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

Having last month learned of King Wonderful-Adornment’s future Buddhahood, we learn about our teachers.

“Thereupon Cloud-Thunderpeal-Star-King-Flower-Wisdom Buddha said to King Wonderful-Adornment, ‘So it is, so it is. It is just as you say. The good men or women who plant the roots of good will obtain teachers in their successive lives. The teachers will do the work of the Buddha, show the Way [to them], teach them, benefit them, cause them to rejoice, and cause them to enter into the Way to Anuttara-samyak-saṃbodhi. Great King, know this! A teacher is a great cause [of your enlightenment] because he leads you, and causes you to see a Buddha and aspire for Anuttara-samyak-saṃbodhi. Great King! Do you see these two sons of yours, or not? They made offerings to six trillion and five hundred thousand billion Buddhas, that is, as many Buddhas as there are sands in the River Ganges, in their previous existence. They attended on those Buddhas respectfully. They kept the Sūtra of the Lotus Flower of the Wonderful Dharma under those Buddhas, and caused the people of wrong views to have right views out of their compassion towards them.

The Daily Dharma from Oct. 10, 2016, offers this:

These lines are part of a story told by the Buddha in Chapter Twenty-Seven of the Lotus Sūtra. The Buddha uses this story to remind us of how much benefit we get from our teachers. When we see the world with the eyes of the Buddha, and know that he is always thinking of how to lead us, we can find innumerable teachers, and know to show our gratitude to them.

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