I am beginning a new meditation or investigation through practice into some more mystical experiences I have in my practice of the Lotus Sutra. This will be an active unfolding as much of this will be written as I experience and witness the sutra in my life. What I write will not be wholly of my origin, rather will be a revelation of my practice and meditation using a variety of meditation and mystical formats and resources.
This may seem rather odd, and not make much sense so hopefully as this unfolds it will become clear to both of us. For me writing serves the purpose of both recording and exploring, this will certainly be both. My writing in the past has for the most part been teaching various points in the Lotus Sutra and Nichiren doctrine and interpretation. This will be mostly an exploration and a sharing of my experience.
In the Lotus Sutra it begins with the phrase “Thus have I heard.”Our more conventional understanding would tend to mean that what follows is a recounting of the hearing. In Buddhism we are taught that it is actually the title Myoho Renge Kyo that was heard and what follows is an interpretation or understanding of the phrase. This way it reads, ‘Myoho Renge Kyo thus have I heard.’ I heard Myoho Renge Kyo and now I am going to tell you all about it.
This is important because the text of the sutra is an equivalent way of expressing Myoho Renge Kyo. There is the long way of expressing the thought or teaching and that is the entire text comprised of thousands of words. There is also the short compact way of expressing the same thought, the same teaching and that is Myoho Renge Kyo. The phrase Myoho Renge Kyo is not shorthand or an abbreviation of the text, it is the text.
There are from this you can see two ways of expressing the entire teaching given to us in the Lotus Sutra. One is five Chinese characters and the other is thousands of Chinese characters or English characters. Both are equal, even if both are written differently.
The name then is important and powerful. The name also isn’t simply the name it is the thing itself.
Your name is powerful, it is you. When you hear your name you respond. And depending on who is using your name or how they use your name influences your response. If your mother or spouse yells out your name depending upon how they yell it might mean they are angry or they are in danger, and since it is your name they call you respond in any number of various ways depending upon a variety of past and present experiences. In any case you know who they are speaking to or yelling at, you know or can surmise what they expect. Sometimes you don’t know what they want but you know they want you.
It is the same with our expression of the Lotus Sutra. The calling out is through our appending the two characters Namu. It is like someone calls your name and then says come here. Or come here your name. Namu is the action word that activates the Lotus Sutra by our use of the name Myoho Renge Kyo.
Or we could say Namu appended to the thousands of characters which are in the text of the sutra book. We are very fortunate that Nichiren understood this because if he had not then we would only have the ability to say Namu+thousands of words. In either case the effect is identical because of the relationship between Myoho Renge Kyo and the text of the sutra.
So consider this and practice chanting visualizing the text of the book as you say each syllable. Focus on being aware that it is not simply a short abbreviation as that would be incomplete and omit things. When I type St in place of either saint or street I have omitted several characters, and in that omission to create the abbreviation it is ambiguous as to what I am meaning. Yes context can help and that means that the abbreviation can not stand on its own as a complete thought. I either needs context or explanation.
Myoho Renge Kyo is not like that. It is not an abbreviation that requires some supporting element such as context or explanation. Myoho Renge Kyo can stand on it own and mean and equal the entire text of the book we call the Lotus Sutra. And further it isn’t a book only. I’ll get into that later as this writing progresses.
So what we have is two ways of saying the Lotus Sutra doctrine. We have a way to activate all of the energy and power contained within the teaching of the Lotus Sutra. Now above I mentioned that Namu is such a devise. But Namu isn’t really a word it is an action.
Namu is the action of devotion. It doesn’t mean devotion although in our language we may refer to it that way. But it isn’t not a word truly. And in fact in the Chinese characters used to write Namu they mean nothing. They are meaningless characters used to represent the sound Namu which intern is the concept that represents the action of bowing, revering, embracing, devoting, honoring, believing, following, and so forth the teaching of Myoho Renge Kyo.
In my next installment I will talk about the empty spaces between the characters of both the textual teaching and the doctrine of Myoho Renge Kyo. Then I will move on to Nichiren’s teaching that each character is a golden Buddha and how to understand that as the true name and representation of Buddha. So stick me and let’s explore this to gather.
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