Day 21 covers all of Chapter 16, The Duration of the Life of the Tathāgata.
Having last month concluded the Parable of the Skillful Physician and His Sick Children, we consider whether the physician lied to his children.
“Good men! What do you think of this? Do you think that anyone can accuse this excellent physician of falsehood?”
“No, World-Honored One!”
The Buddha said:
“I am like the father. It is many hundreds of thousands of billions of nayutas of asaṃkhyas of kalpas since I became the Buddha. In order to save the [perverted] people, I say expediently, ‘I shall pass away.’ No one will accuse me of falsehood by the [common] law.”
Today we conclude our sampling of the content from Miraculous Tales of the Lotus Sutra from Ancient Japan with a tale of Priest Dōei of Hōdōin Who Left Mount Hiei.