Day 10 concludes Chapter 6, Assurance of Future Buddhahood, and opens Chapter 7, The Parable of a Magic City.

Last month I offered my changing interpretations about why it takes so long for Subhuti, Great Katyayana and Great Maudgalyayana to become Buddhas. And this time around I want to ponder time and memory, starting with that teaser at the close of Chapter 6, Assurance of Future Buddhahood:

Now I will tell you
About my previous existence
And also about yours.
All of you, listen attentively!

The time and memory comes into play at the opening of Chapter 7, The Parable of the Magic City:

The Buddha said to the bhiksus:

A countless, limitless, inconceivable, asamkhya number of kalpas ago, there lived a Buddha called Great-Universal-Wisdom­Excellence, the Tathagata, the Deserver of Offerings, the Perfectly Enlightened One, the Man of Wisdom and Practice, the Well-Gone, the Knower of the World, the Unsurpassed Man, the Controller of Men, the Teacher of Gods and Men, the Buddha, the World­Honored One. His world was called Well-Composed; and the kalpa in which he became that Buddha, Great-Form.

Bhiksus! It is a very long time since that Buddha passed away. Suppose someone smashed all the earth-particles of one thousand million Sumeru-worlds into ink-powder. Then he went to the east [,carrying the ink-powder with him]. He inked a dot as large as a particle of dust [with that ink-powder] on the world at a distance of one thousand worlds from his world. Then he went again and repeated the inking of a dot on the world at every distance of one thousand worlds until the ink-powder was exhausted. What do you think of this? Do you think that any mathematician or any disciple of a mathematician could count the number of the worlds [he went through]?”

No, we do not, World-Honored One!

Bhiksus! Now all the worlds he went through, whether they were inked or not, were smashed into dust. The number of the kalpas which have elapsed since that Buddha passed away is many hundreds of thousands of billions of asamkhyas larger than the number of the particles of the dust thus produced. Yet I remember [the extinction of] that Buddha by my power of insight as vividly as if he had passed away today.

And just to underline, asamkhyas is linked to a footnote that says: “This is an adjective, meaning ‘innumerable.’ ” I’ve never been really great at math, but I assume multiplying a period of time by “innumerable” gets you some place just this side of infinity.

And in gathas:

I remember the extinction of that Buddha
As vividly as if he had passed away just now,
By my unhindered wisdom;
I also remember
The Sravakas and Bodhisattvas who lived [with him].

Bhiksus, know this!
My wisdom is pure, wonderful,
Free from asravas and from hindrance.
I know those who lived innumerable kalpas ago.

I’ll be 65 years old next month, and if there is one feature of enlightenment that I would cherish, it would be a memory for details so perfect that it makes time irrelevant. For now, I need to look again for my keys. I drove home, so I know they are somewhere in the house.

Day 9 covers Chapter 5, The Simile of Herbs, and introduces Chapter 6, Assurance of Future Buddhahood.

Last month, I covered the differentiation of those who received the rain of the Dharma. Now to summarize:

I now expediently reveal the Dharma with this simile.
I expound one truth with various discourses.
This simile is only one of the expedients
Employed by my wisdom,
Just as a drop of sea water is
Part of the great ocean.

Though I water all living beings of the world
With the same rain of the Dharma,
They practice the teachings
Of the same taste differently
According to their capacities,
Just as the herbs and trees
In thickets and forests
Grew gradually according to their species.

The Buddhas always expound
The teachings of the same taste
In order to cause all living beings of the world
To understand the Dharma.
Those who practice the teachings continuously
Will obtain [ various fruits of] enlightenment.

Underline Those who practice the teachings continuously/ Will obtain [various fruits of] enlightenment.

Day 8 concludes Chapter 4, Understanding by Faith, and closes the second volume of the Sutra of the Lotus Flower of the Wonderful Dharma.

Before moving on to the gathas, I want to consider this final piece of the prose section:

You once reproached us Sravakas in the presence of the Bodhisattvas because we wished to hear the teachings of the Lesser Vehicle. [At that time we thought that you had taught us only the Lesser Vehicle,] but now we know that you have been teaching us the Great Vehicle from the outset. Therefore, we say that the great treasures of the King of the Dharma have come to us although we did not seek them, and that we have already obtained all that the sons of the Buddha should obtain.

This concept of obtaining the treasures of the rich man as the son of the rich man works nicely to explain the differences between Buddhism and other religions.

Ven. Kenjo Igarashi of the Sacramento Nichiren Buddhist Church explains:

Buddhism is the teaching of the Buddha, just as Christianity is the teaching of Jesus Christ and Islam is the teaching of Mohammad.

Ultimately, Buddhism is everyone’s attempt to become a Buddha.

We are the heirs to the storehouse of treasures. We are the sons of the Buddha.

Day 7 concludes Chapter 3, A Parable, and begins Chapter 4, Understanding by Faith.

From the vehicle salesman, to “Father knows Best,” to the meaning of freedom.

[I said:]

To those who have little wisdom,
And who are deeply attached to sensual desires,
The Buddhas expound the truth that all is suffering.
Those [who hear this truth]
Will have the greatest joy that they have ever had.
The statement of the Buddhas that all is suffering
Is true, not false.
To those who are ignorant
Of the cause of all sufferings,
And who are too deeply attached
To the cause of suffering
To give it up even for a moment,
The Buddhas expound
The [eight right] ways as expedients.

The cause of suffering is greed.
When greed is eliminated,
There is nothing to be attached to.
The extinction of suffering
Is called the third truth.
In order to attain this extinction,
The [eight right] ways must be practiced.
Freedom from the bonds of suffering[,]
[That is, from illusions] is called emancipation.”

From what illusions can one be emancipated, however, [By the practice of the eight right ways]?
He can be emancipated only from unreal things
[That is, from the five desires] thereby.
He cannot be emancipated from all illusions.
The Buddhas say
That he has not yet attained
The true extinction
Because he has not yet attained
Unsurpassed enlightenment.
I also do not think that I have led him
To the [true] extinction thereby.

Eliminating illusions is not the end. We seek unsurpassed enlightenment equal to that of the Buddha.