The practice paragons of great bodhisattvas in the Lotus Sūtra, such as Avalokitesvara and Samantabhadra, are more popular with Buddhism practitioners in the area of Chinese societies. Therefore, little attention has been paid to the Sadāparibhūta. For a long time, many Buddhism practitioners focusing on the study of the Lotus Sutra have emphasized the practice of forbearance and the approach of liberation from signs in the “Bodhisattva Sadāparibhūta,” and ignore its position and significance in the order arrangement in the Lotus Sūtra.
Sadāparibhūta is the predecessor of Sakyamuni. He practiced the dharma with a special “abrupt” cultus, which made people feel “frightened,” and encouraged sentient beings to accept, read and recite the mahāyāna sutra, to guide their practice with the wisdom of Buddhism prajna, and supplemented by accumulating the merits of virtue and roots of goodness. The main purpose of the Sadāparibhūta is to make Buddhism practitioners back to the study of the sutra, and personally practice the ideal practice goal of the Eka-yāna of the Lotus Sutra.
The Eka-yāna thought of “Bodhisattva Sadāparibhūta” in the Lotus Sūtra is originated from the viewpoint of emptiness (Śūnyatā) and no self-nature. It advocates that all sentient beings will become Buddhas equally as long as they are willing to practice Mahāyāna Buddhism and practice according to the wisdom and truth of Buddhism. Zhiyi and Jizang extracted the nature of Buddha's thoughts from the Mahāyāna Mahāparinirvāṇa Sūtra to interpret the connotation of Eka-yāna in the Lotus Sūtra. It believes that all sentient beings are born with “buddha-nature of direct cause,” waiting for the practice completion and the serendipity arrival, using the wisdom of prajna as the “revealing cause of buddha-nature,” and practicing the merits of virtue and roots of goodness as the “conditional causes of buddha-nature” to manifest “buddha-nature of direct cause.” This study found that there are no doubts about the view of Prajna as the truth in the Lotus Sūtra for both Chinese and Indian Buddhism.
The purpose of this thesis research is to comprehend the meaning and principle of the Eka-yāna thought of Sadāparibhūta, and the thought of Zhiyi and Jizang, hoping to benefit the practitioners in the practice.
