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Thursday, December 13, 2007

The Lotus Sutra and Mt Hiei

The Tendai sect on Mt Hiei has been venerating the Lotus Sutra for 1200 years. I look at Mt Hiei today, and find a passage describing it quite closely in the Sutra (Ch 17). It seems that the monks, by continuously upholding the sutra, by venerating it only and without considering the resulting environment, have actually created the condition for that result to manifest. Here is that passage, from the Kosei translation:

[FOR THOSE WHO] KEEP THIS SUTRA,
IT WILL BE AS IF THE BUDDHA WERE PRESENT
AND THEY, WITH OX-HEAD SANDLEWOOD,
BUILT MONASTERIES TO SERVE HIM,
CONSISTING OF THIRTY-TWO HALLS,
EIGHT TALA TREES IN HEIGHT,
WITH SUPERIOR FOOD, FINE GARMENTS
AND BEDDING ALL COMPLETE,
WITH ABODES FOR HUNDREDS AND THOUSANDS,
WITH GARDENS, GROVES, AND BATHING POOLS,
WITH WALKS AND MEDITATION CELLS,
ALL BEAUTIFULLY ADORNED.

(This is how it is experienced by the monks living on Mt Hiei, not the tourists)

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