We should notice that, as in the parable of the burning house of Chapter 3 of the Sutra, the dangers – the fire and many other terrible things in Chapter 3 and the poison in Chapter 16 – are found in the fathers’ houses. Some have raised questions as to why the Buddha would be so careless as to have such a fire-hazard of a house or why he would leave poison lying around in a house full of children. This kind of question probably presupposes that the Buddha is somehow all-powerful and creates and controls the world. But that is not a Buddhist premise. In the Dharma Flower Sutra the point of having the danger occur in the Buddha’s home is to indicate a very close relationship between the Buddha and this world. The world that is dangerous for children is the world in which the Buddha – like all of us – also lives. …

The parables in the Dharma Flower Sutra do not say that the fathers created the burning house or the poison found in the home of the physician. Shakyamuni Buddha has inherited this world, or perhaps even chose to live in this world, in order to help the living. The dangers in this world are simply part of the reality of this world. Indeed, it is because of them that good medicine and good physicians are needed here.

It is important to recognize that the bodhisattvas who spring up from the earth are not merely historical beings of the past. They include ourselves. Shakyamuni Buddha was a historical person. He was born, lived, and died on earth. So too were the leading shravakas who appear in the Dharma Flower Sutra – Shariputra, Ananda, Subhuti, Katyayana, Kashyapa, Maudgalyayana, and others. These are the names of historical people. But the famous, and not so famous, bodhisattvas are not historical, at least not in the same sense. Manjushri, Maitreya, Universal Sage (Pǔxián/Fugen/Samantabhadra), Earth Store (Dìzàng/Jizo/Kshitigharba), and Kwan-yin (Kannon/Avalokiteshvara) are the five most prominent bodhisattvas in East Asian religion and art. Though all, especially Manjushri, Maitreya, and Kwan-yin, are believed to have been embodied in a variety of historical figures, none is an actual historical figure. The same is true of other bodhisattvas who have important roles in the Dharma Flower Sutra, bodhisattvas such as Never Disrespectful, Medicine King, and Wonderful Voice, and the four leading bodhisattvas who emerge from the earth in Chapter 15. Although some are believed to have been embodied in one or more historical figures, none is historical in the sense that Shakyamuni, Shariputra, and you and I are historical. Rather, they are models for us, setting examples of bodhisattva practices that we can follow.

But the enormous horde of bodhisattvas who well up from the earth with the four leaders are perhaps a little different. They appear, not in historical time, but in a powerful story. The text says that the four groups, the monks and nuns, laymen and laywomen, could see these bodhisattvas “by the divine powers of the Buddha.” This is another way of referring to the human imagination, to the power that we all have to transcend everyday life, the power to see the buddha in others. The bodhisattvas are nameless, and, except for greeting and showing respect to all the buddhas, in this story and in subsequent chapters of the Sutra they do nothing. We can understand this to mean that in a sense they are not yet. The emergence of bodhisattvas from the earth is not a one-time event in ordinary time, but an ongoing process – bodhisattvas are emerging from the earth still. And not only, of course, in India, but virtually everywhere there are human beings. If we use our own powers of imagination, we can see bodhisattvas emerging from the earth all around us! We ourselves can be among them.