The Sutra of Innumerable Meanings
Rev. Nikkyo Niwano
Founder, Rissho Kosei-kai
The Sutra of Innumerable Meanings contains the teachings that Shakyamuni delivered at Divine Eagle Peak (Mount Gridhrakuta) outside the city of Rajagriha in the kingdom of Magadha,just before he expounded the Sutra of the Lotus Flower of the Wonderful Dharma (Lotus Sutra), also at Divine Eagle Peak. After that, he entered a long meditation. When he came out of it, he started to expound the Lotus Sutra.
Judging from these circumstances, reading and understanding the Sutra of Innumerable Meanings is considered necessary before going on to the Lotus Sutra itself, which forms the bulk and essence of the Threefold Lotus Sutra, to settle the spirit and prepare the mind to receive what is to follow. Also, when we get into the content of the doctrine, we deeply feel that we can fully understand the Lotus Sutra only with the prior reading and understanding of the Sutra of Innumerable Meanings.
Innumerable Meanings
The title of the sutra indicates a “teaching that possesses an innumerable number of meanings.” The exposition goes on to explain that “the teaching that possesses innumerable meanings arises from just one truth.” This one truth, moreover, is the state of “having no attributes,” but since the sutra does not explain this in detail, its meaning is left unclear. However, this ambiguity is resolved in the Lotus Sutra, which Shakyamuni teaches next. Shakyamuni explains what “having no attributes” means in exhaustive detail in the Lotus Sutra, and since the teaching of innumerable meanings ultimately boils down to the truth taught in the Lotus Sutra, the Sutra of Innumerable Meanings reveals that the Lotus Sutra is the most essential teaching expounded by Shakyamuni during his entire life.
However, as chapter 2, “Expounding the Dharma” is the core of the Sutra of Innumerable Meanings, which constitutes Shakyamuni’s answer to the question of the Bodhisattva Great Adornment, only bodhisattvas who had accumulated extraordinary practices could understand its profundity. Shakyamuni had therefore arranged in his mind the order of the discourses he was going to deliver. In other words, the Lotus Sutra is nothing other than the scripture in which, after having expounded the “innumerable meanings,” Shakyamuni has finally explained the meaning of “having no attributes,” namely, the “ultimate reality,” which is the fundamental basis of his teachings, from all angles so that everyone could understand it. In short, he has revealed the “ultimate truth” to the ordinary people for the first time. This is why the Sutra of Innumerable Meanings is considered the sutra that opens up the Lotus Sutra, which is the sutra of the truth, following his exposition of the sutras of skillful means. It is also for this reason that deeper understanding of the Lotus Sutra is considered possible only when we read the Sutra of Innumerable Meanings first, and because of that, the Sutra of Innumerable Meanings is referred to as the “opening sutra” of the Threefold Lotus Sutra.
This is an English translation of text originally appeared in Japanese in Hokke sanbu kyo: Kaku hon no aramashi to yoten, (Kosei Publishing, 1991 [revised edition, 2016], pp. 10–12).