Making Efforts
Up to now, I have been talking solely about faith, the first of the five faculties and the first of the five powers among the thirty-seven requisites for awakening. What are the thirty-seven requisites of awakening? They are a collection of thirty-seven items that a person should cultivate to attain awakening according to the abhidharma, the treatises that systematize what the Buddha taught in his many discourses. Thirty-seven items certainly sound like a lot. What about the eightfold path or the six perfections? Those certainly sound like a more manageable number of things to keep in mind and cultivate in one’s daily life. Actually, the eightfold path is included among the thirty-seven. The rest could be seen as a more detailed description of what is involved in following the eightfold path. Even the six perfections are just a Mahayana way of enumerating what is involved in following the eightfold path, with a special emphasis on generosity and patience, which are aspects of right intention. So let’s think of the thirty-seven requites for awakening as a practical guide to what it means to follow the eightfold path - which is to say right view, right intention, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, and right concentration.
But is the eightfold path important for those of us who follow Nichiren Buddhism? After all, isn’t it just the fourth of the four noble truths which are a hinayana teaching? Tiantai Zhiyi certainly didn’t think so. He consistently taught that the four noble truths can be understood from four perspectives:
a pre-Mahayana perspective for the voice-hearer disciples;
a perspective shared by voice-hearer disciples and beginner bodhisattvas;
a perspective distinctly for advanced bodhisattvas;
and the perspective of the perfect teaching of the Lotus Sutra.
Shakyamuni Buddha certainly didn’t think the eightfold path could be dispensed with. On his deathbed, the Buddha was asked whether those who followed other teachings were able to attain liberation from suffering. Instead of saying that only Buddhists could be liberated from suffering the Buddha stated that only those paths in which the noble eightfold path is found can one find those who can attain liberation from suffering. Before I cite Nichiren’s view, let’s review what the eightfold path and the thirty-seven requisites involve according to Shakyamuni Buddha:
Right view is the knowledge of suffering, the origin of suffering, the cessation of suffering, and the way leading to the cessation of suffering. In other words, right view is to see things as the Buddha saw them.
Right intention is to be able to renounce worldly acquisitiveness, ill-will, and to wish only happiness and not harm for others.
Right speech is abstinence from false speech, malicious or divisive speech, harsh speech, and idle chatter.
Right action is to abstain from the destruction of life, taking what is not given, and sexual misconduct.
Right livelihood is to abandon a wrong mode of livelihood such as by dealing in arms, enslaving others, meat, intoxicants, or poisons, and to earn a living by a right livelihood, such as by collecting alms if one is a monastic.
Right effort is to strive for the non-arising of evil unwholesome states; to strive to abandon arisen evil unwholesome states; to strive for the arising of wholesome states; and to strive for the continuation and development of wholesome states.
Right mindfulness is earnestly contemplating bodily states, feelings, mental states, and phenomena generally in a way that comprehends them clearly without getting entangled in attachment or aversion towards them.
Right concentration is to develop one’s mindfulness to the point that one can temporarily overcome negative thoughts and feelings, or at least be able to just watch them without feeling the need to act on them or suppress them. One then develops a refined state of mind that transcends even bodily and mental pleasure and pain while purifying mindfulness with an equanimity that allows for clear comprehension.
According to the Buddha, people have five faculties that will enable them to follow the eightfold path. These five become the five powers when fully developed. These five are faith, energy, mindfulness, concentration, and wisdom. Faith has been described at length in previous articles. To summarize, faith in a Buddhist sense is to have confidence that what the Buddha taught is true and worth following so that we can see for ourselves the truth that he awakened to. Motivated by our faith, we direct our energies to cultivating the eightfold path. This involves the cultivation of mindfulness, which leads to concentration and a focused and calm mind, which in turn allows us to develop our own wisdom. In terms of the eightfold path, faith is to take the Buddha’s word for it regarding right view and right intention. The faculty and power of energy are the same as right effort, and right effort involves cultivating what is wholesome and curbing what is unwholesome, in other words making good causes and avoiding bad causes. That of course, involves right speech, right action, and right livelihood and prepares the way for right mindfulness and right concentration, which are the same as the faculties and powers of mindfulness and concentration. Wisdom brings us back to right view and right intention, but this time it is based on our own insight and awakening.
The eightfold path, five faculties and five powers are eighteen of the thirty-seven requisites. Among the other nineteen are the four foundations of mindfulness and the four right efforts. These have already been covered. The very definition of right mindfulness is to be mindful of the body, feelings, mental states, and phenomena generally. These are the four foundations of mindfulness. Right effort is to strive for the non-arising of unwholesome states, strive to abandon unwholesome states that have arisen, strive for the arising of un-arisen wholesome states, and strive to develop wholesome states that have arisen. Those are the four right efforts.
So now we have covered twenty-six of the thirty-seven. Another four are the four bases of supernatural power: desire, energy, mind, and investigation. These are all involved in the development of right mindfulness and right concentration that lead to right view. Desire in this case is not the negative desire of ignorant craving, but the wholesome will or determination to strive towards a worthy goal. Energy is again right effort. The base of mind refers to being mindful. The base of investigation means to look deeply into the phenomena currently within the sphere of one’s awareness so that one can awaken to the true reality of all things. These are called the four bases of supernatural power because they are believed to lead to the development of supernatural power over the object under investigation. For example, it was believed that by investigating the true nature of water one could then walk on water. For our purposes in connection with Buddhist practice to attain spiritual awakening, I think it is enough to claim that these four lead to transcendent insight, and we can leave it to scientific investigations to grant us power over the physical world.
This leaves the seven factors of awakening which, like the four bases of supernatural power, involve the process of mindfulness developing into concentration. The seven are mindfulness, investigation of phenomena, energy, rapture, tranquility, concentration, and equanimity.
I hope it can be seen that none of this goes beyond the cultivation of the noble eightfold path. In the Great Calming and Contemplation, Tiantai Zhiyi spoke of ten modes of contemplation, which are ten ways of considering phenomena that come into one’s awareness. The first of these is called “contemplating the realm of the inconceivable” which involves the contemplation of the three thousand realms in a single thought-moment. However, if one needs to resort to other ways of contemplating an object, Zhiyi offers nine other modes. The sixth is called “integrating and adapting to the requisites of awakening,” which involves calling to mind and utilizing the thirty-seven requisites of awakening. So not only do the thirty-seven requisites allow one to fulfill the noble-eightfold path according to the Buddha, and not only can the four noble truths including the eightfold path be understood in terms of the perfect teaching of the Lotus Sutra according to Zhiyi, but it is even a key element in Zhiyi’s explanation of the sudden and perfect method of calming and contemplation practice.
In the coming weeks and months, I hope to share how our practice of Odaimoku, while primarily a faith-based practice, also encompasses the faculties of energy, mindfulness, concentration, and eventually wisdom and enables us to develop those into our own powers of energy, mindfulness concentration, and wisdom. By doing that, we are also naturally developing all of the thirty-seven requisites, which is to say the entirety of the noble eightfold path. We are doing this not as a formal Buddhist practice, but as the natural outcome of allowing our faith to deepen and grow. It may seen that faith in Odaimoku sounds very odd and exotic if one is not a Buddhist or not a Japanese Buddhist. And maybe it is. However, I believe the Odaimoku is emblematic of what the Lotus Sutra represents and expresses about our true nature, which is also the true nature of the Buddha and all spiritually awakened people. If we can share that vision and have confidence in it, that will change our outlook, change our motivation, and change our lives so that bit by bit we begin to embody all of these qualities.
It is my conviction that Nichiren did not intend for his followers to neglect these qualities, whether the faculties and powers, the noble eightfold path, or all the thirty-seven requisites for awakening. While he did teach that we should not hold ourselves up to an intimidating ideal of perfection or try to base our practice on anything but simply chanting the Odaimoku, he did believe that all the Buddha’s meritorious qualities would become our own naturally through the Odaimoku practice. In On the Contemplation of the Mind and the Focus of Devotion (Kanjin-Honzon-sho) he wrote:
However, the intention behind these passages is that the two dharmas of the causal practices and virtuous effects of Shakyamuni the World Honored One are perfectly contained in the five characters [in the title of the] Sutra of the Lotus Flower of the Wonderful Dharma. When we accept and uphold these five characters, the merits of these causes and effects are naturally transferred to us. (CMFD, 64)
This doesn’t just mean that we get the so-called “good karma” equivalent to that of the Buddha without having to have done anything good besides chanting Odaimoku. It means that the primary benefit that we get from chanting the Odaimoku is that the Buddha’s meritorious qualities become our own meritorious qualities. This is made even clearer in a writing called The Teaching According to [the Buddha’s] Own Mind (Zuijii Gosho)
“The Lotus Sutra is called the teaching according to one’s own mind, namely it expounds the true mind of the Buddha. Since the Buddha’s mind is so great, even if one does not understand the profound meaning of the sutra, one can gain innumerable merits by just reading it. Just as a mugwort among hemp plants grows straight and a snake in a tube straightens itself, if one becomes friendly with good people, one’s mind, behavior, and words naturally become gentle. Likewise, the Buddha realizes that those who believe in the Lotus Sutra become naturally virtuous.” (WNS4, p. 162)
Nichiren did not want people to simply put on a display of virtue, nor did he want people to try to force themselves to be something they were not. He did not want people to burn out trying to live like ancient Indian monks. He wanted people to have the confidence to be themselves and naturally mature into buddhahood. He believed that based on the teaching of the Lotus Sutra people could have the confidence to do so. He believed by simply chanting the Odaimoku, ordinary Buddhists in this time that is so remote from the time of the Buddha could still engage, assimilate, and share the teaching of the Lotus Sutra so that it can continue to inspire and transform the lives of all who accept and uphold it.
For the next few weeks, I want to particularly focus on the faculty and power of energy. As either energy or effort, it is a quality that appears nine times among the thirty-seven requisites of awakening. It is also the fourth perfection among the six perfections of bodhisattva practice. As we saw above, energy or right effort comes down to avoiding bad causes, curbing the habitual bad causes that we have been making, making good causes, and developing those good causes that we have been making. Energy as a faculty and power of Buddhist practice is about directing our efforts to live in accordance with the law of cause and effect. Though Nichiren does not recommend trying to formally practice the six perfections but only to chant the Odaimoku as our essential practice, there are several occasions where he does recommend to his followers that they make strenuous efforts. For instance, he wrote to Toki Jonin regarding certain doctrinal issues:
“My disciples and followers should all contemplate this question even if it means going without sleep at night and not wasting a moment during the day. They should not waste their lives by not thinking at all and then regret it for ten thousand years to come.” (WNS4, p. 124)
And of course, as Nichiren Buddhists, we should also keep in mind the often cited passage from the end of Treatise on All Phenomena as the Ultimate Reality (Shoho Jisso-sho) which encourages us to make continual efforts based on our faith:
Strive to carry out the two ways of practice and learning. Without practice and learning Buddhism will cease to exist. Endeavor yourself and cause others to practice these two ways of practice and learning, which stem from faith. If possible, please spread even a word or phrase of the sutra to others. Namu Myoho Renge Kyo, Namu Myoho Renge Kyo. (WNS4, pp. 84-85)