Day 4 finishes Chapter 2, Expedients, and completes the first volume of the Sūtra of the Lotus flower of the Wonderful Dharma.

Having last month learned how Buddhas lead all Living beings with expedient teachings, we consider Śākyamuni’s vow.

Know this, Śāriputra!
I once vowed that I would cause
All living beings to become
Exactly as I am.
That old vow of mine
Has now been fulfilled.

I lead all living beings
Into the Way to Buddhahood.
Seeing people of no wisdom, I thought:
“If I teach them only the Way to Buddhahood,
They will be distracted.
They will doubt my teaching, and not receive it.
I know that they did not plant
The roots of good in their previous existence.
They are deeply attached to the five desires.
They suffer because of stupidity and cravings.
Because they have many desires,
They will fall into the three evil regions,
Or go from one to another of the six regions
Only to undergo many sufferings.
Through their consecutive previous existences,
Their small embryos have continued to grow up
To become men of few virtues and merits.
They are now troubled by many sufferings.
They are in the thick forests of wrong views.
They say “Things exist,”
Or “Things do not exist.”
They are attached to sixty-two wrong views.
They are deeply attached to unreal things.
They hold them firmly, and do not give them up.
They are arrogant, self-conceited,
Liable to flatter others, and insincere.
They have never heard of the name of a Buddha
Or of his right teachings
For thousands of billions of kalpas.
It is difficult to save them.”

Therefore, Śāriputra!
I expounded an expedient teaching
In order to eliminate their sufferings.
That was the teaching of Nirvana.
The Nirvana which I expounded to them
Was not true extinction.

All things are from the outset
In the state of tranquil extinction.
The Buddhas’ sons who complete the practice of the Way
Will become Buddhas in their future lives.

Although out of order, I want to include here Nichiren’s discussion on the “achieving Buddhahood through a minor act of merit” that comes later in today’s portion of closing half of Chapter 2, Expedients. Nichiren writes in Shugo Kokka-ron, Treatise on Protecting the Nation:

Another example of slandering the Lotus Sūtra is treating the Lotus Sūtra as equal to the pre-Lotus sūtras and regarding the doctrine of “achieving Buddhahood through a minor act of merit” preached in the Lotus Sūtra, chapter 2, on the “Expedients” as a mere expedient means of encouraging idlers. Therefore, Grand Master T’ien-t’ai declares in his Words and Phrases of the Lotus Sūtra, fascicle 5, “If a person does not believe in the attainment of Buddhahood through a minor act of merit, he immediately destroys all the seeds for attaining Buddhahood in this world.” Grand Master Miao-lé explains further in his Annotations on the Words and Phrases of the Lotus Sūtra, fascicle 5, “This Lotus Sūtra elucidates that all those in the six realms of the unenlightened possess the seeds for becoming a Buddha. One who slanders this sūtra, therefore, destroys all the seeds for attaining Buddhahood.”

Shugo Kokka-ron, Treatise on Protecting the Nation, Writings of Nichiren Shōnin, Doctrine 1, Page 31