Day 12 concludes Chapter 7, The Parable of the Magic City, and completes the Third Volume of the Sutra of the Lotus Flower of the Wonderful Dharma.
Having last month witnessed in gāthās the turning of the wheel of the Dharma by the Great-Universal-Wisdom-Excellence Buddha, we watch as the sixteen princes renounce the world and become śramaṇeras.
The sixteen princes renounced the world,
And became śramaṇeras.
They begged the Buddha to expound the teaching
Of the Great Vehicle, saying:
“We and our attendants wish to attain
The enlightenment of the Buddha.
May we have the purest eyes of wisdom
Just as yours!”Knowing the wishes of the [princes who were] young boys
And the practices they performed in their previous existence,
The Buddha taught them the six paramitas
And many supernatural things
With innumerable stories of previous lives
And with various parables and similes.The gāthās of the Sūtra of the Lotus Flower of the Wonderful Dharma
Were sung [by the Buddha] to expound the true teaching,
That is, [to expound] the Way which Bodhisattvas should practice.
The gāthās were as many as there are sands in the River Ganges.Having expounded this sūtra, the Buddha entered a quiet room,
And practiced dhyāna-concentration.
Concentrating his mind, he sat at the same place
For eighty-four thousand kalpas.Seeing him still in dhyāna,
The śramaṇeras wished to expound
The unsurpassed wisdom of the Buddha
To many hundreds of millions of living beings.They each sat on a seat of the Dharma
And expounded this sūtra of the Great Vehicle.
Also after the peaceful extinction of that Buddha,
They proclaimed this sūtra, and helped propagate it.They each saved
Six hundred billions of living beings,
That is, as many living beings
As there are sands in the River Ganges.After the extinction of that Buddha,
Some heard the Dharma [from one of the śramaṇeras].
They were reborn in the world of a Buddha,
Accompanied by [the śramaṇera, that is,] their teacher.
See yesterday’s note for where I am and why I’m not adding any comment to these posts.
