the Ongoing Assembly: How Lotus Sutra Holds Those Who Hold It

What does it mean to be a student of the Lotus Sūtra today? Not a scholar, not a monk, not a thirteenth-century Japanese reformer-but an ordinary person in the contemporary world, holding this text and trying to understand what it is asking of you.The Ongoing Assembly moves through the Lotus Sūtra's core chapters-the Burning House, the Prodigal Son, Devadatta and the Dragon King's daughter, the bodhisattvas who emerge from the earth-and asks what each reveals about who counts as a student, what practice actually requires, and what the tradition means when it says the assembly on Vulture Peak never ended.Written in a voice that braids scholarly precision, vernacular directness, and personal practice, this volume draws on Zhiyi's Tiantai commentaries, the Chinese Taishō Canon, and the testimony of practitioners across fourteen centuries. No prior knowledge of Buddhism is required-only a willingness to sit with a difficult and inexhaustible text and let it ask its questions of you.Volume 1 of The Lotus Sutra for the Modern Reader.