Lotus Sutra Wonderful Law

Lotus Sutra Wonderful Law, the title of the Buddhist scripture I base my practice on.  The lotus flower is a beautiful flower.  Now that I live in Thailand, a Buddhist country, I see the Lotus blossom everywhere.  The lotus flower is a top icon in Buddhist iconography.  [For a related view of mine, please see my posting Living with Icons in my blog George in Thailand (http://george-ross.blogspot.com/)]  Icons in Buddhism, as in Christianity the cross), Judaism (the Star of David, Islam (the crescent moon), all religions as well as all institutions and businesses (The Constitution of the United States,the Coke swish) are sacraments (in Catholic terminology): They do in the spiritual world what they signify as doing in the physical world.  Water signifies cleansing, so it it’s perfect for administering the sacrament of baptism in Catholicism, where baptism, sacramentally washes away the effect of original sin.   And what does the lotus signify in Buddhism?  It signifies the simultaneity of cause and effect, as well as our ability to bring good things out of bad things.  How’s that?   Traditionally it is believed that the lotus is the only plant to flower and seed at the same time.  The seed is the cause of the flower and the flower is the cause of the seed, so that the flower is the effect or the seed and the seed is the effect of the flower. The lotus teaches us symbolically that an entity can be both case and effect.  A most profound teaching!

Up until the teaching of the Lotus Sutra, we believed that through our Buddhist practice, we make the good causes the result in our enlightenment.  The Lotus Sutra has us consider the reality of our innate enlightenment is the cause of the good causes we make.  I don't become a buddha; I am a buddha, a buddha who is not manifest in the world until my actions make the Buddha a manifest reality.  This is a teaching similar to the Christian teaching on grace, a free gift from God that enables us to do good things and have good things happen to us through the grace of God.


And the lotus flower, a most beautiful flower, grows out of muddy waters.  It signifies that out of ugliness comes beauty.  The ying and the yang of reality!

So this teaching (sutra) is of a wonderful law, a wonderful, mystic principle:  Once a cause is made, the effect is made at the same time.  I intend to benefit my family, my friends, my lover, my community.  And as soon as I make that intention (cause), the effect (benefit) has already been created.  Is the effect manifested right away?  No.  Look how long parents must wait to see just what they have wrought!

I have learned through my practice of the principle of the simultaneity of cause and effect that the purer I can make my intentions, the greater will be their effect on me, others, and the whole universe.  People today like to say, be careful what you wish for!  There’s much wisdom in that caveat….