Notes

This begins the first account in the section on the practitioners of the three vehicles being the same as the practitioners of the one vehicle. The Buddha uses these individuals as examples to show how preserving, honouring, and propagating this sūtra is beneficial, how they do that, how they benefit beings now, and what their virtues are.

Overall Teaching

Relying on this sūtra, and this chapter, confers ultimate benefits, as does offering to the Triple Gem. This is the King of Sūtras.

Summary

1. Bodhisattva Nakṣatrarājasaṃkusumitābhijña (Recollection of the Full Blooming of the King of the Stars (i.e. the moon)) asks the Buddha why Bhaiṣajyarāja is in the assembly (who was introduced in Chapter 10 as the person through whom the Buddha teaches the assembly of bodhisattva mahāsattvas).

2. The Buddha replies with an account of the past:

   1. In the past there was a well-adorned Buddha Land where the Buddha Candrasūryavimalaprabhāśrī (Stainless Illumination of the Sun and Moon) taught the Lotus Sūtra.

   2. In his assembly was the Bodhisattva Sarvarūpasaṃdarśana (Observation of all Forms) who practiced severe practices, and attained the samādhi of the observation of all forms through practicing the Lotus Sūtra. (53a)

   3. He paid homage to the Buddha with fine substances which rained down from the sky, but resolved that it was not equal to offering his body.

   4. Having inhaled fragrances and having drunk fragrant oils for twelve hundred years, wearing a divine garment, he set his body alight and illuminated countless worlds.

   5. After burning for twelve hundred years, he was reborn in the Buddha Land of Candrasūryavimalaprabhāśrī as the son of King Vimaladatta, whom he honours with verses. (53b)

   6. In order to honour the Buddha again, he sat on a seven-jeweled platform and ascended to the Buddha, touching the Buddha’s feet with his head, he pays homage.

   7. Buddha Candrasūryavimalaprabhāśrī announces that he will enter parinirvāṇa and entrusts Sarvarūpasaṃdarśana with the Dharma and distributing his relics and building his stūpas.

   8. Having done this, he proceeded to burn his arms for seventy-two thousand years as an offering to the eighty-four thousand stūpas. (53c)

   9. i.      While some beings were upset at this, he vowed that if he would certainly attain Buddhahood, his arms will be restored as before, and they did so.

3. The Buddha then reveals that Sarvarūpasaṃdarśana is Bhaiṣajyarāja.

4. The Buddha then explains that while burning a finger or two is of greater merit than offering countries or treasures, receiving and holding to a single four-line verse of the Lotus Sūtra is of greater merit than filling the cosmos with treasures and offering them to the buddhas, bodhisattvas, and arhats. (54a)

5. The Buddha emphasises that this is the best of all sūtras taught by the buddhas and those who hold to it are the best of all beings. It is the “King of Sūtras.”

6. The Lotus Sūtra frees beings from suffering like:

   1. A pool of water for the thirsty.

   2. Fire for the cold.

   3. Clothing for the naked.

   4. Caravan leader for the merchants.

   5. A mother for her child.

   6. A boat for a traveller.

   7. A doctor for the sick.

   8. A lamp for the gloom.

   9. A jewel for the poor.

   10. A king for the people.

   11. The sea for a trader.

   12. A torch for the darkness.

7. Those who adhere to this chapter and honour it will be endowed with numerous benefits:

   1. Limitless merit.

   2. Women may be reborn without a female body. (54b)

   3.  A woman may be reborn in the Land of Bliss of Amitāyus.

   4. One will be free from the three poisons and attain acceptance of the nonorigination of all phenomena.

   5. One will see all the Buddhas.

   6. All the buddhas will praise them.

   7. They will emit pleasant fragrances from their mouth and pores. (54c)

8. The Buddha implores Nakṣatrarājasaṃkusumitābhijña to propagate this chapter and not allow anyone, such as Māra, to destroy it.

9. While the chapter was being spoken, eighty-four thousand bodhisattvas attained the dhāraṇī of understanding the speech of all sentient beings. (55a)

Analysis

Tao-sheng points out that this is not meant as a literal indication that proper practice is burning one’s body. Rather, one’s body is the most attached-to and treasured of a human’s values and possessions. This attachment causes pain, duḥkha, inherently. So, if we have the body, and we are attached to it, we are already always burning. If one understands and practices the principle of the Lotus Sūtra, even though one is always burning, by having a human body, one does not really burn, because one is not truly attached to it. If we use our bodies to practice the Dharma, we will, while burning, not hurt, and be offering that burning body to the triple gem, just like Bhaiṣajyarāja Bodhisattva. (Kim, 524) Tao-sheng also points out that the example of Bhaiṣajyarāja Bodhisattva was used just because there are many people who engage in antinomian spiritual practices, like self-immolation, cutting oneself, and so forth. While these do not really result in spiritual progress, Bhaiṣajyarāja was reborn in the Buddha Land again as a result of the good merit of the offering to the Dharma. (Kim, 524-5)

            As regards the dhāraṇī of understanding the speech of all sentient beings, a dhāraṇī is either a magic formula or a support, something that can be relied upon for practice. The fourth type of dhāraṇī classified by Jinging Huiyuan is that of acquiescence, a way of knowing the nature of phenomena such that one has the patience to help sentient beings. (Princeton Dictionary of Buddhism, 241-2) This may be considered this type of dhāraṇī. On the one hand, we can consider this as a kind of magical understanding of languages we do not understand, or we can consider it as a knowledge of the unproduced nature of the phenomena that appears to be speech. Really understanding why beings exists as they do and why they have the proclivities they do allows us to understand what one is truly saying at any moment.