| Lotus
Again, if anyone offers a three-thousand-great-thousandfold world full of the seven precious things in homage to buddhas, great bodhisattvas, pratyekabuddhas, and arhats, the merit this man gains is not equal to the surpassing happiness of him who receives and keeps but a single fourfold verse of this Law-Flower Sutra. -- Chapter XXIII - Bodhisattva Medicine King p.308 (Kosei, Threefold Lotus Sutra)
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Nichiren
"QUESTION: How do you know that the Wonderful Dharma is superior to the "threefold contemplation in a single thought"? ANSWER: Because the Wonderful Dharma is the virtue or truth as the object of attainment while the threefold contemplation is merely a way of contemplation for a practitioner to attain the virtue or truth. The Buddha states of this Wonderful Dharma in the chapter on "Expedients": "The Dharma attained in the place of enlightenment (is beyond question and comprehension,)" "The Dharma I attained is wonderful and beyond comprehension;" "This Dharma is beyond comprehension and discretion;" and "The appearances of all things which are tranquil and extinguished are beyond description in words." (Interpreting these,) Grand Master T'ien-t'ai stated in the Profound Meaning of the Lotus Sutra: "Myō (Wonderful) means being beyond comprehension;" "This Dharma transcends the world of description and is beyond the power of mind;" and "The Dharma suggests that each of the ten realms of living beings contains the ten aspects and that nine provisional realms and the real realm of the Buddha are one and inseparable. (It shows that an ordinary person and the Buddha are one.)" He also interpreted (the Wonderful Dharma) as the triple truth (of voidness, temporariness and the middle), the threefold contemplation, the three thousand existences, or the inconceivable dharma. It is possible to figure out the dharma Grand Master T'ien-t'ai attained in mind because it is the dharma Grand Master T'ient'ai considered. On the other hand, the Wonderful Dharma is the teacher of Buddhas. It is evident that the (inconceivable) Wonderful Dharma is superior to the conceivable threefold contemplation." -- from Nichiren Doctrine, Risshō Kanjō , 15. "The Right Way of Meditation" p. 227-28
----Inspiration from St. Nichiren------ |
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