The Lotus Sutra, Chapter Two, says,
Yui butsu yo butsu,
Only a buddha together with a buddha
Nai no ku jin,
Can fathom
Sho ho jis’ so,
the ultimate reality of all things.
“Ultimate Reality” comes up again in Chapter Three:
"For today I know that I am truly a child of the Buddha, born from the words of the Buddha and come to life through his Dharma.”
Yui Butsu Yo Butsu is talking about how “Ultimate Reality” arises through the process of Dependent Origination (Causes and conditions in other words, Cause and Effect).
There are two meanings, a surface one and a deeper one.
The surface meaning is that “Ultimate Reality” [sho ho jis’ so] is so complex and deep - beyond words or reason to explain, that only one who is awakened - a buddha - can comprehend and understand it.
As the Lotus Sutra says, “It is beyond comprehension."
The deeper meaning is that “Ultimate Reality” [sho ho jis’ so] itself is a continuous unfolding act of Creation BETWEEN things, as in “The Middle Way” of the Three Truths, or “interconnection” or “interbeing.” Nothing independent and permanent exists by itself and provisional reality only manifests through causes and conditions.
Brother David Steindl-Rast, a Benedictine Monk, wrote in his book, “Deeper than Words,” a wonderful passage that explains this from a different point of view:
"E. E. Cummings wrote “I am through you so I.” The you must be there for the I to find itself… In the encounter between the you and the I, faith is born. I am so truly I because I have faith in you.
Thomas Merton, crystallized the key insight into a four-word sentence: “God isn’t someone else.”
For the mystic there is no gap between Creator and Creation. The whole universe is an expression of divine life. The cosmic web of mutually interdependent cause and effect in which all things arise is what the mystic poet Kabir sees as “the Secret One slowly growing a body.”
Thus, belief in Creation and belief in Interdependent Origination are two different expressions of one and the same underlying faith—two different pointers toward the same experience. Faith as experience lies deeper than words and concepts. It is an inner gesture by which we entrust ourselves totally and unconditionally to life—life perceived as our own, yet as a power greater than ourselves.”
Deep inner peace, a sense of belonging, and a firm anchorage in the eternal Now of the present moment, these are among the fruits that are (reaped) from faith.”
Prof. Brook Ziporyn wrote in his introduction to the Threefold Lotus Sutra we are reading from:
"no one person can ever encompass the ultimate reality of all things… no single mind can ever be omniscient. Buddha is in the interaction between things. The interconnection of all things. Buddha is the interactive process of things, the now moment. The act of creation when two “things” come together, and a new thing is arisen. The past within the present, the present within the future.
“Awakening to Buddhahood is seeing and engaging in an intentional act of creation in each moment as it flows to the next. The “inter-being” of all things, that all things are contained in the moment; “inter-subjectivity.”
And, in Prof. Brook Ziporyn’s Essay on Emptiness in RKK’s Spring Quarterly, wrote”
“In Buddhism, we are not just the observers of someone else’s painting style. We are ourselves the painter. To see any ordinary object is to be like Van Gogh painting Starry Night: constructing from Emptiness some definite thing, which turns out not to be one definite thing but an eternally and omni-presently available style for all things. Whatever thing we are experiencing, it is not a simple content constrained to a single object at a single point in time and space but a new style available for all things, a new form of beauty that can be expressed both as every ugly thing and as every beautiful thing. We are creators of new styles of being with each moment of experience, each of which without exception is eternal and omni- present, expressible through all things, containing all things. As Tiantai says, every scent, every form is the Middle Way.”
Thisanno Biku, Theravadan monk, wrote: "The present moment is expressed in an intentional act of creation."
We celebrate this continual process-flow-act of creation and connection with all other things and beings as a part of a greater Ultimate Reality when we immerse ourselves chanting Namu Myoho Renge Kyo with mindfulness and an open heart.
Namu Myoho Renge Kyo
Novice Ryugan Mark White Lotus