Day 1 covers the first half of Chapter 1, Introductory

Having last month met the gods and other creatures in the vast congregation, we meet the remainder of the congregation and witness the heavenly flowers falling over the entire congregation.

King Ajatasatru, who was the son of Vaidehi, was also present with his hundreds of thousands of attendants. They each worshipped the feet of the Buddha, retired, and sat to one side.

Thereupon the four kinds of devotees, who were surrounding the World-Honored One, made offerings to him, respected him, honored him, and praised him. The World-Honored One expounded a sūtra of the Great Vehicle called the “Innumerable Teachings, the Dharma for Bodhisattvas, the Dharma Upheld by the Buddhas.” Having expounded this sūtra, the Buddha sat cross-legged [facing the east], and entered into the samadhi for the purport of the innumerable teachings. His body and mind became motionless.

Thereupon the gods rained mandārava-flowers, mahā-mandārava-flowers, mañjūṣaka-flowers, and mahā-mañjūṣaka-flowers upon the Buddha and the great multitude. The world of the Buddha quaked in the six ways. The great multitude of the congregation, which included bhikṣus, bhikṣunīs, upāsakās, upāsikās, gods, dragons, yakṣas, gandharvas, asuras, garuḍas, kiṃnaras, mahoragas, men, nonhuman beings, the kings of small countries, and the wheel-turning-holy-kings, were astonished. They rejoiced, joined their hands together [towards the Buddha], and looked up at him with one mind.

Yesterday, I discussed the crowd of people gathered to hear the Sutra of Innumerable Meanings and how it compared with the crowds in the The Sutra of Contemplation of the Dharma Practice of Universal Sage Bodhisattva and in the Lotus Sutra.

Yesterday, I said King Ajatasatru was the only non-monastic in the audience. Just as the Sutra of Innumberable Meanings gathers leaders of empires great and small, the Lotus Sutra does include  these “kings of small countries, and the wheel-turning-holy-kings.”

It is still a point of interest that the crowd doesn’t include shopkeepers or farmers or townspeople, let alone day-laborers or the poor and destitute in the audience. But the inclusion of the kings of small countries, and the wheel-turning-holy-kings in both the Sutra of Innumerable Meanings and the Lotus Sutra can be used to underscore that the Lotus Sutra begins after the completion of the Sutra of Innumerable Meanings and thus would be expected to include the same audience.