Faith in Being Buddha
The faith that we can be assured of becoming buddhas, but only after many lifetimes of spiritual cultivation, is taught in the first half of the Lotus Sutra. Attaining buddhahood, or unsurpassed perfect awakening to the true nature of reality and thereby freeing oneself and others from suffering is not something that people imagine can come easily or cheaply. In fact, it is looked upon in Buddhism as the highest and most ambitious of all spiritual undertakings that requires heroic qualities on a cosmic scale.
The basic Buddhist understanding that is upheld in the sutras and even in much of the Lotus Sutra is that Shakyamuni Buddha’s own buddhahood was attained after many lifetimes of practice as an aspiring bodhisattva. The Bodhisattva who would become Shakyamuni Buddha started on his path as an ascetic named Sumedha in a distant age. Upon meeting the buddha of that past age named Dipamkara (Burning-Light Buddha), Sumedha made a vow to attain buddhahood himself. Dipamkara Buddha then predicted that someday Sumedha would be reborn as Prince Siddhartha Gautama, attain buddhahood, and become known as Shakyamuni Buddha. From that time on the Bodhisattva was reborn countless times in this saha world, each time making progress in cultivating the six perfections of generosity, morality, patience, energy, meditation and wisdom; thus accruing the skills and merit needed to attain buddhahood.
For example, generosity was perfected during the Bodhisattva’s lifetime as King Shibi who offered his own flesh and blood to a hungry hawk in place of a dove that had sought refuge with him. Morality was perfected during the Bodhisattva’s lifetime as King Shrutasoma. After he was allowed to go free to fulfill an earlier promise to give offerings to a brahmin priest, King Shrutasoma kept his word by returning to King Mrgapada who planned to execute him. Patience was perfected during the Bodhisattva’s lifetime as the hermit Kshantivadi who never grew angry or resentful even when the jealous King Kali dismembered him because he mistakenly thought the hermit had tried to seduce his court ladies. Energy was perfected during the Bodhisattva’s lifetime as Prince Mahadana who tried to empty out the entire ocean in order to recover the wish-fulfilling gem for the sake of the poor. Meditation was perfected during the Bodhisattva’s lifetime as the hermit Jaliya who sat so still that birds built a nest in his hair. Jaliya even continued to sit in meditation until the birds’ eggs hatched so as not to disturb them. Wisdom was perfected during the Bodhisattva’s lifetime as the Prime Minister Govinda who brought peace to the world by finding an equitable way to divide the land between seven warring kings. In these and many other lifetimes throughout the six paths, the Bodhisattva cultivated the virtuous qualities he would display as Shakyamuni Buddha.[1]
After vast spans of time this world was finally ready for the appearance of a new buddha, and the Bodhisattva was ready to be that buddha and fulfill the eight stages of a buddha’s life. According to the traditional story: (1) He descended from the Heaven of Contentment (Skt. Tushita) where all bodhisattvas reside before their final birth as a human being who will attain buddhahood. (2) He was conceived in the womb of Queen Maya of the Shakya clan, just as all buddhas are traditionally born into a warrior or priestly clan. (3) As Prince Siddhartha he was born painlessly from the side of his mother in the Lumbini Gardens, in the area of what is now southern Nepal in 463 BCE. He then grew up secluded in the palace of the Shakya clan in the city of Kapilavastu, married the princess Yashodhara and had a son named Rahula. (4) At the age of 29 he renounced the life of a prince in order to become an ascetic in the wilderness to find a way to overcome the sufferings of old age, sickness, and death. (5) At the age of 35 he took up the Middle Way between the self-indulgent life of the palace and the self-denial of the acetic life to sit in contemplation beneath the Bodhi Tree (Tree of Awakening) near the town that is now called Bodhgaya in northeastern India. During the night he overcame the devilish forces of greed, hatred, and delusion personified by the devil Mara and his daughters and demonic armies. (6) As the morning star appeared in the sky, Siddhartha awakened to the selfless interdependent nature of reality and from henceforth would be known as Shakyamuni Buddha. (7) Shakyamuni Buddha then went to the Deer Park near the town of Varanasi in northern India where he found his five former companions in asceticism. There he taught them the four noble truths and in doing so began teaching the Dharma, the truth about reality and how to awaken to it. This is known as the first turning of the wheel of the Dharma, the initiation of the current dispensation of Buddha Dharma in this world for this historical epoch. (8) At the age of 80, the Buddha passed away beneath two sal trees near the town of Kushinagara in northern India in the year 383 BCE. This is known as the Buddha’s parinirvana or “complete nirvana” because in dying even physical infirmity and pain was extinguished, in addition to the extinguishing of mental suffering and its causes that he accomplished 45 years before beneath the Bodhi Tree.
In view of this traditional story of how the Buddha came to be a buddha, and what he accomplished as the Buddha, how can we possibly presume to attain spiritual awakening, buddhahood, as he did? Even if it’s theoretically possible for us to attain buddhahood according to the teaching of the One Vehicle in the first half of the Lotus Sutra, it still does not seem like something we can hope to accomplish here and now. In chapter 12 of the Lotus Sutra, a bodhisattva named Accumulated-Wisdom (note the name) states his doubts that anyone can become a buddha quickly, let alone in their present lifetime, by citing the example of Shakyamuni Buddha who only attained buddhahood after lifetimes of strenuous self-sacrificing efforts as a bodhisattva:
As far as I know, [when he was a bodhisattva,] Shakyamuni Buddha sought bodhi, that is, awakening incessantly for innumerable kalpas. He accumulated merits by practicing austerities. Even the smallest part, even the part as large as a poppy-seed of this world – this world being composed of one thousand million Sumeru worlds – is not outside the places where the bodhisattva made efforts to save all living beings at the cost of his life. It was after doing all this that he attained bodhi, that is, awakening.[2]
Accommodating his teaching to this gradualist view of attaining buddhahood, the Buddha’s many predictions to his disciples in the first half of the Lotus Sutra states that they will attain buddhahood in a future lifetime after many ages of serving other buddhas and diligently practicing under their guidance. The prediction to Yashodhara (the Buddha’s wife who became one of the first nuns) can serve as a typical example:
You will perform the bodhisattva practices under hundreds of thousands of billions of buddhas in the future. You will become a great teacher of the Dharma under those buddhas. You will walk the way to buddhahood step by step, and finally become a buddha in a good world.[3]
Things are not necessarily as they seem, however. In the latter half of the Lotus Sutra, the Buddha reveals that essentially buddhahood is not the end result of a long process of merit accumulation. Contrary to the basic story recounted above and the assumptions of Accumulated-Wisdom Bodhisattva, in chapter 16 of the Lotus Sutra, “The Duration of the Lifespan of the Tathagata,” Shakyamuni Buddha reveals that he did not attain awakening for the first time at the age of 35 after ages of strenuous practices. The scope of his awakened lifetime transcends ordinary perceptions of time and space, cause and effect. In that chapter the Buddha said:
Listen to me attentively! I will tell you about my hidden core and supernatural powers. The gods, men, and fighting demons in the world think that I, Shakyamuni Buddha, left the palace of the Shakyas, sat at the place of enlightenment not far from the City of Gaya, and attained perfect complete awakening [forty and odd years ago]. To tell the truth, good men, it is many hundreds of thousands of billions of nayutas of kalpas since I became the Buddha.[4]
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Good men! When I saw that some people of little virtue and of much defilement were seeking the teachings of the Lesser Vehicle, I told them, ‘I renounced my family when I was young, and attained perfect complete awakening [forty and odd years ago].’ In reality I became the Buddha in the remotest past as I previously stated. I told them so as a skillful means to teach them, to lead them into the way to buddhahood.[5]
This means that Shakyamuni Buddha did not first become a buddha under the Bodhi Tree at the age of 35. It also means that the Buddha was the Buddha even before taking on the role of a buddha in the world who enacts the eight stages of a buddha’s life. It even means that during all those lifetimes of practicing the six perfections as a bodhisattva throughout the six paths, the Bodhisattva was actually already the Buddha. In Nichiren Shu this is known as kuon jitsujo, which literally means “true attainment in the remote past.” This puts a very different light on the Bodhisattva’s practices of the six perfections. The Bodhisattva was not trying to earn buddhahood or become something or someone different through long training. His many lifetimes of bodhisattva practice was not to get buddhahood but to demonstrate or express buddhahood in accord with the needs of all sentient beings. Finally, he demonstrated the buddhahood that was his true nature all along by explicitly taking up the role of a buddha in history to once more turn the wheel of the Dharma.
The Buddha’s buddhahood does not end with parinirvana either, just as it does not truly begin under the Bodhi Tree or even with the descent of the Bodhisattva from the Heaven of Contentment. So that people will not become complacent and lazy, figuring that the Buddha is always around to help them and taking him and buddhahood for granted, he only seems to pass away. The Buddha says:
Good men! The duration of my life, which I obtained by the practice of the way of bodhisattvas, has not yet expired. It is twice as long as the length of time as previously stated. Although I shall never enter nirvana, I say to men of little virtue, “I shall pass away.” I teach them with this skillful method. Why is that? It is because if they see me for a long time, they will not plant the roots of good, but become poor and base, and cling to the five desires so much that they will be caught in the nets of wrong views. If they think that I am always here, and do not think that I shall pass away, they will become too arrogant and lazy to realize the difficulty of seeing me, and they will not respect me. Therefore, I say [to them] skillfully, “Monks, know this! It is difficult to see a buddha who appears in [this] world.” … Those who hear this and know that it is difficult to see me, will adore me, admire me, and plant the roots of good. Therefore, I say [to them], “I shall pass away,” although I shall not.[6]
Buddhahood is the expression of the unconditioned true nature of reality that does not have a beginning and does not have an end. Therefore, the Buddha does not actually come and go. For this reason, the Buddha of chapter 16 of the Lotus Sutra is called the Eternal Buddha. The Eternal Buddha does not practice the way of bodhisattvas to become a buddha but to express buddhahood and lead others to their own buddhahood, like a doctor who does not practice medicine to become a doctor, but because he is a doctor. Since this is true of the Buddha’s buddhahood, it is therefore true of our own buddhahood as well. It is timeless, and therefore is not something that we will only get or earn or become in the future. So the deepest expression of faith in the Lotus Sutra is that we are not practicing to become buddhas, we are practicing to express the buddhahood that is already our true nature. This is what we call to mind and affirm in chanting Namu Myoho Renge Kyo.
[1] Paraphrased from The Collected Teachings of the Tendai School p.p. 26-27; see also T’ien-t’ai Buddhism: An Outline of the Fourfold Teachings p. 106 and pp. 38-117 footnotes 38-44.
[2] Lotus Sutra pp. 200-201
[3] Ibid, p. 205
[4] Ibid p. 241
[5] Ibid pp. 242-243
[6] Ibid, pp. 243-244