ISSN:1076-9005
Volume 5 1998
Ethics and the Lotus Sūtra
Peggy Morgan
Westminster College, University of Oxford
This paper seeks to introduce and reflect upon not only some important ethical issues that emerge in any consideration of this important text, the Lotus Sūtra, but also the many different ways in which this and other questions can be approached in the study of religions. Demonstrably an area or dimension of a religion such as ethics is inextricably related to the other dimensions of religious life such as narratives, doctrines, experience, rituals and even the visual arts. It is also inextricably linked with the distinctive interpretations of the religious communities whose text it is, as well as scholarly dialogue where questions and insights may be a part of the environment within which traditions themselves skillfully adapt and change.