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Lotus Blooms in the Sky Beyond
The Lotus Sutra is a foundational Mahayana sutra, translated into many languages, with the original Sanskrit preserved in Nepal. At Plum Village, there is a facsimile on palm leaves, and the sutra has given rise to important schools such as the Tiantai School in China and the Lotus School in Vietnam. The lotus flower is a symbol of purity and enlightenment, rising from the mud without being soiled, representing the awakened person living in the world of defilements while maintaining their pure nature.
The main content of the Lotus Sutra revolves around two dimensions:
- The historical dimension (the manifested dimension): where all phenomena “are born and die,” like waves rising and falling
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The ultimate dimension: where the true nature is neither born nor dies, unchanging and transcending all transformations
Through the image of waves and water, the Buddha teaches that although waves have the appearance of birth and death, their noumena is water – neither born nor dying. The Buddha, like Christ, also undergoes birth and death in the historical dimension but has the ultimate dimension of the unborn and undying. It is this state of the unborn and undying that helps practitioners lessen their suffering when losing loved ones and smile in the face of birth and death.
During retreats in Moscow after the fall of the Soviet Union, the rate of taking refuge and receiving the Five Mindfulness Trainings reached 480 out of 500 people, second only to Italy. In America, although 500–700 people took refuge at once, the rate was still lower. To open the stupa of Many Treasures in the Lotus Sutra, the Buddha summoned countless manifestations from the ten directions, showing that the ontological ground of the unborn and undying is present everywhere. From there, the Lotus Sutra encourages us to look at our teacher and ourselves with the eyes of signlessness, to recognize that all limited forms are only skillful means, while the true nature is boundless and indestructible.