Good morning! Thank you all for joining together here at Myosho-ji today to celebrate the birth of the Buddha. Traditionally in Japan April 8, is the day set aside for marking the birth of the Buddha. Here in the United States where we do not get a holiday of our own we move it to a Sunday close to the event.
You all today offered incense in appreciation of the three jewels of Buddhism, the Buddha, the Dharma, and the Sangha. You also poured sweet tea over a statue of the baby Buddha just as the gods bathed the Buddha when he was born. We offer flowers to honor the Buddha’s first steps from which lotus blossoms arose. Hanamatsuri, the Japanese name for the festival marking the birth of the Buddha is translated as hana, meaning flower, and matsuri meaning festival.
I do not think there are any among us today who would disagree that giving birth is a special time. Many hold baby showers for expectant mothers, parties where gifts are showered upon the mother and the future baby. I wonder if perhaps the Buddha had the first baby shower ever held?
At any rate, birth is a special occasion. Birth is the starting point of something new, it is also the continuation of something previously existing. A baby is born but not without the genes of the parents. So while it is a new person beginning a new life it still caries influencing factors from the past.
In Buddhism we constantly talk about how this moment the moment in which we are living is the most important moment. For this moment is the birth of the next minuet, and the next minuets are the birth of the next hours and the next hours the next days and so on for one lifespan and even beyond. Yet every moment in which there is a new beginning there is an influencing factor that caries over from the past. So there is no real separation between the past, present, and future. We often speak of the future as some distant point that has not occurred yet, when in actuality the future is contained within this very moment.
In the Lotus Sutra there is the emergence from underneath the ground of countless bodhisattvas. The image here is clearly one of giving birth. These countless bodhisattvas who appear as golden hued, of great stature, and noble manners taking on various expedient other appearances are born of the earth. It is not merely an emergence from the earth but a birth. These bodhisattvas are none other than ourselves, us ordinary people born of flesh and blood raised by the fruits of the earth. We are on the one hand of the earth and human yet by our actions and practice we cast off that transient identity and reveal the true nature of life by manifesting Buddhahood.
In the Lotus Sutra and other sutras of the Buddha there are tales of previous lives of the Buddha. Frequently the Buddha in the Lotus Sutra tells a story to one of the characters in the congregation. In these stories he relates a relationship between the character and some previous life and more often than not he himself is also somehow connected to that person. These stories illustrate several things, but primarily they show the connection or relationship between the Buddha and a particular individual, as well as the relationship between past causes and current effect.
Today we have commemorated the birth of the historical Buddha of our world, Sakyamuni, Prince Siddhartha, Gautama. Who as we read in the Lotus Sutra has been many things in his previous lives. That is until we come to this thing in Chapter 16 where he says he is always here and while seemingly passing away he does depart from us. And you have perhaps heard us say that Chapter 16 is the most important chapter in the Lotus Sutra because it reveals the eternal nature of the Buddha.
Have you ever given it any thought that there seems to be a contradiction. Previous to Chapter 16 the Buddha has already talked about how he has lived many lives which sounds in some ways the same as saying the Buddha is eternal in Chapter 16 doesn’t it. So if the Buddha has already said the has lived beyond this lifetime into the past and will do so on into the future what is the difference between that and the concept as revealed in Chapter 16 of the Eternal Buddha. What’s the difference?
What is going on here is a two-fold relationship, much the same as a two-fold relationship that exists between parent and child, or idea and fruition, or cause and effect, or any other similarly arising and bonded relationship. On one level the individuals in the Lotus Sutra, the characters if you will have a current and a past relationship with the Buddha, and they all have a future existence which is connected to the causes they have made with the person the Buddha in their lifetimes. That is the common way to understand connections or relationships, the common view of cause and effect. That we move from the effect we are in making a cause for a future effect which will manifest at some future point according to causes previously made.
We may be in the current mental or spiritual state of hell or hunger and by making certain causes we can change and experience tranquility or contemplation or even Buddhahood. There is a direct causal relationship that exists and extends from past to present to future. Yet as revealed in Chapter 16 there is something there that transcends all those existences. In Chapter 16 the Buddha reveals that while there are repeated different physical manifestations of the Buddha as discussed in other Sutras there is also a continuing phenomena that transcends and unifies all of those existences.
In our own lives while we may move from one world to the next there is a real continuation of the existence of all other states even when we are not currently experiencing them. So while we may be a condition of hell the condition of Buddhahood is just as present. Just like the new born baby is truly a unique individual and is the result of causes made both by the parents but also by the previous lives of the new infant, there is also something there that transcends all of those seemingly unique and individual things, there is the very life itself, the essence of all existence. That essence, which contains all the potentialities for good and bad if you will or for suffering and for enlightenment, exists in everything and in every-where. There is no separation, no distinction, between it and ourselves.
When we can understand the relationship between ourselves and all of life as not being separate but being unified we can live a much more fulfilled life because we can live in harmony with all things. The Buddha introduced this concept when he talked about dependant origination. In many ways dependant origination and the 12 Link Chain of Causation was a first step towards helping us understand that not only is there a relationship between ourselves and all other life but further that once we stop seeing things in terms of unique identities and instead in terms of unity and singularity we actually come closer to the final concept revealed in Chapter 16 of the Eternal Buddha.
Again, thank you all for being here today to celebrate the birth of the Buddha.
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Here are photos from the Hanamatsuri service found on the temple’s Facebook page.
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?fbid=10150221363180731&id=170387075730&aid=350162
