“The Lotus Sutra” and Some Problems of Modern Culture

Margarita Vorobyova-Desyatovskaya

D

URING their first contacts with Buddhism, Europeans had primarily been fascinated with yoga, mass hypnosis, the skill of controlling the body. The scholars, on the other hand, since the end of the 19thcentury had been interested in the Buddhist philosophy. Finally, in themid-20th century, it drew attention of those whose field of study waspsychoanalysis; one of the first to build the bridge between the two was
Erich Fromm. The question arises, why any special interest towards
Indian ways to control one’s mind? Fromm wrote: “The fact of death isimmanent for humans who recognize it and its inevitability. That recognition causes an essential influence on one’s life.”1 The desire to push
the unpleasant moment as far away as possible makes one to search forways of salvation in other teachings. Buddhism appeared to The Teaching which promised assistance in achieving immortality.
At first, the best known section of the Buddhist Tripitaka happened tobecome its second part, the sutras. They are actually discourses in philosophical dogma intended primarily for oral sermons. The very idea of asutra was common for all ancient Indian teachings; the oldest written
Buddhist ones are not dated before the end of the 1st millennium B.C.
The most popular sutra since the first century B.C. and till the present
time has remained the “Saddharmapundarika” or the “Lotus Sutra”. This
paper is based on its Kashgar (more strictly, Khotan) Sanskrit version.
Before everything else, one should ask, why has it been popular for solong?
The beginning of the sutra tells about Buddha presiding over anassembly of his pupils, Boddhisattvas, Gods, rulers of the four parts of
the world, and everybody else, and explaining the Great Teaching, theGreat Dharma which no one had heard of before. The Dharma was hardto grasp, so Buddha had waited for the audience capable enough to perceive that their primary goal was to achieve the annutara-samq-sambodhi, i.e. the threshold of the Nirvana. The path towards the Nirvana islong and complicated, so we will have to follow Buddha in consideringcertain points in the history of his Teaching, those which have not yet130

“THE LOTUS SUTRA” AND SOME PROBLEMS OF MODERN CULTURE 131
been addressed by scholars.
The people (among them, Buddha’s first disciples) having entered thepath of the Teaching, listened to Buddha’s first sermons (and were therefore referred to as shravaks), learned about the four noble truths and theeight-folded path, about the arkhats’ way and the Nirvana. All that is
sufficiently well described in the Jatakas. In the second chapter of the“Lotus Sutra”, Buddha demonstrates the gradual development of theirminds. The Sutra lists a lot of examples of the noblest deeds of the disciples. The sermons had not been a waste of breath. They sowed the seedsof faith over a fertile ground.
In the 16th chapter, Buddha tells about the “mystery of the Tankhagata” hinting at his personal history: “Both Gods and people... believe that
Buddha Shakyamuni who you see before you, left the tribal palace ofthe Shikyas, sat under a tree close to the town of Gaya, and reached thestate of annutara-samq-sambodhi. However, my dear sons, since themoment when I became a Buddha, there have passed countless and endless hundreds, thousands, dozens of thousands, and even millions... ofkalpas. Since then, I have resided in the world of the Sakha, proclaim
the Dharma, teach and instruct the living.” The more profoundly theshravaks learned the Teaching, the better they understood that theyindeed were facing The Buddha who could give them rebirth and leadthem to the Nirvana. Some of them were seriously worried that Buddha
would leave them any moment and delve into the Nirvana. Others,though standing near Buddha, could not see him. Still others thoughtthat Buddha had long gone away, into the Nirvana. Buddha understoodthat everything depended on whether the roots of their faith were “sharpor blunted”; he saw it with his third eye and everything to assist those
who had already come to the faith.
Sutra frequently tells about the nobility of the disciples. In the 20thchapter, Buddha tells about a Bkhikshu, Boddhisattva called The Boddhisattva Never Disparaging. Wherever that one encountered people,
whoever those people might be, he bowed to them and praised themwith the following words, “I revere you and cannot despise you, because
you will all follow the path of Boddhisattva and become Buddhas.” He
was ridiculed, beaten with clubs, hurt with stones thrown at him, but heonly ran away and repeated in loud voice, “I will never despise you,because you will all become Buddhas!”
The Buddhist tradition states that every person contains something ofa Buddha, and that tiny sprout will bring its fruit sooner or later. Even
the poorest, worth developed, unhappy man will become a Buddha a lotof kalpas later, if he has listened to the Teaching. The patricidal King

132

“THE LOTUS SUTRE” AND SOME PROBLEMS OF MODERN CULTURE

Ajatashatru, and Devadatta who repeatedly tried to assassinate Buddha
himself, would inevitably turn into Buddhas with more kalpas passing.
It goes without saying that such Teaching simply could not fail attracting adepts.
It was in the “Lotus Sutra” that Buddha explained the gradual natureof his disciples’ development. When they had started listening to his sermons, they had not fully understood them. What caused suffering? Were
there ways of getting rid of it? Buddha said that yes, there were. What
were they, then? And what was the eight-folded path? Some of the disciples appeared to be cleverer than others, and grasped the meaning.
Mr. Daisaku Ikeda, President of the International Soka Gakkai Society
wrote complete books about his having started studying the “LotusSutra” in the 1940s, guided by his teacher Josei Toda; presently, thissociety is world-famous with sections in virtually all European and Asiatic countries.
We will here try to present our viewpoint in regard to the Buddhist
teaching and the three Yana chariots related in the second chapter of the“Lotus Sutra”. The Buddhist tradition refers to the outcome of the initialperiod of the Teaching as “The First Chariot” or “The Shravaks’ Chariot”. During the gaps between the kalpas when Buddha was absent, there
stepped forth people capable enough to grasp the Teaching on their own.
They were however few, and the Buddhist tradition calls their way ofachieving the Nirvana “The Pratyekabuddhas’ Chariot”. Finally, there
came the time when all people realized their unhappiness and learned
the ways to get liberated from it. Then, Buddha decided to help them via
the Boddhisattvas, those disciples of his who had reached the state ofannutara-samq-sambodhi and were ready to delve into the Nirvana. The
Boddhisattvas sacrificed their own salvation for the sake of assisting theunlucky ones who were unable to “cross the river” themselves. Those
who crossed it with the help provided by the Boddhisattvas, rode thethird Chariot, the Mahayana. As a result, three categories of Buddha’s
followers appeared to use three different ways of reaching the Nirvana.
The question arises, why the process required the word “yana”, or“chariot”? It might seem, that the “yana” in this context is a coded symbol indicating the way of “reaching beyond”. On the other hand, “theother shore”, the Nirvana, was the same for everybody. If one has a closer look at the three ways, one must conclude that their names imply thatthose worthy of Nirvana did differ in regard to the extent to which theirminds were developed. Suddenly Buddha declared in the “Lotus Sutra”
that there were no three chariots, but solely one providing salvation foreverybody, the “Buddha Chariot” or “Buddhayana”. As the father of all

“THE LOTUS SUTRA” AND SOME PROBLEMS OF MODERN CULTURE 133
living beings, he alone could rid them of all and any problems of existence bringing them to salvation. In his study “A Voyage to the West”(“Taisho Tripitaka”, vol. XXX, pp. 592–593), Chinese scholar Fayungwrote, “One Chariot is ‘Buddha’s Chariot’, two Chariots are ‘The Chariot of the ones listening to the Voice’ and ‘The Chariot of those enlightened through understanding the causes’. Three Chariots are the two
mentioned above plus ‘The Boddhisattvas’ Chariot’. These three Chariots are counterpoised to the fourth, Single Chariot... The reasons of that
contrast are the following: before, due to the differences in the humanperceptive abilities, Buddha had to proclaim “The ways of three Chariots”. However, those had been but “temporary teachings”... Presently,
thanks to the earlier sermons by Shakyamuni, all people understood they
were like statues cast of pure gold. In other words, ‘there exists but one
Teaching, one Principle, one set of abilities, one man...’Another question, why the human abilities had been designatedthrough the word “yana”? For the first time, it was posed by the Japanese scholar Seishi Karashima in his paper “Who authored the Lotus
Sutra?”2 He proved that the earliest parts of the Lotus Sutra” had notbeen written in Sanskrit, but rather in Prakrits, the middle-stage Indianlanguages. If we assume that the first written version of the text originated from Magadha (that opinion is shared by quite a few other scholars
as well, among them, G.Lueders), it would seem that Magadhi was to be
its original language. However, the manuscripts show that it is by nomeans Magadhi, but rather “mixed” Sanskrit. It was at that point thatcopyists might replace the initial “Buddha-jnana”, “Buddha’s knowledge” with “Buddha-yana”, or “Buddha’s chariot”. If that were the case,the “Chariots” should actually mean “Levels of knowledge” or “Levelsof spiritual development”.
Mr. Karashima continued his studies and found a lot of occasions invarious Buddhist treatises, where the context suggested a possibility ofreplacing “yana” with “jnana”.3 Here is an example: “Boddhisattvas who
are desirous of the knowledge of the All-Knowing (sarvajna-jnana), theBuddha-knowledge (buddha-jnana), the knowledge of the “Self-BornOne” (svayambhu-jnana) and the knowledge without a master(anacaryaka-jnana) and long for the great vehicle (mahayana; O. tathagatayana)4...”
Of importance looks yet another essential idea revealed by the “LotusSutra”. Addressing his disciples, Buddha said that he had acquired
might, fearlessness, artfulness in samadhi, dhyana, and other abilities
impossible to enumerate. Technically, the words samadhi, dhyana, ormeditation link his ideas with psychoanalysis. Dhyana has two mean-

134“THE LOTUS SUTRE” AND SOME PROBLEMS OF MODERN CULTURE

ings in Sanskrit: 1) the state of existence; 2) the state of spiritual concentration. The commentary of the Author clarifies the idea of the spiritual concentration, defining it as “the concentration of good-natured
spirit on a single object” or “the uniform direction of good-naturedspirit”. The essence of that uniform direction of good-natured spirit isnothing else but concentration, or samadhi. Concentration is a spiritualphenomenon with a sole object. Dhyana in that case represents the spiritual object assisting in the process of in-depth concentration, i.e. perception remaining coordinated with the reality. The Sanskrit stem dhyai
from which dhyana was derived, meant “concentrated thinking”.
Vasubandhu remarked that concentrated thinking meant nothing else butwisdom.
The processes going on inside the brain had been of interest for Buddhists since the end of the 1st millennium B.C. The “Lotus Sutra”
explains the three sorts of samadhi. Every time, Buddha began his sermon only after having entered the state of samadhi meaning under thecircumstances meditation with the object of “shunyata” or “nothingness”. What can that “nothingness” be? It should be related to theprocesses of perception, to the work of the brain itself. There is nothing
real in the world created by our own minds. “Separate entities” (dharmas) have no “nature of their own”. Finally, there disappears the “linkage” to all and any objects or subjects.
Buddhist meditation, as noted by V.G. Lysenko,5 “rests upon theBrakhmanist-Shraman traditions of the yoga”. It seems that in the“Lotus Sutra”, the word “meditation” has two separate meanings, one ofwhich is contemplation (bhavana), at first addressing the beautiful, but
gradually descending towards the despicable. In that way, a humanbeing “lives through a whole life” inside his brain during a single session. That clears the mind, expands the horizons, and results in spiritualand physical improvement. The process itself proves that psychoanalysis
has its roots in Buddhist spiritual practices. The “Lotus Sutra” is ofimportance not only as a must-read for all Buddhists, but also as asource while studying various complicated problems of brain functioning. Till now, its precise standing in that has remained undefined.
The European tradition regards Buddhism as a religion “with neither
faith nor God”. Indeed, Buddha was not a God. On the other hand, hisstatues mounted in temples perform as those of deities. They are prayedto; in the places where Buddha’s remains were buried, chapels are built,
ornamented with jewels and flowers, fumigated with incense, in one
word, revered. Erecting Buddha statues in temples could possibly becompared with the Roman Catholic traditions. On the other hand, as“THE LOTUS SUTRA” AND SOME PROBLEMS OF MODERN CULTURE 135
before Shakyamuni there had existed an endless number of other Buddhas, and he himself declared in the “Lotus Sutra” that in a lot of kalpas
everybody would become one, Buddhism remains unparalleled by any
Christian religion.
Faith without a God seems to be impossible. However, the faith in
Buddha’s Teaching flourishes. Buddhism is presently gaining still more
adepts in Europe, America, the Baltic states, and Russia. This Oriental
philosophy and literature has given everybody a chance to overcomethat psychological impasse which causes not solely the mid-life crisis,
but also problems of the younger ages. Oriental psychological techniques have proved to be useful for businesses which use them still more
frequently. The path for psychoanalysis has been paved by philosophy,
and it seems that the St. Petersburg school is not lagging behind thetrend either. Founded by F. I. Shcherbatsky, it works on with great success. Completed has been the translation of the multi-volume treatise“Abhidharmakoshabhashya” written by Vasubandhu in Sanskrit. Established have been the highly fruitful relations with Japanese scholars andphilosophers. The Buddhist Soka Gakkai school and Dr. Daisaku Ikeda
heading it have contributed a lot to the development of culture and science. Thanks to his activities, culturology and politology have received
a powerful push forward.
Notes
E. Fromm. Tchelovek dlya sebya (Man for Himself). M., 1998, p. 420.
Annual Report of The International Research Institute for Advanced Buddhology atSoka University for the Academic Year 2000. Soka University. Tokyo. 2001. pp. 171–173.
3
Seishi Karashima. Some features of the language of the Saddharmapuˆ∂ar¥kasËtra.
Indo-Iranian Journal 44: 2001. pp. 207–230.
4Ibid., p. 216.
5Rannyaya buddiyskaya philosophiya. “Early Buddhist Philosophy”. Moscow, “Vostotchnaya literatura”, RAN, 1994, pp. 183–193.
12