KWOON - Threefold Lotus Martial Arts

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What is Daimoku

April 11, 2006

Now there is a good question. There are a few of Nichiren's writings that tackle this subject from the perspective of the Lotus Sutra and many Buddhist texts and teachings. I will include those in the body of this essay. Before I go to those sources however, I would like to offer a more contemporary view based on Buddhist thought, Buddhist cosmology, and Quantum Theory and Mechanics.

Many people, and perhaps most, can envision benefit from quiet meditation. Whether it is labeled contemplative time or thought, self-reflection, quieting the mind, re-unification with the void, or what-have-you; the act of meditation is acceptable to almost all people in some form. The instant the idea of chanting a mantra is added to the meditative practice walls and military opposition appear faster than a belly rash on a snake. For some reason, many people are suddenly insulted or simply repulsed at the idea that magic words can be uttered to cast a spell on "reality". Hee hee, all right, this is a bit dramatic, but nonetheless a very true statement. This is what I first want to address.

There are a few misconceptions that appear right at the start of this misunderstanding that we need to clear up. One is the "magic words" perception. Any true Buddhist would laugh at the interpretation of a mantra as "magic" in any conventional sense of the word. No the mantra does not perform "magic". This misperception lies in the assigned property of "language" to the chant. Though the sounds of a chant are made with and through the mouth, It is not the objective of the sound to "speak" to something, but rather to Unify with something. The Buddhist objective is to unify our mind with the impermanent structure of life and the universe. So the "communication" of chanting is one of "joining" one's mind to an extant "process" of "becoming". And here is where we run into another powerful stumbling block. Did he say "impermanent"? Yup. These ideas will lockup transmissions faster than a rhino stampede on a freeway interchange. The perception that all things in the universe, on our planet, in our living rooms, are "real", in the sense that they all have an "intrinsic" reality; some sort of permanence. After all, the couch doesn't disappear the moment I leave the room.

From the book "Quantum and the Lotus", a dialogue between an astrophysicist and a Buddhist Monk cosmologist, I have chosen the following excerpts to help define and better understand the relationship science and Buddhism have between us, the observers; and them, the stuff of the universe. First, let us deal with the notion of permanence and "reality".

M: Alan Wallace wrote, "Human beings define the objects and events of the world that we experience. Those things do not exist intrinsically, or absolutely, as we define or conceive of them. They do not exist intrinsically at all. But this is not to say that they do not exist. The entities that we identify exist in relation to us, and they perform the function that we attribute to them. But their very existence, as we define them, is dependent upon our verbal and conceptual designation

T: I agree with this view because quantum theory backs it up. The discovery of light's dual nature was certainly a great surprise for physicists. But what's even stranger is that matter has exactly the same duality. What we call an electron, or any other of the elementary particles, can also appear as a wave. Thus the particle and wave aspects cannot be dissociated; rather they complement one another. This is what Niels Bohr called the 11 principle of complementarity." He saw this complementarity as the inevitable result of the interaction between a phenomenon and the apparatus used to measure it. According to him, it isn't so much reality that is dual, but the results of experimental interactions.6
The act of observing also introduces quantum fuzziness. This is expressed in Heisenberg' s uncertainty principle, which tells us that it is impossible to define precisely at the same time an electron's position and its speed. To determine the position of an electron, we have to shed light on it. But the photons in the light relay their energy to the electron in this process, and the higher the energy, the more they disturb its movement. We are thus up against a dilemma: the more we decrease the uncertainty of the electron's position by shining light on it, so that we can see it, the more we increase the uncertainty of its movement. On the other hand, if we use only low?energy light, we don't disturb its movement much, but we increase the uncertainty of its position. The act of determining the one aspect of the electron eliminates the possibility of determining the other. Thus, talk of an "objective" reality without any observer is meaningless, because it can never be perceived. All we can do is capture a subjective aspect of an electron, depending on the observer and the apparatus used. The form that this reality then takes is inextricably bound up with our presence. We are no longer passive spectators faced with a tumult of atoms, but full participants.

M: But this still tells us nothing about the ultimate reality of this particle?if such a reality exists. Neither the particle nor the wave, nor, for that matter, any other entity, exists inherently. For example, I suppose that we can't affirm that the particle existed before it was observed?

T: Before measurement, all we can talk about is a wave of probability.

M: If when we say "particle" we mean something with an intrinsic or even permanent reality, and if it didn't exist before it was observed, nothing could bring it to life. How could an entity that contains all the qualities we usually attribute to a particle abruptly pass from nothingness to existence? When a particle appears, either it does not exist independently as an entity, or it has been created ex nihilo.

T: And yet before, there was a wave. There was something, not a complete vacuum!

M: Buddhism doesn't talk about a complete vacuum?that would be nihilistic?but "lack of intrinsic existence." It is for this reason that, depending on the circumstances and on the experimental technique, an unreal phenomenon can appear to be either particle or a wave.

T: Our debate here is precisely the one that went on between Einstein and the originators of the Copenhagen Interpretation of Quantum Physics, Niels Bohr, Werner Heisenberg, and Wolfgang Pauli. The interpretation is given this name because the institute run by Bohr, where Heisenberg and Pauli were frequent visitors, was in Copenhagen. In simple terms, it says that "atoms form a world of potentials and possibilities, rather than of things and facts." According to Heisenberg, "in quantum physics, the notion of a trajectory does not even exiSt."7 This view could not be further from Einstein's dogmatic realism.
This is how Heisenberg summed up Einstein's counterargument: "This interpretation does not describe what actually happens independently or in between the observations. But something must happen, this we cannot doubt.... The physicist must postulate in his science that he is studying a world which he himself has not made and which would be present, essentially unchanged, if he were not there. We could call this position of Einstein's one of material realism.

Heisenberg's response to this objection of Einstein's is complex, but I think it is important to offer in his own words:

"It is easily seen that what this criticism demands is again the old materialistic ontology. But what can the answer from the point of view of the Copenhagen interpretation be? ... The demand to "describe" what 'happens' in the quantum?theoretical process between two successive observations is a contradiction in adjecto, since the word "describe" refers to the use of classical concepts, while these concepts cannot be applied in the space between the observations.... The ontology of materialism rested upon the illusion that the kind of existence, the direct "actuality" of the world around us, can be extrapolated into the atomic range. This extrapolation is impossible, however'"

M: A Buddhist philosopher would be in complete agreement with this answer.

T: Personally, I also agree with Heisenberg. As I've already said, quantum mechanics has always been confirmed by experimentation and has never been caught out. Einstein got it wrong, and his material realism cannot be defended. According to Bohr and Heisenberg, when we speak of atoms and electrons, we shouldn't see them as real entities, with well?defined properties such as speed and position, tracing out equally well?defined trajectories. The "atom" concept is simply an image that helps physicists put together diverse observations of the particle world into a coherent and logical scheme. Bohr also spoke of the impossibility of going beyond the results of experiments and measurements: "In our description of nature the purpose is not to disclose the real essence of phenomena but only to track down, so far as possible, relations between the manifold aspects of our experience.

M: His viewpoint is similar to that of my former teacher Francois Jacob, who said, "It thus seems clear that the physicists' description of atoms is not the exact and unchanging reflection of a revealed truth. It is a model, an abstraction, the result of centuries of effort focused by physicists on a small number of phenomena in order to construct a coherent picture of the world. The description of the atom is as much a creation as it is a discovery~" But this doesn't stop most people from imagining atoms as Little balls they could pick up if they had tools that were small enough.

T: Schroedinger warned us against such a materialistic view of atoms and their constituents: "It is better not to view a particle as a permanent entity, but rather as an instantaneous event. Sometimes these events link together to create the illusion of permanent entities."

M: The ring of light created by a rotating flashlight isn't an 'object." The world of phenomena is made up of events that can't remain stable from one moment to the next. If they did, they'd stay frozen forever. Since such moments are transient, they have no duration, and the events concerned cannot exist independently. So we cannot assume that, one day, we'll know all of the characteristics of the event "particle." It appears to us in different forms because of interdependence, which is synonymous with the "absence of intrinsic being."

The essential point is that a phenomenon's characteristics do not belong to it intrinsically. For instance, when we say that mass can be converted into energy, this comes down to saying that mass isn't a property that we can always associate with the "particle event."

T: That's right. As with light, the nature of matter isn't immutable. Energy can be converted into matter. This is often done in particle accelerators. Energy can come from mass (as in Einstein's famous equation E = mc') or from movement. In the latter case, this means that an object's property can be converted into an object. Inversely, matter can be converted into energy?this is what makes the sun shine, for example. By converting a tiny fraction of its mass of hydrogen (0.7 percent) into light (photons), our star allows life to exist on earth.

So, "reality" is not a solid concept. Reality is in fact, relative to experience. So how do we "unify our individual existence with the whole of existence? For this question we need to dig a little deeper in to the structure of the universe. Quantum Mechanics provides very unlikely clues to the fundamental structure of all mater and the universe. Here are some interesting excerpts on the vibrations of the universe…

THE QUANTUM AND THE LOTUS

M:?And so reality isn't as solid as we think.

T: In order to cover all bases, I should also mention string theory, which we've discussed before. This theory describes quarks not as mathematical points, but as infinitesimally small vibrating strings. It aims to unify general relativity, which describes the infinitely large, and quantum mechanics, which describes the infinitely small. The apparent incompatibility of these two great theories is one of the main stumbling blocks that prevents us from getting a better understanding of the universe. If they could be reconciled, we would then have a theory of quantum gravity, which would let us unite nature's four forces (electromagnetism, the weak and strong nuclear forces, and gravity) into one superforce. String theory, which is also known as the theory of superstrings, has been proposed as this ultimate theory, allowing us to describe all the phenomena in the universe.

According to this theory, particles aren't the fundamental elements, but are vibrations of infinitely small strings of energy, measuring 10?33 centimeters, which is none other than the Planck length. The length of one of these pieces of string in comparison to an atom is equivalent to the size of a tree compared to the universe. Particles of matter and light that transmit forces bring together the world's different parts so they interact with one another and change. For instance, the photon transmits the electromagnetic force, while the graviton transmits gravity. All these particles could just be the various manifestations of these strings. just as the strings of a violin vibrate, these strings vibrate and generate tones and harmonics that are detected by our measuring instruments as protons, neutrons, electrons, and so on.

The energy of the vibration determines the particle's mass. The more energetic the vibration, the greater the mass. In the same way, a particle's electric charge and spin are determined by how the string vibrates. The strings are all basically the same. All that varies is how they vibrate. For example, a proton is simply a trio of vibrating strings, each of which corresponds to a quark. just as musicians charm us by playing a piece by Brahms, the combined vibrations of these three strings produce the music of a proton. When our measuring apparatus captures it, the music comes out as a mass, a positive electric charge, and a spin.

The music of an atom, which is made up of protons, neutrons, and electrons, is played by even more musicians in an even larger orchestra. In this way, strings sing and vibrate all around us, and the universe is in fact a vast symphony.

M: These strings are obviously not inherently protons, neutrons, or electrons. This confirms Buddhism's analysis of matter: an object's characteristics do not belong to it. What exists is a stream of constant transformations that appear in various forms.

T: Particles lose their inherent existence, given that the same strings can appear in different guises when they vibrate at different frequencies. If one of them vibrates in a certain way, it appears as a photon. If it then changes its tune, it becomes a graviton.

M: If particles are just vibrating strings, do the strings have a permanent existence?

T: The strings replace quarks as basic entities, but they can appear either as strings or as waves. Instead of being dimensionless mathematical points, they are shaped like infinitely thin pieces of string apparently existing in only one dimension, rather like tiny pieces of spaghetti. They are so small that even our most accurate instruments see them as points. But they also have "hidden" dimensions. According to one version of the theory, the strings exist in a ten?dimensional universe, with nine space dimensions and one time dimension. In another version, the universe has twenty?six dimensions, twenty?five of them being spatial and one being temporal. We can see only three spatial dimensions; the other six or twenty?two dimensions are shrunk so tightly (to the Planck size of 10?33 centimeters) that they can't be seen.

M: Can you explain more about what these vibrating strings are supposed to be like?

T: We can say that a string can be described in terms of its energy (or frequency) and its tension (like the tension of a violin string). Two strings…

Pretty fascinating stuff, don't you think?

This is a very important question. To those who have not dedicated regularly in their daily lives the time to contemplate, study, and practice spiritual teachings, no amount of explanation will have value. Some things must be experienced to build understanding. I have included in this letter a writing of Nichiren's on this exact topic. But before I simply turn you over to his gosho, and there are many that deal with this question, I would like to offer a personal response.

As you suggest, there is much to be gained from proper breathing and meditation. All practices such as these have their foundation in ancient Indian and Chinese practices from Ayurvedics, yoga, qigong, and myriad Brahmanist, Hindu, Jainist and Buddhist traditions and teachings. There is even evidence of such practices by Mayan, Aztec and many indigenous cultures. I must offer to you that the title of the Lotus Sutra is not strictly a language in the conventional sense. The combination of the sounds and vibrations made by chanting the Sanskrit symbols, representing concepts rather than specific references, is something transcendent to the limitations or definitions of language. In a simplistic sense, all meditation is passive, and awaits epiphany (i.e. Chan or Zen). This is an important concept to remember. The Buddha's culminating teaching of the Lotus Sutra makes very clear to discard all previous teachings as merely provisional. The Buddha then taught the most expedient way to attain the higher states of consciousness innate within us. What he taught was that passive meditation was a provisional means to assist some to attain enlightenment, but that active meditation of the Lotus Flower Sutra was the most expedient means to enlightenment for all human beings throughout all time. So to create the energy flow of one's innate Buddha nature in this moment, in this lifetime, without fail, by breathing and chanting the daimoku Nam (u)-myoho-renge-kyo, all are guaranteed to enter Buddhahood.

This is not linguistics; it is methodology. Your statement however, that you seek "essence" "beyond" the "language", "core", and the "breath", is pure semantics. How do core and essence differ? I don't mean to pick, but this sounds allot like new age babble. Perhaps you agree. Buddhism, like science, has always been based on observable phenomena. And Buddhism is always ready to assimilate new insights. This makes it a living philosophy rather than a dogmatic idiom trapped in rhetoric and semantics.

In my own teachings of Quantum Life, I explore the astounding congruencies of Quantum Physics and Mechanics to Buddhist cosmology and thinking. One of the congruencies I find has direct correlation to the chanting of the daimoku. The ephemeral existence of particles as observable only as either particle or wave, yet exhibiting the behaviour of both has at its core mechanics the behaviour of vibration and frequency as properties inherent in both states. Although we "know" both states co-exist at the same time, we can only observe one at a time in any given moment. This is true of all sub-atomic "particles". Since sub-atomic particles are the building block of all phenomena, this also validates the Buddhist canon of impermanence, which states that all observable phenomena are transient and exist only through the construct of our minds. Our very existence is of this impermanent structure. Therefore, it makes perfect sense to me that creating that vibration within myself is an expedient means at perceiving the true nature of the universe. Further, it would also make sense that this is a particular vibration with particular frequency peculiar to this instantiation of this universe. I would cite as example the specific resonance, frequency and intensity of certain musical notes to shatter glass or eardrums, or travel through great distances in an ocean to communicate with an underwater mammal.

I do sympathize with your sensitivity to the word "faith". I have found no reason to believe that the word "faith" was ever used or intended in the Buddhist vernacular or teachings. Rather, I believe this is an adaptation of the Western mind to Buddhist concepts not understood. I prefer to replace the words "awakening of innate interdependence and impermanence" to replace each instance of the word "faith". You can do this easily on a computer with a search and replace command. I offer this to you for less stressful reading with less obstacles to your appreciation of the text.

Here is the gosho on the subject for your perusal. I hope this helps. You can access all of Nichiren's writings online. I have a link to the library on the first page of my website at http://threefoldlotus.com.

The One Essential Phrase

First, for you to ask a question about the Lotus Sutra is a rare source of good fortune. In this age of the Latter Day of the Law, those who ask about the meaning of even one phrase or verse of the Lotus Sutra are much fewer than those who can hurl great Mount Sumeru to another land like a stone, or those who can kick the entire galaxy away like a ball. They are even fewer than those who can embrace and teach countless other sutras, thereby enabling the priests and laymen who listen to them to obtain the six mystic powers. Equally rare is a priest who can explain the meaning of the Lotus Sutra and clearly answer questions concerning it. The Hoto chapter in the fourth volume of the Lotus Sutra sets forth the important principle of six difficult and nine easy acts. Your asking a question about the Lotus Sutra is among the six difficult acts. This is a sure indication that if you embrace the Lotus Sutra, you will certainly attain Buddhahood. Since the Lotus Sutra defines our life as the Buddha's life, our mind as the Buddha's wisdom and our actions as the Buddha's behaviour, all who embrace and believe in even a single phrase or verse of this sutra will be endowed with these three properties. Nam-myoho-renge-kyo is only one phrase, but it contains the essence of the entire sutra. You asked whether one can attain Buddhahood only by chanting Nam-myoho-renge-kyo, and this is the most important question of all. It is the heart of the entire sutra and the substance of its eight volumes.

The spirit within one's body may appear in just his face, and the spirit within his face may appear in just his eyes. Included within the word Japan is all that is within the country's sixty-six provinces: all of the people and animals, the rice paddies and other fields, those of high and low status, the nobles and the commoners, the seven kinds of gems and all other treasures. Similarly, included within the title, Nam-myoho-renge-kyo, is the entire sutra consisting of all eight volumes, twenty-eight chapters and 69,384 characters without exception. Concerning this, Po Chu-i stated that the title is to the sutra as eyes are to the Buddha. In the eighth volume of his Hokke Mongu Ki, Miao-lo stated that T'ien-t'ai's Hokke Gengi explains only the title, but that the entire sutra is thereby included. By this he meant that, although the text was omitted, the entire sutra was contained in the title alone. Everything has its essential point, and the heart of the Lotus Sutra is its title, Nam-myoho-renge-kyo. Truly, if you chant this in the morning and evening, you are correctly reading the entire Lotus Sutra. Chanting daimoku twice is the same as reading the entire sutra twice, one hundred daimoku equal one hundred readings of the sutra, and a thousand daimoku, a thousand readings of the sutra. Thus if you ceaselessly chant daimoku, you will be continually reading the Lotus Sutra. The sixty volumes of the T'ien-t'ai doctrine present exactly the same interpretation. A law this easy to embrace and this easy to practice was taught for the sake of all mankind in this evil age of the Latter Day of the Law. A passage from the Lotus Sutra reads, "During the Latter Day of the Law, if one wishes to teach this sutra, he should employ the mild way of propagation." Another reads, "In the Latter Day when the Law is about to perish, a person who embraces, reads and recites this sutra must abandon feelings of envy and deceit." A third states, "In the Latter Day of the Law, one who embraces this sutra will be carrying out all forms of service to the Buddha." A fourth reads, "In the fifth five hundred years after my death, accomplish worldwide kosen-rufu and never allow its flow to cease." The intent of all these teachings is the admonition to embrace and believe in the Lotus Sutra in this Latter Day of the Law. The heretical priests in Japan, China and India have all failed to comprehend this obvious meaning. The Nembutsu, Shingon, Zen and Ritsu sects follow either the Hinayana or the provisional Mahayana teachings but have discarded the Lotus Sutra. They misunderstand Buddhism, but they do not realize their mistakes. Because they appear to be true priests, the people trust them without the slightest doubt. Therefore, without realizing it, both these priests and the people who follow them have become enemies of the Lotus Sutra and foes of Shakyamuni Buddha. From the viewpoint of the sutra, it is certain that not only will all their wishes remain unfulfilled, but their lives will be short and, after this life, they will be doomed to the hell of incessant suffering.

Even though one neither reads nor studies the sutra, chanting the title alone is the source of tremendous good fortune. The sutra teaches that women, evil men, and those in the realms of Animality and Hell--in fact, all the people of the Ten Worlds--can attain Buddhahood. We can comprehend this when we remember that fire can be produced by a stone taken from the bottom of a river, and a candle can light up a place that has been dark for billions of years. If even the most ordinary things of this world are such wonders, then how much more wondrous is the power of the Mystic Law. The lives of human beings are fettered by evil karma, earthly desires and the inborn sufferings of life and death. But due to the three inherent potentials of Buddha nature--innate Buddhahood, the wisdom to become aware of it, and the action to manifest it--our lives can without doubt come to reveal the Buddha's three properties. The Great Teacher Dengyo declared that the power of the Lotus Sutra enables anyone to manifest Buddhahood. He stated this because even the Dragon King's daughter was able to attain Buddhahood through the power of the Lotus Sutra. Do not doubt this in the least. Let your husband know that I will explain this in detail when I see him.

Nichiren
The third day of the seventh month in the first year of Koan (1278).

The above Gosho answers the same questions about Daimoku, but in a stricter Buddhist teaching parameter. I took special care to describe the sound of the daimoku as the product of ancient Sanskrit conceptual symbols. If there is any Asian tone to it is more likely Chinese than Japanese, and only due to the transliteration of Nagarjuna, the Honored Indian Buddhist scholar who translated the text to Chinese in the 5th century.

The Indian Hindi translation reads Saddarmhapundarikasutram, if that suits you better. However, this is not the form the Buddha taught as he left India and headed East into China. His prediction was that the true teaching for our times would come from Japan, but Nichiren, although Japanese, adheres to the translations used by all Buddhist scholars to this day, due to the fine accuracy of Nagarjuna's work.

Besides this information, the argument that a mantra is meaningless demonstrates a profound lack of understanding of the impermanence of all phenomena and our conscious interaction with the entire universe through our actions. Thoughts are the most basic and least resonant. Words have much greater influence as greater still are actual deeds. All movement "causes" vibration. The entire universe is vibration. This vibration is the tension of the life force between wave and particle, existence and non-existence, manifest and non-manifest. To sit numbly and clear one's mind is helpful for perception and clarity in the phenomenal "relative" reality, but transcendence is impossible to achieve expediently without direct experience by immersion of the consciousness into the whole of the universe conscience and its fundamental "base" vibration. And yes, I believe it must be somewhat specific, just as each elemental "particle" has a specific mass, valance, and frequency.

If these ideas somehow frighten your concept of "reality", you are not alone. Many great thinkers of the past few centuries and today have difficulty with this. All I can do at this point is recommend some current and well-written readings from scientific and Philosophical texts. Obviously, ancient texts will only hold interest once the contemporary "language" is accepted. I can see that path as it strongly resembles my own. I have recently read a terrific book on Kabbalah, titled "God is a Verb" by Rabbi David S. Cooper. He is a Buddhist and doesn't know it... :-). Judaism is misrepresented and misunderstood by many Jews.

Moving along, I believe the material I have sent you so far is very challenging and supportive to active meditation. If, however, you are not ready to entertain the attempt, I cannot force you nor do I wish to strengthen your resistance. We all have our own path. As books go, the Quantum and the Lotus ISBN 1-4000-8079-7 is a little gem of information and useful debate, and cheap. I highly recommend it. Oh and, there has been no mention of Nam-myoho-renge-kyo in it thus far, or any other chant for that matter.

With best regards and respect,

Rev. Sylvain Chamberland, Nyudo

BACKGROUND

This essay was written to address questions posed by a friend and student of the reverend living over 2000 miles away. Her questions dig deeply into the fundamental precepts of Buddhist practice, thought, and cosmology. Drawing from several sources, the reverend has constructed an answer that provides insight from the ancient texts and teachings, as well as from modern scientific methods and Buddhist cosmology.

----- Original Message -----
From: Lynn
Sent: Monday, April 10, 2006 11:25 PM
Subject: Re: Why Daimoku?

Again...I hope you don't perceive this as disrespectful.

In "water-quality-land" we have devices and practices called "best management practices" (BMPs...dammit)...and the BMPs are not accepted by the permitting agency unless they have adequate test results from various outside, independent organizations. There is some place up in Washington State everyone has a hard-on over...I don't remember where it is...

So anyways...is there some outside test that has been run on the "Nam Myoho Renge Kyo" concept?...I am looking for the hard observation???...not the warm, fuzzy...I got the Mercedes-of-my-desire kinda thing. You know that won't cut it... some of the Nichiren language in the link you sent is just beyond nutty for me...a "koto strung with a lion's sinews, then all the other kinds of strings will snap" is just "effed" up...And if you so much as hear the words "pickled plum," your mouth will begin to water" (NO)..."parrots, simply by twittering the four noble truths of the Hinayana teachings, were able to be reborn in heaven"...heavenly parrots, sounds like Catholicism...Jesus, Mary and Joseph too... and then he goes on to say..."Thus faith is the basic requirement for entering the way of the Buddha..."...NO...it has to be mindful...faith is forever a mindless follower.

The more I read about this the more ludicrous it seems...while I can grasp the english equivalent as a poem, muttering the unintelligible-to-my-ear Japanese seems pointless...

Please understand that I don't get it and this is a form of suffering...
Rats...
Lynn