Slamming my own religion?

Today, I want to give equal time. I've expended a lot of effort on this blog slamming the Abrahamic wisdom traditions and promoting the alternative I've embraced - Buddhism. But I realize my faith's worldview has its shortcomings, which I feel duty-bound to mention. These stem from my immersion in the Lotus Sutra*. I don't intend for this post to cover all of my concerns or doubts but I want to at least broach these few*:

• The infinite number of emanation buddhas which Shakyamuni Buddha was able to generate;

• The infinite number of meanings which are generated by the One Great Fundamental Universal Law;

• Why it bothers me that the Buddha lied to us.

Emanation Buddhas

Shakyamuni Buddha wasn't the only entity able to generate an infinite number of emanations of himself to teach the path to enlightenment in other worlds. This was an ability shared by all other buddhas as well as highly advanced bodhisattvas. And this is an ability mentioned frequently in the Lotus Sutra. But then a question formed in my mind: "Are all of those emanation buddhas of Shakyamuni also able to generate an infinite number of emanations; and are those emanations able to, in turn, do the same; etc, etc?"

If the answer is "yes," then credulity is strained, but perhaps that's the point: To force the believer to either rise to the occasion and come up with "the" answer, abandon his faith, or modify it somehow. I'm almost afraid of modification since some of my fellow Buddhists have accused me of trying to create my own religion. But I rarely allow what people think of me to have any appreciable influence.

I realize that the word "infinite" as used in the Lotus Sutra simply refers to a monstrously large number but is not really infinite, mathematically-speaking.

In any event, I don't know why this particular question occurred to me as late as it did. After all, I've recited the entire Lotus Sutra well over 150 times over the past 7 years. So why didn't this question occur to me much earlier? Perhaps my tardiness was due to a blind spot I had in my own enlightened nature. Or maybe my karma was at work. If so, I admit I'm a bit embarrassed by my flaw, even though I can mitigate that somewhat by saying, I've gained a number of insights which (so far as I can tell) no one else has realized. [I can only hope these are really insights and not just self-indulgent delusions!]

One valuable lesson I'd learned from my years in the Soka Gakkai International: "Try to develop doubt-free faith." Too many of my fellow SGI members took that to mean, "We shouldn't ask questions or probe too deeply into the doctrines." But then I remembered another SGI lesson, about the value of having a seeking mind. I shudder to think perhaps SGI was only paying lip service to that lesson. If so, how ironic, that a group that extols the benefits of chanting should be reduced to "paying lip service." [Sorry, I could never resist a good pun - or even a bad one, for that matter.]

Undaunted, I will cherish the title of the Lotus Sutra's fourth chapter ("Belief and understanding" - how important it is to have both), and the urging of the Buddha to "ponder this Lotus Sutra." So I will undertake to reflect deeply on the implications of the infinite emanations of the buddhas. For now, I want to offer a few tentative thoughts regarding this issue:

• Though buddhas might have the ability to create these emanations, perhaps not all of them do so.

• Not all buddhas have identical practices. I don't know if any buddhas other than Shakyamuni recruited and taught the massive number of unique disciples known as the Bodhisattvas of the Earth, as introduced in the Lotus Sutra's 15th chapter entitled "Emerging from the Earth." They are "unique" in terms of the totally renunciative life they led. Then there's the case of Many Treasures Buddha (introduced in Chapter 11 of the Lotus Sutra) who had taken a vow to travel with his funerary tower (comparable in size to the moon) to any place in the universe where the Lotus Sutra was being preached.

• If a disciple was being taught by Shakyamuni Buddha on planet earth, did emanations of this buddha teach emanations of this disciple? That leads to the question: Do each of us have an infinite number of versions of ourselves dwelling in an infinite number of universes which, once we make up our minds to seek enlightenment, will be taught by an infinite number of emanation buddhas?

• Is such a large number of emanated buddhas necessary so that the Law could be preached to animals, plants, or even to inanimate(?) beings such as stars, rivers, and rocks? Even these are supposed to have a buddha-nature which could enable them to become buddhas someday.

I'm going to be thinking about all of these possibilities - and any others that might pop into my mind - as time goes on. For now, I can only be amazed at the wonder of it all.

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Steven Searle, just another member of the Virtual Sangha of the Lotus and
a former candidate for President of the United States of America (in 2008 and 2012)

Contact me at bpa_cinc@yahoo.com

Footnotes

Lotus Sutra* - This refers specifically to the version translated into English by Burton Watson and published in 2009 by the Soka Gakkai International, which bears this title: "The Lotus Sutra and It's Opening and Closing Sutras," commonly referred to as the Three-Fold Lotus Sutra. If you want a free, on-line version of a Burton Watson translation (though not the one published by the SGI), go to:  http://nichiren.info/buddhism/lotussutra/

broach these few* - Today, I will only address the first of these three topics; within the next week or so, I hope to address the others.