Day 16 concludes Chapter 11, Beholding the Stupa of Treasures, and completes the Fourth Volume of the Sutra of the Lotus Flower of the Wonderful Dharma.
Many-Treasures vow:
The perfect body of a Tathagata is in this stupa of treasures. A long time ago there was a world called Treasure-Purity at the distance of many thousands of billions of asamkhyas of worlds to the east [of this world]. In that world lived a Buddha called Many-Treasures. When he was yet practicing the Way of Bodhisattvas, he made a great vow: ‘If anyone expounds a sutra called the Lotus Flower of the Wonderful Dharma in any of the worlds of the ten quarters after I become a Buddha and pass away, I will cause my stupa-mausoleum to spring up before him so that I may be able to prove the truthfulness of the sutra and say ‘excellent’ in praise of him because I wish to hear that sutra [directly from him].
Sakyamuni Buddha, after recalling his replicas and merging and purifying billions of worlds in order to find room for them to sit, opened the Stupa of Treasures and joined Many-Treasures inside. He raised the four kinds of devotees into the air so that they could see him and many-Treasures and asked:
Who will expound the Sutra of the Lotus Flower of the Wonderful Dharma in thjs Saha-World? Now is the time to do this. I shall enter into Nirvana before long. I wish to transmit this Sutra of the Lotus Flower of the Wonderful Dharma to someone so that this sutra may be preserved.
Such a task will not be easy:
Good men! Think this over clearly!
It is difficult
[To expound this sutra].
Make a great vow to do this!It is not difficult
To expound all the other sutras
As many as there are sands
ln the River Ganges.It is not difficult
To grasp Mt. Sumeru
And hurl it to a distance
Of countless Buddha-worlds.It is not difficult to move [a world]
[Composed of] one thousand million Sumeru-worlds
With the tip of a toe
And hurl it to another world.It is not difficult
To stand in the Highest Heaven
And expound irmumerable other sotras
To all living beings.It is difficult
To expound this sutra
In the evil world
After my extinction.It is not difficult
To grasp the sky,
And wander about with it
From place to place.It is difficult
To copy and keep this sutra
Or cause others to copy it
After my extinction.It is not difficult
To put the great earth
On the nail of a toe
And go up to the Heaven of Brahman.It is difficult
To read this sutra
Even for a while in the evil world
After my extinction.It is not difficult
To shoulder a load of hay
And stay unburned in the fire
At the end of the kalpa [of destruction].It is difficult
To keep this sutra
And expound it to even one person
After my extinction.It is not difficult
To keep the store
Of eighty-four thousand teachings
Expounded in the sutras
Composed of the twelve elements,
And expound it to people,
And cause the hearers to obtain
The six supernatural powers.It is difficult
To hear and receive this sutra,
And ask the meanings of it
After my extinction.It is not difficult
To expound the Dharma
To many thousands of billions of living beings
As many as there are sands
In the River Ganges
So that they may be able
To obtain the benefits:
Arhatship and the six supernatural powers.It is difficult
To keep
This sntra
After my extinction.Since I attained
The enlightenment of the Buddha,
I have expounded many sutras
In innumerable worlds.This sutra is
The most excellent.
To keep this sutra
Is to keep me.