The Dharma Needs Someone to Carry It

7.1 The Dharma Needs Someone to Carry It

At the end of Part Six we said: among all offerings, the offering of Dharma is highest. But when we "make offering to the Dharma," what exactly is being offered? If you set a sūtra reverently on the table and bow to it, does that count as making offering to the Dharma?

The Dharma-Teacher chapter of the Lotus Sūtra gives an unexpected answer.

The Dharma Does Not Spread by Itself

Master Zhiyi of the Tiantai school, explaining this chapter, said something of great weight:

"Although the Dharma may serve as a model, its substance cannot propagate itself—it requires a bearer."

It means: the Dharma, though it is a standard one can follow, will not spread of itself. A sūtra sitting there will not read itself aloud to anyone; it will not walk into anyone's heart on its own. For the Dharma to be passed down, there must be someone—someone to receive and uphold it, to read it, to recite it, to teach it to others, to copy it out.

So in "making offering to the Dharma," the weight does not rest on the scroll, the "thing"; it rests on the "person" willing to carry this sūtra. The Lotus Sūtra calls such a person a "dharma-teacher"—not a dharma-master seated on high, but any ordinary person willing to receive and uphold, read, recite, and teach this sūtra.

Zhiyi says such a dharma-teacher does five things: reception (receiving it, holding to it), reading (reading from the text), recitation (committing it to memory), explanation (teaching it to others), and copying (writing it out so it circulates). These five are not five kinds of "actions done to a book." They are five ways the Dharma comes alive—alive in the human world. Through this person, the Dharma opens its mouth and speaks again.

Where the Sūtra Scroll Is, There the Buddha Is

Then the Lotus Sūtra says something more astonishing still. The Buddha says to the bodhisattva Bhaiṣajyarāja:

"In every place, wherever one expounds, reads, recites, or copies this sūtra, wherever the sūtra scroll resides, one should raise a stūpa of seven jewels… There is no need to place śarīra relics. Why? Within this place the Tathāgata's whole body already exists."

It means: no matter where, so long as someone is teaching this sūtra, reading this sūtra, copying this sūtra—so long as the sūtra scroll is there—a stūpa of seven jewels should be raised in offering. And in that stūpa, there is no need to place the Buddha's relics. Why? Because "within this place the Tathāgata's whole body already exists"—where the sūtra scroll is, the whole body of the Buddha is already there.

See how deep this goes. Ordinarily we keep things neatly apart: the Buddha's physical body is one thing, the Buddha's relics another, and the Dharma He taught—the sūtra scroll—yet another. But the Lotus Sūtra says: where the sūtra scroll is, there the Buddha is. The Dharma is the Buddha's other body.

Then what of the "dharma-teacher" who carries this sūtra?—He is not merely "someone relaying the Buddha's words." He has become the Buddha's dharma-body living, walking, and speaking in the human world—the very point where it does so. The Dharma is present through him, and so the Buddha is present through him.

So here the offering of Dharma turns over entirely: it is not "I venerate the Dharma as a precious object," but "I carry this sūtra, I live this sūtra, and I myself, this person, become the offering to the Buddha." The one who makes offering to the Dharma and the Dharma being offered have fused into one thing.

Before Speaking the Dharma, First Enter Three Doors

But to be such a "dharma-teacher," you cannot simply open your mouth and begin. The Lotus Sūtra sets three conditions—before speaking the Dharma, one must first enter three doors. The Buddha says:

"Enter the Tathāgata's room, wear the Tathāgata's robe, sit on the Tathāgata's seat—only then should one expound this sūtra broadly to the four assemblies. The Tathāgata's room is the great compassion-heart toward all sentient beings; the Tathāgata's robe is the gentle and forbearing mind; the Tathāgata's seat is the emptiness of all dharmas."

To enter "the Tathāgata's room" is first to have a heart of great compassion toward all sentient beings. To wear "the Tathāgata's robe" is first to have a mind gentle and able to bear. To sit on "the Tathāgata's seat" is first to settle and abide in "the emptiness of all dharmas."

Look at these three. The first two are compassion and gentle forbearance—the heart turned toward others. The third is "the emptiness of all dharmas"—the prajñā the first five parts of this book have been speaking of all along. Explaining this third door, Zhiyi says, "settling the mind in emptiness enables settling others"—only when you yourself abide settled in emptiness can you settle anyone else.

And this joins up everything the road has covered so far: to make the offering of transmitting the Dharma, a heart full of zeal is not enough; underneath there must be that prajñā of the three wheels—giver, receiver, gift—all empty, laid down as the foundation. Compassion is the door, forbearance is the robe, and "emptiness" is the seat you must sit firm on before the Dharma can be spoken at all. Without that emptiness which clings neither to "I" nor to dharmas, what we call "spreading the Dharma" slides all too easily back onto the old road of "I am spreading the Dharma; how remarkable I am"—and the "I" is clenched tight again.

Walking On

The Dharma-Teacher chapter tells us: the offering of Dharma is someone taking the Dharma up and living it out—the person is the offering.

But besides "carrying the Dharma," there is another kind of offering, plainer and closer to the skin—using your own body to bow.

In the next chapter there is a bodhisattva whose lifelong practice was one thing only: bowing to everyone he met. What he bowed to was not Buddha-images, not eminent monks, but every ordinary person he came upon—even one in the act of cursing him, striking him. Why did he bow? And what was he bowing to?