Session 5 of Sutra Study Class

 In the November 22 class we went over Section 4 and began Section 5 of the Larger Sutra and the Akegarasu selection was "I and Thou." Here are some notes:

In Section 4 the 53 buddhas leading up to Lokesvararaja are listed. A common part of the buddhas' names is "Light" - such as the first buddha is Dipankara, "the torch light." Light is a common symbol for "wisdom" but in the path of awakening, the wisdom we need is the insight and guidance that leads to liberation from self-attachment.

                                          One of the sun babies from the new Teletubbies show

It is freedom that is the main characteristic of awakening and freedom includes equality because the recognition of all lives as equal signifies freedom from the self imposing judgment on others. So we come to Lokesvararaja - world-freedom-king, that is, "the king who moves freely in the world."

If the laundry list of the 53 buddhas didn't already take you out of our usual linear concept of history, the story Shakyamuni begins in Section 5 lets us know this is "once upon a time" fiction, not a literal description of an actual occurrence. Besides the teacher's made-up name, the student gets one to indicate his journey: Dharmakara, the Dharma storehouse (i.e. potential). I mostly feel it is Shakyamuni giving us his autobiography in disguise, not wanting us to get fixated on his particular life. Most of us grow up feeling like we should be the king of the world - expecting things to be for our benefit in the same way our parents often catered to our wants as children. The story has Dharmakara starting off with a crown on his head looking down on all his subjects but we will see that in his journey, the looking down on others will give way to looking up at all lives with respect from being in a totally bowed down position.

At the end of the "I and Thou" Akegarasu says some people receive the light of the sun and claim it is their light - a metaphor for how wisdom comes to us from a long ago, far away source (through the 53 buddhas et al) but some people like to think it came originally from their own personal teacher. As Prof. Melissa Curley pointed out in Masako Keta's work - in Jodo Shinshu the real teacher works as a window, opening up to let us see the light coming from the long lineage of tradition. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PFHuHulJ4Xg&t=4s