My teacher has been giving a series of dharma talks about the Lotus Sutra. The Lotus is highly valued in some traditions, although it is  ignored in others. It seems to be especially revered in Japan, and not just in the Nichiren school. It influenced Japanese Zen masters such as Dogen and Hakuin, for example.
Over the years I have slogged through a couple of translations of the Lotus. I found it interesting in spots, but it never spoke to me the way it apparently speaks to others. I tended to skim through the "scenic" parts, where it describes how many buddhas and bodhisattvas and mythological creatures were listening to the Buddha, or about the eighteen thousand planets illuminated by light reflected from a single hair between the Buddha's eyebrows.
What frustrated me was that the book in my hands titled Lotus Sutra never seemed to get to the Lotus Sutra. It would spend page after page describing how all these buddhas and bodhisattvas and dragons and whatnot assembled to hear the Lotus Sutra, and how they were supremely tickled at whatever it was the Buddha said about it. But the text didn't repeat what the Buddha said.
So, the Lotus Sutra was not the Lotus Sutra, but a book about the Lotus Sutra. Okay.
I found I was not the only one a bit baffled by the praise heaped on this sutra. Brad Warner wrote,
"Take the Lotus Sutra -- please! I mean, I know I'm supposed to love the thing. I know that Dogen loved it. People I know have read it and said it's the greatest thing since sliced cheese. But I have never been able to get through the confounded thing. I can't get past the part where the author is telling you the names of all the Bodhisattvas and their uncles and how many Buddha realms they've conquered and where they shop for shoes and why you should definitely copy the sutra a thousand times and how many dragon kings were sitting around while Buddha impressed everyone by shooting rays out of his forehead... and so on and on and on and on."
It's said Shunryu Suzuki of the San Francisco Zen Center tried a few times to speak about the Lotus Sutra, and he never got past the bodhisattvas and their uncles and the dragon kings and the shoes before the time was up.
On the other hand, Zen teacher Dairyu Michael Wenger wrote in the Spring, 2006 issue of Tricycle,
"This is not to say that the sutra has no teachings. In fact, it abounds with teachings, about how Buddhas use various skillful means to lead beings to liberation, about how all beings have the capacity to attain Buddhahood, about the power of faith in the Buddha, about the beginningless nature of the enlightened mind, and so forth. But all this is presented not as the actual teaching of the Lotus Sutra but as a kind of preparation for hearing it. I wondered why the text goes on and on setting the scene for the preaching of the sutra but never seems to actually get to it. Eventually it dawned on me that the text is drawing you into an experience. It is putting you right there, practicing with countless others in the presence of the Buddhas. That is the message."
Dairyu suggests entering the Lotus, not just reading it, and entering your life with the Lotus. I think I see what I've been getting wrong.
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