Today will begin the 25th time I’ve cycled through my 32-days of the Lotus Sutra and published a portion of that day’s reading. That’s 24 months of 32 days, or two Lotus Sutra years. I’ve taken this milestone as an opportunity to start using quotes from Introduction to the Lotus Sutra in conjunction with each day’s sutra offering.
The book, which covers the full Threefold Lotus Sutra, is more a general introduction than a study guide, offering summaries of each chapter and explanations of the meaning of what is happening. It’s the explanations that I’ll be publishing as quotes. Unfortunately, not all chapters include explanations. For example, the final two chapters are only summarized without explanation. To me that’s unfortunate since I find the message about teachers in King Wonderful-Adornment as the Previous Life of a Bodhisattva well worth exploration. Another complication is that chapters such as Expedients and The Duration of the Life of the Tathagata have much more worth quoting than other chapters. As a result the quotes published will not always be related to that day’s portion of the Sutra.