In Chapter 21, in which the bodhisattvas who sprang up from underground vow to propagate the Lotus Sutra, we are told explicitly why we have been asked to have faith in this supreme sutra:

“Anyone who understands why the Buddhas expound [many] sūtras,
Who knows the position [of this sūtra in the series of sūtras],
And who expounds it after my extinction
According to its true meaning,
Will be able to eliminate the darkness
Of the living beings of the world where he walks about,
Just as the light of the sun and the moon
Eliminates all darkness.
He will be able to cause innumerable Bodhisattvas
To dwell finally in the One Vehicle.”

We are not asked to simply study these teachings. As Nikkyō Niwano says in Buddhism for Today:

“It is not enough to have understood the sutra intellectually. We cannot be saved in the true sense, nor save the whole of society, until we proceed from understanding to faith and reach the mental state of complete union of understanding and faith.”

Buddhism for Today, p324

Or as Thich Nhat Hanh puts it in Peaceful Action, Open Heart:

“The essential message of Chapter 21 is that our practice is to share in the Tathagata’s limitless lifespan and great spiritual power. Just as when we look deeply into a leaf, a cloud, or any phenomenon, we are able to see its infinite lifespan in the ultimate dimension, and we realize that we are the same. If we look deeply enough, we will discover our own nature of no birth, no death. Like the Buddha, we also exist and can function in a much greater capacity than the ordinary frame of time and space we perceive ourselves to be bounded by. …

“Many of us go around all the time feeling that we are as small as a grain of sand. We may feel that our one small human life doesn’t have very much meaning. We struggle to get through life, and at the end of our life we feel that we have accomplished very little. This is a kind of inferiority complex many people suffer from. If we see reality only in terms of the historical dimension, it may seem to us as if there is little one ordinary human being can do. But if we get in touch with the ultimate dimension of reality, we know that we are just like the Buddha. We share in the Buddha’s nature – we are Buddha nature. When we are able to see beyond the limitations of perceived time and space, beyond our own notions of inferiority and powerlessness, we find we have great stores of spiritual energy to share with the world.”

Peaceful Action, Open Heart, p127-128

The promise of the Lotus Sutra – the object of our faith – is clearly stated at the conclusion of Chapter 21:

“Therefore, the man of wisdom
Who hears the benefits of these merits
And who keeps this sūtra after my extinction,
Will be able to attain
The enlightenment of the Buddha
Definitely and doubtlessly.”

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