Day 26 concludes Chapter 21, The Supernatural Powers of the Tathāgatas, includes Chapter 22, Transmission, and introduces Chapter 23, The Previous Life of Medicine-King Bodhisattva.

Having last month concluded today’s portion of Chapter 23, The Previous Life of Medicine-King Bodhisattva, we return to today’s portion of Chapter 21, The Supernatural Powers of the Tathāgatas, and consider

Thereupon the Buddha said to the great Bodhisattvas headed by Superior-Practice:
“The supernatural powers of the Buddhas are as immeasurable, limitless, and inconceivable as previously stated. But I shall not be able to tell all the merits of this sūtra to those to whom this sūtra is to be transmitted even if I continue telling them by my supernatural powers for many hundreds of thousands of billions of asaṃkhyas of kalpas. To sum up, all the teachings of the Tathāgata, all the unhindered, supernatural powers of the Tathāgata, all the treasury of the hidden core of the Tathāgata, and all the profound achievements of the Tathāgata are revealed and expounded explicitly in this sūtra. Therefore, keep, read, recite, expound and copy this sūtra, and act according to the teachings of it with all your hearts after my extinction! In any world where anyone keeps, reads, recites, expounds or copies this sūtra, or acts according to its teachings, or in any place where a copy of this sūtra is put, be it in a garden, in a forest, under a tree, in a monastery, in the house of a person in white robes, in a hall, in a mountain, in a valley, or in the wilderness, there should a stupa be erected and offerings be made to it because, know this, the place [where the stupa is erected] is the place of enlightenment. Here the Buddhas attained Anuttara-samyak-saṃbodhi. Here the Buddhas turned the wheel of the Dharma. Here the Buddhas entered into Parinirvana.”

The Daily Dharma from Aug. 2, 2022, offers this:

To sum up, all the teachings of the Tathāgata, all the unhindered, supernatural powers of the Tathāgata, all the treasury of the hidden core of the Tathāgata, and all the profound achievements of the Tathāgata are revealed and expounded explicitly in this sūtra. Therefore, keep, read, recite, expound and copy this sūtra, and act according to the teachings of it with all your hearts after my extinction!

The Buddha makes this declaration to Superior-Practice Bodhisattva (Jōgyo, Viśiṣṭacārītra) in Chapter Twenty-One of the Lotus Sūtra. In Chapter Two, the Buddha told those gathered to hear him teach that his highest teaching could not be attained by reasoning alone. These two passages show us faith to look beyond the words in this book to find the Buddha Dharma in every aspect of our lives, and the ever-present Buddha leading us all to enlightenment.

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