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 heard the Parable of the Magic City, we hear the explanation from Śākyamuni.

“Bhikṣus! I, the Tathāgata, am like the leader. I am your great leader. I know that the bad road, which is made of birth-and-death and illusions, is dangerous and long, and that we should pass through it and get off it. If you had heard only of the One Vehicle of the Buddha, you would not have wished to see or approach the Buddha, but would have thought, ‘The Way to Buddhahood is too long for us to pass through unless we make painstaking efforts for a long time.’

“I knew that you were mean and timid. In order to give you a rest halfway, I expounded expediently to you the teaching of Nirvāṇa by the two vehicles. To those who attained the two [ vehicles], I say, ‘You have not yet done all that you should do. You are near the wisdom of the Buddha. Think it over and consider it! The Nirvāṇa you attained is not true. I divided the One Vehicle of the Buddha into three only expediently.’

“I say this just as the leader, who saw that his party had had a rest in the great city which he had made by magic in order to give them a rest, said to them, ‘The place of treasures is near. This city was not true. I made it by magic.”‘

The Introduction to the Lotus Sūtra offers this discussion of Three Methods of Expounding the Law:

[Chapter 7, The Parable of a Magic City,] has two distinct parts. The first is a story of the previous existence of a Buddha called Great-Universally-Excelling-Wisdom. The second consists of the parable for which this chapter is named, “The Magic City.” The concept of previous existences is a fundamental teaching in Buddhism. Its rationale is that there must be some prior meaning or conditions before something else can come into existence. (Nothing comes from nothing, and nothing takes place without a cause.) The story of a previous life here refers to a particular incident in the past which has led to the emergence of a present situation—that is, the origin of things. In the Lotus Sutra, Sakyamuni is said to employ three methods of expounding the law: logical explanations, parables, and stories of previous lives.