After working our way through over the three years of dharma study that feel like an eternity and engaging with obscure pali words and mind boggling metaphysical concepts, suddenly we are faced with the beautiful poetry and overflowing devotional energy emanating from the wonderful White Lotus Sutra.
It is a whole other kettle of fish. A total non sequitor. I am really curious to see how Buddhism evolved from the pali canon to this. I imagine there were other works inbetween where the change in style and content was a bit more incremental.
The Lotus Sutra stands by itself as a very inspiring text. But when you consider it became one of the most popular and influential Mahayana sutras ever and is present in Sanskrit, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Tibetan, Vietnamese and Sinhalese (which is the mother tongue of the largest ethnic group in Sri Lanka), it just adds to the need to study it, if one is going to really understand how Mahayana Buddhism developed.
After this introduction I am going to talk about the amazing quality of the sutra just on a literary level, with its power to evoke different states of mind and emotions, and I compare it to the works of Shakespeare.
Then I talk of its power as a persuasive piece of writing, and compare it to the Bible, as well as the words of a notorious Al Quaida member,
Thirdly I mention the idea of moral relativism and skilful means that it introduces to replace the more black and white teachings of the historical Buddha.
Fourthly I want to explore the idea that this sutra promotes that its ideal of supreme Buddhahood is higher than the Pali Canon goal of arhatship.
Fithly and lastly, if you are still awake, you will find out what my favourite thing about the sutra is.
“Do not go upon what has been acquired by repeated hearing; nor upon tradition; nor upon rumour; nor upon what is in a scripture”. These are the words of the historical Buddha. How different are they to the words of the Lotus sutra Buddha who talks at great length about all the wonderful things that will happen to someone who “accepts, upholds, reads and recites the Lotus Sutra”.
In a sense, it does not matter that the voices of the Buddhas are different. Each had its own purpose in their respective historical settings.
When the historical Buddha lived, he got enlightened, and was able to communicate this in a way that shifted the spiritual life of those around him in Northern India into a wiser, more effective practice.
Several hundred years later, the heart and soul of the original teachings were getting lost by generations of human egos, and rational minds who were turning them into a dead religion, and mere words and religious rituals and practices, with no spiritual energy behind them.
I imagine the Hinayana lifestyle was losing its attractiveness to many people. What was needed was another spiritual force to come along and shake people out of their dogmatic slumbers.
This was the birth of the Mahayana.
It is hard, thousands of years on to really get a sense of the struggles and debates people of this era went through, that is why it is so amazing to come across this sutra which gives an amazing insight into why people would want to jump ship and move from the Hinayana into the Mahayana.
Firstly I will talk about the beauty and power of the sutra to evoke
One can only imagine how boring life must have been in that time, with no internet or tv. All they had was story telling. How wonderful it would have been to sit around listening to the evocative language of this sutra,
For example:
“our hearts are filled with joy as though we were bathed in sweet dew!”
In a hot country, being bathed in dew must be a very pleasurable experience. So listening to words like this over and over will evoke joyful feelings.
One of my favourite lines from Shakespeare is “Shall I compare thee to a summers day? Thou art more lovely and more temperate; Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May”.
He is using evocative language that propels you into a beautiful pastoral setting, that just makes you feel good and happy.
The Lotus sutra does exactly the same thing when it talks of our hearts being filled with joy and us being bathed in sweet dew.
I think just on a literary level, and its power to evoke different states of mind and emotion, the Sutra is way ahead of its time.
Secondly I will talk about its power as an example of a persuasive piece of writing
This text is very persuasive. It very explicitly uses the carrot and stick approach to promise rewards and threaten the reader with various things in the next life.
I am not a massive fan of this, as similar techniques have been used over the ages to manipulate people into very unskilful actions.
In this aspect it is similar to passages in the Bible. Eg Romans 6:23 “For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord”, or John 3:36 “He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life, and he that believeth not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abideth on him”.
So here in the Bible, we see the same carrot and stick approach, the first quote is about sin, but the second one is about belief.
If you search google for the words “tithe” and “heaven” you will find many sites explaining how God promises that if you tithe to the church you shall not only go to heaven, but also be blessed in this life.
Back to the White Lotus sutra. Towards the end of the Simile and Parable chapter (pages 73 and 74 in my edition) it says:
“Even you Shariputra in the case of this sutra were able to gain entrance through faith alone how much more so, then the other voice hearers. It is because they have faith in the Buddha’s words that they can comply with this sutra, not because of any wisdom of their own”
This is an interesting idea, that the wisdom we had previously thought was paramount, was now less important than faith in this sutra. It goes on:
“on seeing those who read this sutra should despise hate, envy or bear grudges against them, the penalty this person must pay when his life comes to an end he will enter the Avichi hell, be confined there for a whole kalpa, and when the kalpa ends be born there again. He will keep repeating this cycle for a countless number of kalpas etc etc” The text goes on for another 3 pages explaining what will happen to this unfortunate person who bore a grudge against someone who read this sutra.
To educated 21st century Westerners, we can dismiss these passages and edit them out. I don’t think they are mentioned at all in the dharma study course materials.
But to an uneducated superstitious Asian villager hundreds or thousands of years ago, these passages would be incredibly powerful. Fear of horrific punishment on the one hand and promises of Buddhahood through faith alone on the other.
So I am not really surprised that this text and texts like it was one of the reasons Mahayana Buddhism spread throughout Asia. And I am drawing parallels with the way Christianity spread throughout the world through similar concepts in the Bible and promises of everlasting life to believers.
In Modern day, we also have the parallels in the Hamburg al-Quaida cell of Mohammed Atta recruiting the 18 year old German convert Shahid. Atta reminded the doubting teen that “70 virgins and 70 palaces awaited him in paradise. The virgins would sweeten life with honey in his heavenly home”.
Such promises of reward in the afterlife are sufficient to motivate people to kill themselves and thousands of others.
It raises masses of issues regarding the difference between the Triratna ideal of shraddha, and the concept of blind faith.
“Do not go upon what has been acquired by repeated hearing; nor upon tradition; nor upon rumour; nor upon what is in a scripture” are the words of the Buddha, and I think he gives good advice here, despite the fact that it has been paradoxically encoded into a scripture.
Buddhism spread from the East to England because of people like Bhante who had a spiritual vision, and because of our thirst and receptivity to a spiritual path that was rational and did not have the superstitious trappings and blind faith of Christianity.
However we have to accept the inconvenient truth that major reasons why Buddhism spread throughout Asia included these threats of hell and promises of redemption.
Another major reason Buddhism spread to become a world religion is that Ashoka after numerous military conquests ended up reigning over most of present day India and then used his power to spread Buddhism. Again this is analogous to Christianity spreading through the conversion of Emporer Constantine.
Whatever one may think about these passages, it is one of the reasons that the White Lotus Sutra has had such a powerful effect, and that Mahayana Buddhism spread throughout Asia, so from the skilful means point of view, it has been a success.
However I think I would not have been impressed if I came across these passages back in my teens when I was leaving Christianity because I was looking for a rational approach to channel my spiritual experiences.
This brings me to my third point which is skilful means
Throughout the sutra we see examples of where skilful means is more important than following absolute precepts, so the carrot and stick approach is maybe just a skilful means, and it is not appropriate to get too hung up about it.
Two parables that spring to mind explaining the justification for this are the sutra of the burning house, and the good physician.
In these parables the Father (representing the Buddha) uses deception to rescue his children.
I do agree in the principle that the end can justify the means.
If I could go back in time to 1930 and assassinate Hitler, and if this would have prevented the Holocaust, then I think this would be the lesser of two evils, and morally justified.
If you disagree with this, would your answer be different if you were one of the jews who was rounded up by the Gestapo and sent to Auschwitz with their family? I suspect it would.
The example in the burning house parable is even more clear cut. The father saved his children’s lives by a lie. If you disagree that this was the right thing to do, I am happy that you are not my Father, and I would much prefer to be lied to than die from burning.
In any case, the children ended up with superior toys as well as their life, so they cannot complain.
So the sutra presents a more complex teaching on morality where some form of moral relativism is acceptable.
This is all well and good, as the real world is often very complex and decisions can have many consequences, predictable and unpredictable. We are forced to act in the realm of possibility and probability rather than certainty.
However it does not follow from this that we can just throw out the baby with the bathwater and forget all about ethics.
In fact this concept only arises in the sutra because it is needed in order to justify the fact that the teaching in it purportedly by the Buddha is a bit different from the one in the Pali Canon.
Fourthly the next area I want to discuss is what to make of this. i.e. that its teaching that the teaching of the Pali Canon and the goal of the arhat is a lesser goal than the teaching of supreme Buddhahood promoted here
This teaching promoted in the Sutra is that the three different yanas that the Buddha had historically preached (representing the arhat, the pratyekabuddha, and the bodhisattva ideals) are only temporary expedients made necessary to appeal to different temperaments and level of achievement. In reality there is only one vehicle, the Mahayana which leads to supreme Buddhahood which is birthright of all of us.
For me, I am not convinced that it makes much difference whether I am working towards the goal of an arhat, or supreme enlightenment. I always thought becoming an arhat was supposed to be the highest goal. I think this concept carried a lot more importance in the culture of the day when it was written, where there were different Buddhist groups competing for followers, so they needed to rubbish the opposition by explaining that the enlightenment taught by the other group was not the true enlightenment.
It is always hard to rubbish the enlightenment taught by the Pali Canon, as its proponents could argue that it was the word of the Buddha.
The sophisticated response to this that we are taught in Triratna, is that the word of the Buddha cannot just be reduced to language, and that the same words, teachings, rules, and practices that used to free people can equally be used to trap people once ego and group pressure rise up and take the place of authentic spiritual vision.
It is hard for uneducated villagers to understand that, so it is easier just to say that people in the Buddha’s day were only ready for a lesser teaching so that is what he gave them.
I do not believe this is strictly true, as I would not have thought that the villages of second century AD India were that much more sophisticated than the Buddha’s disciples, but if it expunged the hindrance of doubt, and inspired shraddha, it can be justified.
Fithly and finally I want to talk about what for me is my favourite thing about the sutra
What is most important for me in this sutra is that it replaces the difficult path of the bhikku with one of faith and devotion.
I do think the Pali Canon is wonderful, and in my time away from Triratna I have stayed at several Theravadin monasteries and retreat centres including – Amaravati and Harnham in the UK Dhamma Giri at Igatpuri in India and Wat Kow Tham and Suan Mokh in Thailand.
Wonderful as those places are, I felt something was missing. My inspiration for the three jewels started to wear a bit thin, and the endless rounds of walking and sitting just became a bit of a struggle.
I remember missing the pujas of Triratna so much. In particular during one of the numerous meditative walking sessions at a vipassana retreat, I made the decision that I was going to give up this never ending effort and just go back to Triratna, and start to enjoy retreats again.
It reminded me of Ram Dass’s story of when he was doing long and intensive vipassana meditation practice under Sayadaw U Pandita in Burma, he used to keep his guru’s picture under his pillow, so that he could get a devotional hit (as he called it) from time to time to balance out the vipassana.
I imagine the same frustrations used to fall upon the early Buddhists. The historical Buddha did not need to talk that much about faith and devotion as he was there with his disciples. But after his death, a hole was left, and people had to start building symbols emanations, and images in their minds that they could relate to and worship.
I will close by reading a few lines from The Teacher of the Law section on page 163 that are reminiscent of the worship section from our puja
“You should offer heavenly flowers and incense, robes decked with heavenly treasures, the wonderful treasure hoards of heaven as alms to those who preach the Law..
The choicest delicacies, all that is sweet and tasty along with various types of clothing you should offer as alms to these Buddha sons”
The end