Day 10 concludes Chapter 6, Assurance of Future Buddhahood, and opens Chapter 7, The Parable of a Magic City.

Having last month concluded Chapter 7’s portion of Day 10, we return to the Chapter 6 and the prediction of future Buddhahood for Subhuti.

Thereupon the World-Honored One, having understood the wishes of the great disciples, said to the bhiksus:

“In his future life, this Subhuti will see three hundred billion nayutas of Buddhas, make offerings to them, respect them, honor them, praise them, perform brahma practices, complete the Way of Bodhisattvas, and become a Buddha on the final stage of his physical existence. He will be called Beautiful-Form, the Tathagata, the Deserver of Offerings, the Perfectly Enlightened One, the Man of Wisdom and Practice< the Well-Gone, the Knower of the World, the Unsurpassed Man, the Controller of Men, the Teacher of Gods and Men, the Buddha, the World-Honored One. The kalpa in which he will become that Buddha will be called Having-Treasures; and his world, Treasure-Born. The ground [of his world] will be even, made of crystal, adorned with jeweled trees, and devoid of mounds, pits, rubble, thorns and dirt. Jeweled flowers will cover the ground to purify it. The people of that world will live in buildings of wonderful treasures. His disciples in Sravakahood will be numberless, beyond calculation or comparison. The Bodhisattvas will be many thousands of billions of nayutas in number. The duration of the life of that Buddha will be twelve small kalpas. His right teachings will be preserved for twenty small kalpas. The counterfeit of his right teachings will be preserved also for twenty small kalpas. That Buddha will always stay in the sky, expound the Dharma to the multitude, and save innumerable Bodhisattvas and Sravakas.

So I wonder: Does the prediction that Subhuti will become a Buddha who always stays in the sky as he expounds to the Dharma to the multitude have something to do with his position among the 10 top voice hearers as the “foremost in understanding emptiness“? Not a big deal; just curious.