Namu Myoho Renge Kyo
We often hear people speaking about becoming detached in Buddhism. That life is empty. That nirvana means one gets nothing. Sounds kind of bleak. Does that mean we do all this practicing and then get nothing from it? What does this actually mean for us in the real-world?
Craving, desire, attachment (with its implied remedy “detachment”) and emptiness might be the most misunderstood concepts in Buddhism. To make things more complicated “craving,” has sometimes been translated as “desire,” leading some to conclude we shouldn’t have any desires at all. There is therefore the idea that detachment or indifference is the ultimate remedy to feeling bad. And an awakened liberated life is some gray monotone world, no highs, no lows.
Let’s take a quick look at the actual words. Bear with me for a moment, as considering the English translation of the original Sanskrit can be useful. And sometimes there just isn’t a good English word. We might be better off just learning the Sanskrit as it gives a fuller understanding of the meaning, and intention.
Attachment: rāga can be translated as “desire,” “greed,” “lust,” or “passion.”
Clinging: upādāna can be translated as “attachment” or “grasping.”
craving: tṛṣṇā can be translated as “(unquenchable) thirst.”
desire: chanda can be translated as “will” or “zeal.” Its function is to give a basis to energy. It is the first of the four bases of supernatural power, more on this later. So hinting at the rest of this talk, “desire” is actually a wholesome, positive thing.
emptiness: śūnyatā the lack of a static, independent self or self-nature in any entity or phenomena.
To put these terms into their proper context it’s helpful to recall that all Buddhist teachings, concepts, and practices are skillful means to guide people toward their own direct experience of Life. At their core, these concepts are simply trying to get people to see beyond their fixation with their little-self ego.
Being attached and clinging to this idea there is a ‘self,’ leads people to conclude that there is either a permanent unchanging and independent self - eternalism - or that there is no meaningful existence or continuity of the self – nihilism. The Buddha basically said, “neither of these ideas is correct.”
Head smack time… remember Tom Hank’s in the movie “Big,” “I don’t get it.”
This is why we practice meditation (Chanting and Sitting) to go deeper than our little-self/ego by giving our cognitive consciousness, which creates this idea and perception we exist independently, something to focus on to “still our mind” allowing our awareness to go deeper into our subconscious and experience Life through our heart/mind.
As Bruce Lee once said, “Don’t think, Feel.”
Our brain, cognitive consciousness intellect, doesn’t get it. But we can experience it. Feel it.
The Buddha taught in a pragmatic, gradual, progressive series of stages (what Tiantai called the Four Teachings over the Five Periods) to lead his disciples on a journey of self-discovery that culminated in the Perfect Teaching of the Lotus Sutra. He tried to teach the Perfect Teaching at the very beginning of his ministry with the Flower Garland Sutra, but he got a lot of blank, glassy-eyed stares. So, he began, at the beginning with the first Turning of the Wheel of the Dharma at the Deer Park in Varanasi during which he taught his most basic idea of the Four Noble Truths: Life is Unsatisfactory (suffering), Suffering is caused by Craving (attachment), You can end Suffering through the cessation of Craving and the way to bring about the cessation of Craving is to practice the Eightfold Path. This is the vehicle for the voice-hearers (śrāvakas).
It's understandable how people could conclude that putting an end to craving (attachment, sometimes mis-translated as desire) in order to put an end to suffering might mean detaching from or becoming indifferent to all things. After all the voice-hearers “left home” renouncing their former lives to live alone with very little. In other words, they thought highest thing one could do is “leave life.”
Seriously? That doesn’t sound interesting at all. No wonder Buddhism has a hard time taking root in the West!
This idea of renouncing was further reinforced with the concept of Emptiness. It’s (almost) impossible to grasp this concept intellectually, and it’s off-putting because it sounds so negative. In fact, the Buddha frequently warned that new bodhisattvas would become fearful when they first hear of it.
But “emptiness” doesn’t refer to a grim void or a kind of nihilism. In the Pali canon, the nun Vajira encountered the demon Mara, who attempted to confuse and intimidate her with questions about the existence of a self. She responded to Mara’s question about the existence of a self with the analogy of a chariot:
“Why now do you assume ‘a being’?
Māra, is that your speculative view?
This is a heap of sheer formations:
Here no being is found.
Just as, with an assemblage of parts,
The word ‘chariot’ is used,
So, when the aggregates exist,
There is the convention of ‘a being.’
It’s only suffering that comes to be,
Suffering that stands and falls away.
Nothing but suffering comes to be,
Nothing but suffering ceases.”
(SN 5:10; Connected Discourses, pp. 229-230)
What is the essence of the chariot? Is it the wheels? The seat? The axle? The cart? Like the chariot, this “self” we cherish so devotedly is nothing more than a temporary coming together of various aggregates. Our existence is empty of a self-nature or singular essence. Because everything depends on something else, nothing exists in an independent, enduring manner.
Notice the last verse, “It’s only suffering that comes to be…” Suffering is what arises and ceases from our attachment to a ‘cherished’ sense of little-self. But again, to stop suffering one must cease attachment, and if one’s understanding of attachment is ‘desire’ we might then think we shouldn’t have desires at all.
The Threefold Truth as taught by Tiantai Zhiyi is important here as a frame: 1) Life is empty (of a permanent self), 2) Life is provisional (arising through causes and conditions) and 3) Life is both impermanent and provisional; because it is empty of a fixed self it is provisional, because it is provisional it is empty.
According to Tiantai, the perfect teaching of the Buddha is found in the Lotus Sutra and the Nirvana Sutra. It is considered “perfect,” “complete,” or “round” because it presents the integration of all three truths of the threefold truth - the truths of emptiness, provisionality, and the middle - into a seamless whole. Pivoting from a negative frame to a positive one. The positive and boundless phenomena of the buddha-nature are positively affirmed, and all phenomena manifests the liberation of the Middle Way.
Our Nichiren Shu daily service opening invocation says “Perfect Circle of All Honorable One’s” and the Dhyana mudra we use in Shodaigyo represent this concept of the Perfect Teaching’s three Truths.
The Threefold Truth is the foundation for Ichinen Sanzen, the 3000 Realms of Existence are Contained in a Single Thought-Moment. The All encompasses the One, and the One encompasses the All. This is the Dharmadhatu or Dharma-realm, that is sometimes personified as the Dharmakaya or “Buddha as the body of Reality.” The Dharma-body gets manifested ‘provisionally’ as the Nirmanakaya or “historical manifestations of buddhahood” or “us when we are fully awake.” The joyous realization of this Single Thought-Moment is expressed as the Samboghakaya or “body of enjoyment of awakening to the Dharma.”
In other words, Sunyata (Emptiness) means Life (capital L) is an interconnected, on-going, continual, process flow of Creation unfolding in new glorious ways through causes and conditions, “Yui Butsu Yo Butsu,” (only a buddha together with a buddha) and “Shohō-jissō” (the true reality of all things).
As Thich Naht Hanh says, “Interbeing.”
Only our (lower case l) life is provisional, temporary and impermanent. But we do exist now as part of (capital L) Life. A beautiful multi-colored thread in the Great Tapestry of Life.
Nichiren frequently uses a favorite Buddhist metaphor of the Moon to describe this Three Bodies of the Buddha. The Dharmakaya is the moon, the Samboghakaya is the light of the moon - the photons waves/particles, and the Nirmanakaya is the moon’s reflection on the water. No moon, no reflection. No water no reflection. No light no reflection and so on.
In "Enter the Dragon," Bruce Lee went on to say, “It’s like a finger pointing away to the moon. Don’t concentrate on the finger, or you will miss all the heavenly glory.” Lee was, whether knowingly or not, paraphrasing from the Lankavatara Sutra. The point, then, is not to think about or merely believe in the three bodies or the three truths but to experience it for ourselves through our practice.
Nichiren was a Tendai monk, deeply educated in Tiantai’s teachings, and all other forms of Buddhism available in Japan in the 1200s. Nichiren taught extensively and continually from Tiantai’s Great Calming and Contemplation (J. Maka Shikan) throughout his entire life. Everything Nichiren wrote is based on an assumption that the reader has a basic grasp of some/most of these foundational Buddhist teachings/ideas. I like to use the metaphor of a student learning calculous. It would be impossible for them to truly understand it without knowing basic arithmetic and geometry and algebra. It’s why so many Nichiren practitioners come to the wrong answer and conclusion just reading the Gosho. They lack the basic Buddhist context and familiarity with the T’ian-t’ai framework needed to understand what Nichiren is writing about.
It cannot be overemphasized the value and importance of a ‘good’ teacher. As William James, considered the parent of modern psychology, wrote in 1902, “… the documents that will most concern us will be those of the (people) who were most accomplished in the religious life and best able to give an intelligible account of their ideas and motives. These (people), of course, are either comparatively modern writers, or else such earlier ones as have become religious classics.”
And why Rev. Ryuei McCormick’s study program is so important. I know first-hand how it can sometimes be too much and give one a headache, truly I do! This is actually what was meant by “head splitting into seven pieces,” it meant ignorance was being split apart, not some weird curse. That is why I encourage us all to listen to our inner-voice, and if study feels too much, tap the brakes a bit on it, and focus more on practice. Always be aware how you feel and give yourself space. There is a fine line between the discomfort of something hard, and the pain of something harmful. Again, another reason teachers and our dharma brothers and sisters of our sangha is here, to support us, guide us and help give us an objective self-check at times.
Back to “attachment and detachment.”
Again, cultivating detachment so that one has neither attachment (craving) nor aversion (pushing away) to the provisional, was a technique to allow people to see beyond the little-self to the Big-Self. It’s become misunderstood to mean not caring, indifference, aloofness. This kind of privileged aloofness becomes a narcissistic, ego-centered point of view, leading to new age prosperity-religions that teach positive thinking and the power of the mind to overcome adversity while visualizing one’s desires, or chanting for things while presuming to be above worldly concerns. This isn’t to say that such techniques aren’t useful, they can be, as they help build our Equanimity Muscle, and to live our daily lives – certainly good intentions - but it needs its proper place and context, and guidance from an experienced teacher so one does not get stuck.
Detachment DOESN’T mean not caring, indifference, or accepting and tolerating unwholesome thought, speech and actions. Nor does it mean not desiring better circumstances for ourselves and others. Nor does it mean not doing your best to be a good spouse, parent, worker, neighbor, etc. Nor does it mean not loving others deeply and desiring the best for them, to be with them and then grieving when we lose them.
Once we see the Big-Self as "Everything Constantly Arising in an Unending Flow of Inter-connected Creation" we feel whole and safe in the magnificence and glory of the Dharma-realm, or Dharma-body. We experience EVERYTHING fully without the limitation of our small-self ego which is constructed and perpetuated - by the self-perception of our karma.
Mature “detachment” is Equanimity. Which means we allow ourselves to exist in the wondrous experience of the now moment, fully feeling it all, good, neutral and bad, while remaining open and liberated, not stuck in the past nor living in the future. Fully Liberated (to feel) and Fully Engaged (to act). Feel it All. Don’t hold it or push anything away. Allow it All to be there. Welcome it. Let the tears flow from the exquisite agony of loss, and the laughter arise from the joy of being alive.
Holding onto to feelings, or attempting to push them away, and not feel them - following the misguided idea of detachment or indifference - only masks these feelings, inevitably making them last longer and arising in other toxic manifestations. This is how trauma gets encoded into our body and mind and can last lifetimes; in other words, “karma.”
It is so very life-affirming, positive and joyous to understand that awakening is an active, positive engagement in the world, not a renunciation, withdrawal and indifference.
Namu Myōhō Renge Kyō is a “non-personalized/non-deified” mantra. It is an affirmation of Self. Rather than seeking help outside oneself, it calls upon one’s own inner buddha nature. It is Nichiren’s genius that he taught chanting as the Middle Way, a perfect balance of self-power and other-power.
“Namu” is taking refuge, solace, and sanctuary. “Myō” is sublime, wondrous and mysterious. “Hō” is Dharma. “Renge” is Lotus Flower. “Kyō” is the “words of the Buddhas,” or sound and vibration.
The meaning lies in the metaphor of the Lotus Flower, which symbolizes both the simultaneity of Cause and Effect, and of Life itself, since this beautiful flower grows in a muddy pond, symbolizing that Life isn’t always pretty and can be difficult and messy. But in spite of being difficult and messy the Lotus grows, thrives, and flowers, just as we can.
Chanting Namu Myōhō Renge Kyō empowers us to trust that each of us can grow and thrive no matter what is going on around us.
Chanting Namu Myōhō Renge Kyō immerses us in the conviction that all beings can become fully awakened, happy, and free of suffering. Within our heart/mind is loving-kindness, compassion, sympathetic joy, equanimity, generosity, virtue, patience, enthusiasm, focus, and transcendent wisdom – all the fruits of the Buddhist practice.
Chanting Namu Myōhō Renge Kyō is the practice in which we “abide firmly with resolute conviction that we are buddhas in a state of clearness, tranquility and freedom”.
Single-minded and wholeheartedly chant Namu Myoho Renge Kyo with joy, humility and repentance, trusting in Namu Myoho Renge Kyo as if your life depends on it. Through the Buddha’s gift to us, we borrow the Buddhas Merits and Virtues while our own beautiful lotus blossom grows up through the mud, through the water, into the sun and blooms on its own and we too Awaken becoming buddhas, manifesting the shapes, color and fragrances of the Lotus:
Virtue: Being and personifying the four divine abodes of Loving Kindness, compassion, sympathetic Joy and Equanimity. Living through our thoughts, words and actions the Eightfold Path and the Six Perfections in our daily lives.
Wisdom: Feeling clearly, letting go of debilitating attachments. Seeing clearly, responding to circumstances in a positive and heathy manner. Thinking clearly, acting with wisdom and compassion.
Power: The strength and courage to live with joy, openness and equanimity.
Fearlessness: To be free of fear and anxiety amidst the burning fires of the Latter Age
Meditations: Being able to chant the Odaimoku every day.
Concentration: Living each moment with Mindfulness, Wisdom and Compassion.
Liberation: Being free of crippling self-doubt, anger and fear to experience and engage each moment fully.
So, using your chanting practice as a platform, go forth and Live.
With Respect and Gratitude,
Namu Myoho Renge Kyo
Shami Mark Ryugan White Lotus