--- In SokaGakkaiUnofficial@yahoogroups.com, "gaydave53" <gaydave53@...> wrote:
>
> Hello:
>
> As Ryuei requested, I've examined the Rooster Diagram in WND2...and
> I'm completely at a loss.
>
> Perhaps I understand the "Eternal Buddha" as merely the "Dharma
> Body", which obviously has no beginning and no end.
>
> However, this, according to Nichiren, is not the object of devotion
> of the Tientai School...of which Nichiren considered himself.
>
> According to this Gosho the "three bodies attained in the remote
> Past" have no beginning and no end...
>
> 1. Dharma body...that I get.
> 2. "Reward Body"...if that is defined as wisdom attained through
> buddhist practice, how can that have no beginning and no end?
> 3. "Manifested body"...this i understand as the physical form...which
> is of course finite and transient.
>
> How can this "manifested body" have no beginning and no end"? What is
> this "manifested body"?
>
> I am completely at a loss here.
>


Yaaayy!!! Hurray! Now I am not the only one to see this! I have long been
challenged by
this myself. In other words, I too am at a loss regarding what Nichiren points
out here and
in several other gosho. I have some ideas, but not any real certainty. What I am
certain is
that most people reduce the Gohonzon to the Dharma-body, and for a long time now
it
has been clear to me that this is something Nichiren was critiquing not
advocating. This is
evident in the Opening of the Eyes, but the Rooster Diagram makes it glaringly
obvious.
What I am certain of though, is that T'ien-t'ai and Nichiren are pointing to
something
much more profound than the provisional ideas of worshipping the Dharma-body.

In Nichiren Shu we recite the Verses for Opening the Sutra before chanting the
Hoben-pon
and Jigage. One section says:

"The most excellent teaching of the Great Vehicle is very difficult to
understand.
We shall be able to approach enlightenment when we see, hear, or touch this
sutra.
Expounded is the Buddha's Truth (Dharma-body).
Expounding is the Buddha's essence (reward-body).
The letters composing this sutra are the Buddha's manifestation
(manifest-body)."

I added the parenthesis since the English translation we use does not at all
make it
apparent that the trikaya is being referred to (something I'd like to see fixed
someday).

I think that what Nichiren is saying is that the "Eternal Shakyamuni Buddha" is
the one
reality that has no birth and death and which always is the truth we awaken to,
the wisdom
of that awakening which is always at work in our lives even when not consciously
evident,
and is the concrete manifestation of that reality and wisdom in the form of
events,
relationships, and even concrete things that point us to the truth like the
Omandala-
Gohonzon or the Lotus Sutra text. This is another way of saying that the world
of
Buddhahood is always a part of our lives in all three aspects or properties. See
the entry
for the "three bodies" in the SGI Dictionary of Buddhism, the first paragraph
presents the
typical Mahayana view, and one that too many Nichiren Buddhists assume without
going
further. The second paragraph speaks of them in terms of three properties of a
single
Buddha's life, and therefore can more easily seen as properties of our own life
- though
again they may not be consciously evident. Through practice-realization we make
them
apparent to ourselves and others.

Namu Myoho Renge Kyo,
Ryuei

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