(This section is out of order and should have been posted after #15)
The physician’s cure, as I mentioned in the beginning of this chapter is composed of seemingly impossible to attain ingredients. The illusion is that they are impossible, when in fact they are merely extremely difficult. The Lotus Sutra offers the analogy of a one-eyed tortoise finding a piece of wood with a hole in it the perfect size and shape of the tortoise itself as an indication of the difficulty of seeing a Buddha in one’s lifetime.
“This Sūtra of the Lotus Flower of the Wonderful Dharma is the most difficult to believe and the most difficult to understand.” (Lotus Sutra, Chapter X, page 180)
Since the Buddha died some 2500 years ago it may seem as seeing a Buddha would be impossible. Yet it is not impossible if we realize that the Eternal Buddha does not die. So how do we see the Eternal Buddha? Believing in and understanding the Lotus Sutra is the key and the Sutra itself says it difficult to do this, but not impossible. Comparing some impossible things found in the Nine Easy and Six Difficult things in Chapter XI we can gain a perspective on just how difficult it is to follow the Lotus Sutra.
The Six Difficult things are; 1.) Expound this Sutra, 2.) Copy and keep this Sutra, 3.) Read this Sutra, 4.) To keep this Sutra and expound to even one person, 5.) To hear and receive this Sutra, and 6.) Keep this Sutra after the death of the Buddha. In other words it is extremely difficult to keep, read, recite, copy, and teach the Lotus Sutra in this age so far removed from the historical Shakyamuni Buddha. These things are more difficult that doing such things as “putting the great earth on the nail of a toe and go up to the Heaven of Brahman.” (Lotus Sutra, Chapter XI, page 196). At the conclusion of the Beholding the Stupa of Treasure Chapter XI in the Lotus Sutra we have the section of verse recited during services called the Hotoge. In this verse those people who are able to take faith in, practice, understand the meaning of this Sutra, and teach others are praised and told of their worth and value in the eyes of all gods and men.
Wisdom and understanding of the Lotus Sutra is possible through faith and practice. Neither wisdom or understanding are gained through simple intellect. If the possibility of attaining enlightenment rested solely upon how much one knows of the Lotus Sutra or of an individual’s intellectual capacity then the promise of enlightenment would not be universally achievable. Enlightenment comes from faith and faith is a function deeper than intellect. Faith is a feeling not an idea.
People get sick, they go to the doctor or hospital to be cured. Sometimes they are given some medicine to take and sometimes they are advised to take some specific actions such as diet, exercise, or avoiding certain foods. On the surface this seems easy enough and usually straight forward. Frequently the instructions make perfectly good sense. Yet for all of that many people either don’t take the medicine or they stop taking the medicine too soon, or they don’t follow the prescriptive advice of life-style changes. Doing the seemingly simple easy things are in fact the most difficult. It is exactly the same with faith in the Lotus Sutra. Just as I have witnessed patients who fail to do as the doctor says and become ill again, so too with the number of people who occasionally chant the Odaimoku or recite the Sutra. Before too long they completely abandon their practice, they instead choose an easier thing and nothing changes in their life and then of course it is that Buddhism doesn’t work for them. We are indeed complex beings, us humans.
For us the ingredients of the Physician’s Cure are the five practices of the Lotus Sutra, to keep, read, recite, copy, and teach this Sutra. All of these are simple enough except they are indeed very difficult.
