Day 13 covers all of Chapter 8, The Assurance of Future Buddhahood of the Five Hundred Disciples.

Having last month heard the śrāvakas’ explanation of the Parable of the Priceless Gem, we repeat in gāthās and conclude Chapter 8, The Assurance of Future Buddhahood of the Five Hundred Disciples.

Thereupon Ājñāta-Kauṇḍinya and the others, wishing to repeat what they had said, sang in gāthās:

Your assurance of our future Buddhahood
Gives us unsurpassed peace.
Hearing your voice, we have the greatest joy that we have ever had.
We bow to you, to the Buddha of Immeasurable Wisdom.

Now in your presence,
We reproach ourselves for our faults.
The Nirvāṇa we attained was
Only part of the immeasurable treasures of yours.
We were like a foolish man with no wisdom.
We satisfied ourselves with what little we had attained.

Suppose a poor man visited
His good friend, who was very rich.
The friend feasted him
With delicacies.

He fastened a priceless gem
Inside the garment of the man as a gift to him,
And went out without leaving a word.
The sleeping man did not notice [the gift].

The man woke up, and went to another country.
He worked to get food and clothing.
He had much difficulty
In earning his livelihood.

He satisfied himself with what little he earned.
He did not wish to get anything more.
He did not notice the priceless gem
Fastened inside his garment.

The good friend who gave the gem to the poor man
Happened to see him later.
He blamed him severely,
And showed him the gem fastened [inside the garment].

Seeing the gem,
The poor man had great joy.
Now he satisfied his five desires
With many treasures.

We are like the poor man.
In the long night you taught us
Out of your compassion towards us,
And caused us to aspire for unsurpassed [enlightenment].

Because we had no wisdom, we did not notice that.
The Nirvāṇa we attained was only part [of your wisdom].
Satisfying ourselves with it,
We did not wish to attain anything more.

Now you have awakened us, saying:
“What you attained was not true extinction.
When you have the unsurpassed wisdom of the Buddha,
You will attain true extinction.”

Hearing from you that we are assured
Of becoming Buddhas one after another,
And that our worlds will be adorned,
We are joyful in body and mind.

The Daily Dharma from Feb. 16, 2018, offers this:

He satisfied himself with what little he earned.
He did not wish to get anything more.
He did not notice the priceless gem
Fastened inside his garment.

These verses are part of a story told by Ājñāta-Kauṇḍinya and other disciples in Chapter Eight of the Lotus Sūtra. It is about a man whose friend gives him a jewel while he is asleep. Not realizing he has this treasure, the man returns to his ordinary life, desperate to make a living and satisfy his ordinary desires. The story shows how we live when we forget about the jewel of Buddha nature we carry with us.

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