The Quotable Nichiren *GONGYO* To accept, uphold, read, recite, take delight in, and protect all the eight volumes and twenty-eight chapters of the Lotus Sutra is called the comprehensive practice. To accept, uphold, and protect the Expedient Means chapter and the Life Span chapter is called the abbreviated practice. And simply to chant one four-phase verse or the diamoku, and to protect those who do so, is called the essential practice. Hence, among these three kinds of practice, comprehensive,abbreviated, and essential, the DAIMOKU is defined as the ESSENTIAL PRACTICE. (WND, 143) The heart of the Lotus Sutra is its title, or the diamoku, of Nam-myoho-renge-kyo. Truly, if you chant this in the morning and evening, you are correctly reading the entire Lotus Sutra. Chanting diamoku twice is the same as reading the entire sutra twice, one hundred diamoku equals one hundred readings of the sutra, and one thousand diamoku, one thousand readings of the sutra. Thus, if you ceaselessly chant daimoku, you will be continually reading the Lotus Sutra. (WND, 923) As I said before, though no chapter of the Lotus Sutra is negligible, among the entire twenty-eight chapters, the Expedient Means chapter and the Life Span chapter are particularly outstanding. The remaining chapters are all in a sense the branches and leaves of these two chapters. Therefore, for your regular recitation, I recommend that you practice reading the prose section of the Expedient Means and Life Span chapters. (WND, 71) First of all, when it comes to the Lotus Sutra, you should understand that, whether one recites all eight volumes, or only one volume, one chapter, one verse, one phase, or simply the diamoku, or title, the blessings are the same. It is like the water of the great ocean, a single drop of which contains water from all the countless streams and rivers, or like the wish-granting jewel, which, though only a single jewel, can shower all kinds of treasures upon the wisher. (WND, 69) I have written out the prose section of the Expedient Means chapter for you. You should recite it together with the verse portion of the Life Span chapter, which I send you earlier. The characters of this sutra are all without exception living Buddha of perfect enlightenment. But because we have the eyes of ordinary people, we see them as characters. (WND, 486) Words for Daily Living
Posted on: Sun, 10 Aug 2014 18:17:51 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015