Day 20 completes Chapter 15, The Appearance of Bodhisattvas from Underground, and concludes the Fifth Volume of the Sutra of the Lotus Flower of the Wonderful Dharma.

I’ll leave for coming months discussion of the surprise the great Bodhisattvas who rose from the ground present to Maitreya or the Buddha’s explanation or the consternation created by that explanation.

Instead I want to focus today on the Buddha’s response to the great Bodhisattvas, who asked if the living beings “are ready to receive your teaching.”

The Buddha replied:

Truly, truly good men! I am peaceful. I am in good health. The living beings are ready to be saved. They do not fatigue me because I already taught them in their consecutive previous existences, and also because they have already honored the past Buddhas respectfully and planted the roots of good. As soon as they saw me and heard my teachings, they received my teachings by faith and entered into the wisdom of the Tathagata, except those who had previously studied and practiced the teachings of the Lesser Vehicle. Now I am causing [the followers of the Lesser Vehicle] to hear this sutra and to enter into the wisdom of the Buddha.

Underline They do not fatigue me because I already taught them in their consecutive previous existences, and also because they have already honored the past Buddhas respectfully and planted the roots of good.

This is a confirmation of what was explained in Chapter 7, The Parable of a Magic City. There we learned that in the remotest past Sakyamuni was one of 16 princes who became sramaneras and taught the Lotus Sutra. Sakyamuni has been teaching these beings throughout all of their existences.

These sixteen Bodhisattvas willingly expounded the Sutra of the Lotus Flower of the Wonderful Dharma. Each of them taught six hundred billion nayutas of living beings, that is, as many living beings as there are sands in the River Ganges. Those living beings were always accompanied by the Bodhisattva[, by whom they were taught,] in their consecutive existences. [In each of their consecutive existences,] they heard the Dharma from him, and understood it by faith. By the merits [they had thus accumulated], they were given a privilege to see four billion Buddhas, that is, four billion World­Honored Ones. They have not yet seen all of them.

And again:

Bhiksus! When we were sramaneras, we each taught many hundreds of thousands of billions of living beings, that is, as many living beings as there are sands in the River Ganges. Those living beings who followed me, heard the Dharma from me in order to attain Anuttara-samyak-sambodhi. Some of them are still in Sravakahood. I now teach them the Way to Anuttara-samyak­sarnbodhi. … Those living beings as many as there are sands in the River Ganges, whom I taught [ when I was a sramanera], included you bhiksus and those who will be reborn as my disciples in Sravakahood after my extinction.

Which brings up the idea of us always having a good teacher, but I’ll leave that for the discussion of Chapter 27, King Wonderful-Adornment as the Previous Life of a Bodhisattva.