Day 6 continues Chapter 3, A Parable

Having last month heard the Buddha’s explanation of what prompted his concern, we consider the limits of the Buddha as the father of all living beings.

“Śāriputra! Seeing all this, I [also] thought, ‘I am the father of all living beings. I will eliminate their sufferings, give them the pleasure of the immeasurable wisdom of the Buddha, and cause them to enjoy it.’

“Śāriputra! I also thought, ‘If I extol my insight, powers, and fearlessness in the presence of those living beings only by my supernatural powers and by the power of my wisdom, that is to say, without any expedient, they will not be saved because they have not yet been saved from birth, old age, disease, death, grief, sorrow, suffering and lamentation, but are burning up in the burning house of the triple world. How can they understand the wisdom of the Buddha?’

“Śāriputra! The rich man did not save his children by his muscular power although he was strong enough. He saved them from the burning house with a skillful expedient and later gave them each a large cart of treasures.

The Introduction to the Lotus Sutra offers this:

[The Parable of the Burning House] presents the Buddha as a concerned parent, and so brings an intimacy into the relationship between the Buddha and us ordinary people. On our part, the Buddha appears like a father to be loved and trusted in faith. On the Buddha’s part, living beings like us are his children to be saved with compassion. In all of Buddhist literature, there is no other example quite as vivid as this one in the Lotus Sutra, which presents the Buddha as the Savior of suffering humanity. Here in the Lotus Sutra the Buddha touches our hearts with a clear-cut image of his personality.
Introduction to the Lotus Sutra