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]

Yesterday, I described the gate to the Buddha’s wisdom and faith’s role in entering that gate. With this in mind, it is important to appreciate that there are many gates entering the Buddha’s house.

Nikkyō Niwano explains this in Buddhism for Today:

The One-vehicle means: All people can become buddhas. The enlightenment obtained by Śrāvakas, Pratyekabuddhas, and Bodhisattvas alike is one by which they become buddhas, and it is the same in origin. Some can obtain the enlightenment of a Śrāvaka and others can obtain that of Pratyekabuddhahood. Both aspects of enlightenment are gates to the Buddha knowledge.

This is allegorically explained as follows: A person who has entered this gate cannot enter the inner room of the Buddha-knowledge until he has first passed through the porch of the bodhisattva practice. At the same time, it cannot be said that the gate and the porch are not both included within the residence of the Buddha. However, if a person stays at the gate, he will be drenched when it rains and chilled when it snows. “All of you, come into the inner room of the Buddha’s residence. The eastern gate, the western gate, and the porch, all are entrances that lead to the inner room of the Buddha-knowledge.” This is the meaning of the Buddha’s words, “Besides the One Buddha-vehicle, there is neither a second vehicle nor a third. I have shown the existence of these two vehicles by my tactful power. There is only one true goal for all.”

Buddhism for Today, p48-49

The gāthās at the end of Chapter 2 illustrates the many varied gateways of the Lotus Sutra, all of which we are told lead to the Buddha’s wisdom. As Nikkyō Niwano says:

All living beings can enter the Buddha-way from any point: from worshiping the buddhas’ relics, from building stupas and memorials, from building temples and shrines to the buddhas in the wilderness, or even from heaping sand in play to form a buddha’s stupa. All living beings can enter the Buddha-way by doing anything good. As they increasingly strive after virtue and develop the great mind of benevolence, they finally become buddhas.

It is faith in the Lotus Sutra that allows us to find and enter these doors. As Nichiren Writes in his Treatise on the Daimoku of the Lotus Sūtra:

Many bodhisattvas with two eyes, the Two Vehicles with slanted eyesight and ordinary people and men of icchantika with poor eyesight all could not see anything clearly in the various pre-Lotus sūtras, much less the colors and shapes of those sūtras. Thanks to the Lotus Sūtra, the two eyes of bodhisattvas were first opened with the help of the moonlight of the theoretical section of the Lotus Sūtra. These were followed by the eyes of the Two Vehicles, ordinary people, and icchantika, which were gradually opened to gain the seed for future Buddhahood. These were due entirely to the merit of the single Chinese character myō.

[Writings of Nichiren Shōnin, Faith and Practice, Volume 4,
Page 41-42]

Faith is truly wonderful.

In Chapter 2 of the Lotus Sutra, the Buddha cautions his listeners:

“The wisdom of the [present] Buddhas is profound and immeasurable. The gate to it is difficult to understand and difficult to enter.”

And in gāthās:

“The Dharma cannot be shown.
It is inexplicable by words.
No one can understand it
Except the Buddhas
And the Bodhisattvas
Who are strong in the power of faith.”

As explained earlier, we are taught that only a Buddha and another Buddha can fully understand the equality and differences of all things. What then are we expected to do?

Dale S. Wright writes in “Six Perfections: Buddhism & the Cultivation of Character”:

“From points of departure in ordinary mentality where most of us reside, it was widely thought in Mahayana Buddhism that an initial faith is required to begin this practice of wisdom. As the Large Sutra on Perfect Wisdom defines it: “Faith here means the believing in perfect wisdom, the trusting confidence, the resoluteness, the deliberation, the weighing up, the testing.” Without some faith that these practices are worthwhile, that exerting oneself in them would be a healthy engagement of time and effort, no one would or should take them up. But the sutras imagine, sensibly, that in the process of engaging in these practices, on the basis of that initial faith, what at first requires faith because it seems so foreign and unnatural later becomes a second nature, internalized on the basis of experience. At some point the practitioner ‘knows’ something, feels something strongly, based on what has already taken place. The more deeply ingrained the practices of perfection become, the less discipline is required and the more one is able to perform a wise act spontaneously out of a profound sense of what is right under the circumstances.” (Page 228-229)

In the Sutra of Innumerable Meanings this progression is explained in this way:

“Through the influence of the sutra they will awaken that person’s mind, and he or she will spontaneously experience a change of heart. With the now-awakened trusting mind, that person, through dauntless effort, can acquire this sutra’s dynamic power for great beneficial effect, and he or she will be able to realize the Way and attain its fruits.”

It’s that “now-awakened trusting mind” which is the manifestation of faith. With this faith we cross the threshold of the Buddha’s gate and we enter the path. As we walk that path “at some point the practitioner ‘knows’ something, feels something strongly, based on what has already taken place.”

With faith we begin and with practice we advance.

“Śāriputra! The Tathāgatas divide [the Dharma] into various teachings, and expound those teachings to all living beings so skillfully and with such gentle voices that living beings are delighted.”

And that delight brings joy.

“Know this, Śāriputra!
I once vowed that I would cause
All living beings to become
Exactly as I am.

“That old vow of mine
Has now been fulfilled.
I lead all living beings
Into the Way to Buddhahood.”