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Two Buddhas Seated Side by Side: a Guide to the Lotus Sūtra, Is Precisely the Road Map Needed by Readers Interested in the Lotus Sūtra

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Two Buddhas Seated Side by Side: a Guide to the Lotus Sūtra, Is Precisely the Road Map Needed by Readers Interested in the Lotus Sūtra H-Buddhism Chen on Lopez Jr. and Stone, 'Two Buddhas Seated Side by Side: A Guide to the Lotus Sūtra' Review published on Thursday, April 15, 2021 Donald S. Lopez Jr., Jacqueline I. Stone. Two Buddhas Seated Side by Side: A Guide to the Lotus Sūtra. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2019. 312 pp. $29.95 (e-book), ISBN 978-0-691-18980-2; $29.95 (cloth), ISBN 978-0-691-17420-4. Reviewed by Hsun-Mei Chen (Kyoto University; National Taiwan University)Published on H- Buddhism (April, 2021) Commissioned by Ben Van Overmeire (Duke Kunshan University) Printable Version: https://www.h-net.org/reviews/showpdf.php?id=55521 For a long time, there has been a lack of an in-depth, chapter-by-chapter guidebook of theLotus Sūtra from a scholar’s perspective in English, and this book, Two Buddhas Seated Side by Side: A Guide to the Lotus Sūtra, is precisely the road map needed by readers interested in the Lotus Sūtra. As if echoing the title of the book, also a famous scene that appears in chapter 11 of the Lotus Sūtra, this book on the Lotus Sūtra is written by two famous scholars in Buddhist studies: Donald S. Lopez Jr. and Jacqueline I. Stone. Except for the authors’ introduction at the beginning and the conclusion at the end, the chapters are ordered according to the Kumārajīva’s twenty-eight-chapter version of Lotus Sūtra. This volume has three main goals: First, the authors provide clear and concise chapter- by-chapter summaries with background explanations to help modern readers to comprehend the rich, but also abstruse, contents of the Lotus Sūtra. Then, in conjunction with the summaries, the authors illustrate the historical circumstances surrounding the compilation of theLotus Sūtra, guiding the readers to understand the challenges faced by the compiler of theLotus Sūtra and the narrative strategies used to confront those challenges. Finally, the authors examine how past commentators, primarily the Japanese religious innovator Nichiren, interpreted the Lotus Sūtra to meet the needs in their own time and space. Obviously, providing chapter-by-chapter discussions of this volume would make this review far too long, and therefore I will instead collectively summarize some important ideas and features of these three main themes and then provide some comments. At the beginning of every chapter, the authors first summarize the narratives and main ideas of the corresponding chapter of the Lotus Sūtra. The authors regard the Lotus Sūtra as an ancient literary and philosophical text that can be appreciated more by modern readers if the historical circumstances of its composition are provided. Therefore, in addition to the summaries, Stone and Lopez also demonstrate how the main characters in the Lotus Sūtra and teachings of Buddha were understood in mainstream Indian (that is, non-Mahāyāna) Buddhism. From the authors’ summaries, the readers can clearly grasp major messages delivered in the Lotus Sūtra, such as the teaching of the one vehicle (一乘, ekayāna), skillful means (方便, upāyakauśalya), and Śākyamuni’s eternal abode in the Sahā world. Then by comparing the Lotus Sūtra with the background knowledge in mainstream Buddhism, modern readers, especially those who do not know much about Buddhism, can clearly see how the Lotus Sūtra reinterpreted mainstream Indian Buddhism and revealed a new Śākyamuni who ultimately never passes into parinirvāṇa. Citation: H-Net Reviews. Chen on Lopez Jr. and Stone, 'Two Buddhas Seated Side by Side: A Guide to the Lotus Sūtra'. H-Buddhism. 04-16-2021. https://networks.h-net.org/node/6060/reviews/7572516/chen-lopez-jr-and-stone-two-buddhas-seated-side-side-guide-lotus Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License. 1 H-Buddhism The only dissatisfaction I have about this part is how the authors present the parable of medicinal herbs in the fifth chapter of the Lotus Sūtra. When explaining the parable, the authors obviously reckon that the idea of single truth in this parable contradicts the multiplicity of skillful means in previous chapters. While the authors do try to resolve some apparent inconsistencies in Nichiren’s explanations of the Lotus Sūtra, it seems that they have no intention to resolve this tension. However, there are some historical resolutions to this tension that I would have liked to see discussed here. For example, in his explanation of this parable inMiaofa Lianhua Jing Wen Ju(妙法蓮華經文句), Zhiyi commented that while sentient beings are unaware that all five vehicles (namely, the vehicles of humans, gods, śrāvakas, pratyekabuddhas, and bodhisattva) are all Mahāyāna, the Buddha does know.[1] According to Zhiyi’s commentary, the parable of medicinal herbs actually raises the idea of ekayāna to a more inclusive level: seemingly, there are different skillful means, but ultimately, they are all Mahāyāna. Integrated with the summaries and background knowledge is an explanation of the narrative devices applied in the Lotus Sūtra. In brief, by placing other teachings as skillful means that guide the sentient beings to the Mahāyāna, the Lotus Sūtra referred to itself as the last and perfect teaching by the Buddha. Moreover, the Lotus Sūtra not only described itself as the last teaching by Śākyamuni Buddha but also referred to itself as primordial teaching taught by all previous Buddhas eons ago. By employing self-referential narratives and expanding the time scope in the sūtra, theLotus Sūtra aimed to establish its credibility and legitimacy in the context of mainstream Buddhism, and by deploying the famous parables, it attacked mainstream Buddhism by suggesting that it is the mainstream version of Śākyamuni, who would have to respond to the charge of lying (instead of the cosmic, skill-in-means-using Śākyamuni in theLotus Sūtra itself). Through the authors’ elegant elucidations, the readers can clearly see how the compilers/authors of the Lotus Sūtra applied those narrative devices throughout to legitimize theLotus Sūtra and counter the criticisms from mainstream Buddhism. Readers familiar with other Mahāyāna sūtras can also appreciate how unique and creative the Lotus Sūtra is within this genre of Buddhist scripture. The authors analyze the narrative strategies applied in the Lotus Sūtra primarily from the angle of the opposition between mainstream Buddhism and Mahāyāna texts. Furthermore, the authors implicitly suggest that the Mahāyāna sūtras are in the same camp in the Mahāyāna movement, facing the same opponent, mainstream Buddhism. This perspective may give the readers the impression that the narrative strategies used in theLotus Sūtra only aimed to rebut criticism from mainstream Buddhism. Indeed, as the authors propose, the Lotus Sūtra had to counter strong criticisms from mainstream Buddhism during its composition. However, if the Lotus Sūtra could also be compared with other Mahāyāna sūtras, the narrative strategies of theLotus Sūtra may be understood in a different way. For example, the contemporary Japanese scholar Satoshi Hiraoka has argued in his book that “the Lotus Sūtra aimed to transcend the dualistic discrimination between Mahāyāna and otherinferior teachings mentioned in the Vimalakīrti Nirdeśa Sūtra.”[2] Moreover, he suggested that “the intention behind the Lotus Sūtra was to surpass the Mahāyāna teaching advocated in Vimalakīrti Nirdeśa and Prajñāpāramitā Sūtras by proposing a new ekayāna teaching.”[3] Here I am not proposing that Hiraoka is correct but simply suggesting that if the relationship between the Lotus Sūtra and other Mahāyāna texts could also be taken into consideration, one may find that the criticisms the compilers of the Lotus Sūtra had to face were not only from mainstream Buddhism but perhaps also from the Citation: H-Net Reviews. Chen on Lopez Jr. and Stone, 'Two Buddhas Seated Side by Side: A Guide to the Lotus Sūtra'. H-Buddhism. 04-16-2021. https://networks.h-net.org/node/6060/reviews/7572516/chen-lopez-jr-and-stone-two-buddhas-seated-side-side-guide-lotus Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License. 2 H-Buddhism proponents of other Mahāyāna texts. Therefore, I would suggest that a more complete and richer explanation of the narrative strategies in the Lotus Sūtra could be obtained if the Lotus Sūtra could be examined in this broader context. The last theme of the book is hermeneutics. The authors primarily focus on how Nichiren, an important advocate of the Lotus Sūtra in Japan, interpreted the Lotus Sūtra. As the authors point out, both Ongi kuden and Okō kikigaki, two works traditionally taken as Nichiren’s lectures on the Lotus Sūtra, cannot be cited as Nichiren’s own writings from a scholarly perspective. Therefore, sorting out how Nichiren interpreted each chapter of theLotus Sūtra actually becomes a difficult task. Nevertheless, through their deep understanding of Nichiren’s works, the authors accomplish an admirable task identifying passages pertaining to each chapter of theLotus Sūtra from a great number of Nichiren’s writings. They beautifully illustrate how Nichiren annotated various passages from the Lotus Sūtra to support his polemic advocation of chanting the daimoku (題目), the title of the Lotus Sūtra, as the only means to attain the liberation in the so-called decline of the Dharma (mappō 末法) period. To elaborate on how Nichiren grounded the act of chanting the daimoku on the principle of Three Thousand Realms in a Single Thought Moment (一念三千) by Zhiyi, the authors also provide lucid explanations of Zhiyi’s complicated philosophy. Besides Nichiren’s philosophy, the authors clearly show how Nichiren linked his historical moment with the narratives in the Lotus Sūtra. Nichiren took the natural disasters, civil strife, and Mongol invasion that affected Japan in his lifetime as the result of disparaging theLotus Sūtra. He then proposed that the Bakufu, the military government that ruled Japan in his time, should only support the Lotus Sūtra and abandon all other Buddhist sects.
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