on a long journey and it was tiring and so that you wouldn't get too tired out discouraged i created a phantom city so that you can any out in there for a while and enjoy yourself as not real city and stuff the real destination but
i know i wanted to created so that you would be able to make the whole trip
this is the earlier teaching someone town
then there's also a parable about
the man who had a jewel started to is garmin he was drunk any they didn't make it funny would lose the jewel so they sorted into his coat and then he wandered around impoverished know knowing that he had this jewel sewed into his clothing
then the twenty third with do chapters eleven and twelve
the famous stupid that appears in the sky all of a sudden with this or an ancient buddha in it
and then in chapter twelve was the one that i mentioned a minute ago with david data and the naga princess who becomes a buddha by the way she has to turn into a man first how of course but of course
so and then on the twenty eighth will do chapters fifteen and sixteen
in which the buddha reveals to everyone's surprise and shock that actually he never did enter nirvana even now
if i did as i mentioned a minute ago and then if if we just so that would be the end and i would put down chapters twenty five and twenty eight
just in case where we go faster than expected in life when we get to it we can do those chapters chapter twenty five especially is a very famous chapter it's the avalokiteshvara chapter very famous chapter in china
about it's all about how it's loses long list of with the chances on thanksgiving actually during thanksgiving service every year until people people got a little freaked out by it
it says that
that i've located as far as researcher who is the voices of compassion is so wonderful that all you have to do is call her name and you will be saved for example and then there's fifty pages of examples or something if you're in a fire and you just say look you described please save me the firewall
immediately go out and here at sea and your is about the capsize and you calling up with peter schreyer and you will be saved from the and it just lists about you know fifty pages or thirty pages of different things that could be you that all you have to do is call on lucky this far and it will all disappear
so i was like that chapter been
you doing work but maybe after this class of yeah yeah popular move to reinstate it anyway
you can read that and then you will discuss and read it together
so that's that's the plan right a good plan here think we can do it
that's what we're going to try to do very much janet
well known a designer
believe me better to read all the chests and i think you know after off
six weeks as a long time are we not have systems forward
that before racism and time and a genuine yeah well see that's the problem at a certain point i disappear this thin air and not here anymore that's the problem
yes when i come back every year they only appear to be gone
so what i would like to do in the remaining time his
give you some of the highlights from the introduction the first chapter is called introduction
because always sudre the scene has to be set where was the buddha what were the circumstances in teaching and so on so every like every suitor this begins you know thus have i heard
as you all know i'm sure
all of the buddhist teachings were overheard by anonymously to follow the good around wherever you want
just like galen follows reverend dr passes away gail and is going to begin speaking and michigan going on perhaps
you know twenty or thirty years and somebody will write it all down and bill saying the new canon will begin thus have i heard said someone says you know
but in this in this case it's another who says this is what i heard so that's the difference between
you know like harvest says thus have i heard that's the way they always translate that and burton watson says this is what i heard
so that's the you see the difference are ready to this is what i heard
and one time the buddha was in raj griha which is the vulture fence vulture peak most of the money out of the buddha preached and multiple gp staying on not greta kuta that's where the buddha was accompany him were a multitude of leading monks numbering twelve thousand persons
all where our hearts since outflows had come to an end
it's the technical term meaning they had no more out flowing energy to confuse them they were like
pleated self-possessed
then no worldly desires they had attained what was to their advantage and and put an end to the bonds of existence and suffering
who's minds had achieved the state of freedom and is there
and then their names were it gives you many many names
of the different in amongst and months over there there were also two thousand and persons someone who were still learning and there was also the know mile prajapati prajapati who was buddhists
and and stepmother right
first buddhist nun
she was there with her six thousand followers and what of and raho his mother
who had been booed as white right it's also went on that was a nice thing in a buddha or in this whole family is his son game launches his former wife kim mungkin his stepmother became not his father did not so they were all there the whole family was it
there were very soft as and myself as eighty thousand gives all their names there were there were gods there were eight dragon kings gives their names there are four cynara kings gives their names for gandharva kings gives their names for sure at king's garuda kings so on so forth
then the buddha
he preached and then an everyday sort of a sutra
not the lotus sutra but another one
and then when he just finished with that here's really important part comes he finished preaching that suitor and he was sitting there and all of a sudden
lo and behold at that time the buddha emitted a ray of light
from the touch of white hair between his eyebrows
one of the marks of the buddha is that he has a little sometimes they call that the third act as a little something there
in a ray of light came out of there
father so to the astonishment of the assembly
and this light
lit up eighteen thousand worlds
in the east
like an erection of china sir
and there was no place that the did not penetrate it reaching downward as far as the vici hell and upward to the a conch to heaven this is really powerful light
at that time the body bodhisattva from and this says more about and song
saw you could say in that light so of course this was an astonishing thing and my trail
who is to boot of a future age he saw that light and he thought himself now the world on and one has manifested these miraculous signs but what is the cause of these auspicious portraits why is the buddha doing this
so he went to manjushri borisov a wisdom and he said how come this is happening was the reason for this
and then this is my tray or them wanting to make sure that
manjushri that understood as question repeated all things worse for them as several pages of first
where he repeats the whole thing

why does the buddha it meant this ray of light illuminate all these worlds
at that time jewish we said and i really know and page thirteen for those of you do have text at that time manjushri said to the body surface in my suffer much to the bodhisattva and myself and my trail and to the other great people they're good people i suppose
pose that the buddha the world honored one wishes now to expound the great law to ran down the reign of the great law to blow the conch of the great law to beat the drum with the great law to elucidate the meaning of the great law good people in the past i have seen this auspicious portent among the goods they emitted a beam of light like this and after
that they expanded the great law so i've seen this before fussy is light i know about this line it's the sign that the buddha's about expound a very special seizure say really special
and here's what i remembered from the past long time ago what's fun time
an immeasurable boundless inconceivable number of awesome k calpers in the past in a really long time
i some kick cow or something like ten to the thirtieth power
sunlight
really long time ago there was a buddha name's sun moon bright
and he was worthy of offerings he had right a universal knowledge he was perfect clarity and conduct cetera et cetera et cetera
ah and for the sake of all his disciples he expounded a wonderful sutra
then there was another buddha who was also named sun bright and then another buddha also named someone bright there were twenty thousand buddhas in fact like this
and they all were named some the bright
they were all very worthy and wonderful
the last of them the last of these twenty thousand and goodness
had eight sons
the first was named having intention the second was named good intentions the third was named immeasurable tension intentioned fourth was named jeweled intention and the fifth was named increased intention the six was named cleansed of doubt intention seventh echoing intention in the eighth law intention
when they heard that their father had left family life and ten light enlightenment they did the senate

and
at that time this buddha was now his sons and all his people sat down and admitted a light and is in the middle of his forehead in his life penetrated everywhere
in that assembly there was a body sasa named wonderfully bright were eight hundred disciples
at this time the buddhist sun moon bright
whose last these twenty thousand buddhas name simon reitman at that time he got up from samadhi
and because of the body saw for a wonderfully bright he preached a sutra called the lotus sutra
say
and
he said after he preached that sutra tonight
at midnight i will enter nirvana and passed away
so he did
and then after that the bodhisattva wonderfully bright upheld the law sujet and began to teach it for eighty corpus expanded with sutra for others
among the eight hundred disciples of wonders burnt bright was one named seeker of fame
he was greedy for again and support and though he read and recite numerous suitors he could not understand them
am mostly forgot them
that's why it's called seeker of fame
because he had an addition planted various good roots however he was able to encounter immeasurable millions and trillions and guilty of gazillions of buddhists
and to make offerings to them and so on
my tray of i remember that this is a story right being told by bunch manjushri to my trailer is of them explaining why in the present moment of the sutra that light is coming out of the buddha so then he says my trail you should understand this bodhisattva wonderfully br
right who lived them could he be unknown to you he was no other than i myself the i was that and a former life that's who i was
and the body starts a seeker of fame was you
now when i see this auspicious portent of this light coming on it is no different from what i saw them in my former life when i saw someone bright priests the lotus sutra aft after he
not a ray of light can therefore i guess that the buddha is about to preach the lotus sutra
in a case you didn't get that
yeah i'm going to repeated in verse
and he does that
he repeats in verse for many pages and that's the end of the introduction so that's the setting the stage it's a little intricate isn't it
you know
have received a check
friends past
how do you think what i how is it received had email as sure you're asking it sounds a little pikachu okay this is my chair or you know to to stand up to ices yeah well
far fetched and i weren't it exists in the my other suitors there's no nothing as far-fetched and they couldn't what can be far fetched to them saying mean this is no knocks at cursive in these sutures
like i say this does not taking place you know on the planet earth
this is not taking place in space and time as we know it it's a whole other realm so you have to suspend all ideas of far-fetched and close best
just give yourself to this
cosmic
ah setting you know and see what you can get up and what you can but you can learn from it because yeah far fetched you
yeah
tynecastle gasoline
some like that that's like saying that
an idea
net
yeah there's never see it in the
it's interesting you know even in the early sutras
there is the idea
the buddha was not the first
the seven buddhists came before him or he the buddha will say i rediscovered something that had been lost
but the idea that the buddha invented the path is never anywhere in the sutures and this is just an exaggeration of that same thing and all the ally on of sutures have that the idea that there's millions and millions of buddhist before buddha and that he's just the buddha of this place with this era
so the so that the the indians are contextualized our world in the context of many many many many worlds this is just one little world you know as many worlds in this world is called john with vapor and it has four continents and there's a big mountain in the middle of it
come on similar to its arranged in this way in that way
and it last for so long and shocking when he buddha is the buddha on this in this place for this era
but there's many other worlds and there's been little a long past and into the future and so on then they are very loyal sectarianism multiverse well that is easier than a year and like guaranteeing the cursor and country yeah well and in the like in the other toxic a
very strong stress in this idea of the simultaneity
the simultaneity of linear time and simultaneous time
but in los angeles is not stressed and sounds more like many of them
so i think what i'll do is stop there enough for tonight relevant launched into another and so then were really well next time we'll talk about chapter two or three and i think what we'll do is
i may you know very briefly put out a few passengers and talk about them and then ask you if you have any passages that you would like to talk about and we'll discuss it for a while assuming that we all read it and then maybe we'll pick a section on you read aloud and read aloud for so i think it's really need to read aloud for some period
time in twenty minutes or fifteen least fifteen twenty minutes just the experience language of the suture so that's it will do in the subsequent classes usually
the first class i always you know for a while to set the context and give you an orientation to whatever text for study then after that and more discussion yes no or wizard this primarily or
scholarship this trifle
what
practice
well i would say notes tonight
was of course historical and i mean i don't i'm not a scholar but i do i feel that this important too
put out in the beginning some that kind of context but no i i think that my ideas that we will read this to appreciate
the teachings and bot evolving in the language of it and that in discussion will prob what does it mean to us as practitioners because as always in our classes here it's always the issue right what does it mean to us or some extent it's a tricky business because if you focus if you don't know
listen to the teaching because you're thinking about what it means to you and not hearing what to do you have to so you have to suspend what it means to you for a minute to hear enough of it you know the answer that it's seeps in and then when it seems thin and you say okay now i'm hearing this i see what's being said you know how can i understand it for my practice so i think we're inch
trusted in in both those aspects but definitely how does it relate to our practice so those will be the points i'm sure that we'll be discussing
in a way
you know if you certain thing that's why i like to give classes in the media
older texts which i often do because it's real obvious you know what those texts have to do with our pregnant and was immediately evokes those kinds of questions
and other things that you can stay steady a dog in zingy years and texts and those things i think are clearly we immediately you've got questions about this is a little harder to do that with because little bit in the sky right so i think we're going to have to appreciate it as such but it will bring up questions when i pray
active civil the the talking about into
since i said i'm very a influence on the practice asked me now no absolutely ltd
oh isn't that what it's really hard to appreciate buddha without knowing a lot of surgery really have to understand the lotus sutra to see what where buddhism cut is coming from and when it's all about
yeah very important text me
and it's one of my you know in our curriculum of five studies it's one of the you know we had a
organize buddhist studies in the five basic studies in one of them is called ethics and compassion and we read a number of texts under ethics and profession this is one of the one of the four or five text that we read because it's really important
so what else for tonight

okay so i think about whether you are
we like to continue in the class the next week will
think sign up sheet
oh yeah you can is it's find a mystery or you can listen to to take us right if you have to miss one class like
okay so those who rightly discussing me an occupant these changes

yeah maybe i should go in this for more time
because i was this we're not meeting every tuesday
one more time with me
may seventh
tonight
the fourteenth next tuesday
may sixteenth which is a thursday
and twenty first which is tuesday and twenty third which is a thursday and then we're going to conclude on may twenty eighth which is choosing