[The Brahma heavenly kings said,] “We have come from many heavens and have left deep meditative joys for the sake of serving the buddha. Our palaces are magnificently adorned as rewards for our former lives. Now we Offer them to the world-honored one and beg him in mercy to accept them.”

The point here is that the heavenly kings have left their deep meditative joys and have descended from heaven to the human world for the sake of hearing the buddhas’ teachings. This important point is at the core of the teaching of the Lotus Sutra. A worthwhile life does not consist in merely spending one’s life in peace and quiet but in creating something good. When one tries to become a better person through his practice, this endeavor is the creation of good. When he does something for the benefit of other people, this is the creation of a still higher standard of good. The various arts are the creation of beauty, and all honest professions are the creation of various kinds of energy that are beneficial to society.

Creation is bound to bring with it pain and hardship. However, one finds life worth living when one makes a strenuous effort for the sake of something good. He endeavors to become a little better a person and to do just a little more for the good of other people. Through such positive endeavor we are enabled to feel deep joy in our human lives.

If we lived for a week in a world where we did not have hardships and the joy of creating something, we would tire of it. If we did not become bored with such a world, it would show that we were basically lazy in nature. Such people are sunk in illusion, and even if they rise to a heavenly world, at any moment they may fall immediately to the world of demons (shura) or to hell (jigoku).

“Prediction” means that the Buddha gives us the assurance, “You will surely become buddhas.” The term “prediction” (juki) includes three meanings of great importance and subtlety, which it is essential that we understand. The first important point is that Sakyamuni Buddha says not “You are buddhas” but “You will become buddhas.” In the sight of the Buddha, all living beings have the buddha-nature, and any one of them can definitely become a buddha. But if the Buddha says merely, “You are buddhas,” this statement will be greatly misunderstood by ordinary people. They will be liable to take these words to mean that they are already perfected as buddhas while in a state of illusion and will have the idea that they can become buddhas without any effort, like riding an escalator.

The prediction given by the Buddha is often compared to an admission permit to a school, and this comparison is quite just. It is not a diploma but only an admission permit. This assurance signifies, “You have passed the entrance examination of the highest university, which leads to the degree of buddhahood. If you study here for some years, you will surely graduate and will become buddhas.” Having this assurance, ordinary people must hereafter practice all the more, and must make ever greater efforts to realize this goal.

What a joyful thing it is for ordinary people to have obtained admission to the Buddha’s university — to have received the Buddha’s prediction, “You will become buddhas.”

In the [Chapter 4], we were taught that we must not have the servile idea that we have the capacity to understand the Buddha’s teachings only to a certain limited extent. We should abandon such trifling discriminations and devote ourselves to hearing and receiving the Law. The Parable of the Herbs states that every effort of ours will be surely rewarded. That is, though various kinds of plants and trees are produced in the same soil and moistened by the same rain, each develops according to its own nature. In the same way, though the Buddha’s teachings are only one, they are understood differently according to each hearer’s nature, intellect, environment, and so on.

Even if we have only a shallow understanding of the Buddha’s teachings or can practice only a part of them, this is never useless. Every effort will be surely rewarded with the merits of the Law. But we should not be satisfied with this reward. We must always desire and endeavor to deepen our understanding and to elevate ourselves further. Thus, we can use shallow faith and discernment as the first step in advancing ourselves to a higher level of faith and discernment. Ascending step by step, we can unfailingly reach a superior state of mind. We should understand this well when we read the latter part of this chapter. It is stated here that though the Buddha’s teachings are one, there are differences in faith and discernment according to one’s capacity to understand the teachings. But we must not interpret this as stating an absolute condition.

The mental state generated by the firsthand encounter with mystery is called faith. A religion whose teachings a person tries to explain entirely by reason has no power to move others because this person has only a theoretical understanding and cannot put his theory into practice. Such a religion does not produce the energy to cause others to follow it. True faith has power and energy. However uneducated a person may be and however humble his circumstances, he can save others and help them promote his religion if he only has faith. But if he has faith in what is fundamentally wrong, his energy exerts a harmful influence on society and those around him. Therefore faith and discernment must go together. A religion cannot be said to be true unless it combines faith and discernment. The Buddha’s teachings can be understood by reason. They do not demand blind, unreasoning faith. We must understand the Buddha’s teachings by listening to preaching and by reading the sutras. As we advance in our discernment of these teachings, faith is generated spontaneously.

When a person who has a flexible mind is not advanced in discernment, he develops faith as soon as he is told, “This is a true teaching.” So far as the teaching of the Lotus Sutra is concerned, that is all right, because he will gradually advance in discernment through hearing and reading its teaching.

In short, we can enter a religion from the aspect either of faith or of discernment, but unless a religion combines both aspects, it does not have true power.

The fourteen sins of slandering the Law are the following:

1. haughtiness, or kyōman (to be conceited and to think one has understood what one has not understood);
2. neglect, or kedai (to be lazy and to be absorbed in trivial things);
3. self-centeredness, or kriga (to act only for selfish ends);
4. shallowness, or senshiki (to look only at the surface of things, not trying to grasp their essence);
5. sensuality, or jakuyoku (to be deeply attached to the desires of the senses and to material things);
6. irrationality, or fuge (to interpret everything according to one’s own limited viewpoint and to not understand important points);
7. unbelief, or fushin (not to believe in the sutra and to vilify it because of one’s shallow understanding);
8. sullenness, or hinshuku (to frown upon the sutra and to show ill feeling toward it);
9. doubting, or giwaku (to harbor doubts of the truth of the sutra and to hesitate to believe in it);
10. slander, or hibō (to speak ill of the sutra) ;
11. scorning goodness, or kyōzen (to despise those who read and recite, write and keep the sutra);
12. hating goodness, or zōzen (to hate those who practice the above mentioned goodness);
13. jealousy of goodness, or shitsuzen (to envy those who practice this goodness);
14. grudging goodness, or konzen (to grudge those who practice this goodness).

The Buddha’s compassion is useless unless all living begins can realize it. For this reason, he purposely does not use his divine power.

If we penetrate further beneath the surface of this meaning, we can see that if the Buddha were to lead all living beings straight to enlightenment, they could not understand his teachings and would lapse because they are so absorbed in pleasures of the senses and material things. Therefore, he desires to lead them from the first step, which is to cause them to realize the dreadful state of this world.

In spite of the compassionate consideration of the Buddha, living beings often only glance at their father’s face (the Buddha’s teachings); they do not consider how these teachings concern their own lives, and they do not listen to them wholeheartedly. We have often experienced this, which shows clearly the mental state of ordinary people.

Then the Buddha as a final measure displays goat carts (the śrāvaka-vehicle), deer carts (the pratyekabuddha-vehicle), and bullock carts (the bodhisattva-vehicle). Now all living beings are attracted to the Buddha’s teachings for the first time. Hearing his words, “Take whichever teaching of these three that you like; I will give you any of them,” they run out of the burning house while imagining these attractive playthings to themselves.

To imagine attractive playthings to oneself means that one has already entered into the mental state of śrāvaka, pratyekabuddha, or bodhisattva. To run out of the burning house means that one is already seeking after the Buddha’s teachings. When living beings remove illusions from their minds, they can immediately escape from the burning house of suffering in this world.

However, they do not yet think of being saved from the burning house. Their minds are filled with the desire to obtain one of the attractive carts—the enlightenment of a śrāvaka, a pratyekabuddha, or a bodhisattva. Then they ask the Buddha for these carts. This means that each asks for his own enlightenment. Then quite unexpectedly, beyond the enlightenment of the three vehicles, they see the supreme teaching, that is, the enlightenment of the One Buddha-vehicle (the great white-bullock cart), shining brilliantly.

The Buddha really wishes to give this great cart to all living beings. So he gives the same thing unsparingly and equally to anyone who has advanced to the mental state of seeking supreme enlightenment. How wonderful the Buddha’s consideration is! All can attain the Buddha’s enlightenment equally — this is the great spirit of the Lotus Sutra.

The Murano translation of Chapter 2, Expedients, contains this:

I will expound this sūtra of the Great Vehicle to them,
And assure them of their future Buddhahood, saying:
“You will attain the enlightenment of the Buddha
In your future lives.”

Referencing the 1989 version of The Threefold Lotus Sutra, offers this:

The words of the Buddha that we must be particularly careful to understand correctly here are:

“I predict that such men as these
In the world to come
Will accomplish the Buddha-way.”

We should pay special attention to the phrase “the world to come.” This does not mean “after one’s death” but “sometime in the future, when one will gradually have advanced, step by step.”

The Lotus Sutra teaches us that when one attains enlightenment, one becomes a buddha immediately and this world instantaneously becomes the Land of Eternally Tranquil Light. The sutra also teaches us not that we cannot go to paradise until we die, but that the Buddha dwells in our minds and paradise exists in our daily lives.

Called the core of the Law of Appearance, this important chapter is the pivot of the Buddha’s preaching in the first half of the Lotus Sutra. The Japanese title of this chapter, “Hōben,” is a compound word consisting of two characters, hō and ben. Hō originally means “a square” but sometimes means “right.” Ben means “method” or “means.” Therefore hōben means “a right method” or “a right means.” As seen in the Japanese proverb Uso mo hōben (A lie can be expedient), it is regrettable to see how far the understanding of this word has deviated from its true meaning. The word hōben originally indicated the idea, “an enlightening method appropriately applied to the person and the occasion.” Unless we keep in mind this original meaning, we cannot correctly understand this chapter.

When we look back upon the evolutionary process that gave birth to life on the earth, which was originally filled only with melted lava, metals, gas, and vapor, and how lifeforms divided into plants and animals, the latter evolving gradually through insects, fish, amphibians, birds, and mammals, and finally into man, we realize also that wood, stone, metal, and all other substances in the world have the same ultimate ancestors as ourselves. We can regard all plants, birds, and beasts as our kin. We then feel a natural gratitude to plants, insects, fish, birds, and beasts. If we feel grateful to these creatures, how much more deeply thankful should we be for our parents and grandparents, our nearest kin, and for the spirits of other ancestors! We come to understand this clearly and feel it deeply.

Truly all things in the universe are related; what can we say when human beings in this world are not brothers to one another? They oppose each other, hate each other, attack each other, even kill each other. This is not what man’s life was intended to be. The reason that we do not realize this truth is because we are overwhelmed by the changes that impinge on us directly and are blinded by considerations of immediate gain and loss. If all men could see clearly the Buddha’s teaching that all things are impermanent, they would be awakened from such illusion and could realize a peaceful and correct way of life in this world.