They will be able to recognize all the sounds and voices inside and outside the one thousand million Sumeru-worlds, although they have not yet obtained heavenly ears. Even when they recognize all these various sounds and voices, their organ of hearing will not be destroyed.

The Buddha gives this explanation to Constant-Endeavor Bodhisattva in Chapter Nineteen of the Lotus Sūtra, describing those who keep the Lotus Sūtra. As we shed our delusions and see the world more for what it is, we begin to see and understand things not visible or comprehensible to those still mired in their suffering and attachment. Knowing the suffering we have left behind, we may be lured into abandoning this world and those in it. In this chapter, the Buddha shows that all of the sense organs we have in this life, sight, hearing, smell, taste, touch and thought, all of these can be used either to increase our delusion or bring us towards awakening. The Buddha reached enlightenment in this world, and so do we.

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