Lilacs - from Kristine Etter

Defining The Threefold Lotus Sutra

Undaunted amidst the multitude
let them openly expound and preach it.
With great compassion for their abode,
gentleness and forbearance for their robe,
and the voidness of all laws for their throne,
abiding in these, let them preach the Law.

. . . think of the Buddha; let them be patient.
In thousands of myriads of countless lands,
I will appear to them with pure, imperishable bodies,
and in infinite countless kalpas, preach the Law for all the living.

 . . . wherever they may go, I shall still be Buddha,
though under different names . . .”

  The Threefold Lotus Sutra is a Buddhist scripture of pivotal importance and one of the world’s great religious classics, representing the Buddha’s ageless teaching of wisdom, compassion, and liberation.

  The English text at the heart of the Threefold, “The Sutra of the Lotus Flower of the Wonderful Law” (the Lotus Sutra) is derived from a fifth century translation, Sanskrit to Chinese, by revered scholar Kumarajiva, based on earlier Sanskrit texts, some of which had been inscribed five hundred years earlier; his final translation also resulting at the time from counsels held with other Chinese scholars..

  All the Buddha’s teachings have been transmitted by the sutras. They do not contain the Buddha’s exact words since no sutra has been handed down in the language the Buddha himself spoke; they were trans­mitted in other Indic languages of later periods, so without doubt, conscious and unconscious changes in the Buddha’s exact words were made during several centuries of oral trans­mission. Nevertheless, both the primitive and Mahayana sutras are considered by scholars as authentic records of the Buddha’s original teachings. For a definitive history of the Buddhist sutras, see Kogen Mizuno’s Buddhist Sutras, Origin, Develop­ment, Transmission.

  At the first Buddhist council held after Shakyamuni’s death around 480 B.C., his teachings were recited by various disciples (chiefly by his cousin, Ananda); this is why many of the Great Vehicle Sutras (the Maha­yana) begin with “Thus have I heard.”

  The literal meaning of “sutra” is “warp or thread.” Seemingly limitless “threads” are woven into the fabric of the Buddha’s teachings and the The Threefold Lotus Sutra weaves them into “one vehicle” including formerly taught fundamental doctrine, such as “The Four Noble Truths,” “The Eightfold Path,” “The Six Virtues of the Bodhisattvas.” The Buddha’s forty years of preaching after his enlightenment now extend to embrace those whose hearts are longing to reach and “accomplish the Way supreme.”

  “Now is the very time” Shakyamuni declares early in the sutra, his desire arising from his universal compassion for all living beings. Celebrating the Buddha’s life and his teachings in the Lotus Sutra becomes a celebra­tion of life itself.

The Threefold Lotus Sutra, translated by Bunno Kato, Yoshiro Tamura, and Kojiro Miyasaka, with revisions by W.E. Soothill, Wilhelm Schiffer, and Pier P. del Campana; published, 1975, by John Weatherhill, Inc., New York and Tokyo; and Kosei Publishing Company, Tokyo.

Rissho Kosei-kai is a Buddhist lay organization head­quartered in Japan and is responsible for the beautifully rendered, scholarly English translation of The Threefold Lotus Sutra. (I was a member of Rissho Kosei-kai in Los Angeles for four years, from 1989 to 1993.)