The Parable of the Good Physician

“Suppose there is a good physician, wise and understanding, and expert in compounding medicines and curing diseases. This man has many children, perhaps ten, twenty, or even a hundred. His work takes him away to a distant land. After he has left, his children drink some kind of poisonous medicine. The effects of the poison make them delirious with pain, and they roll on the ground in agony.

“Then the father comes home from his journey. Having drunk the poison, some of the children have lost their senses, and some have not. On catching sight of their father in the distance, they are all overjoyed. They kneel respectfully to greet him and say, ‘We are glad that you have returned safely. Fools that we are, we mistakenly drank poison. Please cure us and save our lives!’

“The father sees how his children are suffering, so as prescribed by various formulas, he searches for all the necessary medicinal herbs, which are perfect in color, smell, and flavor. He grinds, sifts, and mixes them together. Giving this medicine to his children, he tells them to take it, saying, ‘This is the best medicine, perfect in color, smell, and flavor. Take it and you will be quickly relieved of your suffering and completely recover.’

“Those children who still have their senses see that this good medicine is fine in color and smell. So they take it immediately and are completely cured of their illness. The others, who have lost their senses, are also delighted to see their father return and ask him to cure them. But they are unwilling to take the medicine he offers them. Why is this? The poison’s effects have reached deeper inside them and made them lose their senses. Therefore, although the medicine is fine in color and smell, they do not think it is good.

“The father thinks to himself, ‘These children are to be pitied. The poison has completely distorted their thinking. Although they were happy to see me and asked me to cure them, they are refusing to take this good medicine. Now I must devise some skillful means to make them take this medicine.’ So he tells them, ‘You can see that I am now old and frail, and my death is drawing near. I am leaving this very good medicine right here. Take it and drink it. Do not worry, for it will cure you.’

“Having given these instructions, he once again leaves for another land. From there, he sends a messenger back to inform them, ‘Your father is dead.’ When the children hear of their father’s death, their hearts are filled with grief and anguish. They think to themselves, ‘If only our father were still here, he would show us kindness and compassion. He would care for us and cure us. But now that he has abandoned us and died in some far-off land, we are orphans, with no one to rely on.’ Continuous grieving finally brings them to their senses, and they realize how good the medicine is in color, smell, and flavor. They take it and are completely cured of the poison’s effects. As soon as the father hears that all of his children have recovered, he returns home and lets all of them see him.

“Good children, in your estimation, can anyone say that this good physician is guilty of lying?”

“No, World-Honored One.”

The Buddha said, “So is it also with me. In the infinite, boundless hundreds of thousands of millions of myriads of kalpas since I became Buddha, I have used the power of skillful means for the sake of living beings and said that I am about to enter extinguishment, and yet no one can legitimately say that I am guilty of telling falsehoods.”

In the Words and Phrases of the Lotus Sutra, T'ien-t'ai explains that regarding the good physician of the parable, there are 10 kinds of physicians who can be compared to 10 kinds of teachers of Buddhism.

The first are those who cause the illness to increase and do not reduce it. These physicians are like those who teach emptiness as a form of nihilism in which nothing that we do matters and all motivation for doing good and avoiding evil is undermined.

The second are those who keep the illness from increasing but do not reduce it. These are compared to the believers in eternalism who do good deeds and may practice severe asceticism in hopes of winning eternal life. They at least practice what is wholesome, so the illness of delusion is not increased, but neither do they gain any liberating insight so that it is not reduced.

The third are those who keep the illness from increasing and can reduce it somewhat, but it still recurs. These are compared to those who practice non-Buddhist meditative absorption and can temporarily overcome greed and hatred, but without any decisive breakthrough in insight.

Fourth are those who can treat the illness and keep it from recurring, but their cure is not comprehensive. These are compared to the limited liberation of the adherents of the two vehicles: the voice hearers and the privately awakened ones.

Fifth are those whose treatment is comprehensive, but they do not have special techniques for dealing with pain and suffering. These are compared to the bodhisattvas of the Tripitaka or Hinayana teachings who follow the six perfections. T'ien-t'ai refers to them as achieving a "clumsy liberation" because they have not yet mastered the techniques of advanced bodhisattvas.

Sixth are those who have special techniques for dealing with pain and suffering, but they are unable to cure fatal illnesses. They are compared to the bodhisattvas of the shared teachings who focus on emptiness and can help ordinary people, but are unable to cure the adherents of the two vehicles who have "scorched the seeds of Buddhahood."

Seventh are those who can even treat seemingly incurable fatal illnesses, but they cannot cure all illnesses at once. These are compared to the bodhisattvas of the distinct teachings who gradually come to understand the truths of the middle way and provisional existence.

Eighth are those who can cure all illnesses but are unable to restore people to their original state of health. These are compared to the bodhisattvas of the perfect teaching who have entered the 10 degrees of faith—the first 10 of the 52 stages of bodhisattva practice—also equivalent to the fourth of the six degrees of identity with Buddhahood, which is to say, identity in outer appearances.

Ninth are those who can cure all illnesses and restore people to their original state, but not beyond that. These are compared to the bodhisattvas of the perfect teaching who have the advanced mind. This refers to stages 11 through 40 of the 52 stages. This would be equivalent to the fifth degree of identity: identity in partial realization.

Finally, the 10th kind of physician can cure all, restore people to their original state, and reveal a state of health exceeding that. T'ien-t'ai compares this to those who reveal that the very nature of existence is the Tathagata. T'ien-t'ai does not say that this kind is comparable to the bodhisattvas of the perfect teaching who have attained the sixth degree of identity, so I believe he is implying that they are just at a more advanced level of the partial realization, because he goes on to say that the good physician of the parable is even better than these 10.

T'ien-t'ai relates these 10 kinds of physicians to the parable of the milk remedy from the Nirvana Sutra. In that parable, a quack doctor insists on using a milk remedy for all illnesses. When a real doctor arrives in the kingdom, he convinces the king to get rid of the quack doctor and has him outlaw milk remedies to break people's attachment to them. Eventually the king gets sick and only a milk remedy can cure him. The real doctor administers the remedy and explains that there is nothing wrong with using milk remedies when they are necessary. In this story, the quack doctor and his milk remedy represent the non-Buddhists and their teaching of a self, while the real doctor represents the Buddha. The outlawing of the milk remedy represents the teaching of non-self. And the authentic milk remedy at the end is the teaching of self as it applies to the dharma body and Buddha nature.

T'ien-t'ai explains that the first three kinds of doctors, who represent different forms of non-Buddhism, are like the quack doctor. The other seven he calls itinerant physicians who lack medical skills and merely employ methods such as administering bitter substances, such as bitter herbs and vinegar. These represent different kinds of Buddhist teachers whose insight is limited. His point is that the good physician is Shakyamuni Buddha, whose teaching and example transcend even the most advanced bodhisattva practitioners of the perfect teaching. As the Infinite Meanings Sutra says about the Buddhas: they are the chiefs of physicians, the greatest chiefs of physicians who discern the symptoms of illness and understand the properties of medicines. They prescribe medicines according to the illness so that all may take them with joy.

According to T'ien-t'ai in the Words and Phrases of the Lotus Sutra, the hundred children represent voice hearers, privately awakened ones, bodhisattvas, and all sentient beings. The children taking poison is a metaphor for how sentient beings believe in and accept false teachings and thereby become even more attached to the six realms of suffering. These are teachings such as that there is a real self that is substantial and independent; or the extreme views of eternalism or nihilism; or wrong views that deny or distort the teaching of cause and effect; or strong attachment to views; or the view that one can attain liberation through rules and rituals without transforming one's inner character or attaining genuine insight. It can also mean a misapprehension of the Buddha's prior provisional teachings, such as the teaching of emptiness being understood in a one-sided way that results in a passive indifference to all things, or a misapprehension of the Pure Land teachings that can lead to otherworldliness and complacency in this life.

Those children who take their father's medicine when he returns home for the first time are those who are spiritually receptive. They represent those who accepted the Lotus Sutra in past lives, such as the 16 sons of Great Universal Wisdom Excellence Buddha 3,000 dust particle kalpas ago. Those 16 sons heard the Lotus Sutra from their father, immediately accepted it, taught it to others, and subsequently became the Buddhas of the 10 directions.

The children who would not take the medicine are those who are spiritually unreceptive and would become even more complacent and conceited if their father were to remain with them. It is for their sake that the father leaves and sends back a messenger telling them that he died. He did this so that these children would realize that they cannot always rely upon their father to do everything for them and that they must take the medicine for themselves to be healed. This is why the present Shakyamuni Buddha taught that you should live as islands unto yourself, being your own refuge with no one else as your refuge, with the dharma as an island, with the dharma as your refuge, with no other refuge. The teaching of his imminent final nirvana is therefore a skillful means to motivate his disciples to put the dharma into practice for themselves.

In the parable, the father thinks, "These children are pitiful. They are so poisoned that they are confused." In Japanese, the kanji used here are pronounced tendō, and this term can be translated as confused. The first kanji, ten, can be translated as inverted, while the second, dō, can be translated as turned over. Together they literally mean to turn upside down or to be topsy-turvy. Taken figuratively, they mean to be confused or deranged or to go crazy. In Buddhist terms, tendō means to be confused, to hold to the opposite of correct views, to see things the wrong way, to hold a deluded viewpoint that is contrary to reality. These inverted views can be overcome through the practice of the four foundations of mindfulness, thereby looking deeply into the true nature of forms, feelings, mental states, and phenomena.

Another important point that T'ien-t'ai makes is that all sentient beings possess the three kinds of inherent qualities of Buddha nature. This is why they can be said to be the Buddha's children. First is the Buddha nature of the direct cause. This is the innate nature of Buddhahood that is the true reality of all things. T'ien-t'ai also calls this the "mind king." Next, T'ien-t'ai says that wisdom is the Buddha nature of the completing cause. This is the wisdom to realize the inborn nature. T'ien-t'ai states that the arising of even the slightest understanding is to accomplish the Buddha nature of the completing cause. Finally, T'ien-t'ai says that aside from the mind king, the remaining mental factors support it and comprise the Buddha nature of conditional causes. Conditional causes also mean the meritorious deeds that develop wisdom. T'ien-t'ai states that the slightest ability to practice serves as the Buddha nature of conditional causes. So sentient beings in general have the Buddha nature of the direct cause simply by virtue of being part of the true reality of all things. Because of the direct cause, one will also find at least the beginnings of the completing cause, or wisdom to realize it, and the beginnings of the conditional causes, or meritorious deeds that nurture, sustain, and support wisdom.

The "very good medicine" that the good physician concocts for the children is said to have a good color, smell, and taste. T'ien-t'ai takes this as a metaphor for the threefold training of morality, concentration, and wisdom. He explains: "Form is a metaphor for morality. Morality serves to guard the body and speech, making their significance clear. Scent is a metaphor for concentration. The fragrance of its merit permeates all things. Taste is a metaphor for wisdom, which enables one to taste the principle of truth." These three—morality, concentration, and wisdom—constitute the Eightfold Noble Path. By cultivating the Eightfold Noble Path, one can see the Buddha nature.

T'ien-t'ai also takes the color, smell, and taste of the medicine as a metaphor for the three virtues of the Dharma body, wisdom, and liberation, which are the virtues that come about when the threefold Buddha nature is fully manifest. He explains: "Furthermore, form is wisdom. When the nature of the dharma is illuminated, form becomes clear and unobstructed. Scent is liberation. The virtue of illumination separates one from stench. Taste is the Dharma body. It is the taste of the principle."

Nichiren understands the very good medicine to be the five characters of Myoho-Renge-Kyo, as he wrote to a follower, the nun Myoshin: "The good medicine refers to none other than the five Chinese characters of Myoho-Renge-Kyo. Moreover, the Buddha declared these five characters to be a good medicine for the diseases of the people of Jambudvipa." Nichiren is here quoting from chapter 23 of the Lotus Sutra, "The Previous Life of Medicine King Bodhisattva."