Lotus Sutra

Illustration of a floating jeweled stupa in a 1257 manuscript of the Lotus Sutra from Japan

The Lotus Sutra (Sanskrit: Saddharma Puṇḍarīka Sūtram; Chinese: 妙法蓮華經) is one of the most influential and venerated Buddhist Mahāyāna sūtras.

Quotes

Kubo, Tsugunari; Yuyama, Akira (2007). The Lotus Sutra. BDK English Tripiṭaka. Moraga, California: Bukkyō Dendō Kyōkai America. ISBN 978-1-886439-39-9. 

(Original Chinese text)

• I lead and inspire the bodhisattvas only with the path of the single vehicle; I am here without disciples.
  • Chapter 2: Skillful Means

• To those who are modest and pure, and seek the path of the buddhas, I will praise extensively the path of the single vehicle.
  • Chapter 2: Skillful Means

• I am the father of the world, the best of the sages. All sentient beings are my children. They are deeply attached to worldly pleasures and have no wisdom. There is no peace in the triple world, just like in the burning house, which is full of various suffering and which is extremely terrifying. There are always the sufferings of birth, old age, illness, and death. Such fires as these burn endlessly. The Tathāgata, who has already left the burning house of the triple world, lives in tranquility and dwells at ease in the forest. Now this triple world is my property and the sentient beings in it are my children. There are now many dangers here and I am the only one who can protect them.
  • Chapter 3: A Parable

• O Kāśyapa! Suppose in the great manifold cosmos there are mountains, rivers, valleys, and plains where many kinds of grasses, trees, shrubs, and herbs of different names and colors grow. Dense clouds thoroughly cover this great manifold cosmos and rain falls at the same time everywhere, moistening the small, medium, and large roots, stems, branches, and leaves of all the grasses, trees, shrubs, and herbs.
  The sizes of all the trees depend on whether their capacities are superior, mediocre, or inferior; and the rain falling from the same cloud makes them grow according to the nature of their various seeds. Flowers blossom in the same place and fruit ripens in the same place moistened by the same rain, yet there are differences among these grasses and trees.
  O Kāśyapa! You should know that the Tathāgata is exactly like this. He appears in this world like a great overspreading cloud. His great voice resounds over the devas, humans, and asuras in the world, just as the great cloud thoroughly covers the great manifold cosmos.
  • Chapter 5: Herbs

• What you have attained is not the ultimate goal. You must call forth great efforts in order to obtain the omniscience of a buddha. If you attain omniscience and the qualities of the Buddha, such things as the ten powers, and become endowed with the thirty-two marks, then you will have attained the ultimate goal.
  • Chapter 7: The Apparitional City

• The intimate friend who gave him the jewel meets this poor man later and bitterly reproaches him, showing him the jewel that had been sewn into his garment. The poor man, seeing this jewel, rejoices greatly, and with this rich treasure he enjoys to his satisfaction the desires of the five senses. We are exactly like this. For a long time, the Bhagavat has led and inspired us through his compassion, and planted in us the highest aspiration. Because we were ignorant, we neither noticed nor knew; we were satisfied with attaining only a small measure of nirvana and did not seek for the rest.
  • Chapter 8: The Five Hundred Disciples Receive Their Predictions

• If, in the presence of the Buddha any beings such as these hear a single verse or line of the Lotus Sutra, and thereupon have even one thought of rejoicing in it, I will bestow upon them my prediction that they will attain highest, complete enlightenment.
  • Chapter 10: The Expounder of the Dharma

• If I become a buddha, after my parinirvāṇa if the Lotus Sutra is being taught anywhere in all the lands of the ten directions, my stupa shall appear there so that this sutra may be heard, and in order that I may bear testimony to it and praise it with the word “Splendid!”
  • Chapter 11: The Appearance of a Jeweled Stupa

• At that time there was a sage called Asita who came to the great king and said: "I possess a subtle and true Dharma that is rare in the world. If you are able to practice it, I will explain it to you!"
  • Chapter 12: Devadatta

• When the Buddha said this all the lands of the great manifold cosmos in the sahā world quaked and the earth split. From out of this crevice there simultaneously appeared incalculable thousands of myriads of koṭis of bodhisattva mahāsattvas. All of these bodhisattvas had golden bodies endowed with the thirty-two marks and radiating immeasurable rays of light. They had all previously been living in the space under the earth of the sahā world. Having heard the sound of Śākyamuni’s teaching, all of these bodhisattvas emerged from below.
  • Chapter 15: Bodhisattvas Emerging from the Earth

• The world is impermanent like splashes of water, bubbles, a mirage! The feeling of repulsion for it should quickly awaken in you!
  • Chapter 18: The Merits of Joyful Acceptance

• This sutra is profound and difficult to encounter even in thousands of myriads of koṭis of kalpas.
  • Chapter 18: The Merits of Joyful Acceptance

• If sons or daughters of a virtuous family preserve this Lotus Sutra, recite, explain, and copy it, they will attain eight hundred qualities of the eye, twelve hundred qualities of the ear, eight hundred qualities of the nose, twelve hundred qualities of the tongue, eight hundred qualities of the body, and twelve hundred qualities of the mind. These qualities will adorn the six sense faculties, purifying them all. Through the natural bodily eyes given them by their parents, which are thus purified, those sons and daughters of a virtuous family will see the mountains, forests, rivers, and oceans both within and beyond the great manifold cosmos, all the way from the lowest hell up as far as the highest summit of the universe. They will also see all the sentient beings there, perceive and know the causes and consequences of their deeds and of their states of birth.
  • Chapter 19: The Benefits Obtained by an Expounder of the Dharma

• I deeply respect you. I dare not belittle you. Why is this? Because all of you practice the bodhisattva path, and will become buddhas.
  • Chapter 20: Bodhisattva Sadāparibhūta

• Those who accept, recite, explain, and copy it, and practice according to the teaching, in whichever land they may be, in a place where the sutra abides—either in a garden, a forest, under a tree, in a monk’s chamber, in a layman’s house, in a palace, on a mountain, in a valley, or in the wilderness—in all of these places they should erect and pay homage to a monument. Why is this? Because you should know that these places are the terraces of enlightenment where all the buddhas have attained highest, complete enlightenment, where all the buddhas have turned the wheel of the Dharma, and where all the buddhas entered parinirvāṇa.
  • Chapter 21: The Transcendent Powers of the Tathāgata

• Those who preserve this sutra will before long attain the Dharma, the hidden essence, which was attained by the buddhas seated upon the terrace of enlightenment.
  • Chapter 21: The Transcendent Powers of the Tathāgata

• For immeasurable hundreds of thousands of myriads of koṭis of incalculable kalpas, I practiced this Dharma of highest, complete enlightenment, which is hard to attain. I now entrust it to you. You should preserve and recite it. You should spread this teaching extensively. You should let all the sentient beings hear and know it.
  • Chapter 22: Entrustment