Wednesday, April 08, 2009

Upaya of the Lotus Sutra

As I was trying to teach about Mahayana Buddhism today (in Religious Ethics) and the broad significance of upaya kausalya (skilful means/ expedient devices), the Lotus Sutra came to my aid. In its 2nd chapter, the Buddha explains:

There are not two,
nor are there yet three [teachings],
Save where the Buddha,
preaching by resort to expedients,
And by merely borrowing
provisional names and words,
Draws the beings to him.

It came to me that all was contained in those four words: names, words, provisional and borrowing, considered in that order. Names suggest things have essences when in fact they're empty, and words make it seem things can be named; in fact, all language use - skimming the surfaces of conventional truth - can only be provisional, though few realize this; the Buddha skilfully borrows the words suffering beings are using - the only ones they (we) can understand at that point - in order to lead them to enlightenment and ultimate reality beyond the snares of these and all words.

I'm not sure whether I drew the students to me; I certainly felt things make sense to me in a new way. But I also felt a little like Dogen, drawing an entire philosophy (indeed an antiphilosophy) out of four words in a sutra taken out of sequence - is my Mahayana a bit too generic?