Day 14 covers all of Chapter 9, The Assurance of Future Buddhahood of the Śrāvakas Who Have Something More to Learn and the Śrāvakas Who Have Nothing More to Learn, and opens Chapter 10, The Teacher of the Dharma.

Last month I listed four characteristics of those who keep, read, recite, expound and copy even a phrase of the Sutra of the Lotus Flower of the Wonderful Dharma. One of those characteristics is that they gave up their own benefits to benefit others. This recalls to mind Day 10’s discussion of why the great disciples must spend spend billions of lifetimes serving Buddhas before they finally attain enlightenment.

In Chapter 10, in the gathas section, the Buddha explains:

Anyone who keeps
The Sutra of the Lotus Flower of the Wonderful Dharma,
Know this, has compassion towards all living beings
Because he is my messenger.

Anyone who keeps
The Sutra of the Lotus Flower of the Wonderful Dharma
Should be considered to have given up his pure world and come here
Out of his compassion towards all living beings.

Know that he can appear wherever he wishes!
He should be considered
To have appeared in this evil world
In order to expound the unsurpassed Dharma.

And each day I am reminded of a real example of this when I recite this line from the English version of the Invocation:

Honor be to our Founder, the Great Bodhisattva Nichiren Shonin, Dispatched by Our Original Buddha.