Lotus Vs wisdom Vs flower garland sutra worldview?

General forum on the teachings of all schools of Mahayana and Vajrayana Buddhism. Topics specific to one school are best posted in the appropriate sub-forum.
User avatar
rory
Posts: 1574
Joined: Mon May 16, 2011 8:08 am
Location: SouthEast USA

Re: Lotus Vs wisdom Vs flower garland sutra worldview?

Post by rory »

nichiren-123 wrote: Tue Nov 13, 2018 3:19 pm
I've read the diamond sutra and synopses of the other two. I don't have time to read them. The LS is 500 odd pages and the FG is over 1000


How am I supposed to understand a 2000 year old text, written in an ancient language, full of Buddhist cosmology I don't understand?
Commentaries have been written on these sutra's that get to the heart of the matter in a much easier format to digest...
Here is a good intro book to get you started on the Lotus Sutra:
The Lotus Sūtra : a biography
Lopez, Donald S., Jr., 1952-
Princeton : Princeton University Press, [2016]
Paul Swanson reviews it here to give you some idea of the content:
https://www.lionsroar.com/the-life-of-the-lotus-sutra/

And here are some free chapters of a commentary on the Lotus Sutra by Ven. Hsuan Hua
http://online.sfsu.edu/rone/Buddhism/BT ... /Lotus.htm
you can buy the book here: http://www.cttbusa.org/cttb/bkstore.asp

there is also : The profound meaning of the Lotus sutra : ̕T ien-̕tai philosophy of Buddhism
Haiyan Shen.
Educa Books/ D.K (July 16, 2007)
it includes an outline of Ven. Zhiyi's great work; Profound Meaning of the Lotus Sutra (法華玄義 Fahua Xuanyi).
gassho
Rory
Namu Kanzeon Bosatsu
Chih-I:
The Tai-ching states "the women in the realms of Mara, Sakra and Brahma all neither abandoned ( their old) bodies nor received (new) bodies. They all received buddhahood with their current bodies (genshin)" Thus these verses state that the dharma nature is like a great ocean. No right or wrong is preached (within it) Ordinary people and sages are equal, without superiority or inferiority
Paul, Groner "The Lotus Sutra in Japanese Culture"eds. Tanabe p. 58
https://www.tendai-usa.org/
Malcolm
Posts: 42974
Joined: Thu Nov 11, 2010 2:19 am

Re: Lotus Vs wisdom Vs flower garland sutra worldview?

Post by Malcolm »

Queequeg wrote: Thu Nov 15, 2018 6:50 am
Malcolm wrote: Thu Nov 15, 2018 6:26 am It is trivial, and already explicitly mentioned by Nagarjun, to paraphrase, the the nature of the Tathagata is the nature of everything, as the Tathagata has no nature, nothing has a nature. And, for those whom emptiness is possible, everything is possible.

As for every moment of mind being ripe with awakening, I don’t know what you mean by awakening.
Very well, Malcolm. Let's not bother you with triviality. No matter that you still miss the point. Once again, thanks for your opinion. Noted.
I understood the point you were trying to make. But it is not a deep point. Realizing the emptiness of one thing is the realization of the emptiness of all things.

As for your second point, what Buddhanature? Is it something that truly exists? Or is it a conventional truth, a way of talking about sentient beings' potential to awaken? If it is the former, how is this not just the same as the tirthīka view of a self?

When you can reduce everything to something you already know, it can rightly be said you know everything, right? Talk about trivial.
When one makes statements that do not withstand analysis, the fault is on the person making the statement, not on the person who points out the statement's deficit. In general, I am not the one making claims and assertions here, you are. If your claims can't withstand rebuttal, whose fault is that?
Admin_PC
Former staff member
Posts: 4860
Joined: Wed Sep 19, 2012 11:17 pm

Re: Lotus Vs wisdom Vs flower garland sutra worldview?

Post by Admin_PC »

Queequeg wrote: Wed Nov 14, 2018 10:02 pmWhat needs to be taken into account in the Tiantai context particularly is that any particular dharma is understood to be the dharmadhatu, organized, so to speak around the particular. I think this is a uniquely Tiantai point - from the ordinary Mahayana perspective this meaning will not be apparent. As such, it is the dharmadhatu encountering a sense object, which is by the same analysis the totality of the dharmadhatu. The encounter gives rise to a consciousness of the totality of the dharmadhatu.
At the risk of beating a dead horse, I was wondering if the Tiantai point you're talking about is related to teachings on Ichinensanzen, rather than standard teachings on emptiness? Ie, the idea of interpenetration, that Buddhahood is inherent in the hells, etc?
User avatar
Queequeg
Former staff member
Posts: 14462
Joined: Tue Jul 03, 2012 3:24 pm

Re: Lotus Vs wisdom Vs flower garland sutra worldview?

Post by Queequeg »

Malcolm wrote: Thu Nov 15, 2018 3:49 pm

I understood the point you were trying to make. But it is not a deep point. Realizing the emptiness of one thing is the realization of the emptiness of all things.

As for your second point, what Buddhanature? Is it something that truly exists? Or is it a conventional truth, a way of talking about sentient beings' potential to awaken? If it is the former, how is this not just the same as the tirthīka view of a self?

...

When one makes statements that do not withstand analysis, the fault is on the person making the statement, not on the person who points out the statement's deficit. In general, I am not the one making claims and assertions here, you are. If your claims can't withstand rebuttal, whose fault is that?
Admin_PC wrote: Thu Nov 15, 2018 4:18 pm At the risk of beating a dead horse, I was wondering if the Tiantai point you're talking about is related to teachings on Ichinensanzen, rather than standard teachings on emptiness? Ie, the idea of interpenetration, that Buddhahood is inherent in the hells, etc?
Give this man a medal.

It's not about emptiness in the way Malcolm keeps trying to jam it into. Actually, what Malcolm keeps asserting is Provisional Mahayana in Zhiyi's view. If he could stop with his pedantic schtick we might be able to explore this. As long as he keeps jumping up and asserting his opinions, we're stuck with the Malcolm show.
There is no suffering to be severed. Ignorance and klesas are indivisible from bodhi. There is no cause of suffering to be abandoned. Since extremes and the false are the Middle and genuine, there is no path to be practiced. Samsara is nirvana. No severance achieved. No suffering nor its cause. No path, no end. There is no transcendent realm; there is only the one true aspect. There is nothing separate from the true aspect.
-Guanding, Perfect and Sudden Contemplation,
DGA
Former staff member
Posts: 9466
Joined: Tue Jul 13, 2010 5:04 pm

Re: Lotus Vs wisdom Vs flower garland sutra worldview?

Post by DGA »

Queequeg wrote: Thu Nov 15, 2018 4:38 pm
Malcolm wrote: Thu Nov 15, 2018 3:49 pm

I understood the point you were trying to make. But it is not a deep point. Realizing the emptiness of one thing is the realization of the emptiness of all things.

As for your second point, what Buddhanature? Is it something that truly exists? Or is it a conventional truth, a way of talking about sentient beings' potential to awaken? If it is the former, how is this not just the same as the tirthīka view of a self?

...

When one makes statements that do not withstand analysis, the fault is on the person making the statement, not on the person who points out the statement's deficit. In general, I am not the one making claims and assertions here, you are. If your claims can't withstand rebuttal, whose fault is that?
Admin_PC wrote: Thu Nov 15, 2018 4:18 pm At the risk of beating a dead horse, I was wondering if the Tiantai point you're talking about is related to teachings on Ichinensanzen, rather than standard teachings on emptiness? Ie, the idea of interpenetration, that Buddhahood is inherent in the hells, etc?
Give this man a medal.

It's not about emptiness in the way Malcolm keeps trying to jam it into. Actually, what Malcolm keeps asserting is Provisional Mahayana in Zhiyi's view. If he could stop with his pedantic schtick we might be able to explore this. As long as he keeps jumping up and asserting his opinions, we're stuck with the Malcolm show.
We're in the Mahayana sub, not the East Asian sub. Therefore...

How are the innovations (read: errors, obfuscations, and mythmakings) that Zhiyi introduces into Mahayana discourse more warranted than, say, mainstream Indian Mahayana?

TienTai isn't authoritative here, or as authoritative as the Indic texts. Unless you can make a case for it, TienTai is basically irrelevant to the question of a layperson trying to read three basic Mahayana sutras, in the Mahayana forum.

If you want to claim otherwise, then the burden is on you to demonstrate that TienTai is somehow better warranted or presents a stronger argument than Indian Mahayana. Bon chance.
User avatar
Caoimhghín
Posts: 3419
Joined: Thu Jun 02, 2016 11:35 pm
Location: Whitby, Ontario

Re: Lotus Vs wisdom Vs flower garland sutra worldview?

Post by Caoimhghín »

DGA wrote: Thu Nov 15, 2018 4:55 pm
Queequeg wrote: Thu Nov 15, 2018 4:38 pm
Malcolm wrote: Thu Nov 15, 2018 3:49 pm

I understood the point you were trying to make. But it is not a deep point. Realizing the emptiness of one thing is the realization of the emptiness of all things.

As for your second point, what Buddhanature? Is it something that truly exists? Or is it a conventional truth, a way of talking about sentient beings' potential to awaken? If it is the former, how is this not just the same as the tirthīka view of a self?

...

When one makes statements that do not withstand analysis, the fault is on the person making the statement, not on the person who points out the statement's deficit. In general, I am not the one making claims and assertions here, you are. If your claims can't withstand rebuttal, whose fault is that?
Admin_PC wrote: Thu Nov 15, 2018 4:18 pm At the risk of beating a dead horse, I was wondering if the Tiantai point you're talking about is related to teachings on Ichinensanzen, rather than standard teachings on emptiness? Ie, the idea of interpenetration, that Buddhahood is inherent in the hells, etc?
Give this man a medal.

It's not about emptiness in the way Malcolm keeps trying to jam it into. Actually, what Malcolm keeps asserting is Provisional Mahayana in Zhiyi's view. If he could stop with his pedantic schtick we might be able to explore this. As long as he keeps jumping up and asserting his opinions, we're stuck with the Malcolm show.
We're in the Mahayana sub, not the East Asian sub. Therefore...

How are the innovations (read: errors, obfuscations, and mythmakings) that Zhiyi introduces into Mahayana discourse more warranted than, say, mainstream Indian Mahayana?

TienTai isn't authoritative here, or as authoritative as the Indic texts. Unless you can make a case for it, TienTai is basically irrelevant to the question of a layperson trying to read three basic Mahayana sutras, in the Mahayana forum.

If you want to claim otherwise, then the burden is on you to demonstrate that TienTai is somehow better warranted or presents a stronger argument than Indian Mahayana. Bon chance.
The OP's question is actually specific to the Tiāntāi framework, and probably could have been moved.
Then, the monks uttered this gāthā:

These bodies are like foam.
Them being frail, who can rejoice in them?
The Buddha attained the vajra-body.
Still, it becomes inconstant and ruined.
The many Buddhas are vajra-entities.
All are also subject to inconstancy.
Quickly ended, like melting snow --
how could things be different?

The Buddha passed into parinirvāṇa afterward.
(T1.27b10 Mahāparinirvāṇasūtra DĀ 2)
Malcolm
Posts: 42974
Joined: Thu Nov 11, 2010 2:19 am

Re: Lotus Vs wisdom Vs flower garland sutra worldview?

Post by Malcolm »

Admin_PC wrote: Thu Nov 15, 2018 4:18 pm
At the risk of beating a dead horse, I was wondering if the Tiantai point you're talking about is related to teachings on Ichinensanzen, rather than standard teachings on emptiness? Ie, the idea of interpenetration, that Buddhahood is inherent in the hells, etc?
"Three thousand worlds in one moment of mind" is just a conventional formulation: it is incapable of withstanding analysis. Not even buddhahood can withstand analysis. So how could "three thousand worlds in one moment of mind" withstand ultimate analysis?

What is even slightly profound about talking about how one relative entity (buddhahood), which cannot withstand ultimate analysis, interpenetrates another relative entity (hell), which also cannot withstand ultimate analysis? All of these things, buddhas, bodhisattvas, hells, the triple realm, etc., are relative truths. None of them withstand ultimate analysis. In other words, if any part of the whole cannot withstand ultimate analysis, the whole itself cannot withstand ultimate analysis.
User avatar
Queequeg
Former staff member
Posts: 14462
Joined: Tue Jul 03, 2012 3:24 pm

Re: Lotus Vs wisdom Vs flower garland sutra worldview?

Post by Queequeg »

DGA wrote: Thu Nov 15, 2018 4:55 pm We're in the Mahayana sub, not the East Asian sub. Therefore...

How are the innovations (read: errors, obfuscations, and mythmakings) that Zhiyi introduces into Mahayana discourse more warranted than, say, mainstream Indian Mahayana?

TienTai isn't authoritative here, or as authoritative as the Indic texts. Unless you can make a case for it, TienTai is basically irrelevant to the question of a layperson trying to read three basic Mahayana sutras, in the Mahayana forum.

If you want to claim otherwise, then the burden is on you to demonstrate that TienTai is somehow better warranted or presents a stronger argument than Indian Mahayana. Bon chance.
LOL.

Because we're actually discussing what Zhiyi/Tiantai has to say. This discussion has veered off the original question as threads here at DW have a tendency to do. No claims being made about what is authoritative. At least, I'm not making those claims. I am pointing out that the way people understand Zhiyi is wrong.

Thanks for chiming in, Jikan.
There is no suffering to be severed. Ignorance and klesas are indivisible from bodhi. There is no cause of suffering to be abandoned. Since extremes and the false are the Middle and genuine, there is no path to be practiced. Samsara is nirvana. No severance achieved. No suffering nor its cause. No path, no end. There is no transcendent realm; there is only the one true aspect. There is nothing separate from the true aspect.
-Guanding, Perfect and Sudden Contemplation,
Malcolm
Posts: 42974
Joined: Thu Nov 11, 2010 2:19 am

Re: Lotus Vs wisdom Vs flower garland sutra worldview?

Post by Malcolm »

Queequeg wrote: Thu Nov 15, 2018 4:38 pm It's not about emptiness in the way Malcolm keeps trying to jam it into. Actually, what Malcolm keeps asserting is Provisional Mahayana in Zhiyi's view. If he could stop with his pedantic schtick we might be able to explore this. As long as he keeps jumping up and asserting his opinions, we're stuck with the Malcolm show.
So far, you have been unable to show that what you take to be Zhiyi's definitive Mahāyāna is definitive in any way whatsoever.

Bear in mind, I have no hostility towards Zhiyi. His books are enjoyable to read. But frankly, when it comes to making the epistemological claims you continue to assert, if they are easy to refute (they are), then I will continue to refute them as long as you make them in common fora like this. If you need a safe space, confine it to the Tientai and Nichiren fora.
Malcolm
Posts: 42974
Joined: Thu Nov 11, 2010 2:19 am

Re: Lotus Vs wisdom Vs flower garland sutra worldview?

Post by Malcolm »

Queequeg wrote: Thu Nov 15, 2018 5:05 pm I am pointing out that the way people understand Zhiyi is wrong.
And I am merely pointing out why the epistemological claims you keep making for Zhiyi are unable to withstand ultimate analysis. Either the fault is your's or his. It doesn't matter to me either way.
User avatar
Queequeg
Former staff member
Posts: 14462
Joined: Tue Jul 03, 2012 3:24 pm

Re: Lotus Vs wisdom Vs flower garland sutra worldview?

Post by Queequeg »

Malcolm wrote: Thu Nov 15, 2018 5:01 pm "Three thousand worlds in one moment of mind" is just a conventional formulation: it is incapable of withstanding analysis. Not even buddhahood can withstand analysis. So how could "three thousand worlds in one moment of mind" withstand ultimate analysis?

What is even slightly profound about talking about how one relative entity (buddhahood), which cannot withstand ultimate analysis, interpenetrates another relative entity (hell), which also cannot withstand ultimate analysis? All of these things, buddhas, bodhisattvas, hells, the triple realm, etc., are relative truths. None of them withstand ultimate analysis. In other words, if any part of the whole cannot withstand ultimate analysis, the whole itself cannot withstand ultimate analysis.
Zhiyi never makes a claim that anything he taught would withstand "ultimate analysis." He's very clear throughout his teachings that what he teaches is a way to understand. The conscious notion of upaya permeates throughout his works. In fact, this line of Zhiyi's that has gotten so much attention in this thread is prefaced with this, which I quoted above (in italics):
Queequeg wrote: Wed Nov 14, 2018 8:56 pm This is how Swanson translates that phrase - bolded below, along with the context of this section:
It is also said [in the introduction to the Mo-ho chih-kuan], “there is not a single color or scent that is not the Middle Way.” This is stated from the perspective of the Middle Way, but [ultimately] there are both the Middle and the extremes, and there are neither extremes nor a lack of extremes—thus [the threefold truth of the perfect integration of emptiness, conventionality, and the Middle] is complete and unrestricted. One should not cling to words and thus tarnish the Perfect [Teaching] and falsify this noble meaning.

If one is able to understand this [meaning], [then one will know that] when a single thought-moment [based on] sense organs and sense objects arises in the mind, the sense organs [each at least potentially contains] a myriad aspects of true reality and it is the same for the sense objects. When a single thought moment arises in the mind, it also [contains] a myriad aspects of true reality. The encounter of the dharma realm of the Buddha [= sense organs] and the dharma realm [= sense objects] gives rise to the dharma realm [of the mind: consciousness]; there is nothing that is not the Buddha Dharma.
If these teachings don't benefit you, well, :cheers:

If they do, well, :cheers:

If you'd like to discuss Zhiyi, Tientai, great. Blurting out the first thing that pops into your head in a declaratory way, especially when its painfully obvious you don't understand what you are critiquing, when you're putting up strawmen to preen on, is not conducive to a discussion.
There is no suffering to be severed. Ignorance and klesas are indivisible from bodhi. There is no cause of suffering to be abandoned. Since extremes and the false are the Middle and genuine, there is no path to be practiced. Samsara is nirvana. No severance achieved. No suffering nor its cause. No path, no end. There is no transcendent realm; there is only the one true aspect. There is nothing separate from the true aspect.
-Guanding, Perfect and Sudden Contemplation,
Malcolm
Posts: 42974
Joined: Thu Nov 11, 2010 2:19 am

Re: Lotus Vs wisdom Vs flower garland sutra worldview?

Post by Malcolm »

DGA wrote: Thu Nov 15, 2018 4:55 pm

TienTai isn't authoritative here, or as authoritative as the Indic texts. Unless you can make a case for it, TienTai is basically irrelevant to the question of a layperson trying to read three basic Mahayana sutras, in the Mahayana forum.
Not to mention that fact that neither the Lotus Sūtra nor the Prajñāpāramita Sūtras present any sort of cosmology whatsoever. Śākyamuni Buddha remaining through the conflagration at the end of this Mahākālpa is a metaphor. Not a historical or cosmological reality.

Only the Avatamska Sūtra presents a cosmology that is an alternative to the standard Abhidharma model.
Malcolm
Posts: 42974
Joined: Thu Nov 11, 2010 2:19 am

Re: Lotus Vs wisdom Vs flower garland sutra worldview?

Post by Malcolm »

Queequeg wrote: Thu Nov 15, 2018 5:21 pm
Zhiyi never makes a claim that anything he taught would withstand "ultimate analysis." He's very clear throughout his teachings that what he teaches is a way to understand. The conscious notion of upaya permeates throughout his works. In fact, this line of Zhiyi's that has gotten so much attention in this thread is prefaced with this, which I quoted above (in italics):

...

If these teachings don't benefit you, well, :cheers:

If they do, well, :cheers:

If you'd like to discuss Zhiyi, Tientai, great. Blurting out the first thing that pops into your head in a declaratory way, especially when its painfully obvious you don't understand what you are critiquing, when you're putting up strawmen to preen on, is not conducive to a discussion.
I merely pointed out to you that your idea that Zhiyi presents some uber profound teaching about the dharmadhātu was just a standard Mahāyāna presentation about the dharmadhātu since we both agree there are no phenomena not included within the dharmadhātu.

Your contention that all phenomena are included within one phenomena cannot withstand analysis, taken literally.
User avatar
Queequeg
Former staff member
Posts: 14462
Joined: Tue Jul 03, 2012 3:24 pm

Re: Lotus Vs wisdom Vs flower garland sutra worldview?

Post by Queequeg »

Malcolm wrote: Thu Nov 15, 2018 6:39 pm I merely pointed out to you that your idea that Zhiyi presents some uber profound teaching about the dharmadhātu was just a standard Mahāyāna presentation about the dharmadhātu since we both agree there are no phenomena not included within the dharmadhātu.

Your contention that all phenomena are included within one phenomena cannot withstand analysis, taken literally.
I don't know what "uber profound" means. You asserted that it was trivial, and I responded that it is not trivial. I wrote that it is soteriologically critical. Critical does not necessarily mean profound. Stop with these mischaracterizations. You have ample learning at your disposal to dispense with these word games and airs of superiority.

In other words, don't be a dick.

What is my contention?

The particular Dharma is, upon analysis, the Dharmadhatu. I didn't suggest any such tentative relationship like "includes". You want to be detailed, let's be detailed.
There is no suffering to be severed. Ignorance and klesas are indivisible from bodhi. There is no cause of suffering to be abandoned. Since extremes and the false are the Middle and genuine, there is no path to be practiced. Samsara is nirvana. No severance achieved. No suffering nor its cause. No path, no end. There is no transcendent realm; there is only the one true aspect. There is nothing separate from the true aspect.
-Guanding, Perfect and Sudden Contemplation,
Malcolm
Posts: 42974
Joined: Thu Nov 11, 2010 2:19 am

Re: Lotus Vs wisdom Vs flower garland sutra worldview?

Post by Malcolm »

Queequeg wrote: Thu Nov 15, 2018 7:10 pm The particular Dharma is, upon analysis, the Dharmadhatu.
This is a thesis in the form of an identity proposition, y = x. Let's see the analysis which proves your thesis: a given particular dharma is the dharmadhātu because...?
User avatar
Caoimhghín
Posts: 3419
Joined: Thu Jun 02, 2016 11:35 pm
Location: Whitby, Ontario

Re: Lotus Vs wisdom Vs flower garland sutra worldview?

Post by Caoimhghín »

Malcolm wrote: Thu Nov 15, 2018 9:04 pm
Queequeg wrote: Thu Nov 15, 2018 7:10 pm The particular Dharma is, upon analysis, the Dharmadhatu.
This is a thesis in the form of an identity proposition, y = x. Let's see the analysis which proves your thesis: a given particular dharma is the dharmadhātu because...?
Because, in the highly paraphrased words of the bodhisattva Avalokiteśvara, "Śāriputra, none of these dharmas can hit for shit."
Then, the monks uttered this gāthā:

These bodies are like foam.
Them being frail, who can rejoice in them?
The Buddha attained the vajra-body.
Still, it becomes inconstant and ruined.
The many Buddhas are vajra-entities.
All are also subject to inconstancy.
Quickly ended, like melting snow --
how could things be different?

The Buddha passed into parinirvāṇa afterward.
(T1.27b10 Mahāparinirvāṇasūtra DĀ 2)
Malcolm
Posts: 42974
Joined: Thu Nov 11, 2010 2:19 am

Re: Lotus Vs wisdom Vs flower garland sutra worldview?

Post by Malcolm »

Coëmgenu wrote: Thu Nov 15, 2018 9:15 pm
Malcolm wrote: Thu Nov 15, 2018 9:04 pm
Queequeg wrote: Thu Nov 15, 2018 7:10 pm The particular Dharma is, upon analysis, the Dharmadhatu.
This is a thesis in the form of an identity proposition, y = x. Let's see the analysis which proves your thesis: a given particular dharma is the dharmadhātu because...?
Because, in the highly paraphrased words of the bodhisattva Avalokiteśvara, "Śāriputra, none of these dharmas can hit for shit."
But as we know, this is just Tang dynasty fake news.
User avatar
rory
Posts: 1574
Joined: Mon May 16, 2011 8:08 am
Location: SouthEast USA

Re: Lotus Vs wisdom Vs flower garland sutra worldview?

Post by rory »

Nihil sub sole novi to quote the Vulgate.

It might be better to look at the essays in Pruning the Bodhi Tree: eds. J. Hubbard, P.Swanson
and then have a thoughtful discussion. Noriaki and Shiro are Buddhologists specializing in Indo-Tibetan Buddhism whilst Sallie King wrote a book on buddhanature.

J. Stone reviewed it in JJRSI vol. 26/1-2
The intellectual movement known as “Critical Buddhism” (hihan Bukkyd 批判仏教)began around the mid-1980s in Soto Zen circles, led by Hakamaya Noriaki and Matsumoto Shiro, both Buddholoeists as well as ordained Soto priests....aggressively
normative, Critical Buddhism does not hesitate to pronounce on what represents “true” Buddnism and what does not. By its definition, Bud­dhism is simply the teachings of non-self (anatman) and dependent origination (pratitya-samutpdda). Many of the most influential of Mahayana ideas, including notions of universal Buddha nature, tathagata-garbha, original enlightenment, the nonduality of the Vimalakirti Sutra, and the “absolute nothingrness” of the Kyoto school, are all condemned as reverting to fundamentally non-Buddhist notions of atman, that is, substantial essence or ground
p.159
gassho
Rory
Namu Kanzeon Bosatsu
Chih-I:
The Tai-ching states "the women in the realms of Mara, Sakra and Brahma all neither abandoned ( their old) bodies nor received (new) bodies. They all received buddhahood with their current bodies (genshin)" Thus these verses state that the dharma nature is like a great ocean. No right or wrong is preached (within it) Ordinary people and sages are equal, without superiority or inferiority
Paul, Groner "The Lotus Sutra in Japanese Culture"eds. Tanabe p. 58
https://www.tendai-usa.org/
User avatar
Queequeg
Former staff member
Posts: 14462
Joined: Tue Jul 03, 2012 3:24 pm

Re: Lotus Vs wisdom Vs flower garland sutra worldview?

Post by Queequeg »

Pratitya samutpada.
There is no suffering to be severed. Ignorance and klesas are indivisible from bodhi. There is no cause of suffering to be abandoned. Since extremes and the false are the Middle and genuine, there is no path to be practiced. Samsara is nirvana. No severance achieved. No suffering nor its cause. No path, no end. There is no transcendent realm; there is only the one true aspect. There is nothing separate from the true aspect.
-Guanding, Perfect and Sudden Contemplation,
User avatar
Queequeg
Former staff member
Posts: 14462
Joined: Tue Jul 03, 2012 3:24 pm

Re: Lotus Vs wisdom Vs flower garland sutra worldview?

Post by Queequeg »

Pratitya samutpada.
There is no suffering to be severed. Ignorance and klesas are indivisible from bodhi. There is no cause of suffering to be abandoned. Since extremes and the false are the Middle and genuine, there is no path to be practiced. Samsara is nirvana. No severance achieved. No suffering nor its cause. No path, no end. There is no transcendent realm; there is only the one true aspect. There is nothing separate from the true aspect.
-Guanding, Perfect and Sudden Contemplation,
Post Reply

Return to “Mahāyāna Buddhism”