Day 25 covers all of Chapter 20, Never-Despising Bodhisattva, and opens Chapter 21, The Supernatural Powers of the Tathāgatas.
Having last month covered the demonstration of the Buddhas’ supernatural powers, it is time to finish up with the response from the gods outside the gathering on the Saha World:
At that time the gods in the skies [of the worlds of the ten quarters] said loudly:
There is a world called Saha beyond a distance of many hundreds of thousands of billions of asamkhyas of worlds. In that world lives a Buddha called Sakyamuni. He is now expounding to Bodhisattva-mahasattvas a sutra of the Great Vehicle, called the ‘Lotus Flower of the Wonderful Dharma, the Dharma for Bodhisattvas, the Dharma Upheld by the Buddhas.’ Rejoice from the bottom of your hearts! Bow and make offerings to Sakyamuni Buddha!
Having heard their voice from the skies, the living beings of those worlds joined their hands together toward the SahaWorld, and said, “Namah Sakyamunaye Buddhaya, namah Sakyamunaye Buddhaya.” Then they strewed various flowers, various kinds of incense, various necklaces, streamers, canopies, personal ornaments, treasures, and other wonderful things to the Saha-World from afar.
The strewn things came from the worlds of the ten quarters like gathering clouds and changed into a jeweled awning over the Saha-World. The awning extended over the Buddhas staying in this world. At that time the worlds of the ten quarters became passable through each other without hindrance as if they had been a single Buddha-world.
When I read that the offerings gathered like clouds and changed into a jeweled awning, I’m reminded on the decorations that frame the altar at the Sacramento Nichiren Buddhist Church.
