Preface to the Essentials of the Lotus Sūtra

By the Haedong Master Wonhyo

The Lotus Sūtra contains the great intent for which all Buddhas of the ten directions and three times appeared in the world. It is the vast gateway through which the nine realms and four modes of birth enter into the one vehicle. Its words are skillful and its meaning is profound; there is no decoration that does not return to the truth, and though the expressions are diverse, the principle is unified. No dharma is untrue. The great language is more skillful than mere flowers, yet it is not empty. The principle is deep and partakes of reality, without being narrow.

"Deep and partaking of reality" means there is no duality and no distinction. "Skillful and flowery language" means opening the expedient to reveal the true. Opening the expedient means opening the three carts outside the gate; this is the middle path of the expedient means. The city reached is merely a transformation. Achieving the way under the tree was not a matter of structural construction. The flowing celebration is not a matter of showing the actual. Regarding the "actual," it shows that the four modes of birth are all my children, and the two vehicles are all destined to become Buddhas. The celebration is boundless. When the flames of the burning house arrived, they did not burn the house; this is the brilliance of returning to the Great Mansion.

To say there is "no duality" means there is only one great matter: to cultivate the knowledge and vision of the Buddha, to open, demonstrate, awaken, and enter into the unsurpassable and undifferentiated state.

[Illustration: Decorative woodblock ornament]

There is nothing in the profound that is not mysterious. Thus, the tracks of the deer cart are even more mysterious. The Dharma destroys transformations and opens up the display of the real; the imagery is of the truth and falsehood of the unstained. The lotus flower is like this in its mystery. The Dharma is mysterious; it transcends the three and the one. To the supreme person and the supreme truth, the recitation is short. Who fears the dust and filth? The ease of the path is not easily understood. Although the many children were suddenly granted the exit from the burning house—borrowing the dream carts of deer, goat, and sheep—it was to show the danger of the body. Driving the white ox cart on the open ground, one gains the long life that has no limit. This is borrowing the one to destroy the three, and having the three return to the one.

[Summary of the closing lines:] The truth is restored, and the false practice dies away. This Dharma cannot be expressed in static images. It is profound, like the moon setting behind the mountains at night. I do not know how to describe it, so I forcefully call it the Lotus Sūtra. For those who ask about it now, even a single verse is hard to receive, like the wish-fulfilling jewel in the crown of a king. If one receives, holds, and recites it, the blessings are inconceivable. Therefore, I have marked the title as: Essentials of the Lotus Sūtra.