Toward the end of the story [of Great-Universal-Wisdom-Excellence Tathāgata], the Buddha … enters deeply into meditation. Seeing this, the sixteen princes realize that the Buddha is no longer available and that someone else has to do the Buddha’s work, especially his work of teaching the Dharma so that all will be helped to become buddhas. And so these princes do the Buddha’s work, filling in for him as it were, and enabling countless living beings to enter the bodhisattva path in order to move closer to becoming a buddha. In other words, even a buddha needs help – especially the help of bodhisattvas.