Lotus Sutra

Explanation and Analysis of the Document

Within its spectacular scenes and various parables, the Lotus Sutra presents the following four core ideas of Mahayana Buddhism: the doctrine of upaya, or “skillful means,” as the way in which buddhas and advanced bodhisattvas teach the dharma to less-advanced beings; perfect awakening, or buddhahood, as a realizable goal for all beings; the practice of compassion and the way of the bodhisattva as the highest goals of Buddhism; and the eternal and transcendent character of the Buddha. Although they are less immediately apparent, other significant Mahayana doctrines—such as emptiness, buddha nature, and the three bodies of Buddha—have also been read into the text by later exegetes.

The Lotus Sutra is made up of twenty-eight chapters of varying length. Each chapter contains a mix of straight narrative and verse, with the poetry generally repeating and reinforcing the prose (though most scholars believe that the verse portions are older). Like all Buddhist sutras, the Lotus claims to be a record of the words of the historical Buddha, Shakyamuni (meaning “Sage of the Shakyas,” the people of his kingdom)—though it also asserts that this Buddha, like all buddhas, is considerably more than simply a historical teacher.

Four chapters are addressed here: chapter 2, “Skillful Means”; chapter 3, “A Parable”; chapter 12, “Devadatta”; and chapter 16, “The Lifetime of the Tathagata.” The introductory chapter (not reproduced here), a later addition, sets the scene and provides a justification for the teachings that follow. Toward the end of his life, we are informed, Shakyamuni preached the Lotus Sutra at Mount Gridhrakuta (Holy Eagle Peak) near the city of Rajagriha in northern India. While this is historically plausible, realism quickly breaks down as the reader is introduced to an astonishing cosmic tableau in which space and time extend in infinite directions and where buddhas from other realms travel to listen to Shakyamuni preach the Lotus. What the modern reader might take as pure fantasy or even science fiction is intended to unsettle one’s usual habits of perception and understanding and to alert one to the power of the Buddha and the significance of what he is about to say.

The central message of the introductory chapter is that there is in fact only “one vehicle” for followers of dharma, namely, the path to perfect understanding or buddhahood, rather than three paths (those of shravaka, pratyekabuddha, and bodhisattva), as was traditionally understood and as the Buddha himself had previously taught. In the Mahayana understanding, a shravaka (literally, “hearer”) is a disciple of the Buddha who has accepted the Buddha’s teaching (dharma) and is committed to personal awakening; the term is often synonymous with the term arhat. A pratyekabuddha (or “solitary buddha”) is one who achieves awakening on his or her own, without reliance on the words or teachings of others; this is considered a higher stage than the shravaka. Finally, the bodhisattva (or “buddha-to-be”) is a being who is dedicated to the liberation of all beings and is thus an embodiment of compassion. Within the Mahayana, the bodhisattva represents the highest stage of awakening and the ideal for all followers of dharma.

2. Skillful Means

This discussion leads to the introduction in the second chapter of the doctrine of upaya, or “skillful means,” which most interpreters see as the heart and soul of the Lotus Sutra. After an initial section in which the Buddha asserts the “profound and immeasurable” wisdom of buddhas as well as the connection of each and every buddha to innumerable buddhas in the past, he claims to have employed a variety of parables and expedient measures in order to inspire his followers, who were not yet prepared for the higher, unifying wisdom of the Lotus Sutra. The assembly, including twelve hundred shravakas, monks, nuns, laymen, and laywomen, are confused, and the Buddha’s disciple Shariputra asks the Buddha to clarify his meaning. After some hesitation, based on the fear that “the worlds’ heavenly beings as well as human beings will be startled and perplexed,” the Buddha finally agrees.

The Buddha’s fears seem justified, as upon his saying this, five thousand monks, nuns, laymen, and laywomen immediately get up and leave the assembly, because “their roots of sin were so deep and they were so utterly arrogant that they imagined themselves to have already attained and born witness to what they had not actually attained.” The Buddha goes on to explain that buddhas of all time periods have only one goal: to use a variety of methods to preach to all living beings “so that they might attain the complete wisdom of the One Buddha-Vehicle.” The text also notes that buddhas appear in the world during times of chaos and pollution, an idea that would have a profound effect on the way later East Asian followers of the Lotus Sutra, such as Nichiren, would interpret its message as a call to radical personal and collective transformation in a time of mappo, the “end of the law.” There is debate among scholars as to the precise implications of the doctrine of upaya—specifically with regard to how far the notion of “expedient means” extends, that is, whether it has metaphysical and ontological implications in addition to its more obvious pedagogical ones. However, there is no question that it has been taken by some followers to mean that, in exceptional circumstances, extreme measures may be justified in order to spread the dharma for the purpose of saving beings and transforming this world into a buddha land.

From a sociological or sectarian standpoint, this chapter may be understood as an attempt by the authors to give authenticity to what was clearly a belated set of teachings and to address the fact that many Buddhists would disapprove of the Lotus Sutra’s message (as was indeed the case). This line of reasoning is common to the Mahayana movement more generally: We may be late to appear, but we are in possession of the highest, definitive teachings, which supersede all that has gone before. Also of note here is the fact that, despite this criticism of those who reject the Lotus (such as those who leave the assembly), the Lotus Sutra does not deny the validity of the earlier Buddhist texts and teachings but rather absorbs them as necessary but provisional stages toward the highest law of the Lotus. Thus, the primary disciples of the Buddha, arhats such as Shariputra and Mahakashyapa (who appears in chapter 6), are depicted in the Lotus as inquisitive shravakas struggling to comprehend the deeper Buddhist truths. Though they are less than fully enlightened, they are not mocked as in some other Mahayana sutras—in fact, they are depicted here as being joyously receptive to the Buddha’s promise that they, too, will one day achieve full buddhahood.

3. A Parable

The third chapter, “A Parable,” opens with Shariputra’s expression of ecstatic joy upon hearing the promise of universal buddhahood for all. Shakyamuni responds with a promise that Shariputra himself will in the distant future assuredly become a buddha called Flower Light, and he goes on to provide an elaborate description of the paradisiacal realm over which Shariputra will preside. This is followed by what amounts to a giant heavenly party by the assembly, which is overwhelmed with joy at the news of Shariputra’s future buddhahood, complete with a heavenly announcement that “the Dharma wheel” is once more being turned—that is, that the Buddha has introduced a new and more advanced set of teachings.

The second half of the third chapter expands upon the doctrine of upaya via the parable of the burning house, perhaps the most famous story of the Lotus Sutra. The reader is introduced to a wealthy man who discovers one day that his house—spacious but in a state of disrepair—is on fire, with his several dozen children playing inside unaware. In order to get them to escape the fire through the sole, narrow gate, he promises them a variety of splendid carriages—each drawn by sheep or goats or oxen—if they come outside. Delighted to finally obtain things they had long desired, they come running out of the house, only to discover not the promised carriages but rather a set of even more spectacular ox-driven carriages, one for each child. On one level, the meaning of the story is clear: Whereas the Buddha had previously taught three different paths to awakening, these three are, in fact, provisional means toward the one vehicle, embodied in the quest for perfect buddhahood. Still, there is some confusion in the text as to whether this all-encompassing one vehicle is the same as or distinct from the bodhisattva path (the third of the three carriages) and, if distinct, what exactly it entails. Finally, the question is raised, not for the last time in the Lotus Sutra, as to whether the father in employing upaya was “guilty of falsehood.” No, the reader is told; he simply employed the most effective strategy to serve his compassionate purposes. So, too, does the Buddha use upaya to save all living beings, by giving them, in the one-vehicle teaching of the Lotus Sutra, “something they had never had before and never expected to have.”

12. Devadatta

Although it is considered a relatively late addition to the Lotus Sutra, the twelfth chapter, “Devadatta,” is a dense chapter with significant historical impact, particularly in its presentation of the concept of the universality of buddhahood for all beings. The chapter opens with the Buddha telling the assembly that at one time in the distant past, he had been a king who sought “unexcelled awakening.” One day he met a seer, who introduced the king to the Mahayana teachings as embodied in the Lotus Sutra. This wise seer, whom the king served faithfully for a thousand years and who was instrumental in leading the king toward full buddhahood, was reportedly none other than Shakyamuni’s cousin Devadatta. Shakyamuni completes this short tale with a declaration to the assembly that Devadatta, too, will one day become a buddha. Although the text does not make note of this, Devadatta was a figure notorious to early Buddhists as the epitome of evil. Though he was a cousin and disciple of the Buddha, his jealousy led him to challenge the Buddha’s authority, foment schism in the sangha (monastic community), and even make several attempts on the Buddha’s life. The first part of this chapter, then, can be taken as a classic example of Mahayana shock tactics and contrarianism; the choice of Devadatta as an exemplary teacher and future buddha seems deliberately provocative, yet it also drives home the point of the universality of buddhahood raised here and throughout the Lotus.

The second half of the chapter provides another well-known example of an unlikely buddha, in this case one who has already achieved full awakening. Here the tale is told by Manjushri, the bodhisattva of wisdom, to a sceptical bodhisattva called Accumulated Wisdom. Manjushri has just arrived from the palace of Sagara, the dragon king, where he claims to have successfully converted innumerable beings via the teachings of the Lotus Sutra. Manjushri provides the remarkable example of the daughter of the dragon king, who, at just eight years old, achieved full buddhahood “in an instant.” Accumulated Wisdom (as with, one might expect, most hearers or readers of the text) finds this unbelievable, given the countless eons it took Shakyamuni to achieve this same goal. The dragon princess duly appears before the assembly, and, in response to further skeptical and denigrating remarks by Shariputra, immediately transforms herself into: a male, a bodhisattva in a distant realm called Spotless, and then a fully-awakened buddha, proclaiming the dharma to all living beings. The entire assembly, including Accumulated Wisdom and Shariputra, “silently believed and accepted this.”

Once again, as with the example of Devadatta, the choice of the dragon princess as a fully awakened buddha undercuts traditional Buddhist understandings of the necessary conditions for awakening, including the various hindrances associated with being a child, a female, and a nonhuman. Later exegetes would interpret this chapter and similar promises of buddhahood in the Lotus in terms of the later Mahayana doctrine of “buddha nature,” whereby all beings are possessed of a “spark” or “seed” of buddhahood. Contemporary feminist readers have mixed feelings about this tale’s message for women: on one hand, it seems liberatory, given that the dragon princess is able to attain full buddhahood, and yet in order to do so she has had to transform herself, even if only for an instant, into a male.

16. The Lifetime of the Tathagata

Contemporary scholars divide the text of the Lotus Sutra into several parts, with chapters 10–22, along with the introductory chapter but excluding chapter 12, representing a later group of writings. These chapters focus on the transcendent powers of the Buddha (and of buddhas more generally), one of the most significant innovations in Mahayana thought. This is vividly expressed in the sixteenth chapter, “The Lifetime of the Tathagata.” The chapter follows a scene in which the bodhisattva Maitreya shows confusion as to how the Buddha could have possibly converted innumerable bodhisattvas, as he claims to have done, in the short span (roughly forty years) since his initial awakening under the bodhi tree. Here Shakyamuni answers Maitreya’s question, in the process effectively reinterpreting the very concept of buddhahood by way of the doctrine of skillful means. The reader is informed that the Buddha, in fact, achieved awakening many eons in the past and has spent an inconceivably long time since then leading other beings to nirvana. Thus, the biography of the “historical” Buddha—including his birth, renunciation of wealth and family, awakening, and “final” nirvana—are revealed as expedient means employed by the (virtually) eternal and transcendent fully awakened Buddha to most effectively teach the dharma.

To make this point clear, the Buddha relates the parable of the medicinal herbs, in which a doctor finds to his distress that his sons—“ten, twenty, even a hundred”—have ingested poison. He gives them medicinal herbs to cure them, but some refuse to take the medicine, having already “lost their minds.” In order to save these sons, the doctor fakes his own death, which prompts them to realize that they cannot simply depend on him anymore, and forthwith they consume the medicine. Once they are recovered, the father reveals himself to them. Again, as with the parable of the burning house, it is said that the father cannot be accused of “lying,” since his intention was to liberate his sons from suffering.

Beyond the reiteration of the importance of skillful means, one implication of this chapter is that the Buddha remains “in the world” out of boundless compassion for the suffering of living beings. But he also does so as an extraordinarily powerful being, one who is able to control space and time at will. Here the early Buddhist understanding of nirvana as “extinction” is overturned—a move that would have significant implications for East Asian Buddhist doctrine and practice. This teaching of the “primordial” or “eternal buddha” would find more elaborate expression in the Chinese interpolation of the so-called three bodies of buddha (that is, living being, spirit, and truth itself), in the doctrinal formulations of the Tiantai founder Zhiyi, and in the development of original enlightenment thought in Japan, which suggests that not only buddhas but all living beings and even nonsentient things are always already awakened. Also of note in this chapter is a repetition of the trope of the Buddha as a “father” to those he teaches, a concept that some have argued is fundamental to understanding the transformation brought about by the early Mahayana sutras in general. This conception may also help account for the success of the Lotus Sutra in East Asia, where culturally embedded notions of family and filial piety would seem to otherwise work against Indian Buddhist traditions of monasticism and asceticism.