Day 31 covers Chapter 27, King Wonderful-Adornment as the Previous Life of a Bodhisattva.

Having last month reviewed the father’s reaction to the wonders performed by his two sons, we come to the preparations prior to going to see Cloud-Thunderpeal-Star-King-Flower-Wisdom Buddha.

The mother said [to her two sons], ‘I allow you to renounce the world because it is difficult to see a Buddha.’

Thereupon the [father came to them. The] two sons said to their parents, ‘Excellent, Father and Mother! Go to Cloud-Thunderpeal­Star-King-Flower-Wisdom Buddha, see him, and make offerings to him because to see a Buddha is as difficult as to see an udumbara ­flower or as for a one-eyed tortoise to find a hole in a floating piece of wood! We accumulated so many merits in our previous existence that we are now able to meet the teachings of the Buddha in this life of ours. Allow us to renounce the world because it is difficult to see a Buddha, and also because it is difficult to have such a good opportunity as this to see him.’

Thereupon the eighty-four thousand people in th harem of King Wonderful-Adornment became able to keep the Sutra of the Lotus Flower of the Wonderful Dharma.

Pure-Eyes Bodhisattva had already practiced the samadhi for the Lotus Flower of the Wonderful Dharma for a long time. Pure-Store Bodhisattva had already practiced the samadhi for the release from evil regions in order to release all living beings from evil regions for many hundreds of thousand of billions of kalpas.

Now the queen practiced the samadhi for the assembly of Buddhas, and understood the treasury of their hidden core. The two sons led their father by these expedients and caused him to understand the teachings of the Buddha by faith and to wish [to act according to those teachings].

Recently I’ve been reading “Readings of the Lotus Sutra,” a book of essays on the Lotus Sutra edited by Stephen F. Teiser and Jacqueline I. Stone. One essay, Gender and Hierarchy in the Lotus Sutra, uses the parables of the sutra to conclude that the sutra focuses on children who are clearly inferior to their father in wisdom and realization. And, if you only read the parables of the Burning House, the Rich Man and His Poor Son and the Skillful Physician and His Sick Children that’s a reasonable conclusion. And yet clearly that is not true in Chapter 27, King Wonderful-Adornment as the Previous Life of a Bodhisattva.