Before going on with the message of faith contained in Chapter 2, it’s necessary to explore what faith is not: arrogance.
As mentioned earlier, the children of the Skillful Physician in Chapter 16 drank poison when their father was away on business. Not helpful, but not deliberate. Arrogance is deliberate.
When Śāriputra asks the Buddha to explain why he is saying all of this new stuff about expedient means, the Buddha warns:
“My teaching is wonderful and inconceivable.
If arrogant people hear me,
They will not respect or believe me.”
And that is exactly what happens when the Buddha finally acquiesces to Śāriputra’s request.
“You asked me three times with enthusiasm. How can I leave the Dharma unexpounded? Listen to me attentively, and think over my words! Now I will expound the Dharma to you.
“When he had said this, five thousand people among the bhikṣus, bhikṣunīs, upāsakās, and upāsikās of this congregation rose from their seats, bowed to the Buddha, and retired because they were so sinful and arrogant that they thought that they had already obtained what they had not yet, and that they had already understood what they had not yet. Because of these faults, they did not stay. The World-Honored One kept silence and did not check them.”
It is really, really hard for me to imagine being that arrogant. But as explained in the gāthās, more was at work here than simple arrogance:
“Some bhikṣus and bhikṣunīs
Were arrogant.
Some upāsakās were self-conceited.
Some upāsikās were unfaithful.
Those four kinds of devotees
Were five thousand in number.“They could not see their own faults.
They could not observe all the precepts.
They were reluctant to heal their own wounds.
Those people of little wisdom are gone.
They were the dregs of this congregation.
They were driven away by my powers and virtues.”“They had too few merits and virtues
To receive the Dharma.
Now there are only sincere people here.
All twigs and leaves are gone.”
Examples of arrogance are found elsewhere in the Lotus Sutra such as the monks who challenge Never Despising Bodhisattva. Even Maitreya Bodhisattva, who is to be the next Buddha, was once a monk who “always seeking fame and gain / He often visited noble families. / He did not understand what he had recited, / Gave it up, and forgot it.”
But what’s important to keep in mind is that all of these arrogant people are saved in the end.
“[I]f everything is said in the Lotus, what is the purpose of the Nirvāṇa [Sutra]? Here, those five thousand haughty monks and nuns who walked out in the second chapter of the Lotus Sūtra come to the rescue. The sūtra does not explain what became of them, but Zhiyi explains that they returned to the assembly that surrounded the Buddha’s deathbed. The Buddha thus compassionately reiterated the central message of the Lotus Sūtra to those who had missed it the first time.” [The Lotus Sutra: A Biography, Page 56-57]
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