Day 5 begins Chapter 3, A Parable

Last month I discussed Sariputra’s feeling of betrayal and the Buddha’s explanation that Sariputra forgot his original vow and the many, many lifetimes of teachings that passed before.

This has puzzled me for some time. The Buddha tells Sariputra:

In order to cause you to remember the Way you practiced under your original vow, I now expound to the Sravakas this sutra of the Great Vehicle called the ‘Lotus Flower of the Wonderful Dharma, the Dharma for Bodhisattvas, the Dharma Upheld by the Buddhas.’

Underscore remember the Way you practiced under your original vow.

Then, in explaining the world where Sariputra will be a Buddha called Flower-Light, the Buddha says:

“Sariputra! Although the world in which he appears will not be an evil one, that Buddha will expound the teaching of the Three Vehicles according to his original vow.

Again according to his original vlow. Why the “Three Vehicles” when his world is not only free of evil but filled with Bodhisattvas:

The kalpa in which he appears will be called Great-Treasure-Adornment. Why will it be called Great-Treasure-Adornment? It is because in that world Bodhisattvas will be regarded as great treasures. The number of the Bodhisattvas [in that world] will be countless, inconceivable, beyond any mathematical calculation, beyond inference by any parable or simile. No one will know the number except the Buddha who has the power of wisdom. When those Bodhisattvas wish to go somewhere, jeweled flowers will receive their feet and carry them. Those Bodhisattvas will not have just begun to aspire for enlightenment. A long time before that they will have already planted the roots of virtue, performed the brahma practices under many hundreds of thousands of billions of Buddhas, received the praises of the Buddhas, studied the wisdom of the Buddhas, obtained great supernatural powers, and understood all the teachings of the Buddhas. They will be upright, honest, and resolute in mind. The world of that Buddha will be filled with such Bodhisattvas.

Something to consider.