The Lotus Sutra

There was a lotus pond in the pagoda courtyard. A small child sat at its edge, watching the pink lotus flowers open on the water. Then the child turned and asked, "Grandma, lotuses grow in the mud, so why do people bring them up to the altar in the pagoda?" The old woman smiled, pulled her grandchild closer and began to tell a very old story.

"There is a whole sutra named after that flower," she said. In Vietnam it is called Kinh Pháp Hoa, and in English the Lotus Sutra. Its full name is Kinh Diệu Pháp Liên Hoa, which means the lotus flower of the wondrous teaching. It is counted among the most important sutras of Mahayana Buddhism.

The sutra is very old. Its original text in Sanskrit was gathered over many centuries. Buddhist scholars estimate that it took shape between some time before the Common Era and about the year 200. Later, a learned monk named Kumarajiva translated the sutra into Chinese. His complete translation was finished in the year 406, and it became the most influential version. It was through that translation that the sutra traveled with the northern stream of Buddhism, all the way to Vietnam.

Then the grandmother lowered her voice to tell why people treasure the sutra so much. "The greatest thing is this, so listen closely." The sutra teaches that anyone can become a Buddha. Not only monks, and not only the learned, but every single person. Buddhists call this the One Vehicle. It means there is only one path, and that path is open to every living being. In its own time, this was a strikingly new teaching.

To make it easy to understand, the sutra tells a story. "Now listen," said the grandmother.

Long ago there lived a wealthy elder in a large and splendid house. One day, the house suddenly caught fire. The flames crept from corner to corner. Yet his young children went on playing inside, with no idea that danger was coming close. Their father called to them to run out. But the children were too caught up in their games, and not one of them would listen.

The father loved his children, and he thought of a plan. He stood at the door and called inside. "Children, I have beautiful carts out here! Whoever likes a goat cart can have a goat cart. Whoever likes a deer cart can have a deer cart. Whoever likes an ox cart can have an ox cart. They are all waiting for you in the yard." Hearing there were gifts, the children were delighted. They rushed out of the burning house, pushing to be first. Every one of them was saved.

Then came the surprise. Once the children were safely outside, the father did not hand out three different kinds of carts after all. He gave each child the same great cart drawn by a white ox, just as beautiful and just as precious as every other. Every child received the greatest gift, and no one was treated differently.

"Do you understand what this story means?" the grandmother asked, looking at her grandchild. The burning house is human life, so full of worries. The father is the Buddha. The three kinds of carts are different ways of teaching, which the Buddha offers to each person according to who they are, so that everyone has a way to step forward. And the great white ox cart that everyone receives is the One Vehicle, the path to becoming a Buddha, open to all. The teachings differ, but the final gift is only one, shared equally by everyone.

Then the grandmother pointed down at the lotus pond. "Look at the lotus again now. Where does it grow from? From mud. From the darkest, dirtiest place at the bottom of the pond." And yet when it rises above the water, its petals stay white, stay pink, without a speck of mud. People long ago looked at the lotus and thought about human beings. Each of us is born among many hardships, like a lotus plant lying in the mud. But inside every person there is already the seed of a lotus, a power to rise and to bloom. That is the message of the Lotus Sutra.

The sutra has 28 chapters. Among them is one that nearly every Vietnamese person who goes to a pagoda has heard. It is the 25th chapter, called the Phổ Môn chapter. It tells of Quán Thế Âm, the bodhisattva who listens to the cries of suffering in the world. In pagodas across Vietnam, the Phổ Môn chapter is chanted regularly, and many people have known it by heart since they were small. Partly because its words are heard so widely, the people of Vietnam feel even closer to this bodhisattva of compassion, whom they call Mother Quan Âm.

The child sat quietly for a while, then looked up at the lotus pond again. This time the child's eyes were different. The lotus flowers were still blooming, their roots sunk deep in the dark mud, their blossoms turned straight up toward the light. Each of those flowers was born from the mud, and still it opened pink in the pagoda yard, right before the child's eyes.