three bodies

 

three bodies: Three kinds of body a Buddha may possess. A concept set forth in Mahayana Buddhism to organize different views of the Buddha appearing in the sutras. The three bodies are as follows: (1) The Dharma body, or body of the Law. This is the fundamental truth, or Law, to which a Buddha is enlightened. (2) The reward body (sambhoga-kāya), obtained as the reward of completing bodhisattva practices and acquiring the Buddha wisdom. Unlike the Dharma body, which is immaterial, the reward body is thought of as an actual body, although one that is transcendent and imperceptible to ordinary people. (3) The manifested body (nirmāna-kāya), or the physical form that a Buddha assumes in this world in order to save the people. Generally, a Buddha was held to possess one of the three bodies. In other words, the three bodies represented three different types of Buddhas—the Buddha of the Dharma body, the Buddha of the reward body, and the Buddha of the manifested body.

On the basis of the Lotus Sutra and the principle of three thousand realms in a single moment of life derived from it, T’ien-t’ai (538–597) maintained that the three bodies are not separate entities but three integral aspects of a single Buddha. From this point of view, the Dharma body indicates the essential property of a Buddha, which is the truth or Law to which the Buddha is enlightened. The reward body indicates the wisdom, or the spiritual property of a Buddha, which enables the Buddha to perceive the truth. It is called reward body because a Buddha’s wisdom is considered the reward derived from ceaseless effort and discipline. The manifested body indicates compassionate actions, or the physical property of a Buddha. It is the body with which a Buddha carries out compassionate actions to lead people to enlightenment, or those actions themselves. In discussing the passage in the “Life Span” (sixteenth) chapter of the Lotus Sutra that reads, “You must listen carefully and hear of the Thus Come One’s secret and his transcendental powers,” T’ien-t’ai, in The Words and Phrases of the Lotus Sutra, interpreted “secret” to mean that a single Buddha possesses all three bodies and that all three bodies are found within a single Buddha.

An Extrordinary Home Visit

Jack Smith's life was in the dumps, his car in the shop, job to be cut, and wife has left him. Jimmy Onit is a men's leader, he chants with Jack Smith and everything changes. 

Bodhisattva Never Disparaging

 

In the twentieth chapter of the Lotus Sutra, Shakyamuni illustrates the story of Bodhisattva Never Disparaging. The chapter describes this bodhisattva as having lived in the Middle Day of the Law after the death of a Buddha named Awesome Sound King, at a time when arrogant monks held great authority and power. Never Disparaging venerated all people, repeating the phrase “I have profound reverence for you, I would never dare treat you with disparagement or arrogance. Why? Because you will all practice the bodhisattva way and will then be able to attain buddhahood.”
  Monks, nuns, laymen, and laywomen mocked him and attacked him with staves and stones. Bodhisattva Never Disparaging, however, persevered in his practice and achieved purification of his six senses through the benefit of the Lotus Sutra. When the arrogant clerics and laypersons who had treated Never Disparaging with ridicule and contempt heard his preaching and saw that he had purified his senses, they all took faith in him and became his followers. But due to their past offenses of treating him with animosity, they did not encounter a Buddha, hear of the Law, or see the community of monks for two hundred million kalpas. For a thousand kalpas, they underwent great suffering in the Avīchi hell. After they had finished paying for their offenses, they again encountered Bodhisattva Never Disparaging and received instruction from him in attaining supreme perfect enlightenment.
  This story illustrates the principle of attaining enlightenment through a reverse relationship, or the connection established with the correct teaching through rejecting or slandering it. It illustrates the great power of the Lotus Sutra to save even those who oppose or slander it. Shakyamuni identifies Bodhisattva Never Disparaging as himself in a past existence and reveals that those who disparaged him are present in the assembly of the Lotus Sutra on Eagle Peak. Shakyamuni further states that these people are now at the stage of practice where they will never regress in their pursuit of supreme perfect enlightenment. He then urges that the Lotus Sutra be single-mindedly embraced and propagated after his death.

Medicine King

Medicine King ［薬王菩薩］ ( Bhaishajyarāja;  Yakuō-bosatsu): A bodhisattva said to possess the power to cure physical and mental diseases. The Sanskrit bhaishajya means curativeness, medicine, or remedy; rāja means king. According to the Meditation on the Two Bodhisattvas Medicine King and Medicine Superior Sutra, in the remote past, in the Middle Day of the Law of a Buddha named Lapis Lazuli Brightness, Bodhisattva Medicine King was a rich man named Constellation Light. He heard the teaching of the Buddha wisdom from the monk Sun Repository. Rejoicing, he presented beneficial medicines as an offering to Sun Repository and his fellow monks, and vowed that when he attained Buddhahood all those who heard his name would be cured of illness. Constellation Light had a younger brother Lightning Glow, who also offered beneficial medicines to Sun Repository and others, vowing to attain Buddhahood. The people praised the two brothers, calling the elder brother Medicine King and the younger brother Medicine Superior. Constellation Light and Lightning Glow, the sutra says, were reborn respectively as Bodhisattva Medicine King and Bodhisattva Medicine Superior and will in the future attain enlightenment as the Buddhas Pure Eye and Pure Storehouse.
  Bodhisattva Medicine King also figures prominently in the Lotus Sutra. The “Teacher of the Law” (tenth) chapter is addressed to Bodhisattva Medicine King. In the “Encouraging Devotion” (thirteenth) chapter, he and Bodhisattva Great Joy of Preaching lead the host of bodhisattvas in vowing to propagate the sutra in the evil age after Shakyamuni’s death. The “Medicine King” (twenty-third) chapter describes the austerities he performed in a previous lifetime as a bodhisattva named Gladly Seen by All Living Beings, or simply Gladly Seen. In the remote past, Bodhisattva Gladly Seen heard the Lotus Sutra from the Buddha Sun Moon Pure Bright Virtue. As a result, he mastered a form of meditation that enabled him to manifest any physical form. In gratitude, Gladly Seen entered this meditation and caused flowers and incense to rain down from the heavens as an offering to the Buddha Sun Moon Pure Bright Virtue and the Lotus Sutra, but he felt dissatisfied with this offering and decided that it would be more meaningful to offer his own body. After steeping himself in scents and fragrances for twelve hundred years, he anointed his body with fragrant oil and set himself ablaze in the presence of the Buddha.
  The blaze illuminated worlds equal in number to the sands of eighty million Ganges Rivers, and the Buddhas within them praised his act as the supreme offering. His body burned for twelve hundred years, and after it was consumed, he was reborn in the land of Sun Moon Pure Bright Virtue Buddha, whom he found at the point of entering nirvana. The Buddha transferred his teachings to Bodhisattva Gladly Seen and then died. Gladly Seen cremated the Buddha’s body and built eighty-four thousand stupas to enshrine his ashes, to which he then made offerings. Not satisfied, he proceeded to burn his arms as a further offering for seventy-two thousand years. All the bodhisattvas, gods, people, and other beings he had converted grieved to see him without arms, but he declared to them that having offered his own flesh, he would surely attain Buddhahood, whereupon his arms were restored. Later he was reborn as Bodhisattva Medicine King. The “King Wonderful Adornment” (twentyseventh) chapter says that the bodhisattvas Medicine King and Medicine Superior are reincarnations of Pure Storehouse and Pure Eye who converted their father, King Wonderful Adornment, to the correct teaching.
  The Biography of the Great Teacher T’ien-t’ai Chih-che of the Sui Dynasty by Chang-an states that T’ien-t’ai (538–597) was a reincarnation of Bodhisattva Medicine King because he had attained a great awakening through the “Medicine King” chapter of the Lotus Sutra.

Three Obstacles and Four Devils (Sansho-Shima)

 

three obstacles and four devils ［三障四魔］ ( sanshō-shima): Various obstacles and hindrances to the practice of Buddhism. They are listed in the Nirvana Sutra and The Treatise on the Great Perfection of Wisdom. The three obstacles are (1) the obstacle of earthly desires, or obstacles arising from the three poisons of greed, anger, and foolishness; (2) the obstacle of karma, obstacles due to bad karma created by committing any of the five cardinal sins or ten evil acts; and (3) the obstacle of retribution, obstacles caused by the negative karmic effects of actions in the three evil paths. In a letter he addressed to the Ikegami brothers in 1275, Nichiren states, “The obstacle of earthly desires is the impediments to one’s practice that arise from greed, anger, foolishness, and the like; the obstacle of karma is the hindrances presented by one’s wife or children; and the obstacle of retribution is the hindrances caused by one’s sovereign or parents”
  

The four devils are (1) the hindrance of the five components, obstructions caused by one’s physical and mental functions; (2) the hindrance of earthly desires, obstructions arising from the three poisons; (3) the hindrance of death, meaning one’s own untimely death obstructing one’s practice of Buddhism, or the premature death of another practitioner causing one to doubt; and (4) the hindrance of the devil king, who is said to assume various forms or take possession of others in order to cause one to discard one’s Buddhist practice. This hindrance is regarded as the most difficult to overcome. T’ien-t’ai (538–597) states in Great Concentration and Insight: “As practice progresses and understanding grows, the three obstacles and four devils emerge in confusing form, vying with one another to interfere. . . . One should be neither influenced nor frightened by them. If one falls under their influence, one will be led into the paths of evil. If one is frightened by them, one will be prevented from practicing the correct teaching.” 

Note: devil king of the sixth heaven ［第六天の魔王］ ( dairokuten-no-maō): Also, devil king or heavenly devil. The king of devils, who dwells in the highest or the sixth heaven of the world of desire. He is also named Freely Enjoying Things Conjured by Others, the king who makes free use of the fruits of others’ efforts for his own pleasure. Served by innumerable minions, he obstructs Buddhist practice and delights in sapping the life force of other beings. 

Dengyo

 

Dengyō ［伝教］ (767–822): Also known as Saichō. The founder of the Tendai school in Japan. His posthumous honorific name and title are the Great Teacher Dengyō. At age twelve, he entered the Buddhist priesthood and studied under Gyōhyō at a provincial temple in Ōmi Province. In 785 he attended the ceremony for receiving the entire set of Hinayana precepts at Tōdai-ji temple in Nara, and in the seventh month of the same year he went to Mount Hiei where he built a small retreat. There he studied Buddhist scriptures and treatises, especially those of the T’ien-t’ai school.
  In 788 he built a small temple on the mountain and named it Hieisan-ji (Temple of Mount Hiei). (After Dengyō’s death, Emperor Saga renamed it Enryaku-ji in 823.) In 802, at age thirty-six, Dengyō was invited to Kyoto by the brothers and court nobles Wake no Hiroyo and Wake no Matsuna to lecture at their family temple, Takao-dera. There he expounded T’ien-t’ai’s three major works to eminent priests representing the seven major temples of Nara. This event catapulted Dengyō to prominence, winning him the support of Emperor Kammu, and greatly enhanced the prestige of the T’ien-t’ai doctrine.
  In 804, accompanied by his disciple Gishin who acted as interpreter, Dengyō went to China. After making a pilgrimage to Mount T’ien-t’ai, the center of the T’ien-t’ai school, they stayed in the province of T’ai-chou, where the center was located. There Dengyō received the essentials of T’ien-t’ai Buddhism from Miao-lo’s disciple Tao-sui and then from Hsing-man, another disciple of Miao-lo. He also received the bodhisattva precepts, or those of perfect and immediate enlightenment, from Tao-sui, the Zen teachings from Hsiao-jan, and the anointment of Esoteric Buddhism from Shun-hsiao. In 805 he returned to Japan and the next year established the Tendai school. In those days, all Buddhist priests were ordained exclusively in the Hinayana precepts. Dengyō wished to ordain his disciples with Mahayana precepts and made continual efforts to obtain imperial permission for the building of a Mahayana ordination center on Mount Hiei in the face of determined opposition from the older schools of Nara. Permission was finally granted a week after Dengyō’s death in 822, and in 827 his successor Gishin completed the ordination center.
  After his return to Japan, in addition to this project, Dengyō concentrated his efforts on refuting the doctrines of the older Buddhist schools. In particular, his ongoing debate with Tokuitsu, a priest of the Dharma Characteristics (Hossō) school, is well known. That debate began in the early Kōnin era (810–824). Tokuitsu asserted that the one vehicle teaching of the Lotus Sutra was a provisional teaching that Shakyamuni Buddha expounded in accordance with the people’s capacity, while the three vehicle teachings were true teachings, and that there are some people who are without the potential to attain Buddhahood. In opposition to this assertion, Dengyō maintained that all people have the Buddha nature, and that the one vehicle of Buddhahood expounded in the Lotus Sutra is the true teaching.
  Among Dengyō’s major disciples were Gishin, Enchō, Kōjō, Jikaku, Chishō, and Ninchū. His works include The Outstanding Principles of the Lotus Sutra, A Clarification of the Precepts, An Essay on the Protection of the Nation, and The Regulations for Students of the Mountain School.

Tz-u-en

 

Tz’u-en, also known as K’uei-chi. The founder of the Dharma Characteristics (Fa-hsiang) school in China. Because he lived at Tz’u-en-ssu temple, he was given the title Great Teacher Tz’u-en. Born in Ch’ang-an, he became a student of Hsüan-tsang in 648 and later one of his most outstanding disciples. Tz’u-en collaborated with Hsüan-tsang in translating Buddhist texts, including The Treatise on the Establishment of the Consciousness-Only Doctrine. Based on the Consciousness-Only doctrine that Hsüan-tsang had brought from India, Tz’u-en established the Dharma Characteristics school. His works include The Commentary on “The Treatise on the Establishment of the Consciousness-Only Doctrine,” Praising the Profundity of the Lotus Sutra, The Forest of Meanings in the Mahayana Garden of the Law, and commentaries on the Consciousness-Only doctrine.