Day 23 covers all of Chapter 18, The Merits of a Person Who Rejoices at Hearing This Sutra, and opens Chapter 19, The Merits of the Teacher of the Dharma.
The gathas offer the best summary for the entire chapter:
Suppose a man rejoices at hearing this sutra
Or at hearing even a gatha of it
In a congregation,
And expounds it to a second person.The second person expounds it to a third person.
In this way it is heard by a fiftieth person.
Now I will tell you of the merits
Of the fiftieth person.Suppose there was a great almsgiver.
He continued giving alms
To innumerable living beings
For eighty years according to their wishes.Those living beings became old and decrepit.
Their hair became grey; their faces, wrinkled;
And their teeth, fewer and deformed.
Seeing this, he thought:
“I will teach them because they will die before Jong.
I will cause them to obtain the fruit of enlightenment.”Then he expounded the truth of Nirvana to them
As an expedient, saying:
“This world is as unstable
As a spray of water,
Or as a foam, or as a filament of air.
Hate it, and leave it quickly!”Hearing this teaching, they attained Arhatship,
And obtained the six supernatural powers,
Including the three major supernatural powers,
And the eight emancipations.The superiority of the merits of the fiftieth person
Who rejoices at hearing even a gatha [of this sutra]
To the merits of this [great almsgiver]
Cannot be explained by any parable or simile.The merits of the [fiftieth] person
[Who hears this sutra] are immeasurable.
Needless to say, so are the merits of the first person
Who rejoices at hearing it in the congregation.
The benefits of attending services or encouraging others to attend are wonderful, as in full of wonder:
Ajita! Anyone who goes to a monastery in order to hear this sutra and hear it even for a moment while he is sitting or standing, in his next life will be able to go up to the palace of heaven, riding in a beautiful and wonderful elephant-cart or horsecart or in a palanquin of wonderful treasure by his merits. Anyone who, while sitting in the place of the expounding of the Dharma, persuades another person to sit down or shares his seat with him to hear [the Dharma] when he sees him coming to the place, in his next life by his merits, will be able to obtain the seal of King Sakra, of the Brahman Heavenly-King or of a wheel-turning-holy-king.
And this makes me want to print up cards and pass them out:
Ajita! Anyone who[, while he is staying outside the place of the expounding of the Dharma,] says to another person, ‘Let us go and hear the sutra called the Lotus Flower of the Wonderful Dharma which is being expounded [in that place],’ and causes him to hear it even for a moment, in his next life by his merits, will be able to live with the Bodhisattvas who obtain dharanis.
Finally:
Ajita, look! The merits of the person who causes even a single man to go and hear the Dharma are so many. It is needless to speak of the merits of the person who hears [this sutra] with all his heart, reads it, recites it, expounds it to the great multitude, and acts according to its teachings.
In the next chapter we get an even bigger list of merits accrued by the teacher of the Dharma:
The good men or women who keep, read, recite, expound or copy this Sutra of the Lotus Flower of the Wonderful Dharma, will be able to obtain eight hundred merits of the eye, twelve hundred merits of the ear, eight hundred merits of the nose, twelve hundred merits of the tongue, eight hundred merit of the body, and twelve hundred merits of the mind. They will be able to adorn and purify their six sense-organs with these merits.
Today’s portion of the chapter covers merits of the eyes and ears “given by their parents”:
Although they have not yet obtained heavenly eyes,
They will be able to see all this
With their natural eyes.
And:
Anyone who keeps
This Sutra of the Lotus Flower of the Wonderful Dharma
Will be able to obtain these merits with his natural ears
Although he has not yet obtained heavenly ears.