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The Lotus Sutra
Translated from the Chinese by Tsugunari Kubo and Akira Yuyama. This is one of the most important of all the Mahayana sutras. It is a work of great literary merit, and has earned a lasting place in the history of Buddhism owing to the superior quality of its philosophical content. [Taisho Tripitaka #262] [ Miao-fa-lien-hua-ching] [ Myo-ho-ren-ge-kyo]
364 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1993
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
December 20, 2013
If you counted the number of sands in the Ganges, you wouldn't have arrived at the number of times this analogy was used in this sutra. It really does give a very vivid account of the grandiose (to use a wholly inaccurate set of adjectives) nature of the cosmos from the Buddhist perspective, and provides insight into many integral notions in Mahayana thought. Tsugunari Kubo and Akira Yuyama provide a beautifully poetic translation and wonderful commentary. Despite dooming myself to an unfavorable rebirth for disparaging the Lotus Sutra (the punishments for which are very detailed within), it ain't my favorite of the prajna texts, but it is definitely worth a bunch of reads, and this translation is great.
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January 28, 2023unrated, interesting, iw will b returning to ths, paying mor attention, my first pass thru felt rather devoid of anything besides repetitive praises of variuous figures w out fully elucidating buddhist practices cosmology or expanding knowlegde
i will go thru again at sum point
i will go thru again at sum point
November 14, 2019
This is the most influential Buddhist text in East Asia. The early chapters, containing the core teaching (such as the famous “burning house” parable), impressed me with its often intriguing and beautiful imagery. The substantial middle of the sutra is devoted to declaring its own virtue and assuring unsurpassable merit to those who embrace or promulgate it—over and over and over again. Religious devotion and ritual or recitative context, no doubt, find value in the repetition, but for a reader in some other condition the effect is tedious. Persist, and at the end one will find fantastic accounts of the ministry and powers of several bodhisattvas. Centuries later, I have read, Buddhist preachers used this sutra to expound a simplified version of the faith to commoners, focusing on the worldly rewards the sutra promises for acts of devotion. Still, the beauty of the bodhisattva ideal expounded here would be difficult to contest, especially for a Christian such as myself. The Lotus Sutra may be a somewhat palaverous retcon, but its enduring influence testifies to the imaginative and moral power of its depiction of a cosmos filled with beneficent, compassionate, self-abnegating intelligences.
December 22, 2022
Here is a brief summary of Ziporyn's superb analysis of The Lotus Sutra. Unfortunately, Ziporyn's excellent analysis appears in a liberalized, sanitized translation entitled The Threefold Lotus Sutra: A Modern Translation for Contemporary Readers. I recommend either the translation by BDK, 2nd edition, or Hurvitz if you decide to eventually read The Lotus Sutra. My choice was to read BDK 2nd edition translated by Tsugunari Kubo and Akira Yuyama. However, I believe my summary of Ziporyn's analysis summarizes its main message well enough for the purposes of a review.
"All of those whom the buddha-tathagatas teach and transform are bodhisattvas."
"Without seeking it, we nonetheless effortlessly attained it."
"You will be a buddha; you are a future buddha."
"This immeasurably rare treasure, which we did not seek, has come to us of its own accord."
"Those who hear even a single verse or a single phrase of the Wondrous Dharma Flower Sutra and thereby experience even a moment of rejoicing will become buddhas."
According to Ziporyn's essay, The Lotus Sutra largely revolves around the themes of prospective retrospection: “where you gaze upon a buddha whom you will become, which enacts the gaze backward of that buddha to you, his prior self, as a nascent buddha". It's what the metaphor of "only a buddha together with a buddha" refers to, and how this can lead to fathoming the ultimate reality of all things.
Ziporyn argues that the Buddha Way involves an “interchange between perspectives on a particular thing, and can never be closed off or totalized within any one perspective”. Additionally, parables are used to explain how the Bodhisattva path includes and encompasses the Pratyekabuddha and Sravaka paths. A Bodhisattva is the “ideal of Mahayana, a selfless being with universal compassion who has generated the profound aspiration to achieve enlightenment in order to benefit sentient beings”. All beings are destined to awaken to their Buddha nature and attain Buddhahood, but they all converge on the One Vehicle of nonduality. As Chapter II Skillfull Means says:
Moreover, there’s no nirvana in the traditional sense, indicating the unity of illusion and absolute:
As Ziporyn argues, “Our equality to the Buddha is false because true, true because false, and so it loops ad infinitum. That ad infinitum is our eternal buddhahood, which is also our eternal sentient-being-hood.” The Bodhisattva path guarantees one's future Buddhahood as if it existed as a seamless causal piece from the beginning, where "the present activity recontextualizes the past as much as the deep past recontextualizes the present", and this also serves as a recontextualization:
There’s a 'recursion' of 'infinite meanings'. The 'moretoitivity' of there always being other contexts and possibilities for recontextualization. All Buddha's teachings are skillful means (upaya) to enlightenment, and enlightenment is mastery of the skillful means, which culminates in being life-affirming while not taking our desires too seriously. In a sense, one is free to want as much as they wish, but it is all futile or systematic misdirection. Even the oscillation of the Buddha's presence or absence constitutes skillful means; they are alternate models of the eternally present Tathgatagarbha, "Womb of the Buddhas":
Ziporyn ends his essay beautifully with these words: "To regard oneself as a bodhisattva is to regard all forms of being as forms that one can and does take, out of compassion for the world. And it is this recognizing of ourselves in other lives that is the true meaning of rebirth and its constant invocation throughout the Lotus Sutra; it shows us all past, present, and future existences as varying bodhisattva transformations of ourselves – in this very moment, right now. Hence the climax of the sutra in the revelation of the Buddha's eternal life: we had already learned that all sentient beings are bodhisattvas; now we learn that to be a buddha is also to eternally be a bodhisattva – but one who understands that there is no end and no beginning to bodhisattvahood. When we recognize ourselves as always already unwitting bodhisattvas, we thus see also that our lives, in every detail, are always already expressions of buddhahood itself.”
"All of those whom the buddha-tathagatas teach and transform are bodhisattvas."
"Without seeking it, we nonetheless effortlessly attained it."
"You will be a buddha; you are a future buddha."
"This immeasurably rare treasure, which we did not seek, has come to us of its own accord."
"Those who hear even a single verse or a single phrase of the Wondrous Dharma Flower Sutra and thereby experience even a moment of rejoicing will become buddhas."
According to Ziporyn's essay, The Lotus Sutra largely revolves around the themes of prospective retrospection: “where you gaze upon a buddha whom you will become, which enacts the gaze backward of that buddha to you, his prior self, as a nascent buddha". It's what the metaphor of "only a buddha together with a buddha" refers to, and how this can lead to fathoming the ultimate reality of all things.
唯佛與佛乃能究盡諸法實相。
…only a Buddha and a Buddha can exhaust [the reality of all things].
–Translated by Leon Hurvitz.
No one but the buddhas can completely know the real aspects of all dharmas.
–BDK translation by Tsugunari Kubo and Akira Yuyama
Ziporyn argues that the Buddha Way involves an “interchange between perspectives on a particular thing, and can never be closed off or totalized within any one perspective”. Additionally, parables are used to explain how the Bodhisattva path includes and encompasses the Pratyekabuddha and Sravaka paths. A Bodhisattva is the “ideal of Mahayana, a selfless being with universal compassion who has generated the profound aspiration to achieve enlightenment in order to benefit sentient beings”. All beings are destined to awaken to their Buddha nature and attain Buddhahood, but they all converge on the One Vehicle of nonduality. As Chapter II Skillfull Means says:
You should now know
That originally I made a vow
To make all sentient beings my equal
Without any difference
Now I have already fulfilled this vow.
Moreover, there’s no nirvana in the traditional sense, indicating the unity of illusion and absolute:
Every existing thing from the very beginning
Has always had the mark of quiescence
As Ziporyn argues, “Our equality to the Buddha is false because true, true because false, and so it loops ad infinitum. That ad infinitum is our eternal buddhahood, which is also our eternal sentient-being-hood.” The Bodhisattva path guarantees one's future Buddhahood as if it existed as a seamless causal piece from the beginning, where "the present activity recontextualizes the past as much as the deep past recontextualizes the present", and this also serves as a recontextualization:
For the Lotus Sutra is a teaching about recontextualization: it is a way of showing how the meaning and identity of things (persons, practices) is altered completely when these things are seen in a new, larger context (for example, when put in connection with a broader horizon of past and future, or seen in the gaze of the Buddha).
[...]
That is, when you achieve buddhahood, even the prior buddhas who inspired and instructed you become aspects of your own present buddhahood. You become the source of your own source. Like the separated embodiments of the present and the other buddhas of the past, all the causes and conditions of one's own past are now recast in the light of this new present, become functions of it, recontextualized and transformed into parts and aspects of this present vision.
[...]
By delighting in the Lotus Sutra teaching, the teaching that anything you are doing is part of your already operative bodhisattvahood, you live in a present with a future buddhahood and a past bodhisattvahood.
There’s a 'recursion' of 'infinite meanings'. The 'moretoitivity' of there always being other contexts and possibilities for recontextualization. All Buddha's teachings are skillful means (upaya) to enlightenment, and enlightenment is mastery of the skillful means, which culminates in being life-affirming while not taking our desires too seriously. In a sense, one is free to want as much as they wish, but it is all futile or systematic misdirection. Even the oscillation of the Buddha's presence or absence constitutes skillful means; they are alternate models of the eternally present Tathgatagarbha, "Womb of the Buddhas":
Although I am always here without extinction,
Through the power of skillful means
I manifest extinction and nonextinction.
If there are any sentient beings in other worlds
Who respect and believe in me,
I will also teach them the highest Dharma.
Ziporyn ends his essay beautifully with these words: "To regard oneself as a bodhisattva is to regard all forms of being as forms that one can and does take, out of compassion for the world. And it is this recognizing of ourselves in other lives that is the true meaning of rebirth and its constant invocation throughout the Lotus Sutra; it shows us all past, present, and future existences as varying bodhisattva transformations of ourselves – in this very moment, right now. Hence the climax of the sutra in the revelation of the Buddha's eternal life: we had already learned that all sentient beings are bodhisattvas; now we learn that to be a buddha is also to eternally be a bodhisattva – but one who understands that there is no end and no beginning to bodhisattvahood. When we recognize ourselves as always already unwitting bodhisattvas, we thus see also that our lives, in every detail, are always already expressions of buddhahood itself.”
July 6, 2024
This is one the most historically important sutras in the East Asian Mahayana tradition and reading it will show you why.
It's ultimately a game-changer for approaching Buddhism. Within both past and modern Buddhist schools, you have debates between theravada and mahayana, and within mahayana, different schools such as Pure Land, Nichiren, Zen, etc. Part 1 of the sutra ultimately declare that all these paths are valid and that they are all skillful means for approaching the truth, rendering null sectarian divisions and allowing for a diversity of practice.
Part 2 also changes the game when it declares that the Buddha never left and paranirvana is an illusion. Part of the debate and philosophy surrounding Buddhism is on the nature of nirvana and paranirvana, and the Buddha declares in this sutra that he never actually left and that Buddhas continue to live within the world to guide others to the truth. The philosophical, theological and cosmic implications of this are large, as it reframes the dharma not as running away from this world but as enlightenment in a very literal sense- revealing the real nature of reality.
It's ultimately a game-changer for approaching Buddhism. Within both past and modern Buddhist schools, you have debates between theravada and mahayana, and within mahayana, different schools such as Pure Land, Nichiren, Zen, etc. Part 1 of the sutra ultimately declare that all these paths are valid and that they are all skillful means for approaching the truth, rendering null sectarian divisions and allowing for a diversity of practice.
Part 2 also changes the game when it declares that the Buddha never left and paranirvana is an illusion. Part of the debate and philosophy surrounding Buddhism is on the nature of nirvana and paranirvana, and the Buddha declares in this sutra that he never actually left and that Buddhas continue to live within the world to guide others to the truth. The philosophical, theological and cosmic implications of this are large, as it reframes the dharma not as running away from this world but as enlightenment in a very literal sense- revealing the real nature of reality.
June 26, 2022
The Lotus Sutra explained many times that if I disparage the Lotus Sutra I will be reborn in hell, without arms, etc. Therefore I must give it an excellent Goodreads review!
This text definitely deepened my understanding of Mahayana Buddhism, which is a really beautiful tradition. It's good to know that we all have the potential to become Buddhas. I also just read Origen, where he talks a lot about tailoring the Christian message to the reader/listener's spiritual needs (using the frequent metaphor of you feed a baby milk but an adult gets vegetables etc. to justify a different approach to scripture.) The Buddha's explanation of skillful means and how the Buddha similarly teaches according to the spiritual needs of the listener felt very similar!
It always feels weird to rate texts from religious traditions, especially those that are not my own. I have encountered other Mahayana texts that I enjoyed more, so I guess four stars?
This text definitely deepened my understanding of Mahayana Buddhism, which is a really beautiful tradition. It's good to know that we all have the potential to become Buddhas. I also just read Origen, where he talks a lot about tailoring the Christian message to the reader/listener's spiritual needs (using the frequent metaphor of you feed a baby milk but an adult gets vegetables etc. to justify a different approach to scripture.) The Buddha's explanation of skillful means and how the Buddha similarly teaches according to the spiritual needs of the listener felt very similar!
It always feels weird to rate texts from religious traditions, especially those that are not my own. I have encountered other Mahayana texts that I enjoyed more, so I guess four stars?
August 24, 2021
Kind of repetitive. I thought halfway through this was just a very long frame for the sutra itself, but it turns out that frame is actually the sutra. I was waiting for the “Lotus Sutra” mentioned so many times, but it never materialized.
Still an interesting view of a Buddhist world, but ultimately disappointing.
Still an interesting view of a Buddhist world, but ultimately disappointing.
November 30, 2021
A challenge to read but sutra’s are meant to be read multiple times. After a few reads, it should be easier to digest.
February 20, 2022
Kind of repetitive.
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews